Please note, this is an automated transcript so it is not 100% accurate.

Guy (00:11):
Gail, welcome to the podcast.

Gail (00:12):
Thank you. Very happy to be here.

Guy (00:15):
I’d love to start the conversation with, if you were at a intimate dinner party or you sat on a bus and took next to a complete stranger somewhere and they asked you what you did for a living these days, what would you say?

Gail (00:30):
It’s a hard one, actually. It’s an interesting place to start. So I’m trained as a clinical psychologist and I’m licensed in California in the us. Um, but I don’t consider myself to be a typical psychologist at all. So probably if we’re gonna give it a label, it would be non-dual therapist.

Guy (00:51):
Wow. Okay. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and I, I’m intrigued as well. And what is, what would you say a typical psychologist would do, and what is it that you do differently, even though you, you’ve got that, but degree and background in that work?

Gail (01:05):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Well, um, as a beginning answer to that, in my own journey, I was in probably at least 15 years of psychotherapy in my twenties and thirties that, at looking back, I feel did very little to help me feel better and answer the questions that I was holding. So I got what, you know, you might call conventional psychotherapy, but I didn’t, I just didn’t find it helpful. And I think, um, from having done this work now a long time, the crux of it is the story. Like if, if you’re in typical psychology, as my, as I understand it and hear about it, um, there’s a, a movement to help, um, uh, improve the story and certainly to help someone feel better. But the identity doesn’t really change the, of the person that there’s a, there’s an attempt to make them feel better or think better about things that have happened or changed thoughts or whatever. But my, um, passion really is to look more deeply into the nature of experience, to really like untangle, um, everything so that, we’ll, we can really see what’s going on when someone has a problem of some kind. Yeah.

Guy (02:21):
Got it. Got it. And, and I’m curious, and I’m always curious when I, when I chat to people on the podcast about your own journey, and you spoke about, you know, going in and outta that therapy for through your twenties and thirties, what were the challenges that you were facing then that led you to look into that work in the first place?

Gail (02:41):
Well, I was somewhat functional. You know, I was in graduate school and was able to, you know, um, do what was needed there. Um, my relationships were pretty much a mess. Um, all of them. Uh, there was a lot of stress in the family. Um, and there was just a general sense of unhappiness that I was carrying constantly. And I kept saying to myself, there has to be more. This can’t be how life is. There has to be something else. And, um, and that’s what kept me going. You know, I kept searching, you know, from, from, um, you know, therapy cuz that’s really the only thing I knew at the time. And then eventually I started meditating and that was really a big turning point for me in my journey.

Guy (03:24):
Ah, yeah.

Guy (03:26):
And I can still relate because I spent my twenties with like a, um, this undertone of sadness in me that I couldn’t never even put words to. It was just like a default way of being, even though I was outwardly quite positive. But there was always this feeling behind it. And I’m curious from your journey then, what, where do you think that stemmed from for you and mm-hmm. <affirmative> and why was meditation then the, the gateway in, like, how, how did you learn to meditate? What did you do? What kind of, there’s two questions there, and I’ll, I’ll stop talking, but I’ll I’ll put there.

Gail (04:08):
<laugh>. Yeah. Well, what I know now from where I sit is the problems, um, stem back to what has become my specialty, which is, uh, helping people untangle trauma patterns that have, um, developed early in their lives in childhood or sometimes, um, pre-birth, um, back in the lineage to really look at, um, what people carry. And if we don’t look at it, we carry it unconsciously. We carry it one way or another. So it’s a matter of, um, of, uh, shining the light on what happened back then. But more important than what happened is how we hold what happened, what are the emotions that we feel about, you know, the ways that relationships were formed when we were young. Like all, all of that. We can get into that in more detail if you like. Um, but that’s, and I see that for everybody. It’s pretty much the source of people’s challenges in life.

Gail (05:11):
And then it’s a beautiful work and possibility to be able to learn little by little. It’s a lot, you know, to do, but, um, just possible to take a look at it and understand it better and have compassion for what happened and, um, and begin to integrate the parts of ourselves that we had to push away because they were too uncomfortable or we didn’t have the safety to experience them. And then we kind of, you know, it’s, it’s a move toward integration, but if that doesn’t happen, there’s this kind of split and fragmentation that we feel, which is the source of, I think my unhappiness and what you were describing as your underlying unhappiness. There’s something there that needs to be explored.

Guy (05:57):
Uh, and when did the penny drop for you then to go i to go beyond just the, the talk therapy, like you were speaking about and in and out at that time when you started to go, ah, I, there’s more to this, um, my body’s actually holding this. Like when did you start to realize, was there a tipping point for you?

