Vodcast 309 - Resourcing the Room: The Art of Holding Space for Healing with Louise Marra

Louise, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Myriam.

Beautiful to be here. And I'm so glad to have you here as you're speaking about many topics that are so dear to my heart and where I still have lots of unknowns, um, and blind spots. Um, in the trauma-informed world, the somatic world, um, in the indigenous and collective healing world. Um, so yeah, I'm calling in from Australia. You're in New Zealand.

Yeah.

And I'm always starting with the same question: when did you start calling yourself a facilitator? And, um, from our exploration call, I also understood that you suggested to start with the Maui tradition of starting the conversation and checking in. So if you would like to have this as a little warm-up, I'm also open to this variation.

Yeah. Well, let's do it because it's so beautiful. Hey, and, um, yeah, anyone listening can just take a moment too, so I'll be brief. But in my tradition, I'm part of the, the Tūhoe tribe and grew up in my tribal lands. It's a very remote, um, tribe of Māori in Aotearoa, New Zealand. And we would start by— I would start by Introducing you to my mountain. So I would say, ko mangopohatu te maunga. So I've just introduced you to my mountain. And for others, and for you, you can just think of, ah, where do I connect to this earth? And we kind of just bring it close. We bring that close in. And then I would say, "Ko waimana te awa," and I've just brought my river in. It's a beautiful emerald green river, amazing. And you might think, "Oh, we what water body do I connect to?" And take a moment just to connect to it. It can be a river or an ocean, or I could say. You know, ko, um, Ohiwate Moana, which is the ocean that I— that is part of my— where I was brought up. And then I would introduce you to my people. Those are my people. And then I would tell you my name, ko Louise Mara Te Puhi Ngawa. But it's just a beautiful process, and I'll probably talk about it during the podcast of resourcing and bringing our connected self, reminding us we're a connected being. How did you find it? Did you do it briefly?

Yes, I was, uh, thinking and dreaming along with you. Oh, good. Thinking of, uh, the water, the ocean, the river was easier for me because I grew up by a river, and now I'm literally sitting next to the ocean.

Beautiful.

And when thinking of the land, I was— I shared that before we hit the record button. Um, just last weekend I was traveling with my friend Michelle to a space just outside Melbourne where they planted European trees. So I found kind of this feeling of home on the other side of the world, just how I connected to Earth.

Trees are amazing like that, aren't they? I use— I work with them a lot.

And what I love, what you just said— just give me one second, I will be right back— and what I love about you introducing with that and, um, with the framing of the resources that we bring, that it really reminds us that When we bring all the wisdom into the room as facilitators, it's not only about us as individuals, it's where we're coming from and our people, and then all the other resources that we could bring. So I think that's a beautiful reminder.

Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, thank you.

So when did you start calling yourself a facilitator? And actually do you?

Yeah, I love that question. And I kind of became a leader of quite big teams very young. It was very surprising to me. And I think part of me, part of me just didn't resonate so much with the word leader. So I used to call myself a facilitator. So that would have been in my 20s because I felt like, well, I'm just facilitating life to happen. I'm just facilitating learning. I'm just facilitating. And I think part of that was to relieve a bit of pressure on myself, but also it's what I felt I was doing, facilitating a person's potential to come through. You can't make those things or lead them in a way. So I always loved the word facilitator. And now I was thinking, Sometimes I call myself a human fielder.

Hmm.

It sounds weird, but I really love the art of group making, and I call it the art of human fielding because, you know, in some ways we're trying to create human fields of real coherence and magic that's more than the sum of the parts. And I really love that. It just reminds me the magic of the work, that it's, um, this, you know, yeah, that there's a lot of magic in the work of group making, human fielding. Um, and I do believe it has such a role in leading our world in a, into a different, um, Paradigm.

Yeah, needed at the moment.

Yeah.

Yeah. And I, I find it interesting how you, you started calling yourself facilitator instead of leader. And what immediately popped up for me was the curiosity of how this was, um, perceived, because I have the impression that When someone expects a leader, expects maybe to lean back a little bit and let someone take the decisions and guide beyond the facilitation guidance, and then this person states, I'm not your leader, I'm your facilitator, and basically putting them into the responsibility.

Yeah, which is a much better thing, hey, that everyone has their own sovereignty.

It's a paradigm shift, I think, when a leader states that they're showing up as a facilitator.

Yeah, yeah. And I just, um, I've just always had this thing, Miriam, about the— ever since I was young almost— about this evolutionary flow of life, like this evolutionary— and I was always so interested in what could be done differently. So I remember using that to— I remember saying to all my team one year, look, as long as you're willing to do 20% of drudge, you can do any job. We'll mix it all up each year. We won't have job descriptions. Like, and this was years ago, you know, and I know it's kind of more common now, but it just enabled a much more fluid approach. So There's something about what we call ourselves, isn't there?

It is, and it's— it makes me smile. I'm currently working on a book that I will call Unprofessionalism, how we can be successful, um, by breaking with the traditional perception of what is professional and what we're supposed to do. And what you're describing is a perfect case study of that. Um, how we can break free of these norms and thereby create innovation and, um, collective wisdom.

Yeah, I so love that. I so agree. We've become so tight and stifled so much magic in a way, in the, in the, under the guise of professionalism. So yeah, I'd be right into that book. I can tell.

Yes. And I, I want to stay away from this tangent because otherwise—

Yes, right. Let's talk about the book. I've got lots of suggestions.

Yes, yes. This will be another conversation.

Another conversation.

