Your Greatest Pain Can Become Your Greatest Power, with Tori Jenae

0:01 This program is designed to provide general information with regards to the subject matters covered. This information is given with the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal counseling, professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas. I have spent years in conversation with people who are successful by every measure and still quietly restless, not broken, not lost, just aware somewhere underneath the noise that there is a version of their life that feels more honest, more grounded, more genuinely theirs. This podcast exists for those people, for the ones who are done performing and ready to go deeper. My name is doctor Doug. Welcome to Inspire Vision.

1:01 I'm glad you were here. Toy, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Doctor doud. Oh, I'm excited. I'm excited. You've got such an incredible background, and I think it's going to be really a fascinating conversation. So sure with the audience your background, Yeah. I'm a transformational life strategist and I know it doesn't make much sense, but it's because I work with people holistically across their entire life, mind, body, soul. Really. So I do have three degrees in psychology dual master's degrees, and I've studied everything from Western medicine to or you know, western functional medicine. I'm super interested in natural pathic how do we heal the body, how do we heal the gut all the way to the mind. So I really look at everything holistically. But I've studied with gurus and the betas for about twenty years. I've studied psychology for twenty six now, and I've looked at almost every spiritual audy on the planet because I'm really looking at the deepest questions in life life, which is what makes us happy, healthy, and wealthy.

2:04 Well, and you know, I'm really curious because you've really gotten into it, you know, as far as Western medicine and psychology goes, but you've also gone into the Eastern aspect to it. And I'd love to hear what your experience has been and your thoughts about the difference between the two. And yeah, yeah, I know that's such a good question. And how I kind of got started in the Eastern because lot of people were curious about that. I actually moved to Japan when I was nineteen years old and I was introduced to Buddhism, and I really thought like, wow, this is fascinating. I'm learning how to not only like understand my mind, but more control it, become the observer of it, work with it. And so I feel like ancient wisdom really helps gives us the tools of the how, and modern science.

2:53 And psychology gets us kind of the why. So it's like, let's say I understand why I have these triggers and these reactions, and I know it's my attachment style, and I've got all this great information from the Western psychology that we can go the years of therapy and not really be able to stop that trigger in our physical body. We don't observe our mind, we don't understand why, you know, the nervous system dysregulation, Like you know your partner says something, you snap and you don't know why, and you're like, oh, I don't want to do that anymore, but I can't stop. And so I love that, like I can explain it from a Western perspective and give you the practices from an Eastern perspective, because I just really think we get so stuck in the why and the ancient sciences from like the Beta to ir Beta to Buddhism.

3:35 Everything I've looked at, like the Nyamas. And the Niamas, the eight limbs of Yoga, the Eightfold Path, like these are the things that tell us how to be and they are not religions, and they just give us tools. And now that we have the science to show that meditation, breath work, all these things, you know, help call the nervous system, and that's what helps give us our control in our lives back. That's that is amazing. And I have found that, you know, obviously being here in Thailand, Buddhism is extremely big here, but as I've also had a chance to visit with other people, and you know, with your experience with Hinduism, Vedic and so forth, it is fascinating because I think Buddhism really is came down from Hinduism, didn't it.

4:24 Yeah, there have a lot of debate over that. They're both very old, they're both they have very similar philosophies and also very different. I think the primary difference I've found between the Vedic philosophy, and the Buddhist philosophy is the Buddhism we look more at like want nothing, kind of like the root of all suffering is desire. And so that was very much that humility was inborn into me. And so I actually studied Kabbala in the last couple of years, which they talk about expanding your desire, that the universe actually wants to give you everything. So it's so interesting to look at these different philosophies and kind of I believe it's like desire for the ego. So let's say, you know, I live in Los Angeles. Someone wants to be famous because they think it's going to finally make them worthy and make them happy and make them healthy. We know that's not true because you know, as Jim Carey famously said, I wish everyone would get rich and famous to see it won't solve all their problems.

5:16 So you know, we get these things. But yeah, like that East versus West, they are they're very they're very similar, but they definitely have their their differences. But I think the primary thing that I love about both Vedic and Buddhist teachings is it's practice. It's actually like the opening of the Vedas, this five thousand year old book says, now we learn to manage the mind. Essentially, it does it more eloquently, but it says like, now we stop the cessations of the mind, and it's. Like to get that power into your hands. Is you know, it definitely changed my life, like lots of. Meditation, lots of prayer, lots of mantra, just learning how to ground everything I learned psychologically into my daily practices.

