Feel. Heal. Grow.

This editable transcript was computer generated and might contain errors.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Hello and Welcome To The Feel Heel Grow Podcast. My name is Marina Vander Heyden and I'm the founder of Sprout. An App to help you feel emotions, heal, painful perceptions and grow into your best self In this podcast. My goal is to help you embody wisdom with the application of knowledge to feel adaptable peaceful and resilient in daily life. A big part of this process is acknowledging. How painful experiences may have shaped your present and this is why our very first guest is. Trauma specialist, license, clinical, social, worker, and founder of integrative psychotherapy, in Long Island, New York, Esther Goldstein. Esther and her team, use integrative mind body techniques to help clients heal from trauma, anxiety, and depression.

Marina Vander Heyden:  To move forward in life with newfound strength. So Esther welcome.

Esther Goldstein: So excited to be here and I'm so grateful for our connection and also for the work that you do in terms of helping people here and raise awareness. So, thanks for having me

Marina Vander Heyden:  Thanks Esther. I think it's important to have a variety of approaches to healing and I'm really grateful for you taking the time to be on and talk about trauma and your integrative approach because it seems traumas. It's almost a invisible epidemic spreading through society. But What got you into therapy and and the world of healing?

Esther Goldstein: If you ask me this question a while ago, when I became a therapist, I probably would just say that I had I have a knack or I had a knack to understanding people. I think really unconsciously and more consciously the past number of years Well, got me into the field, is really my own desire to find wholeness and to find my own healing and self development in my own life. And I just don't know what the age of like thinking about going to college. We think about self-development in an in-depth kind of way, right? Like How does my mind my body the rhythm of my soul work? But yeah, I think that I was a child who

Esther Goldstein: Was very aware of my surroundings. So, on the one hand that can be a beautiful experience, but it could also be somewhat burdensome. I noticed that there were people in my extended family that struggled with certain addictive tendencies and I was just kind of confused, like, Wait, how do we stop this from happening? And I think I told you, I really like I almost had this fantasy of a child like helping, save the world, be some CIA agent working. Something like, big law firm, be the voice,…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: right? For people who don't have a voice children of adoption or divorce, But then like I shared I really wanted to focus on also being a mom. I'm a mom myself. So I looked at other ways of helping and then I landed in the therapy world, the psychology field. And what's interesting. And I'm, I'll stop and we can continue, is that what I thought I was getting into is so different than what I actually have experienced like a day to experience. People think. And I just want to say this for anyone listening, like, you might think healing or even meditation, or I know you have this platform is something and I think just being open to what healing or change or development a couple can be like, could be a gift. We give ourselves because my journey has been so uniquely different, but I ended up kind of like a long down the road. I ended up

Esther Goldstein:  Obviously, getting connected to good mentors engaging in some of my own work and not just in terms of therapy, but like yoga or being more mindful of the people in my life relationships that I chose or choose and then I realized the importance of creating an integrative approach to healing for clients and also to have a therapeutic supportive environment for staff. So the way I look at our integrative treatment centers that we have a staff where we really have each other's back, there's a lot of support for that and then we provide, yeah, creative approaches, the healing, for our clients, we get to serve Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: Wow. It's so you also focus on creative arts and dance movement, and various types of therapy. That's, that's kind of part of your integrative approach, right?

Esther Goldstein: Yeah, it's interesting because like And I was in a postgrad training. A New York City and I remember there was someone who was gonna go back to school for her masters and art therapy. And I was really thinking about it because a lot of my own anxiety symptoms were symptoms that I felt on my body but didn't really have thoughts connected in my mind. And so, I was trying to find other ways to release the tension or trying to make sense of myself. But yeah, I ended up hiring a few art therapists and movement therapists all of our rooms actually, on our, on our chat, for our practice. We just confirmed that we have. We have a sand train, all of the rooms we have, I don't know if you can see. There's like that green little, that's part of like dance movement. One of our dance movement therapist like a linkage and dance movement activity in the room. We have all of our rooms have like,…

00:05:00

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: art equipment and Century and like masks or whatever it is that it might be. And sometimes people say like Wait isn't that just for children and it's like, No, no. Art and movement is for all human beings, right? You know this so

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah, of course. And I like how you mentioned that. Before you got into it was a completely different perception of when you actually were doing it because I think everyone's individual healing path is so completely different and unique. So what do you think was different about your perception of it versus actually working in it?

Esther Goldstein:  I love that question.

Marina Vander Heyden: Mm-hmm.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: and,

Esther Goldstein: Have acquired and also on the resources that resources and supports that I have invested in my life and then what I have right now. So, but it's not as it's not as sexy, it's not a shiny people say like, Oh therapy, you're gonna heal and feel better. And or it's like the marketing for some of the therapy techniques of like go to You know, this, this therapist then sometimes I just I think I think what I would say is like it's a lot less sexy but it's a lot more helpful. So if you're not getting better and it's taking some time and if you're listening to a meditation or you're tapping into podcasts and you still have some grief on your heart, don't give up, you know, it's kind of like it's being engaged in this longer term.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah, and

Esther Goldstein: Process of shifts that get you better quality of life in the long run.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah and recognizing that there is no one size fits. All there's no one retreat. There's no one meditation or app or podcast that can help you transform in your life and heal your pain and grow into your best self. It's really it's really subjective and I think that's like as a therapist it's Kind of your job to help people explore the different ways in which they can heal in their own experience. but, one thing that really stood out about you to me,

00:10:00

Marina Vander Heyden:  Is your focus on trauma because I think it's something. So of course it's a buzzword on social media. It's often misused but it is something very prevalent in the world right now that affects a lot of people and surprisingly not a lot of therapists are well versed in. So what got you, what? Got you started in in trauma and And yeah. What was like? What got you started into trauma therapy? Specifically

