Mark Wolynn's Trauma Healing: The "INCUBATOR" Wound In Relationships

But that is such a deep wound, and people can't find it. So the incubator is. They can't find it. And the reason they can't find it is there's only a amygdala memory of it, but not a cognitive memory of it.

So we just did Mark Wolin's exercise that he told me after the podcast, and it was about holding each other for 20 minutes and every minute on the minute telling each other what was coming up for us. Like I feel in each moment. And this came up because I told him that I was in an incubator for the first two weeks of my life. And you were actually in an incubator as well. Right. How long were you in the incubator?

A week. Yeah, I was born and rushed right to ICU because I had fluid in my lungs. Yeah. And I wasn't able to see my mother wasn't able to see me for a week. They wouldn't even let her hold me for a week.

And we don't know the terror that our body felt in that incubator. So instead of the terror, we have theophilus, which is what we did to mitigate it. And what we did to mitigate it is we have the defenses or the controls or the strategies or whatever we have. One of them is either not trusting our mom's love or taking care of our mom to make sure she's okay.

When a trauma occurs, it changes us. Literally. It causes a chemical reaction in our DNA, and this can change the way our genes function, sometimes for generations. So when we go to have kids, our kids aren't born with a clean hard drive. There's an operating system that's already in place, an operating system that contains the fallout from our traumas. Sometimes our parents traumas, sometimes even our grandparents, maybe even our great grandparents traumas. And our kids can be born with fears and feelings that don't always belong to them. That's why I wrote this book, so we can make these links and we can break this cycle.

Your work is to receive. So in your partnership, if you have one, just practice not giving, but taking in, being helped, and then sharing, because that's the only way we can find the incubator wound is in the partnership. So if the two of you could then just hold each other for 20 minutes, here's the practice I'll describe. So you hold past the place of. Okay, you're hugging. Past the place of the hugs over. Now you're getting deep into the what is my body feeling? And the revealing to each other. Like, okay, I'm noticing that my bottom from my solar plexus down feels open. I can feel pulsing and warm. But I'm noticing. Wow. I'm noticing that my heart is kind of tight. That's weird. And my throat is tight. Huh. I'm just going to stay with that. And she then says, and I'm noticing, blah, blah, blah, back and forth for 20 minutes by the clock. Uber healing, super healing. To do something like that, that's powerful.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Okay, I'm going to share that with her. That's amazing.

Okay.

Incubator wound. Not trusting mom's love or taking care of her to make sure she's okay. Hold 20 minutes. And so we're going to say this together. Into me. See? Reveal, reveal, reveal. Every minute. What's going on? What did you feel the most?

Well, it's really layered. I felt from the beginning immediately dropping into this place of. Sadness, like unexplainable sadness, which I don't. I don't really know what. Where that comes from, but like, immediately makes. Makes me drop into that. So, yeah, just really being with that uncomfortability and that pain, that unknowing pain, which felt vulnerable and tender, but also like, I feel lucky to have someone who wants to do this work and. And it's safe to do it with. So.

Yeah, yeah, I felt the same kind of like tearing feeling that I have now. I felt like I felt happy cry and I felt sad cry. I felt happy cry to be with you. I felt happy cry to love you, to be able to love you, like, in this lifetime. I felt really fortunate. And then I also noticed that there was like an ocean. You know, sometimes I would be feeling this deep love and appreciation for like, being in a body and being with you and being your man. And then I felt anger would come up, like, and I'm even sensing right now that it was anger from like middle school, like, people that would laugh at me, like, when people would laugh at me because I was always like the funny kid in middle school. And I think I built my whole protection mechanism on, like, being the humorous one. And so I was telling Kerri Michelle, like, sometimes when she laughs at me, which I know that it comes from a place of love, that it reminds me, like, there's this still kind of resonance. There's like a residue of being laughed at when I was younger and being with partners that would like, laugh at me and previous partners that would say, oh, you're so funny, Josh.

Hahaha.

And so I noticed that as we were holding each other, I was, like, in a way, almost projecting that onto Kerri Michelle. And then when we talked about it, I was like, oh, that has nothing to do with her. That's all my stuff.

Yeah. In my laughing, it will be kind of like he'll say something, and I'll just be like, something, something. Just very subtle. And it's like I was saying to him that it's a really unconscious thing that I'm just. It's more of, like, a confirmation or, like, I hear you. Or like, yeah, I'm agreeing. Like, that's my way doing it.

Yeah.

And it's beautiful.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it was just holding him and being held was almost like I was a baby again. And first I felt all the sadness and actually tuning into, like, why am I feeling sad? Like, I don't know. Like, you know, I think it's very uncommon that we're really just held by somebody in and seen. So I think there was that element to it. And then it was like I was working my way up the ladder of appreciation and gratitude to experience that. So I went from, like, sadness to feeling pain, to feeling soft, to feeling vulnerable, to feeling supported. And then there was a moment where I felt very motherly, like I was holding my baby, my little baby. And. And then also, like, when he would say, he. You know, we were in this, like, very soft, what felt beautiful space. And then he says, I feel angry. And then I'm like, oh. Like, Then my, like, guard comes up, and I'm, like, annoyed that he's angry because he's like, I feel angry because I don't understand your laugh. And I'm just like, I feel misunderstood. So it was actually, like, a playoff of each other as well, to see how we are so affected by each other.

