RELIGIOUS TRAUMA, Owning your Darkness, Healing through Play ft. Jared Rohrer
Today's episode is an exercise in shadow work.
We believe in the importance of understanding where our trauma comes from, and taking away its power by addressing it head-on.
Jared speaks out about some of his personal traumas experienced in his life and speaks about potential sensitive subject matter, including his experiences with Conversion Therapy and the negative impacts it had on his life.
If you or someone you know has experienced trauma, know you are not alone, and know that you are seen and supported.
Jared is a full time uplifter and refers to himself as fun have-er and a joy maker. He is a speaker, artist, decorator, and dancer.
Follow him on:
Instagram: @jaredrdc or
Email: [email protected]
Follow us here at:
Website: https://RohrerRevolution.com/
Facebook - https://fb.com/AngelRohrer444
Instagram - https://instagram.com/BytesofLight/
Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa5Xf2nh1pwTZ97yWz21O1g
Podcasting on all major Podcasting platforms
Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0YqonG3fEkSqW6S6RUdD5p?si=aa9c570dd4094b0c
Apple Podcasts - https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/bytes-of-light/id1660679086
Deezer - https://www.deezer.com/en/show/5541417
[Episode Transcription]
ā š š Hello all and welcome back to another episode of Bytes of Light. I'm Angel. I'm Seth. And today we have a very exciting guest with us. This is Seth's brother Jared Rohrer. Yay. Thank you for coming to play
with us. I'm Jared. It's funny to be here. .
Yes. Jared and I both come from a family raised in the Mormon religion.
We'll just call it duck and duck here instead of beating around the bush. . And as many people may know and many people may not know this, it, there's a lot of restrictive concepts and ideas within every religion, every organized religion and the Mormon church is no different, right? They, you have to do things this certain way.
You have to follow all their rules, and most importantly, you need them to be able to access. That, that heaven, that good place that you, you know, of course we all want to be good kids and, and get to that good place. So, and that's kind of one of the most common threads that runs through all organized religion is that they have, they have the power and you do not as an individual to access that higher power and all those things.
So that is part of the that's part of the subjugation. So anyway, we brought Jared on today cuz we want to kind of bring some of those things to light and to kind of discuss the getting, you know, the, the getting out as it were. And, and he and I, although we were brothers raised in the same family, we had very different paths for that.
So I'll let, I'll let you kind of run with it here, Jared, a little bit and, and kind of share your. .
Yeah, it's, it's funny cuz I wanna tell your story, for just a second. , because our family was very into religion. I mean, we're like religious five generations back on both sides. And both of our parents are rock stars in our church.
So we were raised kind of like religious royalty and that's our background. Well, in your teenage. , and I'm not telling all your story, but I'm just saying like, in your teenage years you were, you were like done with it and you weren't even outta high school before you were like, I'm out, I can't do this.
It's over. Bye. You were the first child, you know, it was like a huge family crisis. You devastated our parents, they recovered . And all of us were just like, oh man, now we have a black sheep, you know, blah, blah, blah. It was like it was a big thing. Yeah. And I say that. We were very different. I loved being Mormon.
I wanted to be Mormon. It was my dream to be the biggest bestest Mormon ever. Mm-hmm. . So to watch leave was like, why, why would you do that? And why can't you see him? And, and it's like, what can we do to bring you back? And, and this is so sad and blah, blah, blah, blah. You know? It's like I was in it, right?
And I, and it's like I grew. To realize I was gay, which is not a great place to be in the Mormon church. No, and I, and still I was in it, so, mm. Our story's so different cuz I spent 10 years in conversion on, in and out of conversion therapy. But like, I was gonna apply all the things the Mormon church had to offer and I was gonna be the spokesperson, poster boy leadership guy for like, you know, anti-gay ministries.
and how Mormonism is the best religion on the planet. That was good. That was my path. So yeah, it took me, I didn't leave till I was 37. You weren't even outta high school and that's kinda funny. Yeah.
And for those that don't understand the reference conversion therapy is what it sounds like they were going to make him not gay anymore.