5:58 Well, and you know, it's just you talk about that because I know a lot of times and it's been my own personal experience. There's so much talk therapy, but I think the key that you really hit on and I want I hope people will listen that they are listening to this right now. Talk therapy works to a point, but it doesn't get to the root cause. And I love how you talk about the fact that with Buddhism, you know, it's really talking about the ego. How do we how do we get rid of the ego that's not serving us. I think it's important to have a healthy ego, but to have one that is not serving us because we want this and we want that and oftentimes that And I want you to comment on this oftentimes that's reflective of something much more subconsciously internal. And talk a little bit about that. Since we're talking about ego, Why why why do people, at least in your experience, so oftentimes experience this ego that they want to prove themselves to be better, that on and on.

7:02 Yeah, I think all humans that I wouldn't have a job if we didn't have it. We all have a core wound, which is I call it the not enough wound, and in some way we feel like we're not enough, and we all got a different message. I would say it was a different outfit. So we're the told we're not smart enough, we're not pretty enough, we're not tall enough, we're too short. Even were there's some way which we're not being successful enough, we're not We're just we live, especially in the Western world, in this culture of access and not you know, I feel like that wounded part of ourselves really turns into the ego. So I can share it from my own story, you know, growing up, and we'll get into more of that. But like you know, being born to drug addicted parents and not having money and all these really difficult things that happened. It's like I my mind attached, my ego attached to when I have money and I'm successful, then.

7:47 Everything we've better. That's like the only problem in the world, and if I can solve that problem, then it will make everything better. And then I got to my thirties and I had the six figure job. The car, the house, the husband, like you name it. I had every box I was supposed to and I wasn't really happy because I wasn't actually living my purpose. I wasn't connected myself, my wounded part of myself, the person who was just the part of me that was so worried I was never going to have enough that I was going to struggle financially in my whole life. You know, all those things were actually creating for me. And that's what I see in almost every person. I mean, I live in la where their excess is the is the norm. And there are some people who are so happy and so generous and so giving because they are gaining that wealth from joy, from purpose, from and then you know, even giving it away in some ways right to share it. But when we're gaining it for the self alone, just just because we think it's you know, that much money in the bank is going to be enough.

8:42 That partner is. Going to make us feel better that when I get that body, when I get that surgery, when I take these JLP ones, I'm going to be better. We will search the whole world looking to fill the hole in our heart and only we can do that. Yeah, and you mentioned your story. I'd love for you to share your story because I think that there will be people listening that will be able to identify with what you went through and the fact that not only do you go through it, but you have been able to overcome that. I think is so key for people to have that type of hope. So could you share your story? Yeah? No, I love to share my story because I never really knew it was that unique until I got got into the world. So as I said, like today, you know, I run a practice, I do what I love. I actually live in Beverly Hills, California, and that was a very different picture from where I was born. So I was actually conceived in a Heroin rehab facility.

9:35 My mom had just gotten clean. Thank God for me, and my dad was already married with children and he left and he actually was a Vietnam War veteran, so he had a lot of PTSD, so in some ways I was lucky not to be raised with him solely, and so my mom struggled with fiction until almost two years before she passed. And so there was a lot of trauma and instability, ranging from you know, the to some abuse. Definitely like a lot of insecurity around resources being met. And I basically took care of myself from a very young age. I helped take care of my little brother. When he was around and I left at seventeen years old on my own with no parental support, basically emancipated myself, put myself through college. I never took out a single loan.

10:24 I worked full time, sometimes two jobs to get it done. I paid cash for my degrees because I didn't even know how to take out loans or do any of that, and I didn't have any credit, so it was kind of it was kind of a scary mess, but I love to share that because I made a radical choice to be very different. I'm the first person in four generations to not have an addiction. So when I was eighteen, I decided I was never going to drink, I was never going to do drugs, and I didn't and my family slowly passed away one by one overdoses like I've got. My mom died of druggon out all related. My older sister passed away, and then my grandma who helped raise me, passed away. So even as adult, I had just all this massive trauma. My my marriage fell apart.

