Fundamentally Whole Despite Trauma

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees Podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Marcy, Marcy Pusey. Looking forward to our, our show. Listeners may remember Marcy came on like 4— what did we say, 4 years ago when last time we spoke, right, for the pod? Um, so, uh, Marcy is currently chateau sitting, right? So not just house sitting. Um, in France. So go Marseille, as you might say in the States. So, Marcy is a mum. She has also adopted, and she— you were a foster mum as well for a while as well.

Yeah.

So, and she's also a writer and doing some incredible stuff. So, as always, listeners, check out the show notes on the podcast to find out what the listeners— sorry, find out what the guest is doing. So, but we're going to do something different today. Um, my favorite topic at the moment is fundamental wholeness. So my good friend Jude Hum interviewed me on this kind of topic, and we just shot the breeze about what fundamental wholeness is. And I thought, when I caught up with Marcy after all those years, I thought, wouldn't it be great to do this, have, have the same topic discussed by, uh, with a different person. So, uh, so over to you, Marcy, because she's gonna kick it off, uh, kick this off. Yeah, some questions today. So like almost like a guest host, but I think it'll be more of an exchange. It'll be more of an exchange, I think. Um, you know, uh, Marcy has a— you're a therapist as well, right?

I am a therapist.

I didn't mention that. She's got so many hats, I forget them, right? Um, apologies, but she's— this is a subject that's close to her heart as well. And the interview that Marcy and I did last time was Beyond Shame. So that's going to be in the show notes too. So that being said, let's, let's crack on. Let's dive in.

Yeah, I will. Would you like to give our listeners just a little refresher on fundamental wholeness? I know there's a whole episode on it, but just as we get started, How would you define that?

Yeah, um, I, well, I came up with a new metaphor for this, or an old metaphor that I kind of maybe refreshed. It's a bit— so fundamental wholeness for me is, is a bit like the, the, the driver of a car that's been in a, in an accident, in, in a smash, and the car has crumpled, right? So the cars have built-in crumple zones these days, right? This is why cars are a lot bigger. And they keep— they absorb all that impact so that the person that's in the driver's seat is safe. And that's a way, that's a way of saying really that our, our, our psychology is, is battered and, and bruised and, and wounded and hurt and struggling and, and in pain, uh, but our essence is, is untouched. So, um, that, that's That, that's a, a new metaphor for wholeness. I'm, I'm saying that on, on one level we've taken a hammering, and but at a deeper level we're, we're whole. We're— because we are fundamentally whole.

Yeah, that's great. And how would you say that contrasts with the primal wound I guess definition, but concept and conversation.

Yeah.

How's that contrast?

So the battering that the car has taken is equivalent to the bit that's wounded. The person that's in the space, in the car, the driver of the car, is is unwounded because it hasn't been touched. The psychology has taken the damage. The psychology has taken the hit. The, the passenger is, is, is whole. We are— it is unwounded because who, who we truly are is unwoundable. So it's looking at— it's looking at healing on 2 levels. Yeah, a psychological healing, uh, and, uh, and a fundamentally whole essence.

Yeah, because it— I think I'm almost hearing something around I talk a lot about the stories we believe and how those impact, like, our survival responses— our survival response, like, to the perception that we hold, right? So Primal Wound, I feel like, in some ways was meant to validate the depth of pain and trauma that people have experienced, and because perhaps before that it was minimized or unrecognized and There was just a lot of shame, right, to go back to our previous conversation. And what you're saying is that there's still injury, but it, it's not now the sum, like, total of who you are, which maybe primal wound does a little bit. Would you say, like, not that you are your wound, but just that there is sort of an irreparable damage that's going to impact you, and therefore that's why you struggle with the way— in the ways that you struggle? Is there anything there that you would speak to?

Like, so it's, um, yeah, it, it, it's, it's my reaction. My, my reaction and my, my arc, the, the arc of my identity is I, I didn't, I didn't think I was wounded. Till I read The Primal Wound.

Oh, okay, sure.

I, I, I had some suspicion that I might be, but in my heart of hearts, I, I, I'd been through some learnings and knew that I believed— not believed, didn't believe myself to be primarily wounded. Then So then I read the— I read the— so I was trauma blind, right?

Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah.

And then my trauma was validated, as you say. The book validates us. So there was a relief at becoming— at reading about a diagnosis. There was a relief. Yeah, the relief, the, the, the, the relief was short-lived, and then came pain, right? I'm stuck with this. I, I am primarily wounded. And so that— so then there was darkness, uh, and then there was an insight that who— that I was that I am unwounded because I'm unwoundable. So that was kind of my arc. So trauma blind, trauma aware, in danger of becoming trauma identified, right?

Yeah.

And then realizing that, that, that, uh, that I am fundamentally whole, because we are all fundamentally whole. I couldn't, I couldn't express it like that 10 years ago, right?

Yeah.

