71 [Healing Series] Romantic Relationships

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/71

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Haley Radke: This show is listener supported. You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our healing series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.

Today we are going to tackle intimate partner relationships. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Marta [formerly Drachenberg]. Welcome, Marta.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Hi, Haley.

Haley Radke: Marta is a fellow adoptee and licensed mental health counselor, who is trained in internal family systems, a model she believes to be especially powerful in helping adoptees learn to love and welcome all their internal parts.

So Marta has taught us before about internal family systems, but today I asked her back, because we're gonna talk about just the challenges of being adopted. And being in a romantic relationship with someone and all the fun things our partners get to deal with with us. Is that right, Marta?

Marta Isabella Sierra: That's correct. It is a rollercoaster ride to sign up to be with one of us, for sure.

Haley Radke: Yes, yes. It is no secret that my husband deals with a lot, but, I mean, why is that? Why is it so tough to be with someone who's adopted? What is it about adoptees that can make it a challenge, for just being in relationship?

Marta Isabella Sierra: So, I think one of the most damaging pieces of adoption trauma and that initial severing of that relationship with our first mothers, is that it steals from us any innate sense of trust. If you are with your biological mom and you create that secure attachment in early childhood, you have an innate sense of trust in yourself, in other people, in the world. You have a sense of safety.

And that's something that was taken from us, that was broken very, very early. And so to the point where we sometimes don't even have a concept of what trust is, and almost don't believe that it's a real thing. And this most pervasively affects relationships.

But before I say more about that, I wanted to give a brief example of the difference between an adopted and a non-adopted person, regarding this sense of innate trust. I have a close friend, a dear friend, who went through a pretty brutal divorce this past year, and she was so, so crushed. And part of it was that she had never even thought about the idea that they wouldn't be together forever. It had never occurred to her.

She took all of it at face value and trusted in it so deeply, and it was such a loss for her and such a grieving of, "Oh, sometimes things fall apart, right?" Or sometimes, you trust someone and maybe they weren't worthy of your trust, and that's painful. And there were points in my loving and supporting of her that were challenging for me, because I can't even conceive of that level of innate trust.

My whole life I am bracing for things to fall apart, for things to go badly, for people to die, for people to leave. And so the idea that she was just walking around the world, living her marriage with this level of trust, and for her… To watch her lose that, was so interesting to me and kept bringing me back to, Wow, I have no idea what that would be like to trust something so innately.

So personally and professionally, I feel like I see adoptees struggle so much with all of their relationships (family and friendship included), but intimate relationships are different, because intimacy/romantic relationships are our most vulnerable space. It's the most vulnerable space that we exist in as humans.

It's the closest we let people get, and in that it's the most vulnerable. It's where we work out our family of origin issues, which as an adoptee is so, so complicated, and there's also… Because of all the fear that we're carrying in our systems, there can often be this really strong desire, deeply rooted desire, even, for control.

And I'm gonna quote C.S. Lewis really quickly, who said, "To love at all is to be vulnerable." And we're asked in romantic relationships to be the most vulnerable that we are in our lives, and when vulnerability as an adopted person is linked to feeling unsafe, that gets really sticky and really complicated.

Haley Radke: I definitely have often struggled in relationship. And yet, I've been married for, oh dear, Nick does listen to the show. So he's gonna–12 years. No, it's more than that. No, it's more than that. It's going to be 14 years this year. But I've said before, he's this really stable force in my life. And I'm the one that's up and down, and up and down. And I feel like I bring the challenges to the relationship.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. And that can be a really hard feeling. Feeling… You know, the clinical term for that in a couple's therapy way would say that one person in the couple feels like the "identified patient," like the one that's got all the problems. But it's also of high value, actually, as an adopted person to find someone who is securely attached, to partner up with, which leads me right into talking about attachment styles a little bit.

So, I wanted to recommend a book called Attached, that explores specifically how attachment styles affect adult romantic relationships. And it's really a great book. You can do a self-assessment, you can do an assessment of your partner (if you have a partner currently), and really learn about the different attachment styles.

And the most important thing that the book is bringing forward, from the research that they did, is the idea that our attachment styles are fluid (which isn't how we always thought about attachment styles in the psychology world). At one point, we thought of them as really defined in infancy and childhood, and then that's your attachment style.

But what we're learning is they're actually much more fluid than that. So, the good news of that is that if you aren't partnered yet (as an adopted person) and you seek out someone who's “securely attached,” they can pull you into “securely attached.” You can develop that together. The con of it is, if you're an adopted person and you're super dysregulated and you find a secure person, you can also pull them out of secure attachment and bring them into your world.

Haley Radke: Don't tell them that. I'm looking around…Nick's upstairs. It's fine.

Marta Isabella Sierra: So, I appreciate your vulnerability in speaking to that, Haley, that you feel like the one that has all the ups and downs. But the upside of that is, it's like slinging pudding at a wall and it just falls down, instead of someone catching it and throwing it back to you. Because securely attached people, when we're having our dysregulation are just like, “Hey, there's no fire. What's going on? Everything's fine.”

Like you said, he's this stable force in your life, and so they can reflect that back and it helps us see the places where, Oh, what I'm feeling isn't actually happening in this moment. Or, Something else is coming up from me. I'm not present moment right now.

And there are those of us (myself included), who read this book and learned these things when they already have fallen in love with someone who has the opposite attachment style for them. And they talk about that in the book as well, which is really helpful. I happen to already have fallen deeply in love with someone with an opposite attachment style and someone with their own trauma history as well (that is very different from my trauma history), which provides a whole other myriad of challenges that we get to navigate. Which sometimes is really helpful, and sometimes we really speak the same language, and sometimes we just trigger each other in all of these really terrible ways, and have to work through that.

But that's also not impossible. And so even two people with opposite attachment styles, even if they're not secure, can move towards “secure” together. And it's a lot of work, but I think it's worth it.

Haley Radke: So you mentioned this book Attached, and you're talking about different attachment styles. Can you just give us Cliff’s notes of what that means?

Marta Isabella Sierra: It means how we are in relationship; that's the simplest way that I can put it. A general way of what comes out of us, what parts of us show up when we're in relationship, and again, especially in this intimate, romantic space that can be so vulnerable.

Haley Radke: And can you give an example of a couple different attachment styles?

Marta Isabella Sierra: I do not have the book in front of me, but I believe it's “anxious,” “avoidant.” There's a mixture of those that's a very small percentage of people that are “anxious-avoidant,” and then “secure.” There's some really beautiful examples of how this plays out in attachment styles in this new show that's on HBO–I don't know if anyone's been watching.

It's called Here and Now, so (spoiler alert), I'm gonna talk about a couple of different scenes with one of the characters. It features a family structure of two white adoptive parents, three adult adopted children (one from Liberia, one from Vietnam, one from Colombia), and they also have a biological child as well (a teenage girl).

So, I'm gonna be talking a little bit about Ramon's character, who is the adult child that's adopted from Colombia. And we watch his relationship in the first season with Henry. And there's these two specific moments that I think they did such a beautiful job of really showing what can come up for us: a) that he gets so close, so fast. And that's really common, I think with adoptees. We have really strong feelings, and we're craving that love so deeply that we can run really fiercely towards someone. And you see that side, and then you also see the other side, which is this urge to run, and this urge to end things really quickly, really unilaterally.

So, the first kind of trigger is: he wakes up in the middle of the night one night, and Henry's not there. You really see how he comes undone. Like, Where did he go? And you can see how hard that is for him, and his impulse is to end the relationship. And they work through it with a conversation, but you could see that it could have ended there, had Henry not fought a little bit and said, “No, I want you to know what really happened, and why I did that, and why I'm sorry.” And they move through it. But there's already one point, right? Where they could have gone a different way.

And then there's a later piece where Henry had potentially been unfaithful. And without getting the actual story, without asking any questions, Ramon goes to the worst-case scenario (like we often do, like we're hardwired to sometimes), and just assumes the worst and ends the relationship, unilaterally. And I think there was a lot lost there. And that's getting into my opinion of what I saw these two characters sharing, but I think they did have a shared history of trauma. I think there was a lot of love there, and it was lost in a really fear-based way. So, both of those examples are examples of Ramon being incapable of trusting, of innately trusting. He goes to the worst-case scenario; he goes to the fear response.

And so that's again, that piece where, if we're unable to trust, is going to constantly come up in our relationships, and potentially do a lot of damage to our partners and to us. And so that needs a lot of attention from us, and us doing our work so that our partners aren't being hurt, and also so we can build–even to build something.

And so, you asked me in the last episode, “How did IFS change my life?” I waited for this episode to speak to it, but I wouldn't have the partner that I have today if I hadn't found IFS. I started my training right when we were just starting up, and the dysregulation in the beginning of something new, I think, is really intense for us.