Yeah, that's, that is the mentality within that particular religion. I can't speak to others, but they, they actually have a program. in place that you can come and say, make me not who I am. And yeah, that is yeah, and to speak to what you're saying, I was probably, I was probably younger than even my teenage years.
I never aligned with it. It was like, you know, well, I ran with my friends and that was cool and I, so I went because I had to, and I was probably 12 or 13 when I. Not wanting to be controlled by these silly rules. And that's kind of how I've lived my whole life. Like people go, oh, you're such a, you're such a rebel.
You break all the rules. I'm like, no, I just, when a rule is stupid, I just say, why would I follow a stupid rule that you made up Because you're uncomfortable with other ways of being. So I didn't necessarily have that language around it back then, but I just thought I. I'm not hurting anybody if I want to do these things that they've told me are so terrible and awful and no good.
Like, you know, heaven forbid you have sex with somebody you're not married to, like, like that's gonna change your life. Any, like, enjoying this natural thing that we're given on this planet. And so yeah, so it was very young for me. For me, I just was, and, and it led me down a different path where, because I was so young, , I didn't have the power to stand up and say, this far, no farther.
I will not be going to church. I will not be practicing what you tell me to practice. So instead, I started hiding who I truly was from my family and being who I wanted to be out in public. So I learned, I mean, ultimately I learned amazing skills of deceit and manipul. . Which I say amazing now because I've, I've learned to never use those skills to harm or to harm myself or anyone else.
But I can use those skills to walk people through some of their own limiting beliefs and help them find their own truth. Just cuz you know, manipulation gets this like, well, that's a bad word, but manipulate literally just means to help mold into something. . So if you're using a skill like that in a way that can benefit others, then it's, it's a very valuable tool.
It's evolved leadership. Right, right. So for me, so yeah, but it led me for three or four years. I, I led this lie and it was complicated, like juggling two different lives, all the different lies that string together and string together on one another. Like it used so much of. Time and energy and my power to try to do all this, that when it finally blew up in my face, as it always does, when you live a life like that, there's no way to avoid the point at which it all explodes and you gotta face the music.
It was such a relief, even though I was still living at home and I knew it was gonna cause all of this you know, this drama and, and headache and heartache and blah, blah, blah. It was such a relief. And that was when I committed to like, okay, I'm. , I'm never lying again, because that sucked. Like that was, you know, for me, a big, a big moment there.
But yeah, and at that point I was like, oh good, the cat's outta the bag. I no longer have to pretend. I can just say now no, I'm not doing it. You know, and it was, it was a, I remember feeling some of those things too, like. Big for the family and not just our family. It was big and the, you know, like it was the, the echoes and ripples through the extended family.
We have a huge extended family by most standards. We have like 40 cousins and, you know, lots of aunts and uncles and, and yeah. Ripples through everything and yeah, it was, but yeah. Very different path than, than your. .
Yeah. One thing that's been fun, as I'm on through the other side of it, I really feel through the other side of it but there was this darkness.
I was acquainted that there was this darkness inside of me that I didn't know what to do with. And within the framework of religion, , it just exaggerated this darkness. So here I am trying to come to terms with this dark side and I've come to learn that we all have a dark side, but I didn't know that as an 11 year old boy.
And so I'm having these dark thoughts and these dark feelings and like this heavy cloud and some stuff following me, following me, following me. Not all the time, but it's there and I know it's there. And just the idea of acknowledging it is so scary that I would. Classify the darkness as just wanting me to, to like hurt people basically.
I saw a little special on Jeffrey Dahmer when I was, you know, an early, young teenager and I was like, oh, I have those thoughts. Like, I wonder those things. And and, and I don't know what to do with that. And so I just thought, well, you better turn, turn to your church. Be, maybe that's why I was so into Mormonism.
Cause I was like, without Mormonism, I'm gonna be Jeffrey Dahmer. I have a dark side to me. , I could really do dark things to people. Mm-hmm. . So I applied religion. I applied religion fervently for decades. And all it did, I mean, this is my story, all it did was exaggerate the darkness until it grew. And it grew and it grew.