Trauma, trauma blind, trauma aware, in danger of becoming trauma identified, in danger of becoming trauma stuck, stuck in the trauma, and then realizing Our fundamental wholeness.

Yeah, I want to poke at that. There's 2 things that are coming up for me, but I'm going to go to what you're saying is in danger of, in danger of. So what I mean, I'm hearing it as you're talking, but how would you define more the danger of that primal wound story? Like, to become trauma identified, right? To become stuck in trauma. It's interesting that you're saying, I didn't even know I had any, and then after learning about primal wound after reading the book, then I realized— then I suddenly felt stuck in a trauma that I hadn't even been aware of before. And really, some of that ignorance led you to think you were fine, right? And, and maybe you were, because the perception was that you weren't broken. But then you learned that you were broken, right? Essentially. Uh, and, and then found yourself getting trauma identified and trauma stuck. And you called that a danger. Tell me more about That and where you see people fall into it, or—

So yeah, I've fallen into it. So I, I see it, it is about narrative. This, you mentioned the word narrative, right? So it, it was a narrative, and, and the, the— I felt myself tumbling down the trauma tunnel. So If the, the, the lower— like, so it's at ground level, right? The entrance, the entrance to the trauma tunnel is at ground level. And we, uh, we, we, we, we stumble into that, we stumble into that trauma tunnel and keep kind of keep, keep going. And the, the light behind us is getting darker— sorry, the light, the light behind us is getting further and further away as we, as we move forwards. We— there is less light in the tunnel because the, the light of the outside world is, um, further and further away from us. So that, that's the belief that we're stuck with the trauma. We're going down the— we're going down the trauma tunnel. And what I'm saying here is do a 180. Do a 180, right? So do a 180-degree turn and see the faint light at the other end of— at the light at the end of the tunnel, right? Where we came from. And move back, move back, go closer to the— turn back rather than progressing further into the darkness. Because that's the, that's the trauma obsession, right? So you've got the trauma obsession. What, what we focus on gets bigger. So as I— and, and as we go further and further down the trauma tunnel life gets— the world gets darker. So we've got all this evidence of our— of our— we've got all this evidence of, of the, of the darkness, and it's self-reinforcing. It's, um, it's, uh, what do you call it in psychology? It's confirmation bias, right?

Mm-hmm.

So the believer— the, the, the, the thinker thinks what, what the thinker thinks, the prover proves. And that, that narrative just gets more and more pages. It gets more and more pages. The world gets more and more dark. And then I, I was on my own in the tunnel, right? But imagine, imagine if I'd met other people at a— on their way on the tunnel and they were getting darker and darker. Maybe there was an intersection at the tunnel and we're, we're joining together here in, in a perhaps an adoptee Facebook group that's unmoderated, right? And Everybody else is— they've all been on their unique path, and— but we've, we've got to a chamber in, uh, on this path, uh, and we're all reinforcing the darkness. And so we all go further and further down this trauma tunnel— sorry, trauma tunnel together. We, we validate one another's trauma. And life gets darker and darker and darker, and more of us kind of join in because now it's not just my narrative that that I'm that I'm listening to. I've got everybody else's narrative too, which is the reason that these adoptee Facebook groups scare the shit out of me because everybody's. Moving further and further down the we're trauma bonding, right? We're making new we're making new friends. It feels it feels great. It is great. But trauma bonding just trauma bonding keeps us stuck to our trauma. And it's the opposite way. We're going we're traveling in the wrong direction in the opposite way. And we're, we're losing touch. We're losing sight of the light. We're losing sight of our fundamental wholeness. We're becoming more and more trauma-identified. We're becoming more and more trauma-obsessed. We're becoming more and more trauma-stuck. We're coming— and the world gets darker, um, and, um, it's scary as hell.

Yeah, yeah. The way you describe it you know, makes me think, oh gosh, why would anyone stay on that trajectory? Why would they keep going down the darker path and becoming more trauma obsessed? And yet it's clearly such a dominant story, right? The wound story, the primal wound story is something that people relatively quickly embraced. Again, I think because maybe there was some validation there. So why do you think if it leads to such I mean, really pain, right? And in darkness, as you're describing, a movement away from feeling whole and healthy and instead feeling broken and irreparable. Like, why do you think that stays so powerful? Why is that such a powerful story that people keep, I don't know, promoting and pushing and clinging to almost?

Because we're not choosing. We're bowing to authority, right? You're an author. Nancy Derry is an author. She's an MD, medical doctor, what we call in the UK a GP. She's a— who I think she then became a, you know, a shrink or a counselor. She did some other qualifications. I'm not 100% sure. But there's There's the word author is part of the word authority, right? So authors have authority, and, and we're, we're raised to believe, um, people who are in authority.

Yeah.