Esther Goldstein: Yeah, if you ask me, you know and I was in my graduates, the program there were choices. Like If you want to work with substance abuse, do you want to work with like early childhood and development? Or do you want to work with family systems? There was no sub context of working with trauma? I think it might have shifted at that point. But if you would have asked me, Do you want to work with trauma? I would be like I would ask the question that some people ask me when I say trauma that well, you mean head injury like TBI and like, no wiring like this different Kinds of drama,…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah. Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: you know, but really I think I shared with you. I, I had special. I started off specializing and I actually did the track in substance use and abuse. And then I was living abroad and Israel. I was finishing up my internship and then I did a postgrad training at Hebrew. You with the subsect Hebrew, you called my full house, which they did a training and treating trauma sexual, trauma and complex trauma.

Esther Goldstein:  And at that point, some of the people I was working with had been in terrorist attacks but you know, was like a war zone. And so I started doing research on the people who from those kinds of single incident traumas. Those who recovered in shorter periods of time and who held recovery and let me just define recovery as people who had symptom reduction and we who have more energy and capacity to engage in their light, likely tasks versus the ones who went through similar experience of the same experience and had a much harder time kind of getting back on track. And the theme and then I started applying the same thing for people who had gone through on a car, other kinds of traumatic experiences like sexual abuse, emotional neglect.

Esther Goldstein:  And when I realized was that some people were able to hold sobriety right with addiction. So some people were able to engage in healing and work through flashbacks or panic and have more capacity and bandwidth to get back to daily life or to interact with the world even though they had those painful experience. It and some kind of almost like kept relapsing are there with our drug of choice or found the different way to numb, get into cool dependent relationships. We're just had chronic symptoms. And I mean, we take a pause and really look deeper. And that's when I started looking at this, the etiology of pain or the internal system of how these people's internal world. Right? They're development. And what a lot a lot of the data that came up with or people who had early childhood experiences or current experiences of secure attachment and good relational dynamics and positive, belief systems, we're able to have just not because of what they

Esther Goldstein: anything better, but just because of their their programming and the supports they had I'm have less symptoms in the long run. And so, it made me start thinking, like, Okay, I want to help people in a bigger realm, not just be like, I'm administering treatment. This person is doing okay. But like three months later, he's right back in treatment, and this other person is fine and it's good enough. Actually, in three months later, he told me results. I'm like, I want to help the people not just work on behaviors, right? Not just work on skills. Not just work on this recent incident or with addicts.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Here.

Esther Goldstein: I would say, like helping them stop using the behavior. I'm like, Let's work on the poor, which is usually like the pain right addicts. Addictive behavior, using our phones turning to drugs, alcohol sex, right? Love addiction, and numbing out or dissociating, right? Or having a panic. All of those intensities are we to kind of, It's like a Band-Aid for a Google Real deep pain. And I'm like, I'm not gonna stay in this field…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: if I'm not getting to the core of your pain. So, I was like,…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: I want to get to the core, right? Like the underpinnings of what's causing all of this this ease. Let's try to get to the core and then, obviously, we want to help provide healing and relief to that pain or provide some kind of intervention, but even just by starting to identify the poor roots. It was often a huge sense of relief and like you're not crazy, right? This is just how your brain has been programmed, and we're gonna help you. We're gonna help you.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah, and It really does feel like you're, you're putting a Band-Aid on a womb wounds when you're just addressing the symptoms and not the actual root of the issue. So I think your work is incredibly important for this purpose and so would you would you explain…

00:15:00

Esther Goldstein: One.

Marina Vander Heyden: what the difference is between trauma of omission and trauma of commission. So like the the shock trauma from the people that you worked with that injured terrorist attacks, for example,

Esther Goldstein:  Yeah, so I'm just gonna define trauma of omission. And trauma of commission for everyone here, because somebody comes people, I mean, I think there's been more knowledge but it always helps to repeat information that's helpful for anyone. So, when people think about trauma, they either think of the two different kinds of trauma. There's like shock trauma and developmental trauma. So shock traumas, usually like being in a car accident being raped, right? Having either having a horrible, like shaming experience being bullied being physically hit, they yell that and then developmental, traumas, more of like experiences in your childhood, or throughout developing years, even teenage years where there are area of the wounding, so might not be as shocking, right? It might be like ongoing sexual abuse, maybe somebody, who interacts with you, in a way, that's very demeaning with our mentally, manipulating you, maybe ongoing feeling up, not being understood having families where you're either living in a war zone. So it's more developmental. And people think, oh, shock trauma is worse than developmental trauma, but it's not the

Esther Goldstein:  Case The case is really a matter of like, whatever your experience is, how it impacted your brain, and your body and the beliefs. That you developed around it. So if somebody I'm just gonna go off on a tangent, I'll come back to your definition But if somebody who had a single incident rate, but they had like really supportive family who came right away to their help, help them process it and they felt supported. They might not develop long-term trauma symptoms. And someone who might have, like, ongoing neglect, or being shamed or manipulated in their home environment. Or in school, might have pretty severe trauma symptoms, and be afraid to speak up later on in life. And you might be like, Wait, this is not shock trauma, right? That's more developmental trauma, but the ongoing kind of form of abuse or or, you know, trauma or pain, really impacts the brain and then the beliefs, that the development and how they feel safe or unsafe in their bodies, so,

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: So, that's just like the backdrop now, to come back to the trauma of omissioner. Trauma of commission, I'm trauma of commission means like something happens, right? There's like him like commission, like you're adding something, so you're being hit, You're being yelled at you're being shamed, right? So there's a lot of, like, Trauma commission, is something is happening to you? That's the generic kind of trauma. People think about a lot trauma. Mission is basically the things that you need it to happen, but never happened. Right? So I look like this piece.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: I think is so important Marina because you said earlier, like It's this invisible epidemic that's going on and I meet people so many times that it's like but I don't have a trauma and I look at them and I'm like, darling, you don't have trauma of commission, but you have so much trauma of omission, right? I don't use that language, but it's like there's so many things that you needed that you didn't get.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: And there's these aching holes in your heart. It's a trauma of omission just to Is like not getting that hug,…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Mm-hmm.