And so my story with religion is that I was looking at, I, I thought you are. You're gonna like, this is inevitable. The darkness is winning, so you're gonna hurt pe, you're gonna start hurting people, which felt like just would escalate, you know, to murder. Like, I thought I, I could do that. I could probably, by the time you lose this light and then you lose that light.
Yeah. I, I'll be murdering people within years. You know, I was like, this , these are like the thoughts in my mind. Sure. So what do I do? Oh my God, what do I do? You can't, there's no place to talk about this. There's no place to go Religion. . It was just like the devil has you and you're out of Jesus's help.
And Mormon leaders were like, we, we've done everything we can do, and you're out of our power. I was like, you're just, you're just helpless and God can't, and I just had to wonder, why can't God fix this darkness inside of me? And guess what? Like, oh, I found so much answers as I've stepped out of this very limited paradigm.
Called religion and so much healing has come to me. And now I just well, one, I live in the light, but I also love, love, love this dark, this darkness that fueled my, that kind of propelled me so, so fervently into the light. But I couldn't even begin to access it until I stepped out of religion, until religion had failed me in every plausible.
And I knew there was no going back and I could give up the concept that was presented me of handsome square job, Mormon, Jesus, and just move along, you know? Yeah.
I mean, it is good that he's handsome . Well, I
thought, I mean, I still
Yeah. Yeah. I remember you told me a story of a gal that you had, had spent some time with just, you know, during Covid, who was like, Mormon, Jesus is hot
And I was like, yeah, they did. They really did make him look hot. Like good work. No wonder he attracts so many people.
Yeah. Yeah. That whole concept of, you know, when. , we feel those like that, those heavy energies and those dark thoughts. Like I think we just had a conversation not that long ago where you're like, yeah, I think I'm the only one in the family who's carrying this generational this d n a memory of this darkness.
And it's like, oh no, you're not. I mean, I've had these things too my whole life and we've just never talked about 'em. Right. It just maybe not to the same level. Obviously. I'm nodding your head. I don't know exactly what goes on. . Yeah. These thoughts that pop into our heads and, and knowing that we're not our thoughts, right?
Those thoughts can be driven by things we've seen around us in the world that can be driven by that, that that family history, that d n a memory, like these thoughts can come from lots of places and they don't define us. And our thoughts are not who we are. We are the, you know, the cosmic being that's ex in, you know, inhabiting this body and this brain.
And the brain has the ability to do things. It's, it's designed to do things for us and on its own, like it is ai. We keep, we search for this artificial intelligence and these amazing robots, and it's like we are them already. We are in artificial intelligence and amazing robots. like the, the brain in our head is the most complicated supercomputer on the planet.
Yes. , you know, so then we, so then this thought happens and it makes drives and then it gives us fear. And that's, the darkness feeds on the fear, right? Anything that's not, you know, born of love and, and, and peace is, is kind of, that leans towards that darkness. And fear is just delicious for that darkness.
It feeds it and it grows it. So as we have that thought and then we fear that we are, that thought, that is a, a spiral of downward that has no bottom. . So like I say, you, you can't, you know, you can't go into a dark room and, and dump your darkness and expect the darkness to get away, you know, go away and you can't go with a shovel and shovel it out.
You just, you start shining your light, you know, acknowledging that you are a bright, shining light, and go into those corners of those rooms where the darkness hides and shine your light, and it just starts to just vanish. It runs from you because you're the one with. as opposed to running from it because of the fear.
Well, and we know that those who dig the deepest, shine the brightest. And you are a shining example of that. Mm-hmm. , you know, you, you went in and, and held the darkness' hand and said, come on, let, let, let's do the thing. And you did. You went searching and you found tools, and you found healers, and you found safe spaces to learn and grow and expand yourself to the amazing human you are now.
what were some of those pivotable pivotal things that helped you shift, like the tools or the people that you found or the processes that that, that you now live by? What are some of those things?