And so we take on their, we take on their We, we take on their beliefs. And, and I, I didn't believe I, I was primarily wounded until I read The Primary Wound. I, I took that belief on. I, I was, I was, I was brought up very honest by my, by my parents, by my adoptive parents. Clearly, I was brought up very honest, so I tend to believe things. And I believe, you know, authority figures rather than questioning them. So what? Why do we do this? Because we we we bow to a greater knowledge outside of us rather than questioning it. You know, I was listening to a guy this morning. He's turned the sports psychology world— he hasn't turned it upside down because he's turned his part of the sports psychology world upside down. And he said, I fundamentally disagreed with the paradigm in the sports psychology, sports coaching world. He fundamentally disagreed with it. And I fundamentally disagree with the primal wound.

So you raise a good point because you were taught to sort of submit to authority or believe it. Yet you did find in yourself an ability to use your critical thinking and to say, I actually don't agree with this or believe it. And we see that in society quite a lot, right? There's so much division where people seem to be far more comfortable— some, some people, I'm not one of these— to be vocal about their criticisms of different thoughts or ideas or paradigms or concepts, and even a rebellion against status quo or different things like that. So I think that You're probably right to some degree that because we read it, we believed it, but we don't believe everything we're told. We don't. Which leads me to think there's something about that story that serves us, that's compelling in some way, in order for us to take it on as a kind of truth, right? Because I, I would say I'm like you. I like to follow the rules. I like to please people, right? Like, I— But even then, there's going to be— there's— I'm going to have limits to what I take on, what I'll do. And yet so many people have still chosen. I'm going to say there's still an element of choice to ascribe to the primal wound story. So what is it within the story, do you think, that's attractive and compelling, even if it's a, a trick, right? In a sense, not intentionally, but this trick to like, aha, now you're trapped, and now you know you're wounded and Now things are really bad, whereas before you didn't know. But there's something, it seems like there must be something there that's attractive. You went on to say that further down you developed some community and identity around it, but like, is that it? Or do you think there's something else?

So I, I, I think she's accurate in describing our psychology. Yeah. Let me put it more specific. I think that she was right, and I felt she described my psychology.

Okay, so you resonated. There was something there where you felt seen.

But I'm not my psychology. Yeah, how I psychology, how I think and how I feel isn't who I am. We get very confused about that, right? So we say, um, I am happy, and we say I am sad. Well, our feeling change— our feel— our feelings change. Our, our feelings change. Our thoughts change. So what— whatever changes can't— cannot be essential to us. She describes our psychology very, very well. Uh, but I, I think she's describing human psychology. I, I, I think human psychology is based on a sense of separateness, hmm, a separate self, an apparently separate self. So she describes— I think she describes what is human, um, and calls it, calls it, uh, calls it adoption. I, I think adoptees have a more profound sense of separation because they have felt separate, different. That they've, they've— more of them have felt more different than more people who are, uh, raised by their biological parents.

So, so it sounds like there's a power in the resonance of the story, like perhaps having grown with this idea of separateness in some way, and then you come to this book and you see yourself in it, you see yourself described in it, you feel seen in a way that in the rest of your life you haven't necessarily felt seen. And in that seeing, right, you're told that this is due to a primal wound. And therefore you are wounded. And that might bring some relief, like, okay, I knew something was different because everything else here rings true. This must also be true. And then left there, then you go down a dark— you can, you go down a dark place. But I love where you added that just because you may have a wound. Doesn't mean you become that wound. I love what you said, that just because you think it or feel it doesn't mean you are that thing.

Diagnosis is not identity. We are not our diagnoses. Diagnoses. We're not a diagnosis. That's, that's, that's not who we, who we are.

Yeah. And we saw a shift. So this is interesting. We saw a shift in the psychological language that we use, right? A real movement. So I came up through rehabilitation counseling, which includes people who have physical disability as well as psychiatric, emotional, whatever that might be. And the, the language was always like, be person first, person first, person first. Uh, they don't— they aren't schizophrenic, they have schizophrenia, right? They aren't depressed, they have depression. Like, changing the language so that the person was seen before the diagnosis. And then what's interesting, then we all shifted that way, right? We're like, oh, of course, person first. Yes. And I still very much believe that, but you'll find there's been a shift back by some of those communities to say, no, I am that thing. The autistic community, in my understanding, is one of those that wants to be referred to as autistic. I don't have autism. I am autistic. And there's like an identity that has been claimed with that diagnosis where they see themselves as that, right? And so now again, in the, in the, I'd say therapy community, we're all just like, oh, who wants to have something? Who wants to be something? When the intention was, hey, let's create a separation between the diagnosis and the person. So it's interesting to me if I go back to like, what's the, what's the attraction to being defined by the thing to the degree that we've got whole communities coming along and saying, stop saying I have autism, I am autistic. I think that relates to what you're saying too.

Yeah, and we can get lost in words, right? So I used to say I am adopted, and now I say I'm an adoptee, right? But I only do that for shorthand. I do only do that for shorthand. Okay, I've never referred to myself—

and it does get wordy.