Gail (06:18):
There wasn’t a moment for, I’ve had lots of turning point moments, but not necessarily for that. I just kind of, you know, started reading about Buddhism and meditation and then one day I said to myself, you’re gonna have to sit down on the cushion and actually stop reading about it and meditate. Hmm. And, um, then I became associated with a meditation center in Northern California where I was living at the time and started doing retreats. And that’s what really started to change things for me. And the thing that really made a difference was observing my experience, like just sitting. And this was fa pasa meditation. And so it’s just observing thoughts, feelings, sensations, you know, experience coming and going and just sitting in silence for a day or a weekend or 10 days or whatever. Just watching what happened. That’s when the penny dropped, actually. Like, oh, no wonder I’m so unhappy. All of this stuff was going on that I had no idea. Was there like feelings and, um, frustrations and lack of forgiveness and, um, just so much, so much and critical thinking, a lot of that like self-critical and judgemental of others. And I had no clue before that, that all of that had been going on and was driving me. So it became, it started to become really clear at why it was so unhappy.

Guy (07:49):
Yeah. Got it. And I’m curious, cuz for passions come up in conversation a few times here and sitting in the 10 days of silence. Can you, how did you find that the first time you did it? Because I’m always curious because it can be terrifying. People can, you know, uh, cause I’d like to dig into what, how you identify what is trauma as well in a moment, but for your own journey. Um, being in a go in there for the first time, we can be so terrified of the thought of a being in silence. The thought of being removed from all our comforts and technology, the thought of facing something that might feel 10 times bigger than what it actually is. But we impose obviously our perception upon it. I mean, where, what was your experience like the first time you did it? And leading

Gail (08:34):
Up, I actually, I actually didn’t have a lot of fear. I, I have, I’ve had a lot of fear about a lot of other things, but about that inner exploration, like as soon as I realized, oh, there’s something here that needs to be explored, I had a fire for it. And I pretty much from the beginning of that part of my exploration, I would’ve gone anywhere in my exp Like I didn’t, I was never afraid of feelings or afraid of, you know, what I might discover or some people have a fear of losing control or I, I never had that. I was just on fire to know, um, to, to understand, to know, to be conscious, to live in a grounded way to make sense. Cuz this investigation really helped me and, and helps me to this day make sense of a relationship, a frustration, like some friction or confusion. I just keep exploring inside and it, and just everything gets clear. So once I got that, that’s what was going on. I, I really didn’t have fear.

Guy (09:40):
Yeah. And then you, you went, went for it. So how, how would you identify then trauma? Like in, you mentioned as well, you know, obviously a childhood experiences, you even mentioned pre-birth experiences lineage as well. I’m curious to know, how would you, would you encapsulate then trauma? And does it matter what kind of trauma it is? You know, we quite often put levels of degree, like especially if, if sounds very heavy, the cases, but just compared to somebody else, you know, I’d love to hear your thoughts on all of that.

Gail (10:12):
Yeah, I mean, it’s a big word. It’s also a buzzword in this day and age. Um, but it’s really, trauma informed is a phrase that’s sometimes used that I really like, like a trauma informed view of yourself, a trauma informed view of relationships or work environments or, um, um, communities. Um, and then bigger, you know, globally, like big issues like global warming and that kind of thing. A trauma informed view is just super useful. And it has to do with the parts of ourselves that it feels stuck and, um, and maybe frozen or numb, the, where we shut down and we have to split ourselves in order to survive. So a simple example would be like a child, an infant, let’s say three month old in the crib screaming for mom because of hunger or discomfort or whatever. Um, and no one comes and not that that’s, you know, that happens in the best of family sometimes.

Gail (11:17):
So it’s, there’s, there’s no blame here, but just as an example. So what happens to that child in that situation? There’s all of this distress. And then what do you do with it? You just keep being distressed, doesn’t get the, the support that’s needed. So the feelings might shut down or go out of awareness or, you know, go in the body and start eating away at the tissues or, you know, different things can happen when we don’t have that free flow of support and safety to be able to, um, process through the things that happen when they happen. So if there’s not a lack of safety early on in our lives, we come up with strategies. Like we, we start people pleasing, you know, this will be later on in, in the childhood, people pleasing in order to get what we need. And as soon as those kind or perfectionism is another one, and or we go into fear and in our heads and we’re just trying to constantly figure everything out, these are strategies that we come up with that are really useful at the time. They, they make complete sense, but they, they, um, separate us from our whole being and from our hearts and from our groundedness and, um, and that’s the source of a lot of distress for people.

Guy (12:40):
Yeah. Right. So are you, and I, I’m always fascinated thinking of everyone listening to this in mind then. So is it possible then that’s something that could happen to you at three months old and intentionally very normal? I mean, I, I, you know, I look at the, the life it’s pretty challenging <laugh> Yeah. At the best of times, you know, no matter, like I got a two year old and we do our best, but there’s so, you know, it’s like constant, right? Yeah. Um, so then if something happens to you at three months old, whatever, that might be a traumatic moment that obviously you are at three months old, you’ve got no, uh, analytical mind, you’ve got no concept of actually what’s going on. You the body internalizes it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> then at some level, as you grow from that feeling or from what the body’s holding you then form a story around it or a personality trait from that, that becomes your behavior. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> basically.