A major one was a change in perspective. Let letting go of the, of like the decades of trauma that, of being locked in a perspective that was like, you know God and devil.
and sin and you know, letting go of all that and then stepping into this new idea that I just came here to experience. And so with a new perspective, all of a sudden darkness is just darkness. Like, I didn't fear it and I could. You, you nailed it. I could go searching for it, and I did. I thought, oh, well, if it's not wrong, and it just is.
then I'm gonna go, I'm gonna, I'm following this thing into its cave and I'm gonna get to know it and understand it, and we're gonna become friends and I'm gonna, and I, to pretend I don't have it. And I found safe places to talk about it just like I'm doing now. But, you know, and I don't have any shame about it now.
But when I was drowned in shame about it before, the universe brought me places where, Found safety to begin to, like you were saying, to shine the light on it and watch it scurry around as I shine the light, just scurry, scurry, scurry. And I was like, oh, you're. So scary. You're more like a sad puppy, you know?
Mm-hmm.And I just wanna love you cuz you're, you're so sad and you're so dark. So that's just a change in perspective. But definitely talk, I, you know, I had a lot to process and I, and, and I couldn't shed the shame alone. It couldn't be just between me and myself. It had to be in community. Yeah. You
had to find that container, right?
Like me,
I needed to. know that other people shared, you know, similar things and I needed them to see me in my darkness. I needed to say, this is what's going on with me. And then just experience the acceptance was like very, very, very powerful medicine.
Yeah, absolutely. , and
I know that you also spend a lot of time working on your diet, like physically clearing out your sole basket, which helps shift and move the cellular structure. Do you wanna talk a little bit more about how you kind of deal with that?
Yeah. Well, you know, I, I was a. , you know, I was a food addict and a sex addict of course, cause I was locked in shame.
And so, you know, I was like starting to change my perspective, you know, double fisting donuts late at night in a Walmart parking lot. And I was doing that regularly, telling myself happy thoughts, happy thoughts, happy thoughts, and, and you know, reminding myself of all these cool things I was learning.
And little by little I just started to crave different foods. You know, I'd been in and out of 12 step groups for food. . And food was just something I just could not surrender. I just could not give it up. So I thought, well, you're gonna die and you're gonna die fat. So your body's gonna shut down, you know?
Cuz it already was showing signs that I was not well. But thoughts just started to come to me like, oh, I wanna do this adventure. How can I find the strength to do it? And I thought would come eat a lot of fruit. Eat a lot of fruit, you know, so I just would. Follow these thoughts as they came to me and.
I just craved higher vibration foods and higher vibration foods. And then, you know, once you're on that path the universe will present things to you that can resonate with you. And so definitely there was things that were resonating with me. But yeah, there was a lot, you know, when you live decades in shame or trauma of whatever kind, and shame is a form of trauma, hating yourself, wishing to die is a form of trauma.
No one was, I wasn't molested. I, I. . I don't consider myself like physically abused, but I did, and my parents aren't narcissists and I did have a stable childhood, but I still wanted to die for several decades because of my religious trauma that creates a lot of imbalance in the body. So there was a lot to push out.
You know, when you're in trauma, your chemicals change and you're not digesting food, right? And when you're not digesting food, right, all the systems in the body have to adjust and they all get tired and they all need refreshing and they all need a break. And so that's been part of my, part of my fun journey is also like learning how to love my body and listen to my body and give it high vibration foods, learning how to live in a higher vibration so that I crave higher vibration foods and things like.
Yeah, and I find supporting your physical soul basket by nourishing it properly, then your channel starts to open, you know? Yeah. Then, then, then there's more room for the light and to maintain it and. You've also been on a really cool journey about learning how to follow your intuition and trust that inner knowing, because you know, in the beginning of the podcast you talked about that you know your attention was on the darkness and you were hearing the voices and all that, but there are also.
Light voices as well, like the totex call, all the voices in our head, the mete. It's like the marketplace of your mind. And at any point you can choose. You can choose where you're putting your attention, you can choose and start to discern what voices to listen to. And so through this journey, it sounds like you shifted your attention from those, those voices that were not serving you.
and now these new ones, were bringing you this light, bringing you the universe and bringing you closer to your own intuition within. And then you start to trust it when the, when the synchronicities start coming up.