That first year was very intense for me, navigating my feelings and not blowing it up. I have this part that gets so afraid of the realness of it and would blow it up. And when I was younger, certainly, blew up many a connection out of fear. And there was a lot of work to do with my parts in that first year about: it's okay, a lot of comforting, a lot of overwhelm, and that work continues now. Four-and-a-half years later, I'm still doing a lot of work to make, to try to make sure (and I fail epically all the time), that this doesn't affect our relationship.

And so, in the beginning, we used to get in this conflict, that I would say, “I trust you,” and he would say, “You don't trust me.” And we would go round and round with this, really often. And as I was starting to do my first adoption readings about adoption trauma, was right around that same time that we had been starting to date. And so I started learning about this, and really learning about this broken sense of trust, especially from primal wound.

And I was able to sit with him–I still remember sitting on the porch with him. And I was able to say one day, “You know, I think that you're right. I think that I don't trust you. I think that what I mean when I say that is, ‘I want to trust you, and I trust you more than any man I've ever been with.’ But you're right. A lot of me, a lot of parts of me don't trust you at all.”

And that was so validating for him to hear. I just remember his relief and him thanking me for speaking to what his parts already knew was true, which was that I did not trust him. And that's okay; it was a little too soon. And so, the other piece is that trust is a big spectrum. It's not black and white. We don't trust or we don't trust. It's a big spectrum, and I continue to try to move towards that trust. But again, four-and-a-half years in, I still struggle with it today and up through a week ago, moving through a conflict, and him saying, “When have I not been here for you? Since we've been together? When have I not been here?” And I have to ask all of my parts to step back and calm down and acknowledge: Never. I don't have any reason that's real. I just have my traumatized parts that are reacting out of fear.

Haley Radke: One thing I remember I did when I was dating my husband (many years ago), was I would really push him away, big time. And what part of that has to do with trust? Like, I can't really–I don't have the words for it. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. So a polarity that exists inside of everybody, when it comes to relationship, is: we have parts that want to run towards the other person, and we have parts that want to run away from the other person. I believe, in adopted people, those parts get very extreme. So again, we have those behaviors of running towards someone, making up a whole kind of story, and making it more intense, and rushing it and all of that, right? Like, I have to get so close to you that you're my skin. That impulse is so deep.

And then we also have, Oh, but now we are this close, and now I feel really unsafe, and I need to get the F out of here immediately! And there's the running. And so there's these opposing energies that I think (again) get really extreme with us: the parts that want to run towards, and the parts that want to run away, which can feel… Again, that rollercoaster can feel very upsetting to the other person, if they don't understand what's happening.

Haley Radke: Yeah, yeah, for sure. We can see all of these things, I think, hearing you explain this. Probably a lot of us are like, Oh my gosh, listen, I've been sitting here thinking you have cameras in my house. So we're all kinda feeling that way. But then, what are our next steps? If we see it, then how do we work on building that trust, and how do we work on saying to our partner, “Okay, I am working on this. Can you work on this with me?” And those kind of things? How do we navigate that?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yeah. So, again, what comes up in our intimate relationships is a lot of family of origin stuff, which we have two families of origin (really), that we're working with. Two loads of crap that we're trying to get…

Haley Radke: Twice the fun.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Twice the fun. So, there's–it's honoring that, right? That a lot of what's coming up for us is maybe about our adoptive parents, maybe about our birth parents, but that (generally) it's not about that.

When I do couples work, the first thing I say is, “90% of what's coming up between the two of you isn't about the other person. You're hitting wounds, and they're coming up, but they're not–you didn't create them together. They were already there, and you're hitting upon them.” So, I would say step one as an adopted person, is a huge amount of curiosity about what's happening for you and what your feelings are and what's going on in your body, in your heart, in your mind. And really attuning to that so that you can recognize when you're having a really intense emotion and start to be able to recognize when it might be disproportionate to what just happened.

And that's my first signal, personally, is Oh, I'm having a really big reaction to this. I need to slow down. I need to see what's happening. I need to listen. One way that I do that, especially if I'm super escalated, I generally journal on my phone and not in my journal. And it's interesting to go back and read and I can see, “What's about my adoptive parents?” “What's about my birth mom?” And in the journaling, I think I'm writing to my partner, but I read it later and I'm like, Oh, I see who that was about.

It's almost never about him. And so, it's starting to recognize that narrative: “How does that show up for you?” And these are a few triggers, abandonment kind of narratives that I've noticed in myself that maybe your listeners will relate to and hear for themselves.

But if I hear any of these statements inside of myself, I know that it's adoption trauma stuff that's coming up for me. Why aren't you here? Where are you? How could you leave? So short and simple, right? But all of those link directly to my traumatized infant part, and I'm not in the present moment if I'm thinking those things.

If I'm feeling those things, I'm not in the present moment, and I have to ground myself before I can move forward. And so the practical piece of that is, when I notice that coming up and I notice where that lives in my body. I know that a lot for me is right under my rib cage, right in my diaphragm, that a lot of my fear lives there.

So I might place my hand there, and just take a really deep breath and just say, “We're okay. Everything's okay. I'm right here.” And depending on how much I know about what part of me is showing up, I might reassure it in different ways. “We're safe now,” or I might remind that part that my partner is a safe person. “You know that Tyson loves you. Everything's okay. You're in a safe space.”

I might remind that part that my birth mom loves her (which is a gift of my reunion), which I didn't have before to say to her. But now I can say, “She loves you, and you'll see her again. It's gonna be okay.” So that part's really specific, individually, how you calm down the parts of you that got stirred up in the moment. But recognizing is definitely the first step, so that I'm not running out and saying out loud, “How dare you leave? How could you do this to me? Again?” And then we're in a whole thing, right? And now I'm in a one to seven day fight that I don't know what's gonna be said, and what I can't take back.

Haley Radke: So that's if we're already in a relationship.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes.

Haley Radke: And I know several adoptees personally, who kinda go in and out of different relationships and you just sorta see them bouncing from one person to the next. And to me, I look at that from the outside and I think, This is a little bit dysfunctional. How does someone like that, you know, look at themselves and say, “Okay, what am I gonna do next? Do I want a partnership that's gonna last for a while?” I mean, what do you say to someone who's experienced that?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Well, you know, part of me wants to say, partnership isn't for everybody. It's okay if you don't want a partner, too.

Haley Radke: Fair enough. Yes, yes.

Marta Isabella Sierra: But yes, if you want to build a healthy partnership, it's essential that you're doing your own work (ideally with a therapist). I strongly recommend that any adopted person–once you're in a relationship, that you think this might really be something (even if you think, Maybe just for a year, but this might be something); get yourself in couples therapy as soon as possible. People use couples therapy as a Hail Mary at the end, and typically, couples seek help six to seven years past when they needed it.

So part of it is honoring that this is hard for us. This is an area that is difficult for us and we need a little help. And finding a partner that's okay doing that work with us, that's also interested in growth and building healthier relationship and just really honoring.... Again, it's not a place that we're broken, it's not something we can't have, that's just for the other people, but it's a place where that's very challenging for us, and we need a lot of help.

You know, I know for my partner and myself, we didn't have healthy examples growing up. And so we're trying to build something that we haven't even seen, and so we need help with that, and that's understandable. And then to the way other side, I would say for anyone that's single and just dating around, and wants to live that casual life and isn't really ready for something serious: if that doesn't feel safe, don't do it. Definitely don't do it if it doesn't feel safe.

But even in casual encounters, as adopted people, we can get very deeply wounded. And so, it's being careful about our hearts, and our safety, and making sure that anyone we spend time with (even if that's somebody for two hours, that we're gonna be intimate with), that it's safe and that we're clear with our parts about what's happening.

If we're just seeking physical comfort, again, that's totally fine, and we have deep needs for that (generally, as adoptees). But are we being clear with our parts that this isn't our forever person, and we might be leaving them really soon? Are we being clear about our own intention with ourselves, going into it? Or are we gonna let ourselves run wild after, and really get hurt all the time?

Haley Radke: Thank you. Thank you. I think those are all really great things to think about and it's a lot of self-reflection. This whole time, I'm like, Man, you're hitting a little close to home for me, here. Thank you. Thanks for that. It's good. It's good.

Marta Isabella Sierra: It's a very difficult thing to talk about. You asked me to think about examples to share, and it's vulnerable. I have shaming parts about how much I'm still doing my work in this most vulnerable area. I'm very much still doing my work, and it's very much still affecting my partner, and I wish that it wasn't. I have parts that are really angry that it still affects him day-to-day, and that's what's happening.

So, what do we do? We ask for help. And we try to do our work, and it goes as fast as it goes. But if we can say to our partners, “Part of me felt this…,” or even in the repair. Sometimes we can't resolve it in the moment, right? We have to come back later and say, “I think that part of me that got really angry that you left and went to go hang out with your friends, really was feeling that separation with my birth mom. I think that's why I was sobbing. I'm sorry that I put that on you.” That's so different than anything else than any other way we might deal with that.