Yeah. Um, I would like to speak about, um, the healing and trauma work that you're doing. Um, and then hopefully also go into the work of collective trauma, um, and how you bring this into your work with, um, companies. And maybe we can start with ensuring that we're on the same page. What do we understand by trauma-informed work, um, and healing? Because I think these— there's a— I have the impression that there's a lot of information or a lot of interest in the trauma work. More and more facilitators call themselves trauma-informed. And I wonder to what extent it has become one of those buzzwords, which might be very dangerous, actually.

Yeah, yeah.

And then maybe also the distinction of the small t trauma, capital T trauma, and what it all means in the context of New Zealand with its history. These are many questions in a short time. You can pick up whatever resonates with you. I leave it to you.

Yeah. Yeah, I can hear the trauma-informed becoming like a, um, a kind of a sexy thing or something. And it's interesting, having worked in this way for some decades, how unpopular it was, say, 10 years ago. People were like, why do you have to use that word? Why can't you just use another word?

We don't want the trauma word, you know, which is a trauma response as such, right?

That's right. And now It's quite remarkable to me that things have changed so quickly, and I think people like Gabor Maté and others have really done a service for helping make this a more mainstream conversation. So I guess the way I see it, um, you know, in a way is, you know, groups have been dangerous for people, hey, starting from our first group, which is our family system, which is often fraught with all sorts of unintegrated traumas and past. And then organizations, teams, organizations— hey, like, we haven't necessarily— and I'm not saying everybody— been great at this art of human field making. So to me, trauma-informed really understands that most people, when they turn up to a a group to be facilitated are already in some ways, A, potentially feeling under some threat and alarm, and B, probably reverting to a strategy, what we would call a trauma strategy.

Mm-hmm.

I'm just gonna be the quiet one. I'm gonna be super friendly. I'm gonna be super helpful. I'm gonna be judgmental. I'm gonna be in fight mode, you know, like, so kind of in a way to be trauma-informed to me as a facilitator really understands that that's what's happening.

Hmm.

And knows how to create enough cues of safety. Like, we need more cues of safety than cues of threat that can actually settle the nervous systems, connect them enough, hey, create enough safety and connection Again, where more magic can happen.

Mm-hmm.

And that people can, A, try something different. Like, I often, as a first check-in question, I will ask people, what usually happens to you in groups? And what would you like to be different in this group? What would you like to practice differently? And how do you then create the conditions that everyone gets to kind of create, you know, kind of do something different than their normal strategy, which releases so much energy in the room.

It's such a juicy question because it says it gets right to the core. It can be very vulnerable. Um, and, um, and still the person responding can choose their degree of how deep or how superficial they will go. And at the same time, it very clearly states who is in charge. It's them being in charge. So it starts with self-awareness. How have I been in the past? How do I want to show up now? And am I willing to take the opportunity to show up differently?

That's right. And it's amazing how many People really respond to that question. Yeah, with some honesty, which kind of brings something into the room. Yeah, yeah.

Which makes me wonder, um, or assume that something happens before that question.

Yeah, so yeah, I mean, it depends on the group. Hey, um, You know, I'm also quite early on asking people what do they need to feel safe enough in this group, and how might—

Yeah.

And how might they be safe for the group? Because often people ask the first question, but they don't ask the second question, which is how— what can you do to be safe for the group?

I, I love that. And I'm thinking of a very particular case that, um, when I work with teams often comes up, is that they feel very safe to challenge each other, but are not aware to what extent them challenging the team is not feeling safe to certain team members.

Yeah, and that's right.

And this conversation very often is the one that's not happening.

Yeah, yeah. So we, you know, I spend a lot of time just laying the groundwork for these, and out of that we create agreements. And also, I tend to work always in a trauma-informed way, no matter what I'm facilitating, so that people understand, um, they kind of understand why I'm working in a certain way. So why we're kind of working in a certain way, because I could tell, you know, this just by your response then, but, um, safety itself is being weaponized now. Well, it's like, well, I'm not safe, you're not safe for me. You know, there's a weaponization which is a blame. But actually, so much about unsafety's in us, and that's— groups are going to bring that up. Hey, so that's why it's trying to, you know, set the scene, say we want enough safety and connection here. I'm always telling people everything's an invitation. If you don't want to do something, don't do it. If I'm in person, I'll say, just come and stand by me, just stand out of something, just be, you know, like, so, you know, really working with consent and agency at each point in a way.

Yeah, yeah. Where do you think does the weaponization come from? And how can a facilitator manage that? Because it's suddenly a lot of anger.

Yeah.

Because it doesn't sound vulnerable. It sounds almost angry.

Accusatory.

Yeah.

Accusatory.

Yeah.

And, you know, I know we plunge in and One of the things I always say in the agreements too is, as the facilitators, please don't put us outside the system of care. Like, we're also in the system of care and we're caring for you, but we also need to be cared for. Like, we all need to be in the system of care with our human physiology and, you know, we're all leaning. So that's a really important thing because you know how And certainly with facilitators who, who more put themselves as the expert, they create a divide that they can easily then wear a lot of the unconscious material in the group.

Hmm.

So that's quite an important thing. And you said, where does it come from, that weaponization of safety? I think it's a very, um, masked fight response. So I'm going to gain power by accusing you. And of course, facilitators can get very frightened of being— making something unsafe. It's kind of become, you know, such a big thing. So yeah, I— And, you know, we again, groups will prompt a lot of responses in people. So, you know, I just think there's a lot of tending to do. And whatever facilitation I start, I do a lot of tending, orientation, and resourcing. Like the pepeha, I'll often slow that way down, do it in a lot more depth than we did it now, but really use it to help people. Ah, I can come into this group field with some of my resources. I can come in taking care to a degree of my own safety.

And what I hear now in the resources is also, I'm not alone.