11:09 So I love to share that as like, I know so many people go on these podcasts and they have the degrees and all these kinds of things, but like I share from a place of like I have literally been through hell, Like I have lived through things that will crack your soul open, and so I really want to share that, like your greatest pain can become your greatest power if you know how to transmute it. Now, does it? Is it fun? No? It's horrible. I've grew, you know, I've literally I'm the oldest living member in my family, so I've grieved almost everyone. It's just my younger my two younger. Siblings now, and I'm like kind of the sole mom left in person to take care of everybody. And I've had to take care of myself since I was probably eight, financially, mentally, emotionally, every which way, but safety, security, normalcy was never known to me, so I always kind of joked that I was raised by wolves and I had to figure everything out.

12:01 Sow that is. That's an amazing story. And you know, one thing you mentioned there's so many things that are affected by those core rounds. And you know, you talked about, you know, doing what you needed to do at seventeen and moving forward, but you even talked about the trauma of your marriage and so forth. What what have you found is the relationship between our experiences in life, particularly in those relationships, and how do those core rounds literally affect that? So as you were going through the challenges and obviously there's so many reasons why marriages don't work, but yeah, you know there's a you know anyway, but what what was your experience and was part of the core wounds both on both parts or was it you know, other things.

12:55 Yeah, I think those core wounds show up in our relationships and actually meant to There's a type of therapy called nmago therapy, and I think it's one of the best I've seen. It's not a well known one, but essentially it's like we are wounded in relationship and we are healed in relationships. So we are often wounded in our childhood relationships, particularly with our parents, and that's not even that and I love to share it. This is like, it doesn't mean it was that bad either, Like you could have just had a critical parent, like a critical mom and a dad who worked too much so you felt he was absent in your life. That can do its own level of damage. And my clients ninety nine forer some of them say I have no trauma, and then I talk to them, I'm like, okay, well we all have some kind of trauma. So I love to redefine that trauma is anything that changes how.

13:36 We see ourselves or how we see life. So my core wounds were definitely lack of trust, being overly independent, not knowing however, lie on people also, and then on the flip side, a little bit codependent because I had addicts for parents, so then I would overtake care of people and wonder why they wouldn't listen to me and control everything. So a lot of the things I see that are like kind of in everybody's. Lives, especially high performers, is control, perfectionism, overworking, overgiving, overdoing, not taking care of themselves, and these are all responses from actually our wounded self. But if we can start to see them and start understanding what happened to us, how do we start to work through that? We take that into our love relationship and ideally we start to heal those wounds. So let's say, hypothetically I did have a critical mother and an absent father, and now I've got both of those things to my partner. Well, if I can actually heal that wound and recognize it still that every time they tell me something, even if it's not being even if they're not actually criticizing me, that's how I hear it. I can start healing that lens with insight within myself, I can start to you know, basically in all of our relationships, we have the opportunity to heal those triggers are trying to teach you what still is tender inside of you and what needs to be strengthened so that you can actually be the best version of yourself.

14:56 Well, and I think you hit on a key point in that person, because, as you say, as a child, you know, a parent can say something to us with the best of intents and with love and all of that, and for whatever reason, our perception may be just the opposite. And then as you talk about, you know, getting into more intimate relationships and marriage and so forth, oftentimes that individual will say something to us or communicate to us, and we our perception is and based I think our perception is based somewhat on those core rounds, and therefore we interpret what is being said when in fact and an actuality that was not the intent.

15:41 Yes, and of course, you know, we all make mistakes and we're all human. We still don't say the right thing. But I've definitely found that, like I like to I always tell my clients it's like we have a colored. Glasses on, and that's just kind of how we see everything. And so if my core wound is like I'm not smart enough, or I'm not I don't do enough, or you know, and then my partner says something that's anywhere in that field, that's how it lands for me. And that's and that's how I overreact. And so it's like trying to teach people to say like ouch, that kind of hurt or I remember the first after been meditating for a while. Luckily my ex husband and I we did part amicably. We just got married really young. I think I was twenty three when I was I met him, So I was with him from twenty three to forty three, and so we had a long run and we don't hate each other. We're still definitely good with each other, and we both have other part like we'll both have boyfriends and girlfriends.