I love that you brought that up because that, that's definitely my experience. I started, these ideas started to come to me and solutions started to come, how to get the things that I, that I wanted, and I started to believe that I could have fun things and I started to have these thoughts, these desires to want to play.
I just wanted to play like, oh, as you're, you're clearing out all this heaviness and you're not so focused on the darkness. I want so much light and light comes to me through play. And I just started, I ended up relocating and new work and I relocated to a very gay city, Palm Springs, California, where I found all kinds of opportunities to exercise my intuition to bring.
To bring me what I was wanting and I guess I play has been this integral part of finding the light and being in the light taking the power away from darkness. And so I've, I do, I play a lot. I, I, I like to dance, so I play through dance. I. , I feel I wanna just throw this out there. I feel like I took what was the darkest of my darkness and transmuted it into something glorious and light-filled.
And in my darkness was all kinds of sexual shame and dysfunction and this pushing to thrust that onto others and to involve vulnerable people and stuff like that. In my. I get the chance to experience all kinds of sensuality and light-filled touch and sexuality in a way that is so healing and consensual and uplifting and body affirming, and it's such a fun thing to recognize that part of, I couldn't have done that if I didn't.
that darkness, like our light seems to grow in the fertilizer of our darkness. Like there's, there's nothing. Darkness is like a gift. Yeah. Well,
and, and we call it, we call it darkness mostly cuz it's an energy that we were told is bad. But when we take it, when we take that judgment out of it, it's just an energy that we can choose what we do.
like I talked about with, with manipulation, the skills to, to shape and remold your world and others in your world is not inherently bad, but people consider manipulation a darkness because it's been used against them. So this darkness that turns to light, it does a transmutes. Once you take that judgment out and shine your light on it and you realize, oh, this is just an energy that exists.
What am I gonna do with. , you know, and that's a beautiful example where you're like, yeah, I mean, I haven't met a church yet. You know, the big organized religions that, that don't shine, you know, that don't have this belief of, you know, you gotta be really careful with sex. If you're using it for anything other than procreation, you're bastardizing it and it's bad and it's evil.
And it's like, so people walk around with a lot of shame around sex and physical affection when it's just, . It's just another way to engage with the world and exchange energies with people. And as long as it's, you know, as long as you're not harming someone else, you're just playing with the energies and seeing what it is and, and flowing with life, you know, so then we, we can transmute that into something beautiful like you did, where you can help people feel what it's like to actually be supported and loved with no expectations.
which is a whole other level of life that most people will die, never, never experiencing. So yeah, it's, it's beautiful and you can transmute. And it is, it's a transmission of thought because all things in life are mental. This universe is mental. So we transmute our thoughts and that changes our reality and it changes inside, and then that changes our reality.
And it takes a ton of courage. Mm-hmm. . And it takes a ton of energy like this. This work is not easy. So I do wanna take a a second and, and thank you for sharing your story and honor your courage because this is huge work that you've not only done for yourself individually, but your family generation, lines of people and humanity.
Because as we heal, all, heal, And so you have done some amazing work on this planet already in this lifetime.
Yeah,
absolutely. Well, thank you for that. That is, that's such a sweet and special thing to say. And and, and it resonates. Like, I, I feel it. I feel like this voice in my head will just pop outta nowhere at any given time that says like, you won life.
Yeah, you won. You did the thing, you did the thing you came here to do. Yeah. You did. I'm not trapped. I'm not trapped in any darkness. I'm not trapped in any like, mental confines and you know, there's this thing that is really, really important to me about other people's agency. I think it's what allowed me to recognize that it was like, okay, darkness isn't bad.
It just is. You can feel it living it or not. . But anytime you do something to affect someone else's agency, that's, well, that's what I would consider wrong. Subjugation, I don't, I don't have the right to subjugate anyone to me, and yet the more I, the more I lean into this concept to live in the light, the more I see all kinds of natural ways that we accept subjugation amongst ourselves.