We can get really, really um, uh, mired in that back and forth, right? For me, the, the whole kind of the, the self piece, like the identity— so we can say, who, who am I really? So Damon Davis, right, is a fellow adoptee, fellow podcaster. He's got a book— sorry, he's got podcast— his podcast, Who Am I Really? Well, we can look at identity at a at many, many levels. Um, I, I look at it at, at the most profound level. So what never changes? So I, I remember seeing that my birth mother, um, Pat, called me David Anthony Flower. So before I was Simon Jonathan Benn, I was David Anthony Flower. But I'm not confused about who of those out— who those people are. The thought I had when around that was, well, my name is a label. Names are labels. Yeah. Labels change. What is it that is labeled? What is it? And the genius of— I name-checked this Richard Schwartz guy of the founder of Internal Family Systems, people call it IFS. He makes a distinction between the uppercase S Self, who we, who we truly are, and, um, and our psychology. So it's, it's a psycho-spiritual model. It's a psycho-spiritual model. We, we— most models are psychological. 99.9% of, of models in the therapy kind of world are, I would say, psych— are psychological. I don't know whether you— the, the numbers may be wrong, right? But, um, a psycho-spiritual model is about distinct— distinguishing between our psychology and our essence, and According to Richard, and he, you know, and he— his, his belief tracks mine, we're not our psychology. So when I say self-awareness, I'm talking about the uppercase S Self. And the metaphor that I have for that is the, the rock in rock-paper-scissors. The rock in rock-paper-scissors. So Nancy Verrier would say trauma's like the scissors. It, it has cut us and left a wound.

Hmm.

Uh, and, and yet the truth of rock-paper-scissors is that rock beats scissors because the scissors can't cut the rock. So the scissors are, in my mind, an incorrect Metaphor for, for trauma. It's the paper. Trauma is, is the paper in rock-paper-scissors. It hides us. It doesn't harm us. It conceals us. It doesn't cut us, right?

Yeah.

And, and the— so the, the rock, what Richard Schwartz called the— calls the uppercase S In this metaphor, I call the rock. And, um, and in my smashed-up car, um, I, I, I— metaphor that I started with, it's the, it's the undamaged space.

Yeah.

In, in the car.

Yeah.

The, the crumple zone is our psychology. The driver of the car is safe because they're in a cocoon. They're in a, a space that hasn't been intruded upon by, by the smash, by the, by the trauma. So Nancy Vello describes the primal wound as psychological and spiritual, right? But I would say she's wrong. I would say it's psychological. And Richard Schwartz— Oh yeah, yeah.

Which is—

Richard Schwartz would, would agree with me, I, I think. Um, and so the, the, the, the, the power is all in the, the spiritual part. If, if I, if I'm like— you're, you're smiling because this is right. Well, whether we're talking religious spirituality or non-religious spirituality, That's where the power is. You know, 670 episodes of the podcast on, right? That, that's where the, the power is. And it, it's hard to express it.

Yeah.

It's hard. It's hard to express it. It's, it's easy for Christians that are big believers. They can see it, they can express it. But they— but the world of therapy is, is dominated by psychological approaches, not psycho-spiritual approaches. Uh, the, the spiritual side has a, has a mystery if we're not, if, if we're not, uh, if we're not a Christian or a strong Christian believer or a strong Muslim, a strong Muslim believer. If we're just kind of dabbling on the outsides of our religion, we don't really, we don't see what spirit is. A mystery.

Yeah, yeah. To us.

But the biggest power Um, is, is seeing who we truly are as, uh, as the uppercase S Self, um, as the rock in the met— in the rock-paper-scissors, as, as the safely cocooned driver of— in, inside the car that hasn't been crumpled upon, or in our identity as Christ.

Yeah.

The worldly does not touch the, the non-worldly.

Yeah, no, that's so true. And, and as you say that, I think about perspective because I speak a lot about perspective. I mean, our survival brain is constantly in response to our perception, and we see this all over the place where you've got people in the world who've come through the most horrific tragedies and somehow are the most joy-filled, hope-filled, impactful, inspirational people out there, right? There's, um, Nick is one guy, and I think there's another one. I— so I don't want to get it wrong, but I believe Nick has no limbs. He has no limbs. And his perception, though, is that I'm not defined by my limblessness. I'm a human that has a lot to give. And he goes out and gives it, and people are changed. by his story and by his energy, right? But then you can have someone else who also maybe has lost limbs or, or a totally different tragedy whose perception around it is, well, now my life is over. I can't do anything. I'm, I'm actually a worthless person now. Why do I even exist, right? It's the story that we believe. And as you're talking, it makes me realize that when I'm referring to perspective, I'm referring to it in such a way that we're trying to get it in alignment with truth. Right? We're not trying to like tell ourselves a better story, like toxic positivity. We're not trying to convince ourselves that something is good when it's not good, or true when it's not true, in order to function better. In my mind, I want my perception to be more in alignment with truth. And the truth that I'm referring to is going to be, you know, God's truth as I understand it. But I think that's where spirit comes in too. What is my essence? What is the truth of my essence? Now, to your point, not everyone has a foundation for that. Right? I can anchor mine in what God's word says, but not everyone has an anchor point or a tether point for what gets to define their essence. But I would still venture to say that we all know there's something bigger than just the, the labels that we're identifying with. Yeah.