I'm not alone. And yeah, I can, I can to a degree not try and make you and the group 100% safe for me. And the more experience I've had in the past where that isn't true, I'll find something in this group that isn't safe. But if I can learn that I can take some agency around my own safety— so I'm always saying we're not going to be 100% safe for each other. That's not what groups do.

And it's, um, there is safety as a means to an end. We're not coming together to feel safe. Well, there might be some facilitated group works that where the purpose is to feel safe together.

Yeah.

But I assume that the kind of workshops we're talking about right now, um, it's not the main purpose. So, um, I like what you said in the beginning is how can we feel safe enough to do the work we signed up to do together.

Safe enough? And what do you need to feel safe enough?

Yeah.

And just the invitations are super important that people at each point— I, uh, you know, we go into some deep processes. I'm going, this is an invitation. If you get a no, don't do it. There's no shame. There's just you taking your own agency that right now I don't want to do that.

And people do.

It's really good.

Yeah, yeah. I think when we prime their self-leadership early enough that they're in charge, um, yeah, because otherwise we can always be blamed for not being safe enough, but it's only one of the roles, um, and it's a shared responsibility.

Um, that's exactly right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I'm curious about your experience working, um, with organizations where there's something like— I think you mentioned in our exploration call about an organizational trauma, so something that has happened in the history of an organization and then might be consciously or unconsciously Yeah.

Yeah. So just to describe some of that. Um, yeah, I think that's super important. Um, I also do quite a lot of constellation work. I don't know if you are. Yes, super good for this. But for those who are not—

Um, for those— I love that. I love that topic. Um, for those who might not be familiar, maybe one or two sentences, what Constellation work is in this context?

Yeah, constellation work really accesses in some ways the field of intelligence through representation, to be able to see some of the patterns that can be in the subconscious and holding a senior leadership team or a group back. So it enables you to be able to see those patterns And to correct them in a way, to begin to correct them.

So in an embodied way where you stand in certain constellations and sense into how that feels to stand in a certain way as a group.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so many different ways I run constellations, but you can— I did one recently, or last year, for an organization, and you could really see in the constellation because we we kind of looked at the order and the history of this company, you could see where the rifts were.

Mm-hmm.

So then we did some honoring and repair of when, you know, when, when those rifts occurred. Otherwise, they always show up. But you can do that without constellations. Like, I'll often I don't know how much detail you want, but, you know, often run process with companies that really starts to look at the resources of the senior team, say, or the organization. Like, what really helps them hum? What helps them connect? What helps create magic? So we'll do layers and then look at where the magic isn't being created right now. Like, really start to look at Okay, not here, not there. And then look at some of the historical things that might have contributed to that, and then slowly kind of bring them in. Hey, and I mean, it's so fascinating to me. I love this work of just how much shows up that people didn't even realize. Like, Miriam, 3 years ago you did this to me, and I— haven't been able to collaborate with you since because that's never being repaired. Like, as soon as there is enough safety and connection, actually a lot of the wounds will just arise.

Yeah.

And Myriam might say, I didn't even know, I never thought about that again, you know. Or it could have been mutually, um, rupturing. So these ruptures don't get mended.

And it could have happened decades ago, and then by just observing how certain people collaborate, work with each other, or avoid certain topics, it is inherited.

It's inherited. It's so fascinating.

Yeah.

And we, you know, it really, um, binds the energy. So I'm always looking for where's where's the energy in a group, team, system stuck? That's what really fascinates me, because where that's stuck, therein lies a trauma pattern, because trauma energy circles and doesn't flow. That actually we can, we can presence with some resources, and we can, you know, start to repair.

Hmm.

But also, like, another thing with my— with senior teams I work with, I really, you know, in some ways I'm quite insistent to work with them that the team members agree to, to work with rupture and repair. as an ongoing thing, you know, like to, to work with that. So say you and I are in a team and we have a rupture, we've agreed that we're gonna, we're gonna, um, we're gonna work that out. And I have lots of processes to give groups of how to do that, how to— yeah.

What I— questions. Um, it's interesting. What I hear is to basically grow the muscle of pointing out what's not working so that it can be repaired immediately and that it doesn't grow bigger than it actually is.

Um, that's right. And like you said, 10 years later, we still got the same thing.

Yeah. And I think we all know it from our private lives. where something small happens and we just don't say anything because we don't want to be difficult. Um, and then we become these passive-aggressive beings.

Yeah.

Um, they're treasonous.

To me, this is all part of the trauma-informed way, or healing orientated, that we agree to work with these ruptures. And when they arrive in a group, like, I'll often— I've got protocols Ah, we've hit a lot of tension. Let's invoke the protocol so that we know how to work with it, because that's what groups need. Like, well, what do we do when trauma arises?

And how do you know that it is trauma that's arising? Because you said you spoke about energy, and I think energy is— it's very difficult, I think, to ensure that we have the same understanding of what energy is.

Yeah.

So, um, how do you know that there is trauma energy and that this is stuck and doesn't flow?

These are all big questions. We're going to be here until you've written your book.

Um, then I have to write another book.

Well, that's why I love the nervous system, and I've spent like 8 years studying it in Lots of different ways, because I think our human physiology is both amazing and very challenging to live in these bodies with this physiology. It's very challenging. And so that's really important for people to know that in a way that these, you know, these happen. So to me, when, when teams or A meeting gets stuck in either sympathetic, the fight or flight, where there's a lot of tension, or there's a freeze, you know. And a freeze can be, you know, this— I talk about functional freeze, which is like basically I can't feel my body or my emotions, but I'm still sounding good.

Hmm.

But I've lost touch with my being. Now that's— there's a lot of freeze. Hey, we were just talking to it. We're talking at each other, but we're not— we haven't got ourselves online. So my interest in this work is how do I help people bring themselves online?