Gail (13:39):
Yeah. Well, if you’re

Guy (13:40):
Unaware of it or

Gail (13:42):
If there’s an isolated incident like that, you know, and in the context of a pretty, um, you know, um, parents who are pretty present with the child, there may not be that much of a, an effect of that. And you know, but when situations are chronic and when there’s abuse and when there’s a parent with addiction or there’s domestic violence in the family, or you know, or there’s, it’s, you know, it can be, there’s a divorce that’s not handled well. Um, the children are left. Like, what do I do with this? You know, in in general in our society and culture, we don’t have the, this is my opinion. I guess what I see is we don’t have the skills and the tools and the holding to deal with our emotions, and we are emotional beings as humans. And as you were saying, first we feel in our bodies, you know, we don’t have the capacity when we’re three months to say, I’m, I’m sad or I’m scared.

Gail (14:43):
But we certainly know how to express that in our bodies and feel it in our bodies. And that’s the beginning, that’s a big part of emotion is what’s happening in the body. So the, um, the healing, the reintegration, the, the, um, medicine for these experiences that happen is to learn the skills and be able to go to those hard places for some people, emotion, emotional places, and little by little, it’s certainly not something that happens overnight. Bring those emotions that are frozen back in time into the light of consciousness, of conscious awareness of heart and compassion and, you know, holding, um, to be able to, uh, examine, feel, integrate, you know, have that, weave that back into who we are Yeah. To reclaiming of who we are,

Guy (15:39):
Reclaiming back to that truth. Right.

Gail (15:41):
Exactly. Yeah.

Guy (15:42):
Yeah, yeah. It’s like, I look at my daughter, I use her often as example, but when I see her, she’s just so innocent and just so true to herself. And, you know, we had her in stitches laughing earlier over the silliest things, you know, and, and it’s just beautiful to witness and be around, and you realize how much as an adult you can easily impose your beliefs and the structure into her unknowingly as well. Right. It’s quite blowing, really.

Gail (16:12):
And that’s why for parents, you know, it’s really useful, I wanna say essential to look at your own trauma and patterns so that you know what you’re bringing or how you’re, you know, handling situations.

Guy (16:26):
Yeah. I, I couldn’t agree any more. I’m so grateful I had Ava a little bit later in life where I dealt with a lot of my own shit, to be honest. <laugh>. Yeah. At some level there’s pros and cons. I have no doubt. But so

Guy (16:39):
With, with that in mind then, and, you know, bringing, you talked about bringing awareness, conscious awareness to those aspects of yourself, those frozen parts, like you say, and I, and I love that terminology. Then looking at a deeper level then, do you, because living on earth, like I mentioned, you can’t get away from the challenges. Like it’s, it’s a pretty pretty, you know, um, challenging place on times and, and we’re all gonna take on certain amounts of certain times, but there always seems to be this point where we want to lean into this more. We, we like live it quite unconsciously a while. And you could say the soul is waking up or it becomes a spiritual awakening mm-hmm. <affirmative> or there’s that moment. What are your thoughts around that kind of metamorphs? Is that, how would you interpret that from your experience of going through your own journey through, you know, studying Buddhism and how does that look?

Gail (17:40):
Um, I think people don’t know, like, well, it’s, it varies. I mean, some people have had some sense of an awakening or something spiritual, spiritual early on in life that didn’t happen for me. But, um, you know, and there’s a sense that there’s something more. I, I think what happens is people who are holding a lot of trauma and not satisfied with how their relationships are going or feel out of touch with their truth, they just, you know, when there’s grace operating, they keep looking and searching and trying to find whatever it is that’s going to, um, bring the, the, the healing for them. And, um, like the people that I work with, they just, I don’t know, it’s like grace that they, we find each other mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, um, there’s the healing that can happen then. Um, you know, I mean, I think people with a lot of trauma, you know, there’s, there’s, they’re all over the map, you know, some people keep searching, some people give up, some people just don’t know what to do and keep playing out their patterns. Um, but that’s why like a podcast like this is super useful because this, you know, to get out into the world as much as possible, that there’s this trauma informed way of looking at pretty much everything. So that, um, healing becomes possible then.

Guy (19:03):
Yeah. Okay. And then, yeah, no, I truly believe podcasts like this, like, it’s, like I said to you, offer, they’ve, they’ve certainly changed my life from that. So I’m to debat which way to go here, but I’ve got your, um, one of your books that caught my eye about suffering as optional then. And at first glance, how would you define then suffering? And why would it be optional? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Gail (19:37):
Okay. So suffering, I think we’ve been talking about suffering. You know, we feel badly, we mm-hmm. <affirmative> just aren’t happy in life. We struggle with things. We feel a lot of emotions and don’t know what to do with them, or we feel no emotions and that doesn’t feel right either. Or we’re stuck in stories of what happened in the past and they keep looping around in our minds. Um, so suffering is, um, the way I think about it, it’s based on the events that have happened in life and how we, we have reacted to those events that have happened. And the unexamined and unexplored, um, places in us that are, they’re there. They’re, you know, like say for example, fear, it’s in the driver’s seat. Unless we know that it’s, you know, it’s gonna be the thing that’s driving the patterns. And that’s where bringing conscious awareness to something like fear or whatever is underlying our conditioned patterns can be really useful.

Guy (20:42):
Yeah. Okay. Okay. And then, and then leaning in. So when you, so how does one then, from the way you work, start to work through those frozen parts? Yeah. Are there, yeah.