And this is, like, the biggest container of cracking me open with life pouring in I've ever had in my whole life with you. Because just your way of being, like, it makes me a better man. Like, you make me a better man, and you make me strive to always be a better man. I mean, I think we all can relate to this. Like, being single and having goals and doing your stuff and having your daily schedule, that's one thing. But learning how to actually be, like, really be with a partner, with a sole partner, all the things that you thought were real or all the preconceptions that I had about what a relationship was and, like, how a man gets to be in a relationship and what true strength really Is just have been shaped, shattered, you know, And I think I'm feeling that too. It's almost like an amalgam, like a soup of all these different things. And I love the way that you said you had this ladder. Like, it reminded me of the Hawkins ladder, where you go from, like, sadness to acceptance and joy. And then. And that's.

I felt.

You know what's interesting, I felt that too. And then right at the end, it was almost like my mind, because I'm. A lot of readings I've had with Pam in Solana beach, she's like, you're, you know, you're ruled by the king of the mind. And that is something for me to be aware of. Like, I'm constantly in my mind and in the doing and rather than the being. And right at the very end, once I was. I had told you, like, oh, I'm so sad that we have to say goodbye at some point. Like, everybody. Everybody has to say goodbye. Our parents, our grandparents.

I know. I'm like, what? You have to say goodbye? I was like, what are you.

No, what I meant was the mind came in at the very end, and just by being with her, just practicing being in the physical space and understanding that I. I'm allowed. That's really what this was for me. Now that I really feel into it. This was like a massive permission slip of allowing, like, allowing each other to just voice whatever was coming up. Like, fuck, if I'm angry, I'm gonna feel angry. You know, if you're feeling annoyed, you're gonna feel annoyed. And, like, just having the permission to speak one's truth is such an overstated phrase, but yet, man, this was really powerful because there was, like, nothing you could say or do or be was wrong. And I didn't feel like I was wrong either.

Right, right. Yeah. And there was, like, a difference in feeling with my head and my thoughts versus, like, dropping into my body. And what is my body feeling like? For the most part, I felt like just like a little baby, like, very comfortable. But then, you know, there were layers within my thoughts of, like, oh. Like, I kind of feel like this is stupid. I'm kind of like, why am I doing this? Oh, like, oh, but this is so powerful. This is, you know, this can be medicine. And also, like, okay, how much longer? And then, actually, surprisingly, it was 20 minutes, and it went by really fast. I thought it was going to be a lot longer.

I could have done another 20 minutes.

Yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah.

Okay. So, yeah, I'm feeling my ultimate emotion that I'm feeling is grateful. And I did have a flashback actually of what the incubator might have felt like. And I had mentioned to you like potentially the laughing could have been somebody coming to me like a nurse or a worker in the hospital. And maybe I was feeling their energy of having to hold me as a little baby in incubator instead of them really wanting to. Like I had a little residue of that.

So you wonder if you think it's like a memory from when you were in the incubator that it could be triggering.

There was a flash of some kind of like glass dome above me and then like someone holding me. And almost like when they were holding me, they were going, okay, it's okay.

Hahaha.

Like maybe that was it. Maybe it was me having to be held for those two weeks rather than my little baby heart, my little baby intuition knowing that I got to be held. And so that flashed before me and so I think, I think this was really good. I actually want to do it again. Yeah, we could do this again at some point.

Yeah.

I don't know when, but what did.

Mark Wolin say about like our body doesn't necessarily. Or our, our amygdala has the memory.

Yeah. So he said the amygdala has the memory, but the only way it can be accessed is by being in that physical space that the baby would have been in.

Yeah. And you can only do it with your partner.

Yeah. Like we have to. It can only come up through partnership. He said that the incubator wound only reveals itself in partnership. And so. Oh, I feel good. I feel loved. Yeah, I feel, I feel like, like happy too.

I think whenever I'm happy. Yeah, like my heart feels open and also like with that, with your heart opening, there's a lot of pain that's you know, stored there and like tender. So I still feel a little tender, but also very open hearted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like what a way to come into the world. And like you're, you're taken from your mother and you're put in this little bubble for even for a day.

Well, and even babies like when they come out, they're, they're choking and they, the doctor slaps them in. A lot of procedures or even in these hospitals, like the baby's got all the drugs from the mom getting put under.

You know something.

What's up?

This is why I'm not having my baby in the hospital.

Tell them how you're going to have your baby.

We'll have my baby in the creek in Water. I'm going to. I don't know. Okay.

In nature. You have a nature baby?

Yeah, for sure.

Well, I have loved this, and we're gonna do this a lot more because this feels so easy. This is our very first video we've done together. Let us know in the comments. Like, what did you feel? Have you done any exercises with Dyads where you be with your partner, where you stare at your partner, where you breathe with your partner? Like, has that ever been something that's allowed you to grow? What did you feel about it overall? Do you feel like you'll do it again?

Yeah, I would love to. I think it's definitely a great way for you to, on a physical level, really process having your heart open and processing something that may have been hidden. Like a wound that may have been hidden.

Everyone has wounds that are hidden. I don't care who you are. And this work. Like, it doesn't have to be so hard. There can be exercises like this that we do, and, you know, we go through them and we just lean on each other. I'm wishing you guys love and wellness on your path. And do you have anything else you want to say?

Go do it.

Go do it.

Yeah, that brought us some shit.

Well, I'm glad I connected it, though. Like, I really connected it to, like, being in school, the whole laughter thing.

Yeah.

I didn't realize that till. It's almost like speaking it out allows it to become more true.

Yeah. Like, that creates a safe space to say and feel whatever is true for you in that moment, which. That's where the medicine is.