Hey.

But the hard thing about our human physiology is the more we're all online and the more in some ways coherent a group gets, sometimes the more of the trauma will arise because it's trying to discharge itself, to free that circling energy into free energy.

Because it feels safe enough to do that. Because it's—

the body feels safe enough to do that.

Oh, and then it feels to me as you— as it requires actually a lot of self-awareness already to realize that we're— because I remember maybe still a year ago when my coach or therapist would ask me, so where do you feel this emotion in your body? I would like point to my head. I was like, what do you mean? And where do I feel it in my body? I feel it in my head.

Yeah.

And I was, I was incapable of locating an emotion in my body. And it's only now, yeah, that I actually get to the point like, oh yeah, it feels like an elephant sitting on my chest.

Yeah, that's right. And I'm starting to break.

Exactly. That's where I feel, uh, anger and fear. So yeah, how do How do we relearn that, or how do you help your, um, your clients to get into that space to even reconnect? So to be aware that there could be trauma involved.

Yeah, um, and that's why I don't like short-term jobs. I very rarely agree to do that because of the way I work. I'm like, this is a capacity-building process together to be able to kind of work in this way. So, you know, I, I kind of call it, like, you know, a lot of my work in teams, like deep performing teams rather than high, where everyone's up and out of their bodies.

Mm-hmm.

But that we're— but it's a process. And of course, going to the head was intelligent because of what's stored in the body. It's deeply uncomfortable. Hey, and people often can start to contact the emotional body more. Hey, but that in itself needs the resource of the physical body or the connected body. Like, when— and to me, this is the work of humanity. Like, the reason we're disconnected from the Earth is because we're disconnected from our bodies, because our body is part of the Earth. You know, so it's, it's, I think it's up for all of us facilitators and leaders to, to also think about what world we're leading in the way we facilitate. And I also work in leadership development, and I have a lot to say to my profession around how, how in some ways that profession doesn't take responsibility responsibility for the world we've ended up in. And I think we need to, you know. It's almost like, oh no, we just— we, we didn't have a responsibility, we were just behind the scenes. And I'm like, no, because of— we had a lot of leadership theory that was very, um, yeah, and still can be disconnected from the earth. The body. And I know I'm a bit outrageous about that, but—

And I think it's, it's good to, to speak it out because I think there's also— I think I'm thinking of all the parenting books and how much— I mean, Gabor Maté speaks a lot about that, how Um, parenting got it so wrong back in the days and has caused lots of early childhood trauma. Um, and I think with leadership theory, it's similar. So back in the days, this was to the best of people's knowledge that they wrote these books. And nowadays we realize, hmm, maybe not so helpful.

Yeah, but it was also where You know, certain people weren't included that would have been able to have written different books, like Indigenous people. You know, that was— they would keep the people who could have actually said there's a different way to lead. Yeah, like your unprofessionalism weren't included.

Yeah, which brings another angle in that I would be curious How you bring your indigenous wisdom then to the field and how— what does it mean concretely, how you, in the way you work with teams and maybe even with international teams who might not be as connected to Earth as you are living in New Zealand and having the deep connection to the indigenous.

Yeah, um, another big question because I do do a lot of international work, um, and I've really had to grow things in me, Miriam, to do that because you can get a lot of disdain, you know, and labeling of this is woo-woo, this, you know. So I've really grown in myself the ability to really hold the value of people connecting to the earth and their bodies. Because for me, to me, that connects us to the flow of life. Otherwise, we're— because it's not only us that hold trauma or a group that holds trauma, society holds trauma. And those— there's almost like a distorted flow of life that's trauma-led. And there's an undistorted flow of life that's earth-led in a way. And if we keep adding to the distortion— and we should, we should— that's all trauma-led. So, you know, I do a lot of systems change, and to me, probably 90% of our systems are trauma-led. But trauma needs to be healed, not followed. So if we can learn— and that's where again the nervous system super helps The parts work is super helpful. Which part is leading our strategy? Which part is leading our culture? What parts are in charge here? How much of the— you use the words, you know, the self or true self is on board in our teams and companies?

And when you say which part, for those who might not be Familiar with the parts, with parts work. Uh, can you give a few examples of different parts that could lead the strategy? Or that—

yeah, well, back to in some ways the nervous system. If we're in like a really sympathetic charged place, so we've got to do more, we've got to hurry up, we've got to, you know, times are— and everyone's kind of frazzled, stressed, overwhelmed, and we birth something from that, we're basically birthing with a whole package of stress and overwhelm.

Hmm.

I think we're passing that through the company, or we're passing that— I call it through the through lines. You know, we're passing our creative idea here, Miriam. Here's a creative strategy, but it comes with a whole pile of stress and overwhelm, like, in a way. So it doesn't take long working with groups for them get a— to recognize when their team goes into those states, not to wrong them, but to know how to come out.

Mm-hmm.

Know how to come back into this more ventral self place, which is the only place really that's going to create collaboration. Otherwise, you and I are slightly in competition. We're not really collaborating. We look like we've got so good at look like, you know, looking like we can. But so yeah, really understanding how to come back, how to come back out of— oh, we've just all frozen. So I teach groups, you're going to do this all the time. You're going to hit freeze all the time. You're going to hit fight-flight, and you're going to get stuck in these parts that are now protecting. You're a threat, I have to protect. You know, we're going to get stuck in these young trauma strategies that now I feel like My budget's under threat now. I've got scarcity trauma. I'm going to try and grab everything. I mean, I love facilitating budget, high-level budget meetings because they bring out everything.

Yeah.