And we even call it righteousness in religion,
right? . Yeah. We subjugate ourselves,
we subjugate ourselves. We, we subjugate others all in the name of something important. So it's been, it's been interesting to sort through that, but I feel like that's a part of me that feels like it's one because I now I can navigate life in a way where I'm always asking myself, like, just because I want it, just because I'm curious about it.
Just because it feels exciting. doesn't necessarily mean I need it because I need to ask my, I need to pass it through these filters of is it subjugating someone else in some way? Somehow. One of, one of the main examples of this could be marriage marriage is a way that we smooth over a lot of subjugating.
So I've like, I analyze that pretty deeply. But there's, there's a lot of ways, you know in capitalism or religion, there's just a lot of existing structure. where we just submit to subjugation and don't think twice about it.
Yeah, yeah. A a teacher of of ours who is, you know, becoming a peer of ours as we move through this life Don Jose Ruiz says said something that really impacted me a few years ago, and it was the most, the greatest act of love that you can offer someone else is to allow them to live their.
We're all authors of our own story in the to tech teaching and we're all creating that story. And it is a beautiful story because we are authoring it because whether and so whether I like your story or agree with your story or whatever, it's your story and it's beautiful cuz it's yours. And another thing I find people getting really caught up on is well, , especially when they start waking up to the idea of, of this greater source or the universe or whatever, this greater purpose that, oh, I want to change the world.
How am I gonna change the world? And they get really focused on this external changing. When the real work is inside the world that you need to change is the universe within. And when you've changed. Like you said, like if, if there's a winning in this game that's winning, like when you can be in that unconditional loving space for yourself and the world around you, you've done the work, right?
The, then now you get to just enjoy the game and go with the flow and, and live the life the way that I believe it was originally intended, where we just, it, it's joy and love and ease, but you gotta get. We gotta unload all of those filters from our, from our religions, from our families, from the world around us that we pick up completely unintentionally.
We have to set all those things down, and in doing so, leaning into the light, letting go of our fear of the darkness, then discovering that we can transmute that darkness, and then discovering that the darkness was always kind of a lie anyway, and the freedom that comes with that. And then you. and it's all inside.
That's freedom. Freedom can happens in here and in here when you stop giving that control away and giving that power away.
Yeah. The programming is a thing, and we are programmed as soon as we come into this world mm-hmm. , and at some point we get to decide if that programming is serving us or not serving us.
And then you're at. And the amount of awareness, Jared, that you have created in your journey. That is why you're, you are at the place of internal freedom now and can hear the calls of the universe and like, I love watching your life and where you flow and, and, and like. , I'm, I'm sure your spirit animal is a hummingbird,
You know, you just, you go over here and, and then you just, you're just spreading joy wherever you go. And that's kind of been, become your mission and kind of where the universe has placed you lately. So it's
pretty cool. Yeah, it is pretty cool. And it, I'll. But I, I, anyway, I was, I'm reflecting on some of the things that you were saying, something about how true love is letting someone else live their story.
And in all transparency, like that is not easy for me. It's funny, like in some ways I feel like I've won and I'm, I'm one given day. I just feel like I'm above it all and I've let it all go and I'm just content. You can be religious if you wanna be, and I'll be me and it's okay, but it's really difficult with people who are closest to you.
to let
them live
the story that they want to tell. Mm-hmm. , and it's difficult for them to let you live the story that you want to. and sometimes you just have to stop telling each other, each other's stories. Like you just have, you know, love can look like space.
Exactly, yes. That's so important. Yeah.
It just because you allow somebody to live their story doesn't mean you have to agree with it.
Like, that's what people are like, oh, well if I, if I allow this, I'm, I'm condoning it. I'm. , you know, and no, you just allow it and then put the proper boundary for yourself. Like space. You know, if that space is what you need, put the space. Yeah. Unconditional love and allowance of another person's story does not mean that they have the right to then subjugate you or try to change your story, because the first person that you need to give that right to is yourself.