Haley Radke: But that really goes back to just what you said, a moment ago, about going to couple’s therapy, and how we leave it till this is like seven or eight years late. You know, doing those repairs as you go is so important.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. And I can't tell you how many people (even therapist friends that I have) have had reactions. I casually talk about our couple’s therapy often, and people say, “What's wrong?” “Nothing. Things are good. That's–I want them to stay good, and we're building a foundation, so it's important that we have help.”

Haley Radke: Yeah, I am a big believer in therapy (obviously). I mean, I think it's so amazing to be able to go into a session with Nick and my psychologist (that's who I see). She is just able to help us hear each other, you know? And sorta uncover some stuff, and really have a good conversation about what it's really about. And sometimes in, whatever–in the heat of the moment, you just aren't able to do that. So I love that you just said, coming back later to just do that repair is so good.

Awesome. Thank you so much, Marta. Is there anything that we didn't cover yet that you really want to get to?

Marta Isabella Sierra: I don't think so. That's it. I didn't think I'd get through everything that I wanted to say, but I did.

Haley Radke: Oh, and this was really good. And I did; I felt so uncomfortable talking about this. I don't know why. I had that–Season four, we're talking all about relationships (as we're recording this). And I did this bonus preview episode with my husband Nick, and he relayed all of these things to me about how my reunion with my dad affected him.

And that whole time he was talking, I was like, Oh my gosh. I was so selfish. And I just, I didn't see it till later, and then just reliving that, it brought so much stuff up. And this conversation too, I'm like, Whew! So, you know what? We need to go there. We can't hide these things. This is really what's happening for me, for you, for people that are listening. It's really important to talk about. Thank you.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yeah, you're welcome.

Haley Radke: Marta, where can we connect with you online?

Marta Isabella Sierra: There will be links in the show notes to my personal email. If you just wanna talk to me, that's totally fine, I'm open to that. And also my professional website as well, where my practice information is. And yeah, feel free.

Haley Radke: Wonderful. Thank you so much.

I am so thankful for each one of you that tells me how much the show has changed your life, and I can't believe it. I still get these emails daily, or messages on Instagram, or Twitter, or Facebook. And it means so much to me that you are finding the show so helpful in your own life. So, one of the ways that you can help support the show is by just telling one or two people about the impact it's made on your life, and to encourage them to listen.

So, I know that some of you have been sharing in your adoptee support groups, which is awesome. What a great idea. And also, I've heard from some of you that you're actually bringing the show to share with your therapist, and they are getting more insights from listening to the Adoptees On show. And think about it, if they are able to help more adoptees through their struggles, I mean, it’s like full circle.

It's just so exciting to see this change shifting in the world. So, thank you so much for sharing the show in that way. And one other way you can help me to continue making this show for you is with your financial partnership. So adopteeson.com/partner has details of how you can support the show monthly, with a small gift.

And I have some thank you gifts as well for you for supporting the show in that way. So, I have a secret adoptees-only Facebook group, which is filled with past guests, and other supporters of the show, and they're all really amazing people. Let me tell you, we've had some really great conversations in there.

And also, I have another level of support with some unedited episodes of the podcast. And often I have a guest (Carrie Cahill Mulligan) come on, and we talk about what's happening behind the scenes of the show, and also what's going on in our own lives. Carrie's fantastic. She was a guest in…She was my very first guest, actually, season one, episode one, and then she came back to interview me all about my story (which is the season one finale), episode 13 of that series.

So, if you're all caught up, and you're looking for a few more shows, that's another great way to support the show. And fill your podcast queue. You can sign up for that, adopteeson.com/partner. Thank you so much for listening. Let's talk again, next Friday.

28 [Healing Series] Is Adoption Trauma?

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/28

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Haley Radke: You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our Healing Series, where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves, so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.

Today is a heavy topic. I know I say that every single time it's a Healing episode. We tackle: Is adoption really trauma? Let's listen in.

This is Lesli Johnson, a fellow adoptee and licensed therapist who works to help other adoptees connect the dots of their story and live authentically. Welcome to Adoptees On, Lesli.

Lesli A. Johnson: Thanks, Haley. How are you today?

Haley Radke: Great. I'm so excited to talk to you again. You have really made an impact on our listeners so far, so I'm really excited to tackle this topic with you today.

I've had some adoptees contact me and they've been surprised by some of the stories on the podcast. We sometimes mention adoption as being a traumatic thing, that there's this thing about “adoption trauma”, and I was hoping that you could address that today. Do you think being adopted means that there's some kind of traumatic wound? What are your thoughts on that?

Lesli A. Johnson: I certainly also get contacted a lot with questions related to adoption and trauma. I think trauma is sometimes a hard word to hear, but I do think the process of separating an infant or a baby or a child from their biology, it is traumatic.

The word trauma, I mean, there is a negative connotation about it, but I'm advocating more for just truth and transparency, so that's why I use words like trauma. I don't think that that means that a person has to have a lifelong trauma, but if we're addressing the event as a traumatic event and then saying, “Okay, so now what do we need to do to help this person be calmer, work with their nervous system, work with integrating adoption into their story, to alleviate the symptoms of trauma?” I think a lot of times when people hear the word trauma, they're like, “Oh, that's so negative.” No, it's a word. It's a word. It's a word describing some symptoms that happen to most people when they're separated from their mother.

For a lot of adoptees, there are multiple traumas if they are placed in foster care, or if there are multiple placements. And I think that sometimes when an adoptee has had more than one placement or more than one foster home, that it's sometimes easier to use the word trauma in that situation. And maybe it’s deeper trauma, but I don't think so, I think it's okay to use the word trauma to describe the separation between a baby and their birth mother.

I always use the analogy, most of the time if you're going to get a puppy, you're not really supposed to take a puppy away from its mother until it's six or eight weeks old. But it's somehow okay to have a baby separated from– Not “okay”, I'm not using the word okay lightly, just supporting that idea that there is a traumatic response.

What we know about the brain and the nervous system today –that maybe wasn't evident, you know, 20 or 30 years ago– was that the process of separating a baby or an infant from his or her biological mother, is coded in the nervous system and in the mother's nervous system as traumatic. The only part of the brain that's fully developed at birth is the sympathetic nervous system, which is the fight, flight, or freeze. And when the familiar mother isn't there to soothe the baby, the baby's levels of cortisol shoot up. And if this event of separation happens before the language receptors of the brain are developed, which is between 0-3, the event is just encoded in the nervous system. So we call that an ‘implicit only’ memory, meaning it happened before there was language, so there are no words to describe it.

What I've found in working with adult adoptees, and even teenagers and kids, is that they often –adults who maybe have a little bit more access to their experience and relating it– say things like, “I have this sense of just feeling lost or unrooted or like I don't know where I am, but I don't know what that's from.” And we might be able to relate that back to the separation before there were words to describe what happened. You know, the sense of rootlessness or the sense of where they say, “I don't remember exactly what happened, but I just have this felt sense.” That implicit memory.

Haley Radke: So what's the difference between a biological mother relinquishing right in the delivery room versus a biological mom taking her baby home? So there's that feeling like, ‘Where's my mother?’ What part of that is the traumatic?

Lesli A. Johnson: What we know now in 2017 –that you know, when I certainly was adopted, oh my gosh, almost 50 years ago– is that there's so much that the baby hears and smells even in utero. So, the baby knows the mother's voice. The baby knows the mother's gait, you know, the way she walks. The baby knows the mother's smells. So when that separation happens, everything that was once familiar to the baby is gone. It activates the sympathetic nervous system –the baby's– in fight, flight, or freeze. ‘What do I do?’, you know, not that they're thinking this logically, but their nervous system gets activated.

Whereas if the mother is able to be with the baby and act as the parasympathetic nervous system, the soothing agent, the familiar mother's able to calm the baby and soothe the baby. I mean, there are studies where crying babies are given a piece of clothing that the biological mother– you know, has her scent on it, and the baby is soothed by just even that familiarity.

Haley Radke:There's a connection that's been built, all over the time that the biological mother was carrying the baby–

Lesli A. Johnson: Essentially for the baby's entire life, yeah.

Haley Radke: Right, so then that's what's been severed. Can you talk a little bit about what does that mean? So it's traumatic, and so what does that mean for our brains? What's different between my brain as an adoptee who is relinquished as an infant versus someone who was parented right away?

Lesli A. Johnson: To clarify, a baby taken home from the hospital by their adoptive parents is parented from this start. But there still was that separation. So speaking in general terms, because I don't know if it's a hundred percent, but speaking in general terms, what I see in my practice is a common theme of separation anxiety. Separations and transitions are difficult. There is activation sometimes of just the nervous system so that there's hypervigilance. Sometimes adoptees talk about feeling anxious around separations and transitions. But just a heightened vigilance in the nervous system.

Sometimes people may not even relate that to adoption or the separation. But I certainly would say that most adoptees that I work with in my practice have a significant amount of anxiety and activation of their nervous system. Difficulty self-soothing would be another thing, too.