Esther Goldstein: not getting those words, not having somebody who, you know, makes eye contact with you, never really socially belonging right? Not a teacher who's looking out for you and…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah. Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: you're struggling behind in class. Feeling like a so it's kind of like the the not getting those developmental gaps. There are times in your life where you needed something and you didn't get it.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah, it's it's kind of trauma of a mission. Kind of relates to the pain of having no story to describe why you feel certain symptoms or no story that you can, maybe readily identify on your own, which is where a therapist comes in. yeah, this So do these symptoms,…

Esther Goldstein: I love say that. Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: How did the symptoms manifest through different types of trauma? Is it is it more like body focused for trauma of commission? Or are they kind of intertwined or like, How does that? How does trauma affect us?

Esther Goldstein: I love this question. I really love this question, just so you say kind of the term of like, there's no story. Thank you for saying that…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: because for anyone listening, like, if you feel like, you know, your friends or your buddies, your neighbors have a story and you don't really have a story. You have some kind of pain or confusion. Give it a minute, right? Your storyline.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

00:20:00

Esther Goldstein: I have a generic head. You know headline or you might not have a typical. Book cover. But that your story is not valid. And it makes me think about a blog. I once wrote I once wrote a poem I think you write poetry too right here.

Marina Vander Heyden: I do, yes.

Esther Goldstein: I wrote a poem once. Well I wouldn't call it a poem till after and it was called The Invisible Perpetrator. and it was basically talking about it was basically talking about when we walk around the world, right? Let's say, I know for myself, it was a time that I had ended a relationship that wasn't good for me. And I felt so confused and so alone, and then I was thinking about, this experience when we feel so empty and unmet in a relationship and then for some people in their childhood, or in long-term relationships, or in society, and now you can walk around feeling like society of the world has neglected you

Esther Goldstein: But it's so confusing, because there's no purpose, no one's hurting you, no one's hitting you, no one's shooting at you,…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah. Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: but it's, it's, but you feel like you've been, you know, hurt in some kind of way, right? So, but I love how you said kind of this piece of Of the having no story. So just to anyone doesn't have a story or feels like they don't have a story. Um, yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: Mm-hmm. And there's there's a lot of shame associated to that too. Just feeling such a profound hurt or longing, for what you've never had and thinking, Oh, because because nothing quote, Unquote, shockingly bad happened to me or that I that I can think of. Then there must be something foundationally wrong with me, right?

Esther Goldstein: There is a lot of shame. Yeah, yeah. I think that's part of the trauma.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: And then, I'll talk about how trauma manifest itself. I think that's part of the trauma. And I love how you said, like, That's where therapy or that's where the right kind of support. And basically someone saying, Hey there, I'm gonna sit with you and I'm gonna get to know you and I I get to know you. I'm gonna hear the things that you're saying and I'm also going to notice the things that you're not saying Right.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Mm-hmm.

Esther Goldstein: And I'm gonna notice your body is talking to me if I have a client who comes in, right? I'm in this training of sensory, motorcycle therapy, and I'm in the last, there's three years of training and then there's practice and get our own somatic therapy done. But like what we learn also is the way that our clients carry their bodies and what they've had to learn how their muscles and their whole system have to learn. How to, you know, hold themselves to get attention to be safe. Some are kind of shutdown. Some are walking around like all like pushed out, but they're so ready for like fight. Right. Some people have either trapped in their body they just want to,…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: right? So, So I think part of part of this is like, right saying like if when you meet someone or when you give yourself that gift, There's someone saying I'm gonna listen to your words, I'm gonna listen to your body. I'm gonna listen to what you're saying, I'm gonna listen to what you're not saying because if the client comes in and talks all about, you know, her sister. And I know that there was a brother and she's just never mentioned him, right? That was the way, but he was so delightful. But I see how we're dynamics with. Men are constantly chasing after emotionally unavailable, man, like she's waiting for that approval or that love. He's waiting for Daddy to come home.

Marina Vander Heyden: He?

Esther Goldstein: And just, you know, I just want to be with you, Then a good therapist starts putting those pieces together and helping the client make sense of the story that maybe doesn't have a story, but it is her story and just even starting to be like, Wow. So Dad was away a lot, right? Nothing. Well, your dad was neglectful and that's why you're running after emotionally unavailable men, but just starting to give words and give sheep to the story of the of the story that this person is living within and how they can engage in healing. So they could be more whole and interact with the world in our whole way. Not from this, like hungry place with our grasping and I think the shame coming back to the shame pieces, that you'll feel shame when we have, right? Because there's this piece of like I should be okay without this one.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: It's really like really. You should be you're supposed to not have like a pair of shoes to walk around with and you should be okay. Only, um, but we want to be okay, right? And which be okay. So we put on like, plastic plastic where we take those like, flip-flops. And we're running out and snowstorms of life. I'm just giving an example, like, sometimes we don't have the right gear and…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: steam, really actually comes to protect us because if I'm ashamed of the fact that I'm very clingy or that I have anger Alberts. Shame will actually help me to tuck that away to keep it away, right? I want to be, I want to belong. I want to socially belong. So thank you your grassy. I'm gonna feel ashamed of my clingy and Graspiness, and try to hold that in. So nobody notices that I'm thinking and grass because it pushes them away. Hide it and then people are gonna like me. I might be successful at the hiding or not successful. Right, but some point,…