16:30 Now and we're moved on. But I did do my very best to go through that divorce process as high and noble as I could. Every time he went lower got angry, I stopped. And that was a big thing I learned in marriage, was like, Okay, when I'm triggered and I'm upset and I'm at this point, that is when I do not talk. That is when I say, like, I'll come back to you when it's like you know, it was like all that practice of monitoring myself, learning how to calm myself down, learning how to notice in my body even like, oh, I'm sugared, I'm going to say something like bad here because I'm mad. I can't believe you just said that to me. And that is really what helps helps heal our relationships at the deepest level.

17:14 Well, and you know, you bring up something and every you know, as you're talking. I'm just my mind is going on and about stuff that just happens to be who I am. But what comes to my mind is is we're talking about relationships. You know, we talk about the core wounds and how that can affect our perception. What I have seen is there's some other elements that get into that. Number one is and this gets a little bit off that. There's then the emotional level, the emotional level that we are at, are you know, our emotional emotional quotient and some people, as you say, you know your dad PTSD, I guarantee you and I know that that put him down very lower than normal on that emotional scale that you would want to look at.

18:08 And then secondarily, you know, as you talk about communication, I look at the stay. You know. I'm certified in behavioral analysis, and one of the things I have found is that in communication, if we do not understand number one, how we communicate based on that personality style, and number two how those around us communicate, and also understand that sometimes the positive to the positive aspect of our communication can become negative if we take it too far, and particularly for the other person. Have you gotten into that at all? Yeah? No, I think EQ. I mean, all the research shows that EQ is actually more important than IQ. Someone with a high IQ can be less successful than the reverse. So someone with a very high IQ low EQ not very successful. Ironically, someone very high EQ low IQ more successful. So I always share that with people, like it's so important. So what do we mean by eq? 're talking about empathy, compassion, understanding, and that has to be developed also through your physical body.

19:15 This is one part I know that you'll get. Is like until we start to ground things in our body, if we can't recognize them, our mind will always run away with us. So a lot of our reactions are actually like we've done a lot more research to look at how the body keeps the score. That's the famous book on trauma, right. So it's like sometimes your. Mind later four hours later will be like I can't believe I said or did that. But it's because you're certain part of your brain. You know, your frontal cortex went off and now you're in your reptail and brain and. You've just gone off. And so I definitely look at helping people develop their own EQ understand, you know, feel their own feelings, because a lot of people do not do that understand someone else's communication style and their own.

19:57 And like even when I go and I. Still work with some companies, like I always do like basic communication styles like disc even just to give them an idea of like, oh, this person's a more dominant communicator, They're going to be more direct and that's not mean to you. You're an influencer and I so you would say like, oh, good morning, doctor Doug. How are you? Would you please do this for me? So we kind of do the same thing with our partners, like we have to, you know, it's like we have to understand love languages and communication style and and also like if you know their wounds, if you know that they're their co wound is like they're never doing enough, then you have you have an opportunity to say things in a different way, to not or to say like I know you might take it this way, but I'm not meaning it that way. And then I think you were also talking about underneath all that is how we listen.

20:44 Because I used to think I was an amazing listener, but in graduate school I had to go to a class called the Art of Listening and it was an entire semester. I'm listening I was like, oh my god, this is so boring. I was such a good listener. I was a terrible listener. So even you know, like shoring up your skills, like the Gattmans have a lot of great books for relationships and communication and how to check in and how to frame your sentences, like the harsh startup, like you never do this. You always make me feel that way, always going to start a fight one hundred percent of the time. So how do we teach our young people before they ever even get into these relationships? Because I look at prevention versus yeah versus. All right, now we've got to deal with it. How do we help our young people today because we've got so much going on. I mean, you've got the social media that I guarantee is so low on that emotional scale that it is causing people to be stuck down in that anger, down in that frustration, down in all those areas. How do we help our young people to be able to recognize number one, what's going on? And number two, you know, you made an interesting decision when you were eighteen years old. You were not going to do drugs, and you were not and a drink, and that didn't have to be easy, I'm sure, But how do we help our young people to be able to have the courage and the strength to make those type of decisions that say, you know what, I'm not going to continue in this level of anger and

22:17 frustration and all of that. What are your thoughts on that. I actually taught a program called I Am Me that out here in Los Angeles and it was really cool. We taught kids these skills. So we had one period a day starting about fifteen, and we talked about relationships and communication and self esteem and bullying and all these kinds of things. And I saw great results. But what can we do as a community as a whole parent's healthy modeling, like get your own relationship together, because we know from a lot of research out of Harvard kids see how their parents are treated by each other, and that is a huge part of our modeling. No matter what. Like, if you want to know if you're a woman dating a guy in your head, you know you're just like the general normative person, then ask him how he feels about his mom. You'll and how his dad treated his mom. You will know more about him in fifteen minutes than any other conversation.