Gail (20:57):
And this is the second part of your question. So suffering is optional. Like what makes it optional? Yeah. And once we begin to bring attention to, uh, the parts of ourselves that have been cut off, they’re young parts, um, uh, painful parts of ourselves, um, we realize that we have options when we’re stuck in a conditioned pattern. It’s a, it’s a very rigid way of being. So it’s in like, we’re in one lane, you know, so somebody who doesn’t trust, you know, might go from relationship to relationship, and the same thing keeps happening because they don’t trust there’s a fear. Um, so that, that rigidity is something that defines, um, uh, a conditioned trauma pattern. And, um, when we bring awareness to it and realize like, oh, there’s fear there and there’s a fear because I learned not to trust when I was young, and we learned how to take care of those parts of ourselves, like feeling the emotions and having compassion for that. And, um, recognizing that maybe having certain emotions led to a lack of trust or whatever is the, the pattern that the person is playing out. Um, there begins to be a sense, there’s space, it’s bringing space to all of that, and maybe there are other choices that can be made or experimenting with different ways of being that aren’t def, you know, right in that defined lane. So there’s, um, it brings this spaciousness and possibility and potential to something that before felt very rigid and confusing and, um, defining but not comforting.

Guy (22:44):
Yeah. Okay. And have you found then, on your own journey, or even working with clients as you bring awareness, so let’s use fear as the example, and obviously if we feel fear and we’re imposing that upon any situation, we are gonna create thoughts that are going to contribute to the fear as well. Yeah. And, and creating that space. Have you, have you found like there’s like a catalyst for change where all that starts to move? Like as in a breakdown or breakthrough? Or do you think it’s more just a very subtle, gradual approach that you’re bringing in daily life and then it just one day you kind of wake up and go, oh, I don’t feel fearful in this moment?

Gail (23:24):
Yeah, I think it’s both. Um, I think that the, you know, kind of putting one step in front of the other and just keep walking the path is really useful. And, um, and along that path, sometimes there are insights. So I’ll share one from my own experiences. Um, I, there was a time when I would wake up every morning with this, like, as soon as I would, you know, be aware that I was awake, there would be this feeling of dread, this like heavy feeling that would come over and be like, oh, another day. And it was this u you know, how am I gonna trench through the day? And I realized this is when I was, um, you know, I’d been meditating quite a while at that point, and I was aware like, oh, okay, here’s a feeling. And I’m noticing that that feeling comes pretty much every morning.

Gail (24:14):
And so I began to just feel it, you know, just, okay, it’s here. And if it’s here, we have two choices. One is to resist it and pushed it away, or to welcome it in and actually let it be present. So I, um, opened space, I just kind of laid there in bed and just, you know, I like hand on heart, hand on belly, and just feel the feeling and let it feel how it is in my body, not so much in the story. So when we get stuck in this story of a feeling, that’s what makes the feeling even more stuck. But to feel it in the body is what begins to create the movement of it. So I would just give some time just like, just feeling like allowing it, not pushing it away, not trying to fix it, not trying to really do anything with it. And then I went on my day and then, um, months later I realized that I hadn’t had that feeling in a long time, so it kind of like crept up on me that it just kind of relaxed or softened or, you know, fell apart. Yeah. Yeah. So that was like a, a kind of a little like, oh, that was a nice insight, you know? Oh, that happened, but I wasn’t conscious of every step along the way.

Guy (25:30):
Yeah. No, fair enough. Um, do you think that’s the, the biggest component or like to bring in a practice in, on your daily life and being able to start to work with those feelings, whether somebody’s crippled with anxiety or, or depression or, or just, um, negative thoughts, like it could be, it could be anything really. Do you think that’s the kind of where to start going into the body like that and, and allowing yourself to feel it? Because I even think about grief as well, which can be very challenging of course, yeah.

Gail (26:02):
As well. Um, I think daily practice is essential. And whether it’s meditation practice or just stopping several times during the day, taking a breath, like when you realize you’re caught up in some emotion, just taking a breath and doing a reset. Um, I like, at the end of the day, just reflecting back on the day, like, oh, where did I get stuck? What emotions were present? You know, where can I have compassion for myself or someone else? So to reflect back on your day and see what you can discover or learn from that, I think practices like that are really, really, really useful and essential really. Yeah. Cause conditioning is very strong and, um, you know, in terms of emotions, it’s, what I find is it’s very hard, if not impossible to do this work exclusively alone. We need help and we need support. And when we’re in the trauma based pattern, there’s shame and there’s isolation and alienation, and we have learned not to reach out for help because when we do, it’s, we don’t get a very good result with that in certain relationships when we’re young. So we’re stuck with all these feelings. And then you hear, you know, this conversation, you go, okay, I’m supposed to feel my feelings and how do I do that? It’s so painful. And I think that groups and, you know, therapy. But, um, right now I’m a big fan of groups because a, a beautiful group space that feels safe where people can share what they’ve been holding and feeling ashamed to share their whole lives. And it’s met with welcoming and love and care and holding is so beautiful and, and healing.