Haley Radke: So you say some adoptees, they don't even realize that this is connected. So how do we connect those dots?

Lesli A. Johnson: Well, I think you just named it: connecting the dots. I really believe good mental health is the ability to connect the dots of your story and have a coherent narrative.

So for smaller children, it would be helping the adoptive parents view adoption as trauma. I think one of the first books written on this would be Nancy Verrier's The Primal Wound. I remember reading that book in graduate school and kind of putting it away and I didn't wanna have that wound, you know, ‘that wasn't me’. And then realizing, ‘Oh wait, this completely explains it. This really is–’. I think she kind of was a pioneer in that respect, of calling adoption what it is, it's a trauma. So working with that is working with the trauma. Every person might display different symptoms, but talking about it for what it actually is, I mean, the truth is your friend.

Haley Radke: Okay. It is so interesting that you say that thing about The Primal Wound. Because I remember when I was reading it, too, I was like, ‘Nope, nope! This is not me.’ I've had a few adoptees contact me, one in particular I'm thinking of emailed me and he said, “Just so you know, I love your podcast and I listen all the time, but I'm an in-the-fog adoptee,” is what he said. “I'm good with adoption. Like, you know, it's interesting to hear these stories but it hasn't really affected me.” So is that true? Like, some of us are just super affected and some of us are fine?

Lesli A. Johnson: I think that certainly there are people that are: a) maybe more resilient, b) maybe are better able to use coping mechanisms like denial –and I don't mean that in a derogatory way at all– but work at a different level where maybe they're not either making the connections to adoption or they truly don't feel that adoption has had any impact on their lives.

I wouldn't challenge that person. I might challenge them if they were my client and I really saw themes that I've seen with clients. But yeah, I think maybe to each their own. But I've definitely seen it in clients that I've worked with where adults come in and don't think things are related to adoption, and then really start to connect their dots and have a real eye-opening, a lot of ‘aha’ moments, and are able to integrate how adoption has shaped them and add that piece to their story because it is a part of their story.

Haley Radke: It's true, I would never want to “lead someone out of the fog” –so to speak, that lingo– to realize maybe there is a traumatic aspect, because one of the discussions we've been having in one of my Facebook groups is like, “This is too hard. Let's go back in the fog. We don't wanna deal with these things.”

Lesli A. Johnson: Yeah, denial and repression are super powerful. They're super powerful coping mechanisms.

Haley Radke: So what else can we use to not just cope, but heal from this trauma?

Lesli A. Johnson: Acknowledging it as such, and then working with it like you might other traumatic events or events that are perceived by the individual as traumatic. So, working with establishing a coherent narrative; support groups; therapy; you mentioned Facebook groups. I think when you're able to have a supportive group of people to run ideas by, run thoughts by, have your feelings and thoughts and experiences validated, that can be really healing. And as you know, we've talked before, I'm a huge proponent of EMDR therapy, which is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy. It's an integrative therapy that I use in my practice. That's been really helpful.

Haley Radke: Yeah, and we did a whole episode on that, so you can go back and check that out for a deeper dive.

Lesli A. Johnson: Other tools and things that I've seen work with my clients: having a mindfulness program, working with the body in mind again. When traumas happen, the event is stored in the brain in a maladaptive way, so we really wanna work on connecting the mind in the body and integrating. So things like yoga, mindfulness, anything that helps connect the mind and the body.

Haley Radke: That’s really good. Trying to put it out of our head is not necessarily– if it's all repressed, that's fine, but if it's like coming out in different ways, we should probably deal with it.

Lesli A. Johnson: Yeah, I think so. I think it's good to acknowledge it, because I think for most people there are parts of their adoption story and adoption experience that do kind of leak out as they go through life and move through life.

Haley Radke: Like having your first baby. For some people, the midlife kind-of crisis-y stage. Those are two separate things I've heard from multiple adoptees, when they have kind-of “woken up”-- I don't know how to say that.

Lesli A. Johnson: I think adolescence is another time, too. I mean, adolescence for all people, adopted or not, is a time of finding out who you are. And for adopted teens, that can be difficult if they don't have the pieces of their story. And part of finding out who you are is knowing where you came from. I think that's another life transition that's sometimes difficult for adoptees.

Haley Radke: Can you direct us to any particular books or research that we could kind of dive into a little further if we're interested in deeper study? You already talked about The Primal Wound, but is there anything else that would be helpful, to learn a little bit more about maybe the effect that it has on the brain, anything like that?

Lesli A. Johnson: One of my favorite books on trauma in general, that I think addresses what happens in the brain and the nervous system, is The Body Keeps The Score by Bessel van der Kolk, that's an excellent book.

Another of my favorite books related to adoption and the not-so-wonderful parts is called Adoption Therapy, and it's an anthology of essays by written by adoptees, many of them who are also therapists. That book was edited by Laura Dennis, it's called Adoption Therapy. Have you read it?

Haley Radke: I just got it. I had saved up a bunch of money and I ordered, like, 10 different books. So it's literally upstairs on my nightstand right now.

Lesli A. Johnson: Yeah, it’s another one of those –in my opinion, similar to The Primal Wound– where it's not exactly what I would call a pleasant read, but every bit of it is so informative and it's a wonderful book.

Haley Radke: Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate your insight on this topic, which is very hard. Where can we connect with you online?

Lesli A. Johnson: You can connect with me, probably the easiest way is through my website, which is www.yourmindfulbrain.com, and then there are links to my email, Facebook page, Twitter account, and Instagram.

Haley Radke: Oh, perfect. Thank you so much, Lesli.

Lesli A. Johnson: Sure, my pleasure.

Haley Radke: If you have other topics that you'd like to see addressed in an upcoming Healing episode, please come find me on Twitter or Instagram, @adopteeson, and let me know.

I keep telling you about my secret Facebook group, but this week I want to let you know how you could have access to that and some unedited episodes of the podcast. If you are dying for more content, my second-level Patreon reward is a private RSS feed. That's techno-lingo for your very own personal podcast feed.

The latest unedited show I just released yesterday, is me chatting with Carrie about what I learned at the Indiana Adoptee Network Conference, and I tell her a humiliating story of something totally inappropriate I said to a complete stranger. So, if you would like to revel in my misery, that is the only way you can hear that story.

My link for Patreon is Adopteeson.com/partner. If you're ever looking for a supportive Facebook group and Patreon's just not something you can swing right now, come and find me on Twitter or Instagram and send me a message, because I have some places I can recommend for you.

Next week's episode is with Marriette Williams. She's an international adoptee who searched and found her biological mother, only to find out that her adoption was non-consensual. Make sure you're subscribed in Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts, so you don't miss it.

Let's talk again next Friday.

69 [Healing Series] Internal Family Systems

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/69

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Haley Radke: This show is listener supported.

You're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our Healing Series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.

Today we are going to learn about a type of therapy called the Internal Family Systems Model. I know it's a mouthful, but it's so helpful for adoptees, so let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Marta [formerly Drachenberg]. Welcome, Marta. So, Marta is a fellow adoptee. She's also a licensed mental health counselor who is trained in Internal Family Systems, a model she believes to be especially powerful in helping adoptees learn to love and welcome all their internal parts.

So today you are here to teach us what Internal Family Systems means. But first I'm going to ask you if you would just briefly share with us a little bit of your story.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Sure. I was adopted at two weeks old from Bogota, Columbia. I grew up in Connecticut, middle white class suburbia. I reunited with my birth mom just over a year ago through a private investigator.

So it's been a big year and I don’t know what else to say about that. Of course, a long story, I could say a lot more, but those feel relevant.

Haley Radke: Okay, thank you. And so, do you want to just tell us your decade of age? I'm just curious because you said it's just been a year ago.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes, I'm 31.

Haley Radke: Okay. Wow. How long did it take for the private investigator to find her?

Marta Isabella Sierra: So I did all the DNA testing first, which is people's general first line of defense these days. It's a long shot, though, for internationally adopted people. The DNA testing and everything came back reaping nothing. So I hired a private investigator on a Friday afternoon and he found her Sunday morning.

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. Wow. Okay. That is quite the story and maybe we'll hear more of it someday, but I like to give people just an orientation of how you're coming to this work with adoptees. And I know you work with other groups as well.

But why don't you start out and just explain to us, I’ve never even heard of this Internal Family Systems. What is that?

Marta Isabella Sierra: So Internal Family Systems was created by Dick Schwartz. He discovered it really organically. The basic concepts are that there are multiplicities inside of us and actually anciently, historically, this was always our way of thinking about ourselves. We lost our way somewhere along the way and have become kind of mono-minded. Meaning that we think all of our actions and thoughts and emotions and everything that we do is a reflection of who we are in this really singular way.

So we have to become really black and white and decide all of these things, instead of honoring that we're all walking contradictions and we have so many different parts of ourselves that feel so many contradictory things and irrational things, and that all of that is really human and really welcome.