00:25:00

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah. Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: it's like if there's, you know, if, if you're able to share that story in a place, where someone helps to make sense of where it came from, and why it's there and part of the therapy, by the way, is that or even our knowledge is that the shame starts disappearing? Right. Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: Mm-hmm. You and just really developing our story and understanding it bringing words and language to the story. Helps us. Kind of shape the narrative in a way and how we understand it. Like, there's not that, there's not something maybe foundationally or fundamentally wrong with us, but that this was a coping mechanism that was actually helping you for a period of time. Not just sheely inhibiting us and so, I guess, um, Protection, mechanisms and coping mechanisms. They, they serve a purpose like, like shame and even Addictive behaviors. They serve a purpose as well, right?

Esther Goldstein: They all serve a purpose and I want to circle back to that question where you said, how to trauma symptoms present.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: And it's kind of like, Let's just hold the term trauma very loosely because some people have an allergic reaction to trauma, right? They're like, I don't have trauma, and I'm like, Okay, it's we don't have to use the word trauma,…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: right? Like, let's just say we're only men and going through this human experience. We all go through experiences that are good and are not so good. Some of us have more neglect. Some of us have less neglect,…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah. Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: some of us have really secure times in our life. And then later on in life, we have oops moment or pain or reveal something, hits us hard and some of us have more, you know, difficult times when we're younger or maybe. Sometimes we're just hyper focused on a certain form of pooping like perfectionism or just always being the kid who never shows up and it's kind of sad or angry or whatever it is. So let's just say like in this thing called life. How do we know when we have some kind of wounding, many some attention, right? Because really like really,…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: really people say, Oh you go digging for work. I'm like, you think I invite clients come to my office if they're perfectly fine and like no, like I don't care what your story really is. It's all a matter of like functioning and being able to do this thing called life. with a place with the, with a sense of like ease or joy, even though and also capacity to deal with Vanessa shutdown.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: Trust that you can move through. So, I think, Marina the way that trauma presents itself, right or pain, Um, is in a few different ways. Are there? Someone will have some symptoms of just feeling this feeling of emptiness. Feeling lost, right? They might have like, really strong symptoms of anxiety. Feeling misunderstood maybe like some waves of, like sadness and depression, right?

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: Almost all about like the biological component or people, sometimes medication and also the therapeutic piece or…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Mm-hmm.

Esther Goldstein: we'll also find is like, we just said, about coping. We'll see people who are engaging in behaviors that are not good for them. Most of the time, they know it's not good for them but they just can help it. It's like if I'm bleeding out and and there's a Band-Aid right here and even though the band-aid's a little dirty, it's holding me from bleeding out and dying. I'm just grab that dirty bandy because it's some kind of protection.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: Now somebody says, Well why did you do that? Well there is nothing else around me, right? So like I had a client…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: who got in a relationship with someone who had a really unhealthy characteristics but she was essentially almost homeless And you know, 15 years later, she's like, Oh my God, how did I get into this marriage? And I said, Let me tell you a story. Of this girl named Sally. That's not her name. 15 years ago, there was this girl and I told her the story of herself that she had told me And I'm like she was out there feeling terrified in the world and she met this person named Gabe which is also not his name and Gabe. And I literally told her the story and she was like, Yeah, she's brilliant. I'm like She's good. This was safety for her.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: Now, did she know that she was gonna develop an infection?

Marina Vander Heyden: Okay.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah. Yeah.

00:30:00

Esther Goldstein: Like it's like explaining to them, the concept of body flashbacks, what that means or body memories is actually that the bodies having memories and emotions of a previous experience is trying to tell you a story. So I'll have clients coming with symptoms and they're like, I'm totally fine, right? Because their hedge feels fine, but their body is not, their body is holding on some memories. So sometimes we'll see that,…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: um, as well. Where there's almost like these flashbacks, which is almost like the body flashing back in time where they might actually have like, cognitive flesh back. So, memory, flashbacks or nightmares, that it doesn't always mean that that specific experience happen. But some of it is like themes are like fear being trapped or you know, you might have this positive as well. I have plans to talk about amazing flashbacks of the past as well, but we're feeling,…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Thank you.

Esther Goldstein: which usually means There's something that wasn't properly digested, that's asking to have some attention so it could be digested and people can move on. Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah, yeah. It's it's incredible. How intelligent the body is even if our brains are not aware of what's going on in the body? How our nervous system has this innate intelligence from that picks up on patterns from our past and projects them onto the present or the future to keep ourselves safe essentially. And so shutting down getting defensive wanting to run away from our problems or even fawn and people please to kind of keep ourselves safe.

Esther Goldstein:  If?

Marina Vander Heyden: It's it's incredible. How the body just does that automatically and we're not even aware of it consciously. So

Marina Vander Heyden:  When you mentioned sensory motor therapy is that that's that's focused on the body and the sensations in the body, which you share a little bit more about that.

Esther Goldstein: Yeah, Pad. I've been created this therapeutic method. It's called sensory, Motorcycle Therapy, and walks all about incorporating.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Mm-hmm.