You know, so we can get stuck in these trauma parts that end up subtly then leading the team, the company. They're very re-traumatizing for everybody. They put everyone into more overwhelm. We don't need more overwhelm. Overwhelm doesn't create better outcomes.

Definitely.

And I—

the ability to ground and to get out of the overwhelm and out of the trauma response, to then see what are we actually really talking about, because none of these discussions then is really about the budget, or is really about the topic at hand. And then once this— and I realized this for myself at some point— every time that I feel overwhelmed and stressed, it's for me the time, okay, walk around the block, get outside, and then suddenly nothing feels so urgent anymore.

No.

Magic. But that's what I think what you mean by calming down the nervous Getting out of the freeze response or the fight.

Yeah. And teaching just teams, like, when did a pause become a radical thing? Like, I was working with a senior team the other day and the chief exec was saying to me, yeah, but Louise, we've got 10 minutes left and I need to get this stuff done. Like, and we've got a decision we have to make and we have to push through and it's really urgent and we've got to go. And I said, that's fantastic. So let's Pause. You know, let's pause and give everyone a chance to clear the last agenda item out of their system, to re-resource, reorientate. It might take a minute of those 10 minutes, but it'll— you'll have a way more successful 9 minutes than everyone is now constricted, their blood flow— like, we know, we know that as soon as you are In a sympathetic charge, you're contracted, your brain doesn't work as well, your blood flow isn't as good, your breath isn't working so well, you don't have all your intelligences online. So I'm always working with, you know, teams on multiple outcomes at every point. It's never just the task. You're never just managing a task. That's just— that's never true because you're always managing relational capital. You know, did I— how many relationships did I damage in that 10 minutes?

How—

you know, you're managing the stress and overwhelm of a team trying to do their best.

Yeah, and that's Where I see the— I am coming back to the unprofessionalism, where everyone is so busy in keeping up appearances to appear as if they figured it out. And because everyone also carries the load of what are their— what are the expectations of the team towards me as the CEO, the CFO, the whatever their title is, and whatever the charge on that title Yeah. So it feels then as if everyone is playing this role.

Um, yeah, it's very disconnecting, stressful, not real, stifles the magic in a way. I just think there's such different ways for us to work at work, you know, to be together. Yeah, that we can recover. And it's also natural to us to be able to be in this way. It just hasn't become the way we generally gather.

Mm-hmm.

And people don't yet understand that a lot of their responses are their own trauma response. So that's why I love working in this way, because it really equips people to know what to do when trauma arises in me or the group. How to resource myself. Hey, what had— what to do when we get into a freeze and how we keep cultivating this optimal human magic that we all have within us.

Yeah, what I learned from a previous podcast guest, Maggie Kalcher, we also spoke about trauma Trauma-informed facilitation. What I learned was, at least what I took away for myself, okay, when I have an emotional reaction that seems bigger than appropriate, or at least ways bigger compared to everyone else who would be in the same situation, there's a good chance that I have a trauma response.

Yeah.

And this has really helped. It's as simple as that. And it has really— I was able to snap me out recently where I was in a conflictual situation with a client, actually, and realized that, yes, there's a lot of things that went wrong on both ends. And the way I'm reacting to that is not normal. Normal air quotes. Um, yeah, and then just to pause and to feel into, into what it actually triggers in me really helped me to step back, um, and to bring the conversation on a different level again.

Yeah, and in, you know, in groups and teams, you know, I think it's just for me like super important, you know, especially senior teams, that they agree that they're going to grow each other. Because I teach people triggers are a good thing. Somatically, triggers are a good thing because you're setting off a trigger in me, which is something in my nervous system trying to leave my body.

Mm-hmm.

It's something— it's triggering an old trauma so that it can pass through my body system and create more space and, and, um, yeah, more life force. So I really work with triggers because we've wronged triggers, but triggers, if we can work with them as a good thing, and that we, we need to trigger each other for growth, and we're meant to, but we need to know what to do when they arise.

So what is the First aid kit. First aid kit. Okay, I'm feeling triggered. Lots of emotion.

Yeah.

Normal response: fight, flight, freeze.

Yeah. So you know exactly what you said. I I I can I I can name I'm having a trauma response. Hey, I can. You know, I mean, it depends. There's so much contextual, but I can resource myself. I can bring in a resource, and resources are anything that connects us because that trauma response needs some resources. If the group's safe enough, I can say, and this is where I get groups to, wow, I'm really triggered right now. Hey, I'm having that experience, I need some support, or I need to pause, or I need to go outside, or I just need, you know. And we need some inquiry about that trigger, which we could do again with some support. Like, often people go away in shame, but The more that groups can work together on this, the more that actually they will become, like I said, a corrective experience.

Mm-hmm.

So, oh, that's totally fine you're having a trigger, Myriam. This is something trying to grow. Let's see what you need. Hey, let's hear what, you know, how we help you connect back to feeling resourced with that trigger. And then let's hear what's trying to grow from that trigger. Like, something will be trying to grow for you, but also potentially for the group. It's always trying to grow a new capacity and heal something. And if we can help each other do that, man, that's amazing. That's co-regulation.

And it creates so much trust and bonds to be in this vulnerability and to To own the triggers, because I think the moment we say, I'm feeling triggered, it's suddenly we own it. Because usually what happens with the fight, flight, freeze is we blame the other one. You triggered this, it's your fault.

That's right.

But actually, by saying, I am feeling triggered and this is what I need, it's like, oh, I'm feeling something that might have nothing to do with the situation, but I'm still feeling it.

Yeah. And there's something in the group that could learn a lot from that one person being triggered. Like, I— because I've worked a lot with collective, it's not— won't be only about the individual. So say, you know, say I'm not— you know, this is hard, but You know, working in the Pacific and Pacific peoples, I work with Aboriginal people in Australia. Of course, there's a lot of triggering that goes on from microaggressions, um, institutional racism. But if those were really worked with, they're a good thing. Hey, this is triggering me right now.