And so we talk a lot about parts. Of course, parts of self may be an easier way to think about it. That's a question I get pretty early on from clients. What is a part? And it's varied, people's experience of their parts. It can be an emotion, it could be a feeling, it can be a sensory feeling, a thought stream.

Some people have really strong visuals of their parts. Some people really do experience them mostly in the body. But we have a multitude of parts. That's also a question I get early on. How many parts do I have? When people are starting to get to know their parts. And it's endless. And all I can say is that I've been doing this work for about six years now and I just met a new part in my therapy session this week.

So we have a multitude of parts and that's okay.

Haley Radke: I've heard some therapists, even on this Healing Series before, talk about, oh, maybe you're going to talk to your younger self or your childhood self. Is that an expression of something you're talking about?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. That is an expression and a lot of people have talked about that. It's really just opening that up, that's the entire lens, that's the entire language that we have all these parts.

Yes, certainly we have younger parts. And a lot of our parts are certainly created in childhood, but it can be even more open than that. Like, I have a part of me that gets angry at this. I have a part of me that judges this. I have a part of me that feels afraid when…. You could just fill that in over and over in so many different ways.

And a big mantra in the IFS world is “All parts are welcome.” That’s the work. How do we welcome all of our parts in a world where our parts are very often not being welcomed externally? How do we do that work internally to welcome our parts?

The cultural view, especially in America, is that we can shame our parts into being different, right? Whatever change we're talking about. But an easy one to go to is of course the diet industry. If we have a part that wants to eat, then we should try to control, shame, hate, disconnect from that part of ourselves, instead of what if that part of us needs the most love, the most compassion, the most TLC out of all of the parts.

And so how do we turn towards the parts of us that we hate or feel ashamed about or struggle with and open our hearts to them.

Haley Radke: Before you go too far down that, I just want one more clarification question for you. What is the difference between saying we have different parts versus we have different personalities? We don't call it this anymore, multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder. Can you make a distinction of that for us as well?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Sure. That is also an early concern sometimes from clients. What does this mean that I have all these parts? Does it mean that I have? Yes, exactly.

Clinicians say DID but most people still say multiple personality disorder. DID is really very extreme, it's when someone's system has had such an extreme reaction or been through such an extreme trauma that their parts have become essentially independent. So that's the extreme. But we all have parts.

Yes. And we all have, if you want to say it, multiple personalities. That's fine too. We all have multiplicities. And there is a stigma about that, and that's part of how we've gotten away from welcoming all our parts is that we have created this stigma about having multiplicities.

Haley Radke: But the difference is that in this level that would be considered disordered they're independent.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Correct. They're acting on their own, essentially, versus being in connection with them. But that's its own spectrum of being present with your parts, and that actually moves me perfectly into the next piece, which is the other really hugely different thing about IFS from other models of therapy is that we believe that everyone has a healing force inside of them.

IFS calls that self-energy. I don't always use that term with clients. I usually let clients define that on their own. My personal definition is pure non-judgmental love. But I have clients that define it as divine light. I have clients that define it as authentic self. Really, that we all have this innate ability to do our own healing.

And some people may have lived their whole lives never learning how to access that energy. And so it's a tool to access it. So we have the eight C’s in IFS of self-energy which are Calm, Creativity, Compassion, Curiosity, Courage, Clarity, Connectedness, and Confidence. But really, I always go back to that non-judgmental love piece, first and foremost.

And so the idea, the goal of IFS therapy is to get the parts of yourself in touch with that self-energy, in connection with it. How do we, again, I would say in my layman's terms, how do we open our hearts to the parts of us that are struggling, that are stuck in time, that are in pain, and help them do some healing?

And that we are most aptly equipped to do that ourselves. So the role of the therapist becomes helping you build relationship with your parts, helping you open your heart to the parts of yourself that you're struggling with the most. I'm not doing the work, I'm just helping you figure out how to open your heart and figure out how to help you when you get stuck and when there are other things in the way, essentially, between you and your parts.

Haley Radke: So you said that you really think this is powerful in helping adoptees, and why specifically would it be so great for working with adoptees?

Marta Isabella Sierra: So IFS is an experiential therapy, and what that means is that it's not a talking therapy. Most models of therapy would go under the genre of talk therapy but IFS is an experiential therapy.

And so one thing that means is that it's difficult for me to describe and give an example of, but I'm going to try. So I typically use the analogy of a guided meditation. That's not quite what it is. It's just my best analogy. 90% of my clients work with their eyes closed. That's not mandatory. But it's essentially an attunement process that I lead you through.

Clients more familiar with IFS need less guidance, right? The more familiar they are with their own system, with how they work and how this work shows up for them, which is different again for every person. I can't say that enough, that everyone experiences their parts differently.

But essentially through that work, I guide people through how to do that healing, and it involves a lot of internal ritual, which we call unburdening. Unburdening the pain and the beliefs and the wounds that have been being carried around by these parts that they're really overworked and trapped and they're doing their best. They need our help.

Haley Radke: And something we talk about a lot with adoptees is adoption as an infant or a very young child is preverbal trauma. This would be, because it's not talk therapy, this sounds like it would be powerful in that respect.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Exactly. Typically how I run my sessions is about 10 minutes of talking and then going and doing the internal work, and then I typically bring people out about 10 minutes from the end of the hour so we can do a bit more verbal processing.

But the trigger or the trailhead or whatever someone's coming in with might be like, I got in a fight with my husband this week and this is what I felt. And just slow that down. Okay, where did you notice that in your body? I might ask something like that. And then we go into that process and it would shock you how much that kind of surface content leads us right to where we need to go, which is typically parts that need our help and those can be preverbal parts.

So I started with an IFS therapist in 2012 and that work was very powerful and I still viscerally remember everything about this session where I met my infant part who was in a complete state of terror, crying, wouldn't even look at me for a little while, but eventually I got her to look at me and I held her in my arms and sobbed. And it was so powerful to comfort her myself. And yes, I had a witness in the room, but I don't know how much time went by. It's this other world sometimes when you're doing this work and it feels timeless.

It felt like I was with her for 10 hours, but of course it happened within the context of the therapy hour. But I got to say to her in that first session, and I say to her all the time, “I'm not going anywhere.” “I will not leave you.” And our traumatized parts as adoptees need to hear that more than anything in the world, and other people can offer it to us, but it probably isn't true.

People die. People leave. Things change. People move. People have other people in their lives. We're never fully sure and we can't ever fully be sure that other people won't leave. But we get to support our parts in this way, and this is so specific to adoption trauma. I get to say to my little parts, “I'm not going anywhere” and I get to mean it.

And I get to know that I will always show up for them and I get to give them that safety that they're not going to get from anybody else.

Haley Radke: That's pretty amazing. I have chills. Goosebumps. Wow. What a moment. So you have that moment comforting yourself as an infant. That powerful thing, is that what led you to decide to become a specialist in IFS, an IFS therapist?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. I signed up for Level 1 training, really to keep doing my own work because it was so powerful and it was changing my life so quickly. But the first day of my Level 1, I knew in my bones, in my gut, this isn't just about my work, this is about my future, this is everything.

The lens of IFS feels so aligned with how I already saw the world. It felt also very aligned with my graduate school training which was in expressive therapies and dance movement therapy. It felt really aligned with the somatic work that I had already been grounded in and it just already felt like my language.

Some people that are doing trainings have been working for years in the field and they have a lot of unlearning to do, and I started my training right out of graduate school and really dove right into this world. And I believe it's very powerful.

Haley Radke: So you also work with people who have disordered eating. That was your primary focus for a while, is that right?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Correct.

Haley Radke: And what are some of the things that you've worked with that population for a while, and what are some of those things that translate into the adoptee world? Is there anything? Is that a fair comparison?

Marta Isabella Sierra: I don't know about comparison. I will say that I work with eating disorders because I had an eating disorder.

I prefer the term active recovery, so I would say I'm in active recovery. And I believe now firmly that was a tertiary expression of my adoption trauma. I think that my adoption trauma set me up to develop an eating disorder. Like so many of us struggle with eating disorders, addictions, suicidality, all the things that you've already talked about in a multitude on your show.

And so just as a result of that, I've always had some percentage of my caseload that is adoptees. And so I've been going deeper and deeper into that work. But I do believe that our perfectionism, our really deep craving for worthiness can sometimes, of course, express itself in an eating disorder and our need for control.

And if eating disorders are about anything, they're certainly about control, being in control or being out of control. But there's a big theme there about control that I think makes sense, that an adopted person might be more susceptible to an eating disorder.

Haley Radke: And you mentioned that after your experience comforting your infant self that you felt some big changes right away. I think that's the wording that you used. Can you just talk a little bit about that? What changed for you?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Just my way of relating to myself. I just listened to the Healing Series episode earlier today, the most recent one. And I loved the way that I think it was Pam was talking about how do we speak to ourselves?