Right?

And so getting to that place where we can say, is my perception of this experience I've had, as it's been told to me, as I have felt it through feelings or thought it through thoughts in alignment with the truth of who I really am. So that makes me wonder, when you talk about being in that tunnel and you went from like trauma blindness to trauma awareness, which— and then in that trauma awareness, it was like, oh, I feel seen and understood, like someone's speaking my experience and putting it to words. And then that continued for you down a path of Almost trauma obsession. You said trauma identity. You know, what if you could rewrite that journey for somebody? What would that look like? Like, if you could take that person out of that path and put them on your path of fundamental wholeness, what would that journey look like? There's—

there's— we have to have So what helped me turn around?

Yeah.

Was an insight.

Okay. Okay. Mm-hmm.

So it was a, a turnaround or, or maybe it was a questioning of the, of the belief. Whatever, whatever it was, it's an, an insight drove it.

Yeah.

Yeah. Some people—

Your perspective shifted.

Yeah. A perspic— So I didn't shed— I didn't change my perspective. My perspective was changed for me by an insight, right? So this isn't about— and I've been accused of toxic positivity, but this is not about writing, um, this is not about writing on our shaving mirror or the mirror we put our— clean our teeth in each morning, I must have an insight, or uh, I am, or I am fundamentally whole. Repeat to myself, I am fundamentally whole. That, that trying to change, trying to change our mindset, trying to change our perspective, trying to change our way of thinking, trying to change our feelings doesn't work. That in, you know, to use a religious word, epiphany. Epiphanies work. Epiphanies happen to us, happen for us, right? We don't make them happen. We don't make insights happen. But we have to have the— I came up with this ages ago. I still love it, right? I love it. There's no such thing as a secondhand insight. I can't give you an insight. You can't give me an insight. I can't give the listeners an insight. The listeners have to have them for ourselves. So I can't say, uh, have this insight. I— what I can say is hang around in, in the place, places where insights happen. Hang around with us. So, and if, if we are going into, um, like, in, in— so think about it in business terms, right, for a, for a minute. Just make it simple, right? If, if, if I want to hang around, if, if I want my business to be successful Do I hang around in places that are full of people who have had successful businesses, or do I hang around with people that have gone bankrupt and had 5 insolvencies in the place? Where do I hang out? Do I hang out with the people who are ahead of me on the journey or the people that are behind me on the journey. We have to hang out with people. So when I, I do a lot of— I, I do a lot of online courses, right? So me as a learner going online courses, and those courses are led by people who are further ahead of me on the journey. And I'm following— I'm trying to catch up with them. You know, if I listen to somebody, I think they know less than me, they're aligned, I take with the point, right? They're less aligned to truth than me, then I'm not gonna, I'm not going to spend time with those people because I'm about looking forward, not—

Yeah. Not back.

There's always somebody in the swimming pool, right? There's always somebody faster than me, and there's also always somebody slower than me. I'm not value judging people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just— if I want to learn, I want to align to truth. I want to learn from somebody that's more aligned to truth, somebody that is, you know, living from their wholeness. You know, there's, there's, there's there's, um, 3 steps I see, right? So the first step is seeing we're fundamentally whole.

Yeah.

The next side, the next part is feeling fundamentally whole, right? So that we— it's not, it's not just an idea, not just a belief, it's, uh, it's an experience. It's an experience, not a theory. And living from wholeness and aligning to wholeness. That's, that's the never-ending infinite journey. Um, and old Simon is impatient to arrive, right?

Yes.

So, uh, current Simon is, I'm on the journey to alignment.

Yeah, yeah.

And that alignment process will, will never, will never stop. There is no arriving. The alignment— life, life gets better as we align to truth more.

It's true. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, even truth can sometimes become, and is in some regards, a spiritual word. But it's also, I mean, it's the truth of who you are. So someone can hear that and say, well, what's true? And, and truth is relative and all of these things. But I think there is something where we all have an awareness around, again, the idea that we're not just flesh and bones, that there's something more alive inside of us than we can really understand.

Yeah.