I appreci. My darkness is the thing that taught me to set boundaries. Mm. Sorting through the darkness. I had to learn so much about boundaries. Boundaries with myself, boundaries just in general. In fact, fighting my way out of religion was, was this awesome catalyst for setting boundaries. And so that's an incredible point.
You can't even begin to let go. To let someone be free until you are very well boundaried to say, Nope, that's not for me. Nope, you can't put that on me. Nope, I'm not showing up for that. Yeah. If you can't do that, you're always gonna be threatened by the person who wants, who just wants you, you to want what they want.
They're not actually trying to hurt you in most cases. They just want to want what they want. And so boundaries are critical and to be a boundary ninja. is critical because it's, there's all, you know, for me, I feel there's a trauma in my body that when someone starts talking about religion, particularly Mormonism, particularly if it's someone related to me, there's a trauma that rises up in my body that I can't breathe that this is gonna kill me.
That why can't you see that this was hurting me? Why do you still, you know, why can, how can you still value. , it was so damaging to me. And I, I start to feel like I have to fight the claws come out, the nasty words come out like, RA ra, ra, this is blah, blah, blah. Like, I, I wanna fight. And I'm just acknowledging that that's, that's normal to have a trauma response.
And the more that I acknowledge, if that's just my. . The more I can relax and remember that true love is just letting someone have the story that they have, that I can set boundaries at any time. I'm not actually in danger anymore. I'm not 12 years old. I'm not 15 years old. I'm not 22. Being young and naive, so.
I am learning with repeated practice every year I get calmer and calmer and calmer when topics of religion or Mormonism or when people are anti-gay, you know, and they, they keep talking about gay, like a disease, right? I find that I can actually say I'm so well bound. and empowered in my own life that you are allowed to think that gay is a disease and I don't have to convince you.
Mm-hmm. . That's right. Like
to say. That's huge. That is huge. That's huge. Well, and I think you've brought up a really good point about boundaries and how you're allowed to own your trauma space and what you will allow. as you're healing. Mm-hmm. . And it's not just like y y your example around religion is beautiful, but you could apply that to any sort of relationship or spiritual group.
It might not be organized religion, all the spirituality stuff out there. And you know, there's a whole, a whole disassemble of the guru coming through right now in our world and. having boundaries and saying no and holding that no matter what. You can't abandon yourself in that space. Yeah. You know, you are the one that's protecting your inner child.
Right. So if you say no, whoever is around, if they're gonna stay in, well, in my case, if they, if they're gonna stay in my circle, they will honor and respect my No. Even if they don't understand
it. I'm a, I'm an analogy junkie and an analogy just popped into my head. . You know when you get a blister from your shoes and it hurts.
If you keep trying to put your foot in that bl in, in that shoe and walk around, that blister is never gonna heal, and it's just gonna get worse and worse and worse. But if you can put some distance between yourself and that, and let the healing of that wound come, the healing of that trauma, come then there in the future, there may be the ability to put that shoe back on.
But if you try to put that shoe back on before that blister is heal. , you're just gonna keep opening that wound. And in our life, especially when it's family initiated, whe you know that trauma whe whether it's narcissistic parents or the religion or whatever, we seldom will give ourselves that, that distance for the wound to truly heal all the way.
Because, you know, we, we felt the obligation, well, it's family and in, and in this 3D world. We've said family's in the most important thing. How many times have you heard that the programming is real, family's the most important thing, and so, well, I can't quit on my family. I have to go to my family functions.
And we keep, and we keep irritating. That, that b blister, that wound and keeping it from being able to heal all the way and wonder why 10, 20, 50 years later we're. Suffering the pain from this wound. And it's not a like, okay, if you take six months off, you're good. Depending on the depth and range of that wound, and not because of the actual, the act, but how it felt to you in that moment and affected you personally.
It could take decades of separation. It could take the, the rest of this lifetime of separation. Like we put so much judgment around that. Anyway, that analogy just popped in because I love analogies and and it just makes, it, it, it just, well, it gives it a visual. Yeah. It just, you kinda kinda understand the concept a little bit better.