How do we speak to ourselves with kindness? And that's very aligned with IFS, with opening our hearts to these parts of ourselves. Everybody has critical parts, shaming parts that come in in moments of vulnerability and say that we're doing it wrong, that we should have reacted differently. And how do we say, Oh, hi?

How are we welcoming to those parts? Instead of, Oh, you're here again. Go away, or, I don't need this right now. Or, again, all of that kind of kicking our own butts, like shaming ourselves into change-energy. How do we shift towards, Oh, hi. Even just a hello. If you can't be kind to your parts that are showing up, just saying hi. There's some Buddhist themes in there, too, of just welcoming what is, but that shifts very quickly. That’s the first shift I invite clients to make is just to notice and say hello to their parts.

Oh, that's a part of me. There's a part of me that shows up in this situation. There's a part of me. Oh, that's a part. Once you start noticing, it's like we stay in training. It's like popcorn and you start noticing your parts, other people's parts. It just becomes your lens of how you see things.

And the first step is just saying, hello. Hi. Okay. You're a part of me. I'm okay with that. You're a part of me, or I'm trying to be okay with that you're a part of me.

And the other piece of “all parts are welcome” is that all of our parts have positive intention for us, even if we can't see it. Even parts that do really destructive, dangerous things, there is a positive intention in there.

It's trusting that there is some positive intention that even the shamers and the criticizers up through self-harm and suicidal parts have positive intention for us. And so when we say, shut up, I don't like you, go away. I don't wanna think this way right now. When we push them aside, we don't get to learn why are you here? Why are you doing this? What are you afraid would happen if you didn't do this right now? And we don't get to the healing.

Haley Radke: So, in order to work in this way, do you need to go see an IFS therapist? It sounds like there's a lot of guiding even in that first 10 minutes of the appointment, you said, to find where you're going in that hour.

And it also sounded to me like that's the kind of work that you wouldn't want to do on your own. I'm picturing you holding yourself as an infant. That is an incredibly vulnerable position. And you're opening up a traumatic wound, and so you don't want to do that stuff by yourself. Am I correct in saying that?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Absolutely correct. And the longer you do it, the more you can do on your own. And the goal is that the hour that you spend, or two hours a week even, in therapy becomes just this touchstone, and that you're really learning, again, how to build this relationship with your parts on your own and support them on your own and move through triggers and all of those things.

But yes, absolutely I think being with someone who has been trained in this is crucial because what I haven't talked about is our protective system, because I could spend so long talking about that, but it links to what I was just saying about honoring that our parts have positive intention for us.

So most of our parts are trying to protect us in some way or another. There's kind of two classifications of those. I won't go into it here, but essentially one is proactive and one is reactive. Our protectors will jump in, especially in the internal work. So if I'm moving towards a wound with a client, I trust that their protectors will show up. Their protectors will show up, and the work will only go as safe as the system says.

I don't say how deep we go or how fast, the client's parts say how deep we go, how fast, and because of that I have never had a client come back and feel overexposed, even through some very deep trauma work because I'm not saying if it's safe or not. The client's system is saying if it's safe or not.

Haley Radke: So are there any exercises that are safe to think about this, practice on our own in some way?

I guess I gave that example earlier of saying some kind things to your younger self if you're in a moment of fear or triggering or something. Is there anything like that or are we specifically saying this all needs to start in an IFS therapist’s office?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Again, I think the starting point is what I was talking about, which is just saying hello. Just noticing your parts is a huge, huge, huge piece of work that can be months long of starting to notice your parts and just say hello.

If you can say something kinder or something more loving, that's great but it's not necessary. It's enough to say hello. I think everyone has an experience of being in a room or talking to someone and feeling invisible. And how painful that is.

Some of our parts that have been neglected for years, for maybe our entire lives, the power of just saying hello to them, of acknowledging that they exist and they are a part of us, and that we care a little bit, even just we care that they exist can be hugely powerful. And that's something that everybody can do starting whenever they would like. Because the goal again is that we are the primary caretaker of our parts and that's the goal to move towards.

And that the therapist, again, is just a facilitator in that. What can be dangerous for adoptees, I think, in a traditional therapeutic relationship is that there's often a reparenting or a mimicking, right? I will be this love and compassionate mother maybe that you didn't experience, and that can feel really healing.

But that's one hour a week, and then all of the other hours of the week if I become your safe base, then you're dysregulated the whole rest of the time. That's a lot of hours of the week to be dysregulated and have this one hour of comfort a week. So yes, it's still a therapeutic relationship and of course we still develop attachment and bonds with our clients that are important, but I'm only being that self-energy in the room if the client has access to none of it at all.

Ideally, I'm in a witness role, mostly witnessing and guiding and keeping my own heart wide open, attuned to what's happening for the client.

Haley Radke: Okay. That sounds really interesting. I'm curious, how does somebody find an IFS therapist?

Marta Isabella Sierra: The website will be in the show notes. There's an IFS website and you can look for an IFS therapist on there.

Not all of us are on there. I'm actually not even on there because I've moved around a lot in the past few years and have been in and out of private practice. I have a small practice right now. So even to reach out to the ones that you find on there, they may know other IFS therapists in their area that they can refer you to.

It's a difficult choice. I know you talk on the show a lot about finding an adoption competent therapist. I could not agree more. And I, myself, am in this difficult position often. Am I going to find somebody who specializes in adoption or is it more important to me to have an IFS person? Because the IFS therapist specialized in adoption is definitely an emerging subgroup of us. I am not the only one.

Haley Radke: Marta, I was just gonna say, are you the only one?

Marta Isabella Sierra: I'm not the only one. I'm not the only one. And it's important to me to continue to educate my community of IFS therapists so that they're more attuned. But that piece that I was saying about the work goes only as deep and as fast as the system wants.

Any skilled IFS therapist is attuned to that, and I think there's this piece where, again, it's really about your parts and you and you validating your parts’ experience. So yes, do we still need safety and compassion and empathy from a provider? Of course, but I'm the one saying to my parts, I know that was really hard or I know that was traumatic or I know that left a deep impact on you.

I trust any skilled IFS therapist to work with adoption even without specific training, though, of course, that's ideal.

Haley Radke: I was going to say, because so much of it is yourself doing your own kind of work with you present as a therapist, it's like they're learning from you as well, right?

So it's not like traditional therapy where they're not supposed to give you advice but, you know, you're having a conversation and they may steer you in a different direction if they don't realize that adoption is a trauma.

Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. And we emphasize so strongly in training space, so strongly, that the most important thing when providers are learning this model is to be in their own IFS therapy, to be doing their own work.

We learn it by doing our own work. Half of training, if not more, is them doing their own work in a safe space and learning this really by doing it. And so part of the training, too, is us being in touch with our parts, noticing them.

I will speak for parts in session, but it's very clear. I will say a part of me just felt this. I don't know if that's mine or that's yours or, does that resonate? It might be my part just reacting. So we use modeling in that way. We use transparency in that way, even up through a rift or something that can go awry.

I've had repairs with past IFS therapists that have been extremely powerful. When I come back the next week and say, this didn't feel good to me, and the therapist says, I'm so sorry, I definitely had a part come in that wanted to rescue you or wanted to caretake you, or whatever the thing was, and then we get to do this repair around it, which also shows the power of this in relationships, and there's so much safety in that.

And I'll give you another example of what you were just saying, which is I recently started with a new IFS therapist. A big fear that I have is that my therapist will align with my adoptive parents. I think that's a fear that a lot of us carry when starting with someone new.

Is it going to be safe for me to unpack these really complicated feelings that I have about my adoptive parents? And he got it within the first session. I was describing this sensation in my body and he reflected back to me: It sounds like she's really dangerous to you. And just this wave of calm went over my whole body.

Okay, I don't have to worry. He doesn't have any parts that are aligning with them. I'm safe here and I can say the really difficult stuff and I can be honest about what's happening inside of me.

Haley Radke: I could tell there could be this pressure to pretend otherwise. And you can't do the work if you're pretending. Marta Isabella Sierra: Yes. Right. Exactly.

Haley Radke: Okay. Wow. Thanks Marta. That was really in depth and I think I got a really good picture of what IFS is and can do. Is there anything that we didn't touch on that you really feel is important to tell adoptees in particular?

Marta Isabella Sierra: I'm gonna think about that for one moment.

I think that you can do it. That's from a cheerleader part of me. You can do this, you can do this work. You can reparent yourself in a way that you weren't parented and you are capable of doing your own healing.

You have this force inside of you that's capable of facilitating the healing. You may need a little help learning how to do that, but you are capable and all of your parts are positively intentioned and beautiful and welcome.

Haley Radke: Oh, that gave me a nice feeling. Thank you, thank you. I think that was really helpful. I think that people who this kind of speaks to, I'm sure there's gonna be a few that this really speaks to, can go check out the website. As you said, it's going to be in the show notes to find an IFS therapist, but how can they connect with you?