Esther Goldstein: The different parts of like body movement posture with leaves and how our body holds onto emotions and sensations. Them beliefs memories and being able to work with a whole person. And so essentially the goal of the therapeutic method is that when we're working with a client what we're looking for is we're listening to their story verbally or also listening to their nonverbal story of what they're not seeing. And we're looking at…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: how the body has been impacted by the experience of life. Now there might be a client that comes in because they were in a bike ride accident, right? Maybe somebody hit them and they fell off. And so they have this like twitch that they suddenly develop

Esther Goldstein: And so it might be a single incident trauma. But essentially right might not be something. That's so complex but essentially what I'm listening for is like the point of impact and how I can help them drop into their body, right. The body is holding this memory of kind of like a few pieces. Number one, they were dry, they were riding somewhere, right? Trauma is basically that you, you weren't prepared. Like, you didn't know, it was coming, right? Affecting?

Marina Vander Heyden: Here.

Esther Goldstein: It was coming, you weren't prepared for it and there was nothing you could do to stop it from happening that you lose connection with other people, right? So there's like this threat to safety for yourself or perceived through that for yourself or someone else. There's no, there's no awareness that it's happening. You can't stop it from happening. And like, you feel kind of out of touch of connection to other people. So what we'll do is like we want to help. Look at what happened or that experience. Now often it's like there's trust in the body trust in the environment Trust in the world and people around and what we're listening for is like what happened there that there was this injury, right? So the

Esther Goldstein:  Ain't either like right the point where like, they hear a honk where they try to stop on their breaks and it doesn't stop, and then they fold to the ground. And so we're negotiating. Not just like the getting in the bike crash, but also like how they fell, who was around them, what's the belief? What's the danger, right? And the twitch is often. Like the body is trying to remember what happened. So it could be, It's almost like, I think I mentioned this to you. It's almost like there's an experience when we go through experience with our brain experiences, it and then it digests it overnight, and then it goes into long term memory. But when there's an experience, those traumatic and the body and brain couldn't digest, it stays here and then it causes symptoms. Either those symptoms or panic or nervousness or people pleading, right? Or just like

00:35:00

Esther Goldstein: Whatever symptoms. Somebody might have a more intrusive thoughts because it hasn't been digested properly. The body is still like waiting for either something bad to happen, or to have to swerve, right that. So had Ogden talks about either like a bike accident, or you might work with somebody who, you know, in any situation when she wants to speak up shuts down or what, right? Like you're talking about the whole response which is people pleasing. Like somebody thing and…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: they want to say, No, that doesn't work but they just can't say it because they're terrified, right? They try saying,…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: no, maybe they would have been hit badly or but it would have been threatened to be kicked out of the house, right?

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah, and sometimes people say, like, you hear sometimes self-help say, Oh, just get over your emotions, right? And, and, you know, sometimes feelings and emotions. They're, they're not at all, founded in reality, but they are very real physiologically and that that extreme terror. Someone can feel in their body as a result of trauma can totally inhibit them. So, how does, how does one go about healing? Something that's so,

Esther Goldstein: Yeah, yeah, I love your questions. I still on target. So I'm gonna answer basically specific to sensory motor, but it's really any therapy. Part of you is that we're listening also for the child within, or we're listening in, or we're looking for the part that went through the pain or the trauma, or the fear, right? Any someone tells me say, I have a boss who's very demanding who always ask me to do things and half of the time. It's too much for me and I can't do it and I end up working late into the night and then I yell at my partner and my kids, I'm just angry and moody and I'm self neglecting. Okay, so it's much. And somebody says to me, Just snap out of it, they know, I don't want to do it, right? And it's not about the fear of losing my job. Let's say, let's say it's not about the fair losing my job, but the terror I feel and speaking up to this person is so much that I become paralyzed.

Esther Goldstein:  So if somebody does just not bad of it, I can either force myself to this associate to say no to him and to be stuck in terror and to read traumatize myself. And maybe not even be present with what he's saying, right? Or to say no and he says okay and he honors it, but I'm still terrified the next time somebody else because when we have issues, they pop up in every area of our life. Somebody else asks me and I know I have to be up to force to reach, traumatize myself to do that again, or just be like, no, I can't. And then I just think I'm a loser. So I'm not against exposure therapy and exposure techniques. I will challenge people to step down trees, but I think the difference is this what you were just asking, so in sensory, motorcycle therapy, and in any of the really good therapies that are trauma and informed, Well, we're looking for is where is the person in the here and now and where is their experience at their body and their mind, collapsing into the past?

Esther Goldstein:  The past mean six months ago you were in a relationship with someone who would shout at you. If you ever didn't iron his shirt properly, right? The path to be that you had a friend who was always talking behind your back and you started doubting everyone around you. You don't know if you could trust them. The past could be that you were sexually violated right uncomfortable in your skin. So essentially what's happening is that when you're working with a person, you're listening for what's happening now. Okay. And then who else is in the room with us? Sometimes it's a young child or it's smooth as a five year old. Sometimes it's a 15 year old. Now when it comes to like parts work like I'm trained in ifs and parts work, sometimes there's a few different parts sometimes there's like a teenage part that was very promiscuous because of its way of like escaping and run away from home life and maybe there was like a five year old who's bad and neglected. Right? But you're listening for when you're working with a client. A skill therapist is saying, Okay, so here's the client of people places.

Esther Goldstein:  So instead of me just saying, Come on just, you know, you're 42 years old. Tell your boss. No, I'm starting to listen for who else is in the room right here. That's holding that terror. That can't actually open your mouth because if she did back then whenever the then was something bad would have happened to her or so that happened to the people around her, right? If her mom or her sister, spoke up to someone and I got slapped and then got punished in some way she learned. Don't you ever speak up? Because then there's danger. So in good psychotherapy just so you understand we're working with. We're always working with Google Awareness and you don't tell the client. That's like, by the way I'm working with two different parts of you. You get you very natural way. Like I always say like, you know, As you're telling me the story about your boss, I can't help but get a sense that there's some real worry there or it feels almost impossible.