Some of us have labeled that, have a name for it, have an understanding of it. And some of us just acknowledge that there's something there. And so I love What I hear you saying, when I said, like, what would that path look like? As you were talking, I almost began to picture it as maybe there's some trauma blindness, maybe there becomes some kind of trauma awareness. But on the journey there, I love that cocoon. There still needs to be a protected cocooned, um, or an awareness of that, a distinction between the core of who you are and what you're learning about. trauma and the things that you've experienced and the psychology of it, right? And I do think that's true, that, that we do need a distinction. And I've experienced that in my own traumatic experiences where I blend into the trauma, like I become one. Sometimes it's with even the toxic person causing the trauma, right, where I lose the distinction between where I end and someone or something else begins. And so some of my own work personally has been to To acknowledge that existing distinction where I ignored it before, and I encourage others to do that too. So I hear you saying, like, if we're going to go through life as adoptees learning about the psychology, the psychological impact on us, we have to always maintain a distinction between that psychology and who we really are and what we're really capable of. So yeah, feel seen to recognize that the experiences you've had. Have had an impact on your psychology and impact then maybe how you relate or some of the dynamics, but that, that there's a core person inside of you that is untouched by that, that can, that remains whole. And actually you can almost have an inside-out growth versus an outside-in. Like you're saying, I can't force it to happen. It really has to come from putting yourself in the places where those insights can happen. And for me, that sometimes looks like. Not just places in community with other humans, but places within my own mind where I will challenge a story, right? So quick example, not related specifically to being an adoptee, but maybe just to being a human, where I had carried a story through my life that I wasn't worth fighting for. I just didn't see people coming to my aid saying, she's worth fighting for. I'm going to be an advocate or a defender of her. I was that for a lot of people. But I felt alone and that took me into the marriage. It took me into, you know, friendships that I had. And so one day I didn't, I guess this isn't the best example because I didn't actually pause to challenge it. I just believed it. So maybe there's a combination of the work I was doing in life was to challenge stories, but this one just was real to me. There wasn't an alternative yet, but I can still picture driving along and all of a sudden this new story dropping in. And I heard, Marcy, you are so worth fighting for. Mm-hmm. Some people are not willing or capable of fighting for worthy things. And it just, I say dropped in, but as I talk about the inside out, it might've been pulled out. This truth came out of that inner essence of me that said, you have got to stop functioning like you don't have worth or value and you're not worth fighting for. And it, and it, it really did take over. Like I have never gone back to the regular thought pattern of I'm just not worth fighting for. I, that now that new thought comes like, man, this person just isn't in a position to fight for me and whatever, whatever that looks like. Right. Um, and then it's also helped me to see when people do, because like you said earlier, we can get that RAS, right? Like that, that hyper-focused on the thing that we believe and only see that thing. So because my sight shifted, I could actually see where there were people in my life who were advocates and champions and who were fine, who did find me worthy to fight for as a friend or as a human, whatever that might be. So there's something interesting there about the journey that you're painting that I think is important to, to point out and maybe correct it or shift it or add to it, whatever you want. But just this idea that you might still go from trauma blindness to trauma awareness, but you need to bring with you this idea, the belief, the truth that there's a core part of you that remains distinct from the things that happened to you and therefore cannot be defined by it. But can actually begin to flow out into that wholeness, that you get to live from a place of wholeness because of that essence. What do you, what do you say to all that? I know that was quite a few words.

Um, post-traumatic growth. Post-traumatic growth. This is what, you know, I ask people, you know, have you heard of PTG? You go, what?

No. Yeah.

Post-traumatic growth, right? Um, Everybody's talking about PTSD. Everybody's talking about CPTSD. Nobody's talking about PTG, right? I disagree with the paradigm, right?

Yeah.

Um, the other one I want to talk about is because she said more to us than— well, first off, truth, right? I'm talking about truth as an experience, not truth as a word.

Yeah, okay. Um, yep.

No, what— so, so being in love is a, is a, is a space, is a, is a feeling. It's not a— it's beyond words, isn't it? There's not— there's no logic to love. Yeah, it, it's, you know, that, that cocoon, right? So That cocoon that you— you like the word cocoon, right? I like the word cocoon. One of the most peaceful moments of my day is when I get into bed, um, and pull the covers over me and I feel the weight on them and I'm in a little cocoon and space and I'm looking forward to— I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep. I happen to be taking some tablets for sciatica, and I've been taking them for ages, and they help me with my sleep. So I'm on them, um, I'm on them for life. I sleep better with those, with those tablets. That, and there's an— there's a release of the day because I'm going fairly Flat out most days. Yesterday was really weird, it was very quiet. Today's a flat-out day, but yesterday, and it was like I was disorientated by it. So I, I, the, the, the, the sleep, the, the idea of sleep and that cocoon feeling and that, that space and, and of, of peace, that's, that's truth. Not, not— I am fundamentally unwoundable. That's what— those are words. I'm talking about connecting. I'm, I'm talking about, uh, an experience, a connection, a cocoon, a felt experience, not words. No, no words are going to do justice. You can't— like, you can't put work— you can't— we can't put love into words. We can't put peace into words, right? It just is. It's peace. Peace is wordless. Love is wordless. So that's one thing on, on, on the truth. The other thing about, um, our, you know, bones and tissue, right? One of the things is right there, you know, we've not only got Nancy Verrier who's all about narrative psychology, we've got Bessel van der Kolk who's all, all about, you know, the— and Peter Levine, the issue is in the tissue, right? We've got all that stuff, right? But, um, on, on one level, so how, how do we rationalize that? Well, on, on one level, we're not our body.