23:07 I promised because he has so so. Much of that maps out to what we think and what we believe. And I'm actually a little bit more worried about this generation with AI. So we already know that certain like gen Z didn't really develop a lot of the interpersonal stuff like where people stumble and they learn and they conversate and you know, we can agree. To disagree, Like, they don't have that. They actually I just did a class with a bunch of gen zs and they feel like even giving each other like honest like hey you hurt my feelings is a form of conflict. So they don't actually know how to Yeah, They're like, oh, I'm afraid of conflict. I don't want to say that she hurt my feelings because it'll start a fight. I'm like, no, No, that's not conflict.

23:47 Conflict's saying like I want to fight you, you're a bad person, saying like hey you hurt my feelings the other day. That's going to save your friendship. And now with the introduction of AI and it giving us these perfect scripts, I'm actually a little bit worried about people not actually learning it and saying like oh chat GPT, what do I say and they'll say it's the perfect thing, and like there's no we learn in the place of friction. That's where growth is. You know, pressure creates diamonds. And I've learned all this by you know, working with couples and working with business partners and being in my own relationships and having to fight through each of those things and like, Okay, that didn't work, and I not try something else. They're not getting that. And then we have the COVID era where everyone was like locked away. We've seen that effect with people not congregating and getting together and creating community and connection as much like one more isolated than we ever have been. So I'm just so worried that like our nervous system really needs connection, it needs touch, It needs another nervous system in front of us to actually heal and connect.

24:48 Like we are hardwired for human connection. And I'm just afraid we're all going to be like, you know, on our phone saying what. Do I say? Chat tiput, she said this, what do I say? And you can do that. You can literally take a screenshot of your text and say what do I say to this person? And I will tell you the perfect response. Oh yeah, and you know it's you brought up something really interesting. You know, you hurt my feelings, and they take that as antagonism. But the real question and how do people get to the point where they have the mindfulness which then you get back into Buddhism and Eastern aspects. But the mindfulness and the clarity and the awareness where I could say to you rather than what you said just really hurt my feelings or you hurt my feelings, is you know what when you said that, something emotionally came up within me that I didn't realize was a trigger for me, and I wanted to share that with you so that as you saw my response, it had nothing to do with you, It had everything to do with me.

25:50 And that's also another thing is like helping a lot of my clients that help them get clear on which is it is it actually about you or is it about them? And that's like the number one thing is like I always say, all your powers in the pause between what someone says and what the response is, what your response is, so stop and say like, okay, that hurt, if you can hold it for a second, why did it hurt? And if it was like you know a lot of an easy question I tell my clients ask themselves on the trigger is if they can pause. The first thing I would say is like learn to put it in the parking lot, learn to pause, learn to say like okay, I don't need to respond to this right now. And even sometimes I just have my clients say like ouh, you know, like I don't know about that.

26:31 Like other persons, so they're not just like leaving. The other person hanging. But ultimately I like to people for if they can to sit with it for a second, say when did I first feel that? Yeah, because sometimes it's going to go back a little bit. You can in a whole NLP aspect of it. Yeah, And there's so many like tips, tricks and tools, but yeah, you it's like really ultimately sitting with yourself, being somewhat reflective, journal, meditate, take walk, I don't care, but be alone with your own thoughts with no content. Well, and you you had the talking point that you shared with me that really resonated with me so much, and you know, I just started a whole new project, doctor Doug reflects a quiet return, And the whole point of that was recognizing that within each one of us is that goodness within each one of us for those that can consider it this way, is that divinity, that light?

27:30 And you talked about the fact that healing isn't about fixing yourself, but it's about reclaiming who you are. Could you share with the audience your thoughts on that, because I think that's so important. Yeah. I mean, I feel like like, at the depth of anything, ninety. Seven percent of Americans believe in the soul, So I'll use that word. You know, at soul level, we were burned. We were all born perfect, whole and complete right, and our soul came in with lessons. I truly believe that for everything I've ever read, and those lessons are going to come through difficulty. But at the end of the day, like we're here to evolve, we are here to grow, and all we're ever really doing is actually shedding all of our protective mechanisms, all of our outdated survival strategies.