Mm-hmm.

Something actually is trying to shift in the whole system. Not only in your system. And that, I think, is a, is a new territory from the, from the individual, hyper-individual therapeutic territory, but it's definitely the territory of facilitators, that actually the group becomes a healing field.

Mm-hmm.

Just as it works with whatever purpose it's got.

And what I hear in that is that it requires the individual to stop tiptoeing around topics that might be triggering and trust that it—

Yeah.

Because when I— when you speak about, um, microaggressions Or institutional racism, patriarchy, all these big topics.

Yeah, exactly.

It means that pointing something out or speaking something out has a higher potential to really trigger a big response. But we do need this response in order to heal.

Yeah, and that's why there's, there's work, you know. So I'm, I'm starting different groups this year on deep performing team journeys, and we'll do 3 or 4 sessions online. We're actually going to meet for a week. Most of it's in Asia. We're going to meet for a week, and then we'll carry on with some sessions online to help because that they want to be able to work in this way, you know, to really be able to, um, you know, to set the foundations that, that they can begin to include all the things that are trying to be healed in that, in that group. Because a lot of organizations sit on trauma fields, so that trauma of the field is always trying to heal through the people working on it. That's a big thing to say, I know.

And how do you help then in organizing? Because if we speak about colonialization and racism, how do you— is it then by revealing it, by making the implicit explicit, by noticing? One?

Thinking of a, of a team I work with that's got a mix of Indigenous, white people, um, and men, women, like there's a lot in that room. There's a lot like patriarchy, colonization, all that's in the room. Again, How I work— how I've worked with them is helping them get trauma-informed. Hey. And to set agreements that they're going to grow each other and work with tension as growth, and that these things, as they come up, can be worked with rather than shut down and put aside.

Mm-hmm.

But that's where I've got these tools, like a protocol for when you hit this territory, what do you do?

Like the first case.

We've hit patriarchy, you know, now I'm feeling totally, um, you know, put down, dominated, you know, there's, there's a real, um, you know, masculine kind of domination happening that's getting all the attention and the time and the room.

And the mansplaining. And all of it.

So then I'm— I might, if we've got this agreement, okay, it's right here, I am feeling, you know, really triggered by all of this, I have quite a reaction here, I'd like to invoke the protocol. And then we know that we can— we have a method for dealing with that. And then teams get good at that method. Now often I'll help them put it together. I've I've got ones written out, but over time they'll do their own protocol. And the cultures in the room will often say, actually, say if you were working with, you know, Māori Pacific people, they'd say, okay, let's do a karakia. You know, that it gets its own way. We need to take care of this energy. So I think taking care of energy, our own state, the state of the team is going to become huge. I mean, even in some ways, time takes care of itself because a senior team— and I was working with one last week, getting them to really feel what energy do they send into the organization. And I was getting them to think of situations when they, like I said to you before, they've passed on. tasks or responsibility with a lot of stress and pressure and not, you know, what are they emanating down through the line that then they're going, oh, we really care about the culture, but— Because senior teams emanate a lot of the energy that ends up circulating in And by energy, you mean the behavior, the sense of urgency, the words? Yeah, the fear, survival energy, the sense of realness. Is there any love? Is there any compassion? I mean, we talked about constellations before. One of the things I love about constellations is it's to return love And flow to all parts of a system. Is the senior leadership able to restore flow to all parts of the system, or is it creating all the freeze responses because it's so hierarchical and unsafe, and then complaining because there's churn and no one takes responsibility? So, you know, what, uh, what is the, what is the collective nervous system of the senior team? It's a question I always ask. What is it? And what state do they feel they're mostly in? Where do they get caught?

Mm-hmm.

Often do they return into the ventral or self-state? What tools do they use? I mean, there's so many simple things in a way that teams can do to wire in this more Um, you know, to me, the natural magical human state. Yeah.

And yeah, I find it kind of funny how simple the tools usually are and how quickly we forget, or how complicated it gets because we don't dare. There's something in us, there's like, cannot do that, it's too human, it's dangerous.

Yeah. Oh, it makes me feel sad when you say that. So true. And so then we continue human suffering.

Yeah, yeah. And I still have a few topics. Um, you mentioned the Earth, and I, I think when you mentioned Earth, I said, I finally understand that I have a body, and now there's the Earth as a new component that I have to bring into the picture. So, um, For someone who grew up in a city in Europe, the concept of earth and bringing earth back to organizations or to the work of facilitation or to healing or to trauma is for me, maybe now that I've experienced Australia a couple of times, less abstract. And still very abstract. So maybe you can help me understand what you mean by that, um, and whether it's accessible also for people who might not be naturally connected to Earth.

Yeah, I feel it's totally acceptable Totally accessible for any human because it is what we are. So it's a recovery process. It's not like you're trying to— so if it wasn't what we were, that would be a hard thing. But because, because our bodies are part of the Earth's mechanism in a way, and In the healing work, like, in some ways we're not setting out to become the great healing facilitator. We're setting out to be able to connect to the healing flow of life that's already in motion. And that's a very beautiful thing because it stops me trying to become too much, which then is my own Trauma strategy, you know. So, so I feel— I mean, I think I said when we met, but, you know, I've spent a lot of effort, you know, and wrote my book Reroot and a website that's pretty much all free. Just even people connecting with a tree can help them recover this earth self, like our— Our bodies kind of belong to the earth. And when— if we're trying to resource ourselves, that's the biggest resource there is, because then I have a bigger body to process any emotion. Otherwise, I'm in a little body trying to process the energies of the universe coming through this body. You know what I mean? And that's— that'll take you out at times.