Guy (27:56):
Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. We, we hold group spaces here in Australia and mm-hmm. <affirmative> sometimes together for three or even five nights. And, and it ne it never ceases to amaze me that strangers coming together feel like they know each other or connected more. Right. And people have known their entire life in some, some ways, and they’re like, how is this even possible? Yeah. Just met you. You know? And it, it’s just that such a, at a deeper level,

Gail (28:26):
And it is a deeper level, you know, there, there’s a transparency when this space feels really safe and we let down our guard and, and we let our heart show a little bit and there’s room for heart connection and, and spaciousness. And then we hear someone else’s story, or we watch how they are learning how to deal with something and it’s like, oh, I can do that too. Or that I have that problem too. And there’s something really resonant about that that makes us feel like not crazy with our trauma, you know, like, oh, I’m not alone with this and there’s nothing really wrong with me. You know? I think people hold that identity if there’s something wrong with me.

Guy (29:06):
Yes. And you mentioned as well, um, you know, obviously you, you love holding your heart, you, you speak of, of compassion and you, you speak of truth as well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And how much do you think those components are? Cuz what I’ve found is that we can live so much in our heads, we can be completely disconnected from our heart or any, any kind of information or wisdom that the body is holding and building that relationship back. So I’m intrigued to know what your thoughts are on, on those. The heart, the compassion, the truth aspect.

Gail (29:42):
I think we need to learn it. You know, I, I, one time, it was a while ago, I saw a client and she had no idea what I was talking about when I was talk, I wouldn’t mention being compassionate to yourself. And then her, she lit up and she goes, oh, you want me to treat myself the way I treat my dog? It was like, yeah, that’s it. You know, she got it. She got it. So, um, yeah, we need to learn, I think just in general, we don’t learn the skills that we need to be able to meet our own experience. And, um, it’s really useful to, um, be in spaces that are supportive and in some ways educational so that we know what to do. And we don’t feel caught off guard when, um, when difficult things happen. You know, I’m thinking about in relationship when things mm-hmm. <affirmative>

Gail (30:35):
Are difficult and, you know, if they’re difficult, there’s something that’s been triggered and there might also be in us. And there also might be something triggered in the other, in fact, that’s very likely. And to understand like, oh, okay, we’re in a hard place. We’re both triggered. This is just hard. Let’s take a moment. Let’s tone things down. If the energy is revving up, let’s see if we can find a new way to meet each other that’s, um, more heart based and not so much a reflection of our trauma patterns and an expression of those.

Guy (31:14):
I was gonna say, relationships is probably a great place to dig into right now as well, because, um, they can be challenging, especially if you have different views. Uh, or what, what about if the case is, um, one wants to lean into more of the heart and get beyond the patterns to get back to what’s actually going on, as opposed to my interpretation of what’s going on here. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but then you have a, a partner or you could be even a work relationship. It could, I mean, this could come for so many things that is just not wanting to be any part of that. It’s just like, I don’t know how to handle my emotions. I dunno how to communicate, so I’m just gonna shut down.

Gail (31:56):
Yeah. Yeah. And that’s a, that’s a trauma response, you know, to shut down <laugh>. And, and then what people learn, and I see this all the time in people, is this capacity to stay present, you know, to recognize when we, when we have a lot of experience working with our own trauma patterns, we can see them when they arise and then we can take a moment to take care of them inside so that they’re not leaked out into the relational space. So that we can know more deeply what’s happening within ourselves, and then maybe be able to stay calm or make a compassionate, um, response of some kind, or ask a question rather than attacking or, you know, that’s when options open, when we can, uh, take care of ourselves in those situations with compassion and have compassion for the other.

Guy (32:52):
Yeah. So if, if your partner is triggering you and there’s something that’s just, um, like, why is that person always annoying? Why do they always do this? Why is going on there? And then the best place to start is back with ourselves? Well, why are

Gail (33:08):
We absolutely doing that? Yeah. What’s, what’s just gotten triggered in me? I’m frustrated, I’m sad, I, you know, if you’re trying to change someone else, what you’re really trying to do is fix your own feeling cuz there’s something in you that doesn’t, that feels uncomfortable. And it’s like, if that other person will change and do what I want them to do, then I’ll feel better and it doesn’t work. We probably all know that. So the, the turnaround is to bring our attention in, like, ah, okay, I’m frustrated right now. I got triggered by, you know, feeling judged and now I feel like I’m five years old. And, you know, just really having that understanding about our own experience and, um, and then we can, you know, stay more present or show up in a way that feels more fresh, um, in our trauma patterns. The core wound seems to be not being seen.