Esther Goldstein:  And just wondering like, is it, does it feel impossible to the 42 year old? Or is there some other part of you that knows something about? Or That's you know that that know something about speaking up that makes it feel like dangerous or really not something that you should do. Right? You start working with that part, write a good therapist that's working with the part that actually is holding a survival mechanism of either. Yeah, either someone who in this specific situation, maybe was wanting and just like, Yeah, whatever you want, right? And then you start working with that part or that belief or that memory.

00:40:00

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: And help and work with that because, you know, if if that part is still in danger, right? Like if somebody's still an actively in a relationship or someone's gonna hurt them, you don't say Speak up right with domestic violence, or if there's ongoing emotional abuse, you don't tell someone to do something that's gonna cause more harm, right? You always assess for safety and…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Mm-hmm.

Esther Goldstein: clients that are in. They'll say, toxic relationships. I don't tell them Davis to your partner, I might or say this your boss. I might say in the here and now in our therapy room or in our time together, Let's just raise awareness for you and your own self. So you know, that you're not crazy. And what he is totally normal and…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: you're coping skills are normal. They're not good for you. We want to start negotiating better coping skills over time. Right, I don't know…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: if I'm answering your question, but essentially what we do is like, we want to help this part, right? If somebody is no longer at home or in the dangerous situation, we want to help, we help process either verbally or somatically. I might work with that fear in the body, somatically, to help it move through health that child, or whoever was see that in the here. And now, it's not the interest anymore and help to provide some relief and orientation to the here. And now so they could feel much more secure and be engaged and healthier functioning aspects of life. So yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah. So you're really bridging that gap between where a painful perception originated and where the person was out at that time, and taking that back to the present, to kind of be aware of what's going on in the present, what the parts, it's connected to, and kind of Retelling, the narrative to, to raise awareness and to I guess, hope people understand that they're coping mechanisms. Are there for a reason that they were helping them and they were helping them deal with perceived danger. Even if it's not necessarily real, that they're not crazy. And yeah, it's it's

Marina Vander Heyden:  It's a lot of helping people understand themselves and and the deepest parts of themselves. So, when you mentioned, helping others heal, Somatically. So the the parts therapy is a lot of that is cognitive based. What does it mean to help someone heal in their body or like a bottom up approach?

Esther Goldstein: I love that you just said that. First of all I love how you also. Just appreciate the fact that you said, How like you're not crazy just for anyone out there. They were times in my life when I thought I was crazy. I used to have really, really bad like stomach anxiety, I mean I didn't think it was Gonna have gastro issues.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah. Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: And I had, I was hyper aware of things that my family that everyone was like, no. oh you know and so just even getting to know like different people dynamics and the ways that everyone operated to orient around powerful people or wealthy people Or you know, different social and cultural norm than kind of being able to navigate that and finding what feels right and healthy for me and setting boundaries that are right and healthy in a way. That's um, you know, graceful but also very clear, very crystal. Clear, it's a process.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: So I love how you're saying just like that compassion, I think is huge, especially and I want to highlight the self compassion that you keep talking about because the world isn't always so compassionate, especially if they don't want to look at their own scars. It's like, Are you being so understanding to yourself and And and…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah. Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: the funny thing is people's thumbs. Have an allergic reaction to compassion. They say, you're gonna be compassionate that you did bad things, or You did things that cause you to, you know, launch later on in life or to be less than an idea whoever parent partner worker. And I always say like look, Self-compassion is not the same as being like apathetic and just being, you know, Non-forward thinking, in terms of your growth actually self-compassion is usually what propels people to to mobilize things each in a different way of being. So, we're not saying, Oh, everything you said is everything, you said and done is okay, and just keep doing everything. We're normalizing it, we're not shaming you so that…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah. Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: then goes in, but we're through whatever. Whatever experience. So I love that compassion, that just comes across. Words, The bottom-up approach is that.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Mm-hmm.

Esther Goldstein: Essentially, what we believe is that our bodies will experiences and I could just speak for myself. So I used to have this really bad. Like belly issues. I was in the emergency room a few times and I had no memory there was a loss in my family, there was a death, my family when I was very young and it was spoke about it and I was always like the person I have dimples everyone called me dimples smiley right? Like a smiley face sunshine. I I unconsciously took on the burden. I would say in the responsibility of making everyone happy so they didn't have to deal with the Greek because they don't know how to deal with the grief. This person in the family who died and there was a lot of like the pain and the anger and the confusion, and the secrecy around.

00:45:00

Esther Goldstein: Around it. And so, I think part of my passion about the bottom of approach is that I went to therapy and I went to talk therapy and it wasn't helping me. You know, I remember like when I myself am a therapist and I was like, It's so weird. Like, I'm going to talk therapy. I have anxiety and for my bellies hurting me and the doctor say it's not medical. So what's going on? And only when I started working with a therapist to help me just get in touch with my body.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: Right. And I wasn't like,…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Really.