Hmm.

I just wouldn't do this work without. So I get, you know, I've got coaching clients, chief execs in New York, and I'm like, okay, this is what we're going to work on. And they're like, no, you're mad. I'm like, yeah, we are. And, you know, that becomes a huge, a big thing for them that they love. It's quite amazing watching, you know, just again, like you said before, because we're not brave enough. But being brave enough actually to help people recover, this is one of the biggest services we can do because they, they're in their wholeness. Every breath is a resource because it's coming from Earth out to— so it doesn't— we don't have to— you're sitting on land somewhere, you've got a tree out your window, you've got a body that's got rivers, valleys, and there's water.

And, you know, that's more about the consciousness that we are connected to Earth.

Consciousness and, um, and felt embodied sense that we can grow together. And I agree with you, I think we've got to be deeply humble as humans and as facilitators of how Hey, and but together we could actually start to grow that, and in 10 years we'd be in a different place. Yeah, but I, I agree, we've been deeply disembodied, very cognitive, and not much Earth intelligence coming through. And we can— we disconnect from the power source. It's the power source.

Yeah, and I hope, I hope that it will go faster than 10 years, to be very honest. And I do observe, I do observe shifts. I mean, as you mentioned, that 10 years ago you weren't able to speak about the T-word, not in a corporate context, and now Almost everyone is familiar with trauma, or at least has heard the distinction of capital T and small t trauma and all these things, so that we can actually speak about it. And I think the somatic work or embodiment work, um, is also coming into the field. And yeah.

Super good. I think so too. I think it's going to be— well, it's in motion, isn't it? It's really in motion.

And the more we speak about it, because nobody can neglect that, yes, we all have bodies. That's what we all have in common. So it's not— it's weird that it's taboo to talk about that.

Yeah. And the cool thing about the nervous system, because often, and, you know, more science-based, but it's all science-based, but we talk about the fight-flight-freeze, but actually this this, you know, this ventral vagal place, the nervous system knows how to connect. Like, our nervous— if we take away all the kind of challenges with it, the nervous system is magical because it is the fibers of our being that knows how to feel Earth. It knows how to feel, um, you know, it knows how to kind of feel and sense into the emergent future. It knows how to feel group. It knows how to feel you. It knows how to— it's amazing, all the information. And it knows it's Earth.

Hmm.

That's what I mean. It knows. I'm looking at the trees outside my window, but it knows how to do that. It's, it's entirely— so part of the work, trauma-informed work for me, is we wire in this ventral vagal We wire it in, we wire it in, we wire it in so that, that when you come to work, you know it's a place you can feel resourced and resourced.

Yeah. And the word that comes to my mind is intuition.

Yeah.

To reconnect to the intuition.

It's a magical thing of how it works.

Yes. If we And we cannot access it if we are in a rush and stress and fight, flight, freeze. And I would say, looking around me, 90% of the population are in constant fight, flight, freeze.

Wow.

So there is no— and me included. It's— I realize now I took time to really slow down being here in Australia and reducing meetings and And suddenly I sense my intuition. I have strong wants. I know what I want, what I don't want, what feels good, what doesn't, with whom I enjoy hanging out, with whom I don't. I'm like, ooh, all of this information, it's beautiful. And it makes everything easier. Taking decisions is so much faster. Um, writing emails, being—

Yeah.

Setting boundaries has never been so easy because now I can feel it and speaking from a place of integrity. Um, it's always convincing. We don't need as many words, but we cannot do that out of a— Yeah.

And this, this fast-paced adrenaline, you know, that's why, you know, one of my little tools is 6 by 1. 6 times a day for 1 minute, can you stop pause and do something that brings you joy and ease. How hard that is for people.

Yes, I can imagine.

But it's essential to wire in this place. And it's like you're describing flow states, which are the most productive, and most organizations, systems don't find that state.

Yeah.

Because they're just feeling their pressure. That's, that's less productive.

Yeah.

So that's beautiful that you know that, hey? So yeah, how do we wire in this place back into humanity?

Yeah.

Sacred work, Myriam, I think, for us all to do our part.

Yeah, yeah. And in our world, we have the opportunity to really impact large groups of people. So it would be a shame if we don't use this opportunity.

Yeah.

And it starts with us, right? Realizing how, how we impact the group, how we regulate our nervous system. We haven't even spoken about that.

Yeah. Yeah, beautiful.

What remains your number one or number two? What remains your facilitation challenge?

I think it's the same, like really staying connected to my body and my earth self, you know, like And taking what I need as the facilitator in order to do that so that I remain kind of the, you know, the, um, the grounding in the group. So often I'm very transparent. I'll just say, wow, did you notice I just sped up?

Lost myself. Yeah.

Hey, and got very pressured. Like, what happened to all of you? And people, I really noticed that you did do that. And all of a sudden I felt, you know, I'm like, okay, well, let's just pause. Hey, because I need to come back, otherwise I'm gonna, I'm gonna be party to sending us off onto that isn't helpful for any of you. So I'll do— I'll be very transparent, or I'll go, oh my God, I've just frozen, you know. And I'm always facilitating it and using myself as an example, like, oh, could you take over? Or, you know, I don't know, I just love working in this way because I, I make this work fun. You can hold a lightness of being with it.

And so yeah, thereby leading by example and modeling how you can do it. Because if you had it all together all the time, how can you create the space where it feels safe for someone else, for one of these leaders, to actually speak out their triggers as you taught them to then use the protocol?