Yeah, right.

And, and that might seem as denial to, to, to, to somebody, right? I, I heard one of my teachers talking about this morning, that this morning he was answering a question on that. on a, um, on a course. What about the fact that the body keeps up, body keeps the score? And this is, this is Michael, um, Michael O'Neill, who he said, um, he said, well, the, the— and he gave quite a long answer, but the essence of it, well, yeah, the, the, the body senses things, the body senses things, but we make up the narrative.

Yes, yes.

We, we make up the narrative, or the, or the narrative is make it made up for us based on our conditioning, right? We don't consciously decide, right, this, this feeling. Um, so what happens is, you know, the first time, I guess the first time we get a, uh, we have a feeling in, in, in, in the pit of our stomach, right? And we have a feeling of the pit of the stomach The feeling is just the feeling, but then the overlay of our conditioning is, well, and then I had this— I, I had this horrible— as I opened the letter, I had this horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach, and my mind took me to all the places where I've failed exams before and failed driving tests before and failed in relationships. And, and the pit in the feeling, the pit of my stomach just got more and more bad. Well, we've, we've, we've taken 2 things and put them together. One is a physical sensation, and the other thing is the narrative around that, right?

Yeah, we assign meaning to the things that happen to us.

Yeah, you know, like the— and the— oh yeah, I've, um, uh, so the, you know, like a weight thing, right? I, I felt empty, uh, so I was, uh, I— so I felt empty, so I went to the— I went to the fridge and whatever, binged out, that it— there's something going on in our conditioning that is— and our narrative, like, you know, um, that I'm, I'm gonna feel better after this, you know.

Yes.

Like, and we've got a whole— we've got a— we've got the whole world of business, trillions and trillions of dollars and pounds and euros, trying to Yeah. Sell us a product on the basis that it will feel good. So we've got retail therapy. Oh, I, I did some retail therapy, right? I, I, um, yeah, so I, I, you know, it was retail therapy, so it's better for me. Well, retail therapy doesn't work when you get the credit card bills and you can't afford it, right? Retail therapy does the There's the, um, the, the relief at finally getting— I'm talking about myself now, right? There's the relief at finally getting the Porsche, and then, and then it goes, right? And then I think, why the hell did I buy that? You know, like, how much did I earn that? You know, the, the relief is only short, short-lived. This sort of, this sort of thing is only short, short-lived. And, um, that's addiction, right?

Yeah.

So it's the bigger Porsche, it's the faster power, Porsche. It's the newer Porsche. It's the new— the, the pair of shoes that are better than the old pair of shoes. It's the, you know, like, we— there's a relief, uh, at the end of our seeking, and that, that's the source of our, um, addiction. But we're not our body, right? We're, we're not our body. Um, the body has sensations, but most of it is about narrative.

Yeah, I love that. So I know we're getting close here, but if trauma doesn't define us, if our life experiences don't define us, if the stories that we attach— what, what does define us? How does one— We define that essence. Okay, tell me.

We define us. We define us. We, we define us. We, we choose. We, we go out into the world and we, we find out what, what's on offer in terms of how to define ourselves. And, and we, we pick and choose. We pick and choose. Uh, we go within. We look at what's on offer. It's like a Google search, right? So you've got a gazillion— you're looking for Looking for the ideal place to go on holiday because you're not château sitting in, in France, right? You're looking for a château to rent in France to— for everybody, for— that's going to be your happy place, right? So we go out into the world and we look at what different people are saying about who we truly are. And we find something that resonates with us, and we decide who we are.

Yeah, there's, there's some good things there. I mean, I guess what I'm aware of as you say that is that in my own life experiences, there were times where I didn't have a frame of reference for anything better than what I saw or knew. So I wouldn't know that the menu was far more grand than the one option that I thought existed. So then, to your point, I think about, okay, so when you purposefully put yourself around people who have more life, who have more joy, who have more peace, even though they've been through hard things, right? Like, we're not just looking for happy people, but people who have some kind of what we want, right? Where we can see some of our life experience maybe in their story, but somehow they're living with With life and joy and abundance and growth, right? The post-traumatic growth. Then we begin to see more of what's available. But it can be hard unless you're in a conversation like this or listening to one to even know that exists, that that's even—

Why do you think we're doing the freaking podcast, right? Yeah.

To bring awareness.

This is niche playing, right? So we're on 140,000 downloads of this podcast, right? So there are plenty of other adoptee and adoption podcast with far more, um, listeners. But we're talking about the road less traveled here.

Mm-hmm.