Esther Goldstein: and I had I really wasn't. I was really out of touch with my body you're saying like How do we do that? It's like the first step is even just developing a relationship with the body. Like. That doesn't mean just saying like Go inside.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: Go go inside. We're sometimes we tell clients like So just check inside. Check inside. We're right like it takes time.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: Oh our relationship, right? Like you you do these meditation then so much of These other kinds of supports are all a matter of like can you engage in daily practices that help you even develop an awareness of the power of your mind. And your body. Notice how big or…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: small, you feel in the room, right? Just even start feel what it's like to like, Touch your your arm right? Feels on your elbow, right? How does it feel for some clients? I have them. Look at themselves in the mirror just like notice your facial expression. Your body. So, I think the first thing is, even just number one developing something called a felt sense, which is kind of, like, just developing this somatic, which just means like the body sense of who you are. We live in our bodies. A lot of times symptoms that works experiencing are connected to how our bodies feel. So what starts with like, developing slowly like somebody's telling a story. And as they're telling a story, I might slowly help them with a mindfulness directive. Um, and I might drop my tone. Like, I'll meet them if they're either talking very quickly or very slow and very down so meet the client where they're at, but then I kind of want to shift them into some, if somebody's very down, I'll engage in that way and then kind of bring them a little bit more energetically up.

Esther Goldstein: Behave your conversation or somebody's, very jumpy, I'll bring them down and then as they're talking, I might link up to some kind of awareness of like, Yes, you're kind of lunched over when you kind of slouch over when you talk about your dad. Or I just realized that, like, yeah, that does it feel like does the room, suddenly feel kind of like, it has the sadness in it, right? If they're holding sadness and I want them to feel bad that I'm picking up on it. Like it's not, their sin is something, you feel that that's sadness in the room suddenly like, as we started talking about your younger brother,…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: right? So you start working with like the other senses and the energy and like the burdens and or the pain or I worked with clients. Who just I feel like they they just have terror or they have so much anger in their body. So, the way that you work with it, is that instead of talking about, so you're angry, why do you think that you're angry? Oh, you get nervous. Oh, you have a hard time getting in a car or you feel trapped and you go on a train. Oh you think that you're afraid of love, right? Or Oh, wow, you can't stand your children like all those words. Like it can get cathartic. So you so you could talk And but the talking, you always want to kind of link it up to another part of the person and you try to get in touch with like the energy or some kind of somatic awareness. Now, for some clients, I like they think a tbgb like Why are you helping me in touch with my body while you asking me? You know how my chest feels. So I might use my help as a tool and…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: be like, as you're telling me this, I actually feel like my heart dropped. Yeah, you know so I'm like mirroring to them or…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: I'm like embodying. Some of what's going on. So the bottom of approach is that you're really helping the client, tell the story not just from their body or about themselves, but with themselves. And as they tell the story, you're often helping them, unburdened or get in touch with the pain is often like tears or left or a bit more movement or a shift in their posture. You might work with it. I might say like we just try a physical exercise, right? If we're sending a boundary with free. So essentially it's helping the body experience relief. Some clients don't want to talk about trauma and I'll say like, you actually don't even have to talk much. I'm just tell me what emotion you feel in a client might say, Well, I feel sad and I'll be like, Can I go? We work with sadness and literally, we're working somatically. Let's say that could be noticed where the sadness is in your body and I'll slowly work with them. And then the session might just be so many tears that they're all day for too many years or spoke about for too many years.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah. Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: Yeah, I'm answering your question but that's part. Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Definitely definitely. And you know, you don't always have to go back into the, the painful experience and relive it to to heal it. You're absolutely right. Just Processing, how it feels in your body and being compassionate to yourself which the word compassion literally means.

00:50:00

Marina Vander Heyden:  To, to be present with your suffering to suffer with, right? and, Like that's that's why I believe emotions are so important. You know, it's not mind over matter because emotions are very real, they're the energy in our body are our breath, our sensations are heart rate, our muscular tension and the more we can connect to that and the emotions that are living within us, the more we can work through them and learn tools to work through them and recognize them in ourselves and in everyday situations outside of therapy outside of meditation or well-being. And and really just understand ourself better develop a deeper relationship with ourself and

Marina Vander Heyden:  Are you okay for time, by the way?

Esther Goldstein: I'm okay for time I have a few more minutes. I want to just say one more thing about I just kind of want to highlight what you said about compassion. Well, being able to be with like suffering,…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: or with like big emotions. Peoples and those get really afraid, people get afraid of being with emotions, you know, like an aedp, they talk about that. There's no positive or negative emotions. There's just emotions, but either have space or…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: don't have space. And the most interesting thing is, is that we feel yucky when we don't have space for emotions, like a lot of our symptoms. Now obviously there are people, I just don't want to ignore the medication piece. Like Obviously, I think there's a place for medication. Is it least like biologically?

Marina Vander Heyden: Definitely.

Esther Goldstein: There are people that predispositions like you need to take care of your medical health as well. I think there are some people who they, they need to engage as well or be helpful them to engage with what's going on in their mind, their body and that can be more effective or effective alongside with therapy. So eventually they can go off of it. For some people part of their self-care is actually staying on medication while they engage in like you know, helping to work with our brain and our body. But I think essentially like I know for my own self, there were some negative emotions that I didn't know that I can tolerate and I would just run from them and part of feeling has been like, no emotion, it's gonna gobble you up. Every emotion,…

Marina Vander Heyden: No.

Esther Goldstein: right? Like if we can tolerate and change our relationship, Right? The present with different emotions.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: Oh there is a lot more leeway to be and life is about right being able to be Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah. yeah, and even regarding challenging or what we would commonly think of as negative emotions as say rage or guilt or shame or this deep sadness or loneliness and realizing that they arise. For a reason that it's our body sending us messages. They're not, they're not just surely bad, we're not just flawed, or you know, like like if we tune into them, and and we soften into them and begin to understand why they've arisen, they can really They seem to kind of dissolve on their own once we stop running from them and start paying attention to them. And Yeah, it's

Esther Goldstein: Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: And that's one thing I wanted to mention is as well as How can we help each other heal and how can, or how can we How can we be trauma-informed as individuals and…

Esther Goldstein: I love that.