28:14 What does that mean? My survival strategy was trust no one, do everything yourself. That didn't work so well to try to be in a relationship. So those were things I had to let go of because they're actually stopping me from truly connecting with people, and a lot of us don't see those things within ourselves. We think that, you know, there's a part of us that believes it's really helping us, and it's hard to see unless we get that feedback from another human that is actually hurting us. And so that's where we have to like really look at it. Yeah, I love the concept. I just thinking about this of peeling back that onion. And you know, when you actually have this large onion and you're starting to slowly peel back those layers, what's interesting is so often you start to cry. It's cogent to cry. But the reality is is we start to feel back those things that we will then start to feel those emotions once more, and that is okay.

29:13 Yeah, we become free. I know my dad is like part is a lot Native American, and so I think my DNA I'm like thirty or forty. I think I'm thirty percent. But anyways, I've studied a lot with Native American culture as while just being so interested in that kind of spirituality, and they talk about the spiral path, and that spiral path goes inward, and so we keep taking one step closer to who we truly are and that's kind of how I see the life path, right. I built an entire life until I was thirty that wasn't aligned with what I really wanted at all. It's what I thought I was supposed to do and what would bring me happiness from everything I saw on TV, movies and Instagram, and it wasn't it. And so I had to get really clear about, Okay, what is freedom, happiness, joy? All these things mean to me, not what my parents said, not what not even sometimes we even react to what our parents built, you know, they were really structured and rigid.

30:08 Then we become. Want to be like a free spirit who's always messy, and that doesn't serve us either. So it's like we do these things in response to a lot of the things that happened to us. And I always say, like kind of question everything. Your mind is like a garden and a lot of crap got planted there, and you've got to decide, like, Okay, I got roses everywhere, and. I also got weeds. What do I want? Don't want to plant new things, don't want to pull some of these things out because the roses might be the idealized version of what your life is supposed to look like and the weeds might be able the negative blose you have, and like their happiness lies somewhere in between the two. Well, and you know, for those that actually have gotten to that point of clarity in their lives, or at least they're starting to get that sense of it and they recognize those old emotional wounds in their lives. But here's the challenge, how do you deal with me? Because so many people resisted? And one of the things I keep saying, and I love the statement, you know that which we resist persist, So you know, they're they're they're resisting it, so it stays there and in other times they're they're looking at it and they just kind of stay stuck in it. And how do people learn and why is it so important? If it's the way, you would suggest that they learn to accept it, walk with it and understand it and not fight it. And what happens when they do that?

31:33 Yeah? Well, one of my favorite quotes ever is if beating ourselves up worked, we'd all be rich then and happy because we're all really good at it and it doesn't produce results. So I think we can all agree on that, And then I think we're also really terrified to go into the dark places or the heavy emotions. We think that if we suppress, repress, don't deal with, it'll be better. And I remember feeling that way too, like I knew there was deeper work to do. I've done like kind of the psychology part of it, therapeutic part of it. But I've been in yoga for I've been doing yoga from like twenty one, and I remember the guru said to me, do you want to meditate or do you want to be miserable? And I said, because you know, they're a little harsh in a good way, I said. And I remember thinking, like maybe I want to be miserable because I don't want to sit with myself.

32:15 I don't really want all that stuff from my past to come up. Like I'm like a duck. I just keep swimming, and it's like I just keep trying to get it away from me. And you can't outrun your past. It's it's like a dumpster attached to your back and you're just dragging it with you. And I think we're afraid that if we open it, we're going to open Pandora's box. And I remember thinking that, like I was going to open this my past fully and it was going to explode and be all over me, and I was never going to, you know, be okay again. And I always liking it to. You're already carrying so much stuff with You're you're on a thousand mile journey with a hundred pound like a two hundred pound backpack, fifty kilo backpack, Like it's time to just start taking some of it out. And it's not easy, but each stack will get lighter and you will feel better. And that is the only way I've seen people's lives change. Now, how without so much force?

33:08 Yeah? How do they do that? Is? How important would meditation be? And as those things come up? What is the mentality that they should have when those wounds come up? And how do they approach those in a way that rather than resisting them or finding them, they're able to I guess understand them. How do you help people to do that? Yeah? Well I always have people tell me their story. I do a trauma inventory just so I know like what they've actually been through, and then I kind of help them start understanding like what is it that I believe about life? And so great exercise to do for yourself is for the listeners is just take a piece of paper and right on the top of like I am, and start writing, like do it just completely a brain dump.