It's niche. We're at, we're at the bleeding edge, not the cutting edge. We're at the bleeding edge. But this, this is where it's at. This is where the truth is at for me. And if they're listening, if people are listening to the podcast this late on, uh, for 50, 55 minutes into it, Right? They're seeing something. Yeah, that, that, that, that they're seeing something. We, we go, we go outside and, and, and we, we, we go within and we calibrate and we see where we, where we are. Um, and, you know, Richard Schwartz's, um, uppercase SF, uh, the, the beauty of what he describes is he, he, um, he characterizes He, he characterizes that uppercase Self. So it's calm, it's confident, it's connected. That, you know, that's, that's who we truly are. But he does all that and, and then spends 99% of his time talking about the psychology and the—

not—

and the psychological element and not the spiritual element, which is absolutely— nuts in my, in, in, in my, um, he's getting wise to that, you know, like he's getting wise to that. But the— we, we think it's our psychology that we have to improve.

Hmm.

So we look there.

Yeah.

But we're not our psychology. Like, right, you know, we're, we're a blank slate. People say adoptees are blank slates. Well, no, there's, there's, there's trauma on the, on the slate. Well, what that— the answer— the next question is, what's the slate then? Yeah, what's the slate? The slate is consciousness, awareness, God, child of God, nirvana, all these different things, right? It's, it's who we truly are. It's the awareness, our consciousness, the space in which our feelings come and go.

And I think that's so important because the other maybe problem area that I saw in what you were saying, um, is that— and you actually touched on both, so to bring them together— the world is cued to profit from our belief that we are inadequate in some way, right? That's how they sell us everything. The Porsche, the, the mini course, the whatever it might be, right? The food, the retail therapy. They, they're strategic. in connecting with our emotions and convincing us that, hey, you'll be better if, you'll be more happy if, you'll have a more fulfilling life if, because right now you're inadequate, so you need this thing. So if we look to the world to show us that we have this beautiful protected core essence that's distinct from our psychology and our feelings and our thoughts, we're not gonna find it. We're gonna, we're gonna actually just end up believing even more so. That we must be defective in some way, regardless of our origin story. But that doesn't negate that there are people doing the work like you here that we should spend time with and be around. So there's, there's sort of a bit of wisdom that has to go into determining where those— who gets to speak what we're going to believe to us. But then what you touched on that I think is important is that consciousness. There has to be a part inside of us. that we also learn to listen to, because the world will lie to us for profit. That's how everything is set up, right? So what inside of me can say when I see that ad, no, I'm not defective and that thing is not going to make me better, because I know that I have an identity that's not rooted in your story, even if it seems to resonate, right? And so I think then that's what I would say for people, like, what What is that and why is it believable? You talked about, you know, being God, being the image of God. I, again, I can tether myself to a belief that I was made in the image of a compassionate, loving, forgiving, you know, Christian God is unique from some of the others who are more wrathful, right? That I, that I can decide that I believe that I have worth and value because he says I do. So therefore I can use that as the filter against the messages of the world. For someone who doesn't carry a particular belief, I would still say then you still have to talk, like, to get into that consciousness, that spirit that is inside of you, that, that essence, as you said, and say, what is true here? Even if the world doesn't agree, not everyone gets to be my mirror, right? So, so then where does that truth lie? And how do I know when it's in contradiction to what, or when the world is in contradiction to that? So there's almost this balance. I would say, listening to you, between being around people who will call that out of us and having boundaries with people who would call something different, call us down the tunnel into the darkness, but also not relying on everyone around us to be able to tell us the truth, to be able to find that within ourselves. What are your thoughts on that?

Look outside and then go within. Find your truth. Not Simon's truth, not Marcia's truth. Your truth, listener.

Yeah, that's good. And then I know we just said it's not our truths, but then my passion kicks in where I'm like, I, I do just have a genuine belief that everyone has worth and value, and that, that is so often Underacknowledged for people in their life experiences, that many, many people don't experience the value they hold or the worth they hold. But that doesn't mean it's not there. And so I love, like, finding that truth inside of you and believing it no matter what anyone else says. But you have to believe that you are greater than this thing that has happened to you. Yeah.

Right?

You're greater than the decision that your birth parents made or the decision that was made for them or whatever that might be. You're greater than that decision. You're not identified by it.

So the, the Thriving Adoptees logo is a diamond, right? A diamond's value is set by the market. Our value, our self-worth is set by ourself.

Yeah. Yeah. Good. Well, any, any final thoughts that you would want your listeners to know about fundamental wholeness?

Yeah, go, go, go within. Go through the layers of trauma like you're going through the, the, the, the layers of, uh, rock, um, to go diamond mining. And discover your own infinite self-worth.

I love that. Thanks for letting me interview you, Simon, and learn more about your heart and passion for this. I think it's great. I think you're spot on. I'm so grateful to you for bringing this to the greater conversation, and I'm truly hoping that more people, um, are impacted by it and get to live freely from that space. to be able to not get trauma obsessed, trauma identified, but to be able to say, okay, this happened, but this is me, this is who I am. So thanks for doing the work that you do.

Thanks, Marcie. And thanks for your work too.

You're a star.

I've just gotta figure out how to— oh, there we are.