Gail (34:08):
I know that’s the, that’s it for me when I, whenever I’ve gotten to the point that it’s, it’s shorthand now. So whenever I react to someone or something, it’s because I, I don’t feel seen by then by them. And it goes way back into my childhood and before I have pre-birth trauma. Um, uh, and it goes, it goes right back to those early places. And I know that so well now that I can see it very quickly and, um, it becomes not so much a problem, you know, I can stay present with myself and also with the other, when that happens. And that doesn’t mean I always know the answers. And, you know, I, I, I think what you might be getting at a little bit is like, well, what do we do in these situations? One person is becoming more conscious and wanting to have a different kind of conversation and the other person isn’t. I mean, these are difficult situations, but the, the thing that we can actually work on is ourselves and what comes up in us and to recognize our own stories and our own judgements. And when those are running and we’re caught in that and we’re attached to certain outcomes and, you know, we, when we can recognize all of that and kind of tone it down and unwind it and unpack it and just take a breath and come back to ourselves, there’s a lot more, uh, possibility available then.

Guy (35:37):
Yeah. Yeah. To me, that feels like that’s where the true practice and the growth is to be hard when we are in the thick of it in our daily lives. Yes. Cause quite often we, I find that, and I was very guilty of this early on as I was chasing experiences, but by a, leaning into this work more passionately, but then I was allowing to bypass the very things that I needed to deal with in my day to day life. And it was actually becoming a distraction. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> not a, a digging into the here and now.

Gail (36:12):
If that, and some of us, you know, are, you know, at different points in time, we engage in what we call spiritual bypass, which means that we, maybe there’s been some awakening experience or some openness or some understanding and using that to escape or avoid the humanness. And, you know, the way I look at it, it sounds like you as well, is like, we need to bring in our humanness and honor it and be we’re human. You know, we, we are, you know, nothing and everything and universal love and all of that. That’s true. And we’re here living a human life and that needs to be honored and included.

Guy (36:51):
Yeah. How would you summarize it? What it is to be human then, you know, at the end of the day? Cause we, we we’re always hearing these words, consciousness, awareness, um, divine self, human being. Yeah. You know, it’s like there’s so many thoughts and interpretations or even disconnection from, or many of these things. How do you look at it all from your experience?

Gail (37:17):
I don’t know how to, I don’t know how I would define humanness, but I do know how to live it. And, uh, and you know, there are different ways to live it. I mean, we’re, we’re, you know, there’s a certain sense in which we’re humans and some of us live most according to our conditioning. And that’s when we, our human life feels off and anxious and, you know, disjointed and unhappy and, you know, that is a human life. But to live our full humanness and our full aliveness takes this understanding that these trauma stories or what we’ve heard from other people or whatever we think about ourselves is not the truth of who we are. And that’s a profound understanding to really get, like, cuz we, a lot of us have self-critical thoughts, or I’m inadequate and I’m unlovable. And then that’s the beginning of very painful, um, expressions in life.

Gail (38:21):
And sure we’re human, but we’re not living fully in, in according to our full potential and, and in the ease and the wellbeing and the happiness that’s possible. So to, to recognize that. And this is the crux of it, like this, you know, profound spiritual question, who am I? You know, what am I, what am I truly like? Who am I? And we are not these stories that we’ve learned that someone has told us that, that, um, we’ve concluded about ourselves based on very difficult circumstances that we grew up in. Like, you know, it’s common for kids, you know, in in the, just the child’s brain. You know, if, if there’s chaos and you know, they’re not getting their needs met, there must be something wrong with me. You know, if I were okay, then this wouldn’t all be happening. And that’s a, I get that conclusion and understand how it would happen, but it’s not a truth, you know, it’s it, and then we, we start wearing those, excuse me, those truths as if they’re real when they’re, they’re not real.

Gail (39:30):
So to, to understand that what our thoughts tell us about ourselves is not who we are. Then that opens like, okay, well how do I define myself? How do I know what to do? Where do I go? And then there’s this beautiful opportunity of deep listening, of going beyond our minds, going beyond the, the human form. And to listen deeply into something greater. The energy of life, the, the vibration of being. It’s sometimes called the, the openness, the spaciousness beyond the human form and beyond the human mind. And to begin to explore that, where that aliveness is, if we’re living according to our patterns, human life is gonna feel flat and confusing and chaotic. And when we start to be able to tap into that, um, essential knowing that’s beyond the, the mind, then things start to expand and come alive. And we find that we can be enthusiastic about things and passionate. And, um, and there’s a, a for me, that’s living fully, that’s an integration of the spiritual and the human. And so we get to live a human life totally informed by the truth of our, of who we are, the essence of our being.

Guy (40:51):
Love it. That’s beautiful. Do you think then that if we are not, because one, one thing I noticed very often is that we are frighten. It’s like we’re frighten to coming out of the like, of just being ourselves and and being true to who we are. And I’m gonna wear this with pride. If I wanna wear this or I’m gonna say this, but it’s all coming from my truth and my heart and the intention’s good, but it doesn’t matter. But we, we are terrified of going there so often. And is that because then we have these patterns that are actually taint in the lens that are shaping our terror of going there?

Gail (41:32):
Exactly. That is an, an expression of a trauma pattern. Yeah. To have, because I, I, my question would be fear of what? Fear of looking silly, fear of losing control, fear of um, not being accepted, um, fear of being abandoned and rejected. That those are very early patterns that develop in us. So to really honor the fear rec, everything gets included. So it’s not like skip over the fear so that you can live this awaken human life. No, it doesn’t work that way. So to honor the fear to, to recognize it, to feel it, to, you know, to um, know how it lives in the body and to know there’s something outside of that to like, don’t stop there with the fear.