Like, cause I've heard so many people in along my, you know, doing this work where they, like, I dealt with that. How come it keeps coming up? It's like, because it's not, have you let it heal. Right? It's not healed all the. So it's just a process. And if you, if you keep wearing that, if you let it heal a little bit or all the way, and you put that shoe on, that shoe still has a spot that rubs you, but you take that shoe off, I'm gonna take it a little further, but you take that shoe off before it turns into a blister, you'll build a callous.
So that's where immersion therapy, I think kind of comes in like, okay, I'm feeling good enough to be around my family, but I need to make sure that I limit that time if they're trauma. , if your family triggers those traumas, limit that time before that opens a wound. And now I can get in there, dance, play with it a little bit, and start building that callous to where now you build that strength to be around it more and more without being triggered, without feeling those things.
And eventually it just becomes like, oh yeah, I remember that. That used to, that used to really irritate me. And now I, my boundary is, my boundary is close enough and, and that I can be in it and around it without being there.
My favorite analogy is actually from Don Jose again, . He said he, he, he's got his oxygen tank.
Yes. And he goes, and when his air is out of his oxygen, oxygen tank, he's out.
Right. ,
that's,
that's how he visualizes that that practice is, okay, I can go into this space. I'm a scuba diver. I'm gonna, I can go into this space that will suck the life out of me if I don't have my security. Yeah. So my, my oxygen tank is my security and, and
once the tank is empty, I'm out.
Yeah. Okay. I must leave. Bye.
Yeah. I. . Well anyway, I have a lot of respect for anyone working this process or who feels different from their family. You know, we're lucky enough, we have parents who respect boundaries. We have siblings who respect boundaries. Yeah. Our family doesn't look like a lot of other families in that we don't necessarily gather regularly, probably because we're all so busy leading the lives that we want to and trying to give each other.
to have the story that you wanna have, and even then, it's not easy. You know, when we do come back around, there's some, I'm experiencing some beautiful things happening, but it's tricky. I just want to encourage anybody, you know, if your parents or your siblings, or your children or anybody does not respect a boundary.
then that blister is never really gonna heal. I mean, there's gotta be, there's gotta be some reciprocation, and it is an act of kindness to say, we're gonna take a lot of space off. Mm-hmm. . And then I might, you know, like, or maybe we're forever taking space off because you've proven yourself incapable of respecting a boundary.
That's a very, very difficult decision that some people have to. , I'm really grateful I don't have to make it because Absolutely. There, there is value to repairing with family. Even if you never see things eye to eye, you know, there's, there's some sort of blood connection or DNA connection that is very difficult to just be severed from completely mm-hmm.
So it's not, I would encourage anyone, if you think there's a chance, then do try to repair it to some degree. But if there's zero respective boundaries,
what can you do? Yeah. Yeah. That's a very good point. .
Yeah. Self-care first. Self-love first.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
So is there one thing that you would like to leave our listeners with to help them along their journey?
Just a piece of joy or a tool or something that you use daily?
Yes, yes. The thing that keeps coming to mind is, one. It's worth it cuz on the, on the other side is so much room to play. I feel like we came here to play. I try to play a little every day. I try to do something joyful every day. Otherwise, what's the purpose of anything?
And you don't have to be well to pick your joy today, and you don't have to have everything under control to find people to play with now. And so I would say while you're doing your brave work and diving deep and crying the tears and saying the hard things and setting the boundaries and having the difficult conversations, just remember that there's joy is waiting like now.
And you can be vulnerable now and you can invite in play. Now who will meet you where you're at and you can have fun today.
That is so important. So
important.
Thank you so much for joining us today. Yes. It's always a pleasure. I love our
chats. Yes, you guys are great. Thanks for having me on. And it's so fun to have family members who are telling.
Story that you can relate to. . Mm-hmm. .
Well, I love you and it's always great to see you and be in your presence, whether it's virtually or in person, and I'm very grateful for that and I recognize that is not something everybody can say about their siblings. So
absolutely love you all. I love. All right,
all my love.
Follow us here at:
Podcasting on all major Podcasting platforms