Marina Vander Heyden: not just professionals?

Esther Goldstein: I think the way that we're trauma-informed is number one. Starting with ourselves, noticing the spaces and the places where we get judgmental. Critical get impatient with ourselves. Because we all do from time to, Time nothing until very like a like a platform like yours sprout, getting connected to knowledge until wisdom and making our lives lives. Like, I guess I think about like, The flowers behind you, the greenery behind you Like our environments, really impact us, our thoughts feed healthy, neural networks or less than helpful neural networks. So I think like tapping into or getting connected to You know, positivity knowledge that feeds us that helps us develop more compassion and understanding of how and why we are the way we are.

Esther Goldstein:  And I think naturally for other people, like when you, when you notice yourself judging because we all judge, just pause pause. Before you deliver that comment, pause before you make a snarky making fun comment pause before you know you interact in an angry defensive or reactive way. You make that, you know, hurtful and remark because often you're hurting or somebody else's hurting and you can always choose what's good for you. You could do it in a gentle way or or like in a, You know, an abrupt way. Um but I think you're asking about how can we be trauma? Informed people I think it's by staying like a breast with the world's knowledge like read listen to a podcast or

00:55:00

Esther Goldstein:  But I think it really, and read books. And, you know, we're all in this place and this universe called life and none of us have a way to kind of like escape pain and there's pain and there's pleasure, there's joy and there's difficulty, right? And I think it's a matter of being able to relate from one person to the other from a place of share humanity. And if you understand someone, you can stay curious.

Esther Goldstein:  Right? And if you don't have the capacity or the interest, they curious, then you can choose not to, but don't, but like don't do harm, you know, people sometimes they're like, judging or harmful but I do have to say that at the end of the day, the happiest people on this planet are once or devoted to self growth and self development. And that doesn't mean like going obsessive and having seven books of self healing but your bedside, but it could be like going for a walk having that real conversation that your husband's the money to have with you for six months. Be acknowledging. The fact that you're lonely and maybe you need to choose a different friend groups, right? So I think taking steps towards your own awareness of hell, And really operating from a place of compassion, really shifts the way, the safety, it improves, safety for yourself. And for those around around you and it just helps us feel more. Okay. And the world at large.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah, energy is contagious. Very much so.

Esther Goldstein:  And yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah and the more we can learn to acknowledge our own experiences and how our past has shaped us and the emotions we experience and how to work through them. it seems the more we can help others do the same or even even if we're not Intentionally helping others simply leading by example.

Esther Goldstein: It's so powerful. Like we sometimes you don't realize the power that other people have on us and the power we have on other people. But once went the training and…

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: I was going through a really hard time and…

Marina Vander Heyden:  You.

Esther Goldstein: my personal life and that it wasn't even the trainer there was an attend. There was somebody who was attending who offered to be an assistant to the training and the way she, you know, carried yourself, an interacted with people. And there was one person who was, like being very a little bit, like porcupiney and spiky, and a little, like Graspy, and because she was probably going through a lot and I realized how this person was. So contained, and calm and sweet. But obviously, in a boundary way and I was like, she is, I want to have whatever it is that she has, and it was like, compassion and wisdom, but like clarity. And we're like,…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: she left such a big imprint. I met her a couple years later. I'm like, I have to thank you. She's like, why we didn't ever even had a direct interaction? I was like, I don't know what work you've done or I don't know like who you are as a person but I could just tell you, I was watching your interaction and you really help me anchor into some Them. And I was like, Wow I want to be able to to be hurt you know, or to be able to embody some of that for my own self. we do impact people,…

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: and you know how many times people won't tell us how much we impact them, but later down the road, they'll tell us, you know, Yeah, me.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah. And like you like you mentioned before, it's it's not even the words that someone speaks to us that can impact us. It's it's everything. They don't say how they carry themselves. They're their body language the way they respond to their life and others around them in the world around. Them really says, more than words ever can Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah. Well

Marina Vander Heyden:  There's one quote that I wanted to share. and to, to finish off, if there's anything that you wanted to to touch on or explain more of No, okay yeah there's one quote, it's by Abraham Maslow. The psychologist one. Can choose to move back towards safety or forward towards growth growth must be chosen again and again, fear must be overcome again and again. And I think that's a really evident in in the work you do, and in some of the things that you were explaining. So, Thank you so much Esther and

Esther Goldstein: Yeah. I look,…

Marina Vander Heyden:  You.

Esther Goldstein: I love that quote. I just have to say as someone who negotiate, we negotiate that in a daily basis, right? He is like those.

Marina Vander Heyden:  We do.

Esther Goldstein: I think I mentioned like an old pair of sneakers. That's not good for your posture anymore, but they're so comfortable. And then gold is leaning towards something new.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Yeah.

Esther Goldstein: That's good for us. You love that quote.

Marina Vander Heyden:  Mm-hmm.

Esther Goldstein: Thank you. Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: it in the small things we do every day that help us heal and grow I believe.

Esther Goldstein:  Yeah.

Marina Vander Heyden: Yeah, thank you so much for taking the time to to speak today and to be To be on the on the show and if anyone would like to reach out to Esther or her team, you can do. So at integrative Psych.com and I will put your Instagram Facebook and LinkedIn in the description or show notes.

01:00:00

Esther Goldstein: Thank you. What a gift. What a gift to be part of this. I'm so excited to be connected and thank you so much for this conversation.

Marina Vander Heyden: Thank you. And thank you so much for being our very first guest. Yeah. Yeah,…

Esther Goldstein:  Can't wait to see where this goes. It's going to be amazing places

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