Marta Isabella Sierra: Those links will be there as well. My personal email as well as my professional website. And I'm available for therapeutic work and consultation. Also, if there's any therapists that don't specialize, I do that work a little bit, as well, educating other therapists. I'm available for that. And the other thing I would just say about looking for an IFS therapist, there's a bookstore on there.

And if you want to start your reading about IFS, if you're curious about this, my strongest recommendation is to start with You Are The One You've Been Waiting For by Richard Schwartz, the creator of IFS. It's technically about couples work, but it was my first IFS book and it's what I start all my clients on because I think it's a really great mix of layman's and clinical terms and examples. I just think it's a really nice starter roadmap and whether you're in or out of relationship, I think it's really useful.

Haley Radke: Okay. That sounds like a great resource to check out. And just even if you're wanting to dip your toe in and you're not quite sure if this might be right for you.

Awesome. Thank you. Thanks so much Marta. It was a pleasure chatting with you. Thanks for teaching us about Internal Family Systems.

I wanted to let you know what's happening for the next few episodes of Adoptees On. It's almost like a little mini-series. So today Marta talked to us about IFS therapy.

Next week I have an adoptee coming on who is married to an adoptee. So we're talking about their relationship and the special connection here is that she already does IFS therapy and her husband does as well.

So we talk a little bit about how that has impacted their relationship and the things that they've learned through IFS. That's a really cool connection.

And then after that, I've invited Marta back and we talk about romantic relationships through the lens of IFS. But also just romantic relationships as adoptees. The things that we struggle with and things that we can work on with our partners.

So that's what's coming up in the next couple weeks for the podcast. And I also just wanted to let you know that I have a monthly newsletter that you can sign up for to stay connected with me and for news about the show. Adopteeson.com/newsletter has the details for that.

And the very last thing for today. Would you consider partnering with me financially to help cover the production costs of the show? It is such an honor to be able to do this work for you, and I'm so thankful for all of you who are already partnered with me and supporting the show monthly or with one-time gifts.

You are making it possible for me to carry on this work with you. So if that is something that you have been thinking about, oh yeah, I should sign up for Haley's Patreon. I'd love to join the Secret Facebook group, or I want access to the extra unedited versions of the show.

If that's something that you've been on the fence for, I'd invite you to consider signing up today. Adopteeson.com/partner has the details for monthly support. And if you're able to give a one-time gift, adopteeson.com, right in the homepage, has a little spot for one-time donation. Both of those things help sustain the show, and I'm so grateful for your support.

Thank you so much, and thank you for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

65 [Healing Series] Finding Meaning

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/65

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Haley Radke: This show is listener supported.

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our Healing Series where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.

Today we're talking about finding meaning in our lives, even when we think of ourselves as a mistake and perhaps without a purpose. I also want to give you a heads up. We do discuss suicide in this episode. Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Pamela Cordano. Welcome back, Pam.

Pam Cordano: Thank you.

Haley Radke: Pamela is a fellow adoptee and psychotherapist who specializes in helping you to discover meaning in your life. So that is the bio I have had for you for quite a while. But I am curious, what does it mean to you? Meaning in your life?

Pam Cordano: Yes. Meaning is my favorite subject and to me it's almost like the background music that's playing in my heart all the time. And this wasn't always the case. I can tell you how this happened, like why meaning became so important to me. But I can't do it justice unless we talk for three hours, but I can tell you the story.

I had a terrible infancy. I didn't connect with my adoptive parents. I was an only child. I was just holding my breath my whole childhood. I enjoyed college. I met my husband in the freshman dorm and I had some good experiences, but basically all the way until I was in my mid-forties, I think that I was really in conservation or self-preservation mode, and I didn't even know it because I think that I was just hurt and traumatized from my history and from things feeling hard that I really didn't know another way of being.

And so something really huge happened in 2010 and what that was, and you're gonna have to put your seatbelts on cuz this is a crazy thing I'm gonna say, but I had a therapist who was really dear to me. He was like the therapist for therapists and my friends, my colleagues and I all saw him and he looked like Robert Redford and he just seemed like a guru almost.

And he committed suicide. He jumped off a bridge, and this was mid-November of 2010, and it was so shocking to me that he did that. I didn't see it coming and there had always been a part of me, I think about our adoptee community and how prevalent suicide is. And I've met a lot of adoptees who have had suicidal feelings, even if they've never acted on them.

And I would say I've had that my whole life, where staying alive and investing in life felt difficult and hard and the thing I would do on my better days, and on my harder days or when I was really triggered or when I'd have a fight with my husband or something awful, I would feel like, what is the point? And I would feel like my life force would go out of me really quickly and I think that's an adoptee thing. At least I've heard that a lot of people say that kind of a thing.

So there were times when staying alive was difficult. I never really got to the point of actually in any way contemplating suicide, but I've always had a feeling that living is difficult and it's just, for me, it's just hard to live without having that support of generations and generations of my own biology and being split at the root, like the book title says.

So anyway, my therapist kills himself. And then, let's see, four days later I went to Esalen in Big Sur, which is like a place therapists go to get continuing education units and we take cool classes there. So I was in this group and there was a man in the group who was an AIDS doctor from New York, and I told the group, we all had a chance to introduce ourselves, and I said that I was in a really traumatized, not good place because my therapist had just killed himself and that my goal for the weekend was really just to breathe. Yeah, I didn't really have any other goals to learn anything or anything like that.

So we had to partner up with somebody, and I partnered up with this AIDS doctor, and he told me that his father had killed himself when he was one, and that no one had talked about it, and it was just called an accident.

And so there was this similarity in how he grew up not really knowing what had happened. And then he found himself going to medical school and being an AIDS doctor, and he started putting it together that here he was as an adult, trying to save the lives of mostly young men and it had everything to do with his father and trying to save his father who he couldn't save.

So we connected and I thought to myself, well, here's my therapist who takes the path of suicide. And then here's this doctor who lost his father and has this brilliant career and worked so hard at saving people's lives, and he's so invested in life himself. So I was just comparing the two as two kinds of directions. One's going into life, and one was going out of life. And I recognize both of them inside of me.

The doctor emailed me a link to the California AIDS Ride where people ride their bikes from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for people with AIDS and for research and things like that. And so I felt like I had to do it, and I'm not an athlete and I trained for about seven months riding my bike up to a hundred miles a day.

And that the ride itself was 545 miles, and we rode seven days in a row with an average of 80 miles per day. Some days longer, some days shorter. And I've never done anything like this in my life, and it was brutal. It was grueling to be on my bike training and doing the ride. It was grueling, but for me, it was about two things.

It was about deciding I wasn't going to do what my therapist did. I was going to actually do what this doctor did. I was going to move more and more deeply into life itself. And then the other thing that was just crazy that I didn't expect was it was my first time really putting myself out there to raise money and to do something that was going to benefit all these people that I didn't even know.

It was really for others and that was really, as an adoptee who was angry and self-preservational and conserving my own energy, it was really new to open my heart to people I didn't even know and give to them. So that ride down the coast changed everything. It's like it broke something open in me, and this is going to be too long to even explain.

But it was after that I discovered Viktor Frankl who wrote the book Man’s Search for Meaning about his three years imprisoned in the Holocaust, and how he studied his own relationship with life itself when he lost everything. He lost his pregnant wife, he lost his parents. He lost all but one sibling. He lost his dignity, his freedom, his possessions, his future as far as he knew, and he still found so many ways that life was meaningful. Even though he lost everything.

And somehow that really resonated with me after the AIDS ride, I started to think about myself and all of us, everybody, because I work with people with cancer and I work with people who have had terrible tragedies change their lives completely. Deaths of children and just terrible things.

So I started to realize what Viktor Frankl said was that, even when we've lost everything, we still have access to the attitude we take toward life's limitations. And I thought about the AIDS doctor. He put his pain into service; and my therapist, he put his pain into himself, really, in ending his life and freeing himself that way, I guess.

There was something about service and moving beyond my own self into something outside of myself and serving something outside of myself. And to me that's what meaning is. And I feel like on a psychological level, on a spiritual level, I think that's what makes us feel better.

So I've studied Viktor Frankl a lot, and I started a group 10 years ago for adults who had terrible problems, like stage IV cancer and MS and paralysis and bereavement. We would meet once a week and we would cultivate, Viktor Frankl style, the things that were still meaningful to them and that they still had access to and ways they could transcend their own selves in service of the world despite whatever they had gone through that had obliterated the life that they once knew.

And I didn't charge them anything for the group. We were just trying this. And then we kept meeting and now it's been 10 years and the same group is still meeting every Monday and we're still working at this. And it's the happiest group of people I know.

It's incredible. So we've had a couple people die who were part of the original group, and then we've added more people in. So now we have eight people and three of the original five in the group. We do service projects and we read really cool books together and we look at opportunities to address things happening in their lives in ways that are more open-hearted and more expansive and less conservational and self-protective.