33:52 See what comes up. You might write good things, might write negative things. Love is money is Like You're going to learn so much about like you're just going to start under sharing your beliefs. That's one part of it. Then I'm going to start going into a little bit more about like attachment wounds, Like you know, how am I insecure? Am I anxious? Like? How do I feel with other people? How do I show up? We're I always start with I guess the one thing I will say I do start with everyone is I ask them where are you struggling most in life? Because it all it shows up for every person uniquely. So sometimes we're struggling mentally and emotionally. Sometimes we're struggling physically, sometimes we're struggling spiritually. So start there and say, like, Okay, my body is really speaking to me these days.

34:34 I've got a lot of arthritis, I've got a lot of pain. Let that be your entry point. Start thinking of, like what's one thing per day that you can do for yourself to take care of yourself, you know, like gut issues, all this all have cause and trauma too. By the way, there's a great study called the ACES Study as well. You can look up and it will really an adult like address childhood events from your childhood and how they affect your adult health. I think all humans should know their ACES score because it will explain to you. It's a free online ten like that's kind of a shorter version of what I give my clients, So it's just really getting to know the self. I also do some they called energy psychology EFT tapping is similar. That's a free thing you can learn online. But if there's anything I could tell people, yeah, you may not be a great meditator, No one is.

35:23 It's a practice it with yourself. If you can't do that journal, listen to a guided meditation, take a walk by yourself without any distructions, you know, just you and your dog. Think about like how am I feeling? What do I need? Is another question you can ask yourself all day long and start learning. And I hungry, my Thursday, myttired. Most adults don't actually know well. And you know, one of the things that comes up a lot, as I've done a lot of interviews is this concept of gratitude, and I'm not sure I totally agree with it. I'd love your opinion on this because as those things come up, as you look at that trauma you know, in our lives, early childhood or whenever, and oftentimes people talk about the fact, Well, if you can look at that and find some area where you recognize that, you can be grateful, you know, for whatever you know. For instance, if i had an experience in childhood and now I'm recognizing that because I've experienced it, understood it, let it be there, but not let it affect me anymore, I may be more inclined to talk about things or to try to help people in different ways, and so I could be grateful for that positive aspect of it, but definitely not be grateful for what actually happened.

36:41 What are your thoughts about gratitude and how does that ultimately affect those core wounds and being able to ultimately not have them have the power over us that they have. Like, neuroscience has some good data on gratitude practices because we all have that what they call it negativity bias. So it helps the brain start focusing on what's positive in our lives. I think when we're in a really rough place, it's hard to be grateful. And I also find that people when they have a gratitude practice, they can get really generic. So every day it's like, oh, I'm grateful I have a house, I'm grateful of food, I'm grateful that I have my child. I mean, it's just like the same things. I don't think that's growing any new neurons, so I don't see a roat like easy.

37:25 Gratitude practice is very like supportive. I will usually have clients do gratitude if I feel like it's beneficial to them. This is the gratitude practice, and I'll go into the trauma gratitude. There's four levels of gratitude, so it's like kind of like basic gratitude, and then we get to the fourth level, which is gratitude for what's happened negatively in our lives. We've got to kind of go through the other ones first. I also truly believe that we have to get through hell before we. Can get to heaven, meaning that I have to process that mentally. Emotionally, I have to greet it, I have to be angry about it, I have to be sad about it. Then I can start to say when I have very few negative emotions about my past, then I can look at it and start to say, Okay, what did I learn from this?

38:10 It should have never happened to me, but it did. So what did I learn? And what can I use from that? What did it teach me? How did it? How is a lot of people can look back at the worst things that ever happened to them and in some way it made them better or it led them to something else. So when I do a daily gratitude practice, I want them to start focusing on what's something I'm proud of that I did today? Like it's a really hard on themselves, are really perfectionist, Like what are the three things you got done? Like I started a conversation with someone, I reached out to my mom even though we're fighting, You know anything, you're proud, Like I'm grateful I did these things. So it's very specific, it's very You really have to look at your day and focus. That's going to create a lot more neural networks. We also want to use our hands to write it because the brain in the hands, you know, we learned to write. There's a lot more neurons that can be done.