Guy (42:17):
And then is that why? And I’m just constantly thinking cuz of, of all the times I’ve hear these questions and people and things, then that way surrender is become such a, I guess an, uh, an important word that’s always used and and action to surrender into that moment. To just be in that feeling. Don’t rush it. Don’t push it. Don’t fight it. And fully surrender into that fear then if that’s arising in that moment,

Gail (42:45):
Yes. Well surrender into the fear that And what do you, I’m not sure what you mean by that exactly. Like to, well

Guy (42:53):
If, so from my own experience, I’ll give you an example. When I sold my company and I wanted to start speaking and coming up with this work more and after my own experiences, every waking minute that I would be working with my thoughts, working with my feeling, and there would be this knot in my gut and this fear of unworthiness of should I be doing this? How am I gonna pay the bills? Like there’s so many things when I built a company that I’d spent eight years in, but my only option was to be with it and feel it and let go and actually allow it to be there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in those moments. So that’s what I mean by surrendering into that fear, in that moment

Gail (43:33):
Of the feeling. Yeah, definitely Letting it be there. Welcome it. Um, get curious about it. Like, oh, how is it in the body? And you know, fear lives in layers in the body, you know, it’s almost an endless exploration how fear lives in the body. So like keep going in and feeling the sensations of it. And um, and the ultimate understanding around fear really any emotion is it’s just sensation. If we let the story go and we just, and that’s a big thing to just say, I don’t mean to be, you know, b life about that, but just let this story be and feel the sensations and let those just be here as you were saying so beautifully. And then you realize, oh well you know, what is fear then? You know, it’s just sensation and it might be strong sensation and that’s okay. But does, is that the thing that has to rule my life?

Gail (44:30):
And it gets into a fierce choice sometimes, like, you know, cause when you start to know there is something else, there is this aliveness here, there is something coming through you were describing that I wanna share this and, you know, and to, you know, that’s like a natural movement that feels exciting and alive and then there’s fear that squashes it. And when we live according to the fear, we’re gonna live a life that doesn’t feel true because we’re keeping ourselves limited and small and we’re believing a story that isn’t true. So feeling the fear, honoring it and tapping into what else is here that’s motivating besides the fear. And, and I also invite people to do experiments and, you know, take, take baby steps and try out things and you know, don’t, you don’t have to just dive into, you know, having no control over everything, over anything cuz that freaks people out sometimes. But just like little by little, just like let yourself not have, not have your hands on the driver’s wheels so strongly.

Guy (45:38):
Yeah.

Gail (45:39):
And begin to listen. Yeah.

Guy (45:41):
Yeah. That’s the deep listening then, isn’t it? Yeah. I dunno if saying is there an ever an end to this, but do you, do you think we get to a point where we’ve kind of worked with most of those frozen traumas, those parts of us in time where we are just living in a peaceful place and obviously life can happen and there can be traumatic events that can still throw us off balance, but is that possible? Or do you think it’s just never ending? Cause you even mentioned pre-birth trauma, past lineage. I mean, if you start leaning into that, it’s like, whoa, the list will be, seems endless when you look <laugh>

Gail (46:23):
It, it does it. And you know, in that sense we can endlessly explore, but we can also, um, um, uh, understand enough about our trauma patterns that we can, like, we don’t have to keep diving into that exploration and only when it’s apparent. Like if you get triggered then there’s something that needs to be done there. But I do think it’s very possible to live with a great sense of wellbeing, peace, surrender to life, letting yourself be moved by life. Um, there’s a lot of space that’s possible when that trauma work kind of comes to fruition. I wanna say just, you know, it doesn’t finish. Like my experience is, it still comes sometimes and it’s fine and I don’t have any resistance to it at all. But, you know, most of life is quite light and quiet. There’s a silence, there’s a, um, a sense of wellbeing and expansion. Yeah. Beautiful. I do think it’s possible.

Guy (47:35):
Mm. Which is really nice to know for people listening to this, especially if they’re in the middle of it right now. Yeah. Which, which leads me to a question I guess that I ask quite often on the show just to get to know a little bit more about you and per context. But has there been a, a low point in your life that you reflect upon that’s, that’s later become a blessing, but it was very challenging at the time to see that?

Gail (48:00):
Yeah, I would say all of it. You know, I just, and um, just in taking in your question, the first thing that pops up for me is a divorce that I went through that was incredibly painful. And what I learned from that is just not that I’m grateful that it happened. I’m not, but um, I learned, so I’m grateful for what I learned for sure. Um, cuz I, I used it. I, I said, okay, there are things I don’t know that I need to know. There are things that I need to figure out here about my role and what happened. And I really took that on as a, a big part of my path. And, um, and I, it it was, you know, a good experience for me in the end. So I’m grateful for all the learning around that.