Yeah, no, so I use myself all the time. Wow. You saying that just put me in a threat state. Like, wow, that's interesting. I need, you know, so I will be doing that all the time because I'm always saying this, we're going to be in the in and out of these states all the time, but let's find our way back. And it's just fun to work in that way because it's real.

Yes, and it's connecting and it's courageous. It is courageous because it is not the norm, right? Yeah, unfortunately.

And it takes the pressure off me. And my other number one challenge is, as soon as I notice I'm working too hard from the inside, I'm in my— I'm in my trauma response. I have to work hard. I have to do this well. I have to And then I have to prove value, which means I'll do too much. Um, proving value means I'm going to do too much to you as the group because I need to prove my own worth. And I'll often say to a group, gosh, that's— notice if I get into doing that, and I haven't noticed, you can let me know.

Thank you so much for saying that. I haven't even noticed that this could be a trauma response that I have.

Right. Yeah.

Um, yeah. And once you notice it, you can do something about it.

Do something about it. And, and you know, that working too hard, that trauma response was needed, so we don't wrong it. We heal it. We don't follow it. But man, I'll spend my life turning that around. I think, you know, that's— I don't— it still arises. I find myself working out.

And then it doesn't flow.

It doesn't flow. It doesn't flow. And then I'm basically sending out signals of trauma energy into the group. And so it's such a relief. What I love is noticing if I name it, what relief happens in the group. Oh, that's what happened. We all started to get a bit frightened. People say, I started to feel pressure.

And then everyone gets in their own kind of trauma response, because when they feel frightened, everyone reacts differently. Some withdraw, some become aggressive, some, some get distracted, get their phones out.

Yeah, want to flee.

Yeah, yeah.

Interesting. Yeah. The other thing is just a little tip that I love setting up a room to be trauma-informed. Or so I'll often, as we come in, I'll say like, if you often just feel like you need to escape and get out, why don't you just move your chair closer to the door? You know, or notice where the doors are so at least you can escape.

Hmm.

If you need to, like, because part of being trauma-informed is you actually need to let these things complete in some way.

Yeah.

So I love that, how people go, really, we can just— yeah, think about in the room, because I love circles, but actually circles don't— they can force it too quickly. So I'll go, where do you need to sit? And as groups get good at it, it's hilarious. Sometimes people just have their back and go, I just can't face the group today. And I'm like, it's okay, let's all make that okay. And then the person will turn around when they're ready. Oh no, there's such fun you can have by just being human.

And giving permission. And because there's so much that we don't know cannot know. I recently was in a group and then someone shared that sitting in a circle was actually retraumatizing from an experience being bullied.

Yeah.

And not seeing the exit, not seeing the door to actually get out. It's exactly what you just shared. So normalizing that. Saying, it's okay if you want to run away, here's the door. And suddenly—

If you need to go, go outside for a while and then come back. And yeah, I run some groups, people have got so good at that, and it's just super good. And, you know, one woman just couldn't really look at anyone and had to sort of hide a bit for quite a few months. And it's so beautiful because, you know, like I said, I love circles, but we can get into— the circle's the best way to facilitate Facilitate. So that's always— I did do that for a while, and then doing all this work, I'm like, yeah, let's, let's work with the component parts, knowing that if we can do that, they'll come together in their own time and way, and something will be prepared and be corrective for those people.

Yeah, it's beautiful. And I think, and thank you for emphasizing that it can be fun and light and humorous.

Yeah.

Because I think very often when someone thinks of, oh, we have to be trauma-informed, suddenly everything is heavy and we have to make everything explicit and give so many permission and suddenly everyone is reminded of all the trauma. That is present and could be present and was present.

Yeah, that's why that ventral place, that self, what is so cool to wire in the 6x1. And when I worked with a group of Africans, they created 1-minute dance parties for their organization out of that. And so 6 times a day, someone would put on some music. They said it just— I mean, can you imagine what that would do? It's so beautiful.

Yes.

So you give real permission for this plugging into the mains, nourishment, coming back into a relaxed body. Yeah.

Joy.

You know, I really make sure that this work is also light, also fun, creative.

Yeah, yeah. Close. What would be your advice to your younger self?

Oh, it would have been exactly the same. You don't have to work so hard from the inside. All that pressure. I'm still You know, I had a big career. I'm still metabolizing all that pressure, like, through my system. That's what I'd say. Oh, don't have to work so hard.

And I would have— I would—

I would have taught her how to resource herself. Yeah.

Thank you.

What about for you? What would be your advice to your younger self?

I think it would go in a similar direction, but more in the self-accepting, that I'm okay and I'm enough.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that too. You're okay and you're enough.

Yeah, I'm okay. The way I do it, I'm not broken, I'm not weird. Well, and if I'm weird, then I'm— We're meant to be weird. Exactly.

Yeah, that's right. We're all meant to be a bit of a weird manifestation of life. Yeah. And then if you thought you were okay, it's the same for me, then you wouldn't have had to work so hard from the inside. Like, that working hard is, uh, I'm not okay, so then I've got to work myself.

Yeah, yeah, which creates stress in the system.

Yeah.

And, and force. I think I've used so much force.

Yeah.

And urgent sense of urgency.

Yeah.

Pushing and Pulling, stubbornness. Yeah, all of that.

Yeah, yeah, I totally can meet you there. And you know, we're gonna have to, as humanity, metabolize all the stress. You know, we're not unusual.

Yeah, that would be a very arrogant thing to think.

Yeah.

Yeah, thank you, Louise.

Thanks, Miriam. Beautiful conversation.

Yeah, great food for thought. I will put all the links on how to find you, reach you, work with you, read your Perfect. Thank you.

Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. Hopefully it, um, is helpful. Yeah, to the people who need it. It was helpful for me.

That's already a good start.

Already enough.

Thanks, Myriam.