38:56 I also what I call like a wind, So I call that kind of a win gratitude. What are some little wins I had today so I can actually see something good that I did. Especially if I'm being hard on myself all the time, I find out to be really effective. Then when I look at that gratitude for something that's like really difficult in my life, like I said, I want someone to get through the pain of it first, because otherwise what we're doing is we're doing kind of toxic positivity or we're bypassing the difficulty, and a lot of us really like kind of like I hate to use the word, but like spiritually people will do that. They're like, Oh, I had all this trauma, but it's made me such a light worker and I'm so amazing now and I channel Palladian people. It's like, no, did you feel all of that stuff?

39:39 Because I did ten years of forgiveness work with my mom ten years because there was so much pain and trauma and difficulty, and I would go into that. I think forgiveness is an active process, not to let her off the hook at all, but to let me off the hook. Forgiveness is something you do for yourself. But I think, you know, I kind of journal about a process and say like, Mom, I forgive you foo. And then when I got through all of that, and I had a very severe case. So I'm not saying I don't want to want to freak out, like, oh my gosh, I not ten years to do my taky ten weeks, only ten months. I don't know. So for me, I had a very severe case. My mom was my greatest teacher on the planet. And then when I think of her, I don't think of all the horrible things I think of, like the same scenario, like we're talking about perception, Like I'll tell you a crazy story because it's true. But there was a time that my older sister Linda was being beat up by the sky and my mom got a gun, like twenty two handled pearl hand. I'll never forget it. She had it between her legs. We rolled up to his house and she jumped out of that car and like was like, if you ever touch my daughter again, I like, I.

40:44 Will end you. Like she was very very clear and draft and strong, and when I was a kid, obviously this could crap out of me. And I was like Oh my god, my mom was a terrifying person on the planet, you know what I mean, Because it's like it was just like I think I was like eight years old, nine years old, But now I look at that and I'm like, wow, I molm would have done anything to protect it. Literally, I mean like that's like, that's amazing, Like the whole gutsy that was. She was a tiny like one hundred and ten pound five five women and she rolled up on that person like she did was like the biggest man on the planet. Well, and you know, I think you've hit on so many points. And we even get back to Buddhism again, it's not that we're not going to suffer, that we get to the point when whatever occurs that would cause others to suffer, we have gotten the mindset and the ability to look at that situation and not allow it to affect us so deeply. So we're getting real close to the clothes here. So we could go we could go on for quite a lot, I think, but as we close, two things I want you to be able to do. Number One, share with the audience how they can find you. Okay, and you're sir RESI. And then number two. Sure kind of the final thought that you'd like to share with the audience, Yeah, for sure.

42:07 Well, first, you can find on a website Torrijena dot com t O R I. J E n A E. And I do have this free workbook on there with the set like psychological wounds, So we kind of talked a lot about them, like you have kind of an easy how to find them. It's like very clear, like the abandoned wound, such shows up in your life. These are the things you say, the things you think that shows up your relationship, easypasy. So I've kind of distilled a lot of that worked down also on Instagram at Tory dot Jana and you can always DM me there and just say hi or follows. I don't do a ton of posting except my podcast because that's only content I love to post. But I think my final thought or what I love to share with people is that no matter what has happened to you.

42:53 You can heal. It's not going to be easy, but you can choose a different path. Everything that has happened to us can serve some perse. This doesn't mean it was fair, doesn't mean it should have happened, but it definitely can be transformed, and it has to be transformed on a few levels, my body and soul. But I am a living testament to that that everything that happened to me made me who I am, has helped me serve thousands of people this the last decade. Thank you and thank you for everything you've shared today. I think that it's so important and what you're doing and how you're helping people to overcome all of these tremendous wounds I think is so valuable. And I always say, you know what, we try to fix thousands and the hundreds of thousands, but the reality is if we can just help the one, that will make an incredible difference.

43:45 So Tory, thank you so much. Yes, thank you so much for having me. It was an amazing conversation. Well, I appreciate it, and folks, thanks for listening. I hope you've gotten some good out of this. And this is doctor Doug from Thailand saying every conversation on this podcast eventually comes back to that same question, not how do I get more? But is this actually who I am? If something you heard today moved you just a little closer to an honest answer, that is enough I'm doctor Doug. This is Inspire Vision Until next time.