Guy (48:51):
Yeah. Yeah. I, I found, um, when I was transitioning that I really had to put the tools into practice consistently daily that made me kind of walk the talk that I was passionate about. Yeah. But hadn’t, it felt like an initiation into the next chapter of me, if that makes sense. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Gail (49:14):
<affirmative>, beautiful way to say it. I still do, I still use lots of tools and, you know, just take, I, I have a practice of deep breathing and, you know, I just, coming into the nervous system and feeling the body and, you know, there’s a lot of stuff I, I’m, I think I’m doing it most of the day actually at some level. You know, just that keeping that awareness alive and slowing things down. That’s another thing. There’s a sense of false urgency we have that’s that’s very mind based, fear based. It’s condition and it’s, and and to question like, is this really urgent? Do I need to take care of this? Do I need to, you know, and then there’s this slowing down that can happen and then the letting go and the calming and the surrender and then the resting in this and the listening that’s possible and receiving what’s given.

Guy (50:07):
Yeah, I hear you. It’s like sometimes I, I feel like I got 10,000 emails in me inbox cuz like, oh, I’ll, I’ll just, it doesn’t need to get done now. I can do that tomorrow, otherwise I’m gonna stress myself out. Next thing you know, they collect.

Gail (50:20):
Exactly.

Guy (50:20):
Yeah. <laugh>, on that note then, before we wrap things up, it’d be great to know what, do you have any kind of, you mentioned tools and little things at practice. Anything that you do religiously daily? Or are there just bits and bobs that you pull in? You know, do you have a morning routine or, I’m always curious to know when it comes to this work.

Gail (50:42):
Yeah. I don’t have a routine. I’m kind of, you know, as I am, I like to sit outside with my coffee in the morning and just kind of be, you know, that’s like a being time for me. Um, uh, yeah, I don’t have anything routine that I do, but I have lots of things that I, um, do is not the right word that, that kind of arise in me to, um, to practice or, yeah.

Guy (51:15):
Yeah. And, and breath and checking in the body are a couple of them.

Gail (51:19):
Yeah. And also, and, and then, you know, when I’m triggered in some way then, you know, that needs a lot of attention, then right away I’m very like, ah, okay, there’s that young one who’s not feeling seen. And then I go right to that and, and, um, bring compassion there and holding. Yeah. And also my work, I, I do a, I run a weekly group, um, that, that addresses these topics that we’re talking about here. And you know, I get just as much out of it as everybody else. You know, I am the facilitator, but it’s, it’s a, the giving and receiving just kind of becomes all one thing. Yeah.

Guy (51:58):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. And this part of your work and your life, it just becomes part of you then, doesn’t it, as you

Gail (52:03):
Exactly.

Guy (52:04):
As you live day

Gail (52:05):
To day and joyfully, you know? Yeah, yeah,

Guy (52:08):
Yeah. Absolutely. Um, before we wrap it up, is there any, anything that you commonly get asked or I should have asked? I’m always curious about in terms of what we’ve covered today.

Gail (52:23):
Mm, let me see. Nothing’s coming. I feel like we, um, you know, of course we could go more deeply into pretty much everything we talked about. Um, and especially what’s coming right now is emotions, you know, just cuz that’s always a hard topic for people. We could do a whole, you know, conversation around that. But, um, now I feel like we, we touched on some important areas and kind of brought it together as well.

Guy (52:54):
Yeah. Beautiful. And so the last question in mind then for you is that with everything we’ve covered today, is there anything you’d like to leave the listeners to ponder on from everything we’ve covered?

Gail (53:07):
Yeah, a lot. Like all of it. Like, um, recognize that when you’re triggered and when you’re feeling off in some way, there’s something to investigate that that’s a valid thing that’s arising in you. You don’t need to fix it or push it away or try to, you know, make it different than it is. But, um, it’s an opportunity, a situation like that. It’s an opportunity to go in, to breathe with yourself, to get, um, to, to see what’s arisen in yourself, to become grounded again. Our, our true nature is this relaxed, um, open, spacious state, so to speak. And, um, it’s a matter of coming home. That’s a phrase I use sometimes, like, come home, come home and it doesn’t matter how many times, like, oh, this again, you know, I’m feeling that again and I thought I’d done that work already. You know, that’s more mind and self-criticism that just makes things more stuck. But it’s like seeing everything that arises as an opportunity to just come back over and over to the, the truth of who you are.

Guy (54:20):
Hmm. Beautiful. And where can, if people wanna find out more about your book scale and your work and your website, where can I send them?

Gail (54:29):
Uh, well my books are on Amazon, so, uh, they can go to also my website, gail brenner.com. And, um, I do a weekly group and then I have also a course, uh, coming up. Um, sometimes I’ll do like two or three or four day courses and it’s, this course is on Trauma and Awakening and, um, yeah, there’s an events page on my website and there’s lots of content and articles and, you know, things people can take a look at.

Guy (54:57):
Beautiful. And I’ll be sure it every, all the links will be in the show notes as well, so whether people are watching this on YouTube or Spotify, iTunes, um, the links will be there for people as well. Wonderful. So good. Yeah. Gail, thank you so much. I thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.

Gail (55:12):
Me too. Thank

Guy (55:13):
Coming on. Much appreciated. And for all that you do.

Gail (55:17):
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, thank you. Thank you so much.