And I feel, as an adoptee, my relationship with meaning has opened a portal to a whole different perspective of what's possible. It's the thing I rely on more than anything really.

Haley Radke: I'm so moved by that whole story. You've talked to us about Viktor Frankl before and I love hearing what has inspired you to move forward into life. The impact it's had, like that ripple has started so many good things for other people as well.

Pam Cordano: Yeah. And then they have started these other new things for other people. It's crazy really. The ripple effect is just amazing. Like when we start to really think beyond ourselves, which I couldn't have done before.

I didn't have access to it. I just was too frightened and too angry, I think, to even believe that there could be another way of living.

Haley Radke: If you had to make a generalized observation, broad-sweeping strokes, I know, about adopted people, what do you think keeps us most stuck in this area and not able to see the bigger picture of meaning in life?

Pam Cordano: For me, it was just feeling really hurt and even disoriented in the life I was in. There's so many adaptations we have to make to our new families and to the world at large when we don't have that foundation behind us that's intact. It just takes so much energy. And then the trauma, and for me, there was a lot of pain of feeling like I didn't get along with my adoptive parents, so I was just consumed with my own, I don't want to say drama in a demeaning way, but my life felt dramatic, like, from fighting with my parents and huge battles and I had addictions, and everything just feeling really difficult and chaotic, like an inner chaos. So to me it was like I couldn't afford to really think about other people.

And I did that enough with just being adaptive and trying not to get rejected again. So it was like a defense, it wasn't authentic necessarily. It wasn't grounded. It was authentic. I was authentically a nice person, but it wasn't grounded because I didn't have my bearings yet.

So isn't it like Maslow's pyramid? People who don't have enough food to eat aren't going to be thinking about self-development or, what would you call it, healing the wounds. It's no, we need some food. So it's like that. Maybe this had to come later for me.

Haley Radke: I think about that sometimes, working in this space, and about how sometimes it does feel a little bit like why can't we just suck it up?

Because we do have food and we have warm houses, or cool air-conditioned ones if you live somewhere that's not Canada. And, as adults, a lot of us have gone on and gotten married or had children of our own and started new families.

Like, why isn't that enough and is it selfish to think about all of these things that are all of our baggage and stuff? I don't know if I'm taking us down a rabbit trail.

Pam Cordano: No, I think that's what I was saying at the beginning. I don't think it was self-indulgence that made my life feel hard to me, like I was a dramatic person or a self-indulgent person, or even a selfish person.

I think that I was just traumatized and overwhelmed by things that didn't seem as overwhelming to other people as they were to me. So I think it was honest, but this is where the culture doesn't see us as being traumatized, they see us as being lucky and fine. It's really hard internally to make sense of the ways we're not fine.

And to have a place to put it. We don't get that cultural support to help us become more fine. It just gets walled off and we have to deal with it on our own. So I think it's really legit, it's just that the culture doesn't, so it's easier for us not to.

Haley Radke: Fair enough, fair enough. You had a really huge event happen with the loss of your therapist in this very shocking way that's like this wake-up call kind of thing. But what about those of us who haven't had this big experience but yet are still feeling these things you've been describing, like not really knowing what the point is or just feeling, I don’t know, as you're talking about this, I just feel like this sense of being lethargic, right? Like you're just kind of existing, right? Just kind of existing, but there's no zest. I dunno.

Pam Cordano: There's no organizing push forward or something like that. Is that what you mean? I think growing and healing takes a ton of courage, and I'm a huge fan of going out of one's comfort zone.

Like the people who flew to Berkeley to do our healing retreat, I think of them as being so brave because they didn't know us. They didn't know what to expect. They didn't know each other and they got so much out of their own willingness to be brave and to try something that was an unknown.

And even calling a therapist can be scary. Because it hurts so much when we're not attuned to, when we're misattuned to by people. But I think there's lots of ways to heal and grow and experience oneself in new ways. It's not always therapy for some people. For some people it's surfing or it's riding a bike or playing an instrument.

I guess we're all different. For me, I have felt lonely and isolated, and I have yearned for a sense of belonging. And so I have tried really hard to have experiences where I can work at that. Other adoptees might have different focuses.

For me, it was about feeling like a misfit. I don't belong. A ton of shame. How do I feel like I belong on this planet? That my life makes sense? That I deserve to be here? That I have something to offer the world? That I'm not just a mistake that shouldn't have been here in the first place? Like, how do I move into being behind my life?

And not very long ago I found out that Viktor Frankl's original book was titled Say Yes To Life, but his editors made him change it to Man’s Search for Meaning because it was more, I don't know, academic sounding or something, but he was just writing about how to say yes to life. And I think that what I wanted to find was a “yes,” so that my “no” could just be quiet.

Haley Radke: You know what the other thing I find really inspiring about this whole deal is that you were in your forties, and I think that so many people that I have talked to who are just realizing that adoption has had an impact on their life are in their fifties, some in their sixties, and I feel like I'm on the young spectrum.

I'm just about 35 when we're recording this. That to be exploring this healing and all these kinds of topics that we're speaking about, but there's something so freeing and hearing that you were already in your forties when you woke up to this and it's there's still so much ahead.

Pam Cordano: Yes, there's so much ahead. I would never want to go back in time to my youth because I was so unhappy and I was so confused. And I'm almost 53, and I have this idea that my life is just going to keep getting better and better because I feel more and more of a yes to my life.

To life itself. Not just my life, but to life. And so that makes me feel like I feel free in a way that I didn't use to.

Haley Radke: What would you say to someone who's hearing us talk about this and it just feels too big, too overwhelming? This is a huge mindset shift.

Pam Cordano: Right. So what I say to people who I meet in my office who have stage IV cancer, or who are dying, or who are paralyzed, or who lost their child and none of that can ever change is that we can start by finding little things that we connect with that give us a sense of vitality inside of us.

Let's go back to Viktor Frankl. From the prison camps he appreciated sunsets. That's incredible and we can do that too. Appreciating something that's beautiful and doing things we enjoy that make us feel more alive and more connected, and telling stories that mean something to us.

Like the story I told you about the AIDS ride or working with attitudes that we believe in when we're having a hard time. Like for me, the attitude of curiosity. Curiosity is an attitude. So when I'm working and if I start to feel tired or disinterested or disengaged with a client, I know the first thing I need to do is get curious.

And I get curious by getting into my eyes and looking at them with fresh eyes and seeing them. They're here. It's a present moment, being in the direct experience, and then my curiosity keeps me really interested and then I'm more there and then magic starts to happen.

There's all kinds of things that are available to all of us all the time. And one thing that Viktor Frankl says that I love is that meaning is everywhere for all of us. And it isn't that meaning goes away, that we don't have meaningful lives, it's that we become disconnected ourselves from meaning.

And that's a really hopeful thought to me. And I believe it because then it's like it's accessible to all of us, and all we need to do is really tap into it, which is what I love to teach my clients to do, and myself.

Haley Radke: That's a light bulb moment for me, Pam, because as I'm telling you, oh, what do you want to say to these sad people who are in their fifties and sixties who think they haven't done anything and they're stuck and blah, blah, blah.

There's meaning already. We have to wake up to it.

Pam Cordano: Right. It's right there and it's everywhere. It's where you are right now all over the place. Are you in your house right now? So you have two little boys sleeping, is that right?

Haley Radke: Yes. We're recording this in the evening. They are asleep, yes.

Pam Cordano: And your husband's there?

Haley Radke: Yes.

Pam Cordano: Do you have any animals?

Haley Radke: I do. I have a little dog, Lucy.

Pam Cordano: Oh, you have a dog named Lucy. That's so cute. Yeah. And you have friends all over the world?

Haley Radke: I do.

Pam Cordano: And you have a trip ahead that's special and meaningful to you to San Francisco?

Haley Radke: Yes, I do. And I'm gonna get to meet you.

Pam Cordano: Yep. We're gonna meet, and there's stars, and there's the moon and the clouds and rain. And there's just stuff everywhere.

Haley Radke: I think you meant snow.

Pam Cordano: Oh, snow. Okay. Life is seriously like a buffet. It's just there's stuff everywhere. We just have to train ourselves to see it and know it and tap into it and connect with it.

Little bits of meaning lead to bigger chunks of meaning and bigger access to meaning. We don't have to feel all excited about life right now, we can just move into it bit by bit.

Haley Radke: Oh, I love that. And you've given us just our little beginner steps to explore this a little more. I think that's just perfect.

If you were gonna recommend, wait, let me guess. Would you recommend that we read Viktor Frankl's book Man’s Search for Meaning?

Pam Cordano: I would, and when you read it, here's the thing, here's the adoptee's take on Viktor Frankl's book. It's a short book. It's in two parts. Part one is his experience and part two is his theories.

And it's written for laypeople. It's totally readable. And he wrote the book in 11 days, right after he got out of the camps. And what's so cool as an adoptee is, people say, oh my gosh, the first part of his book is so depressing, it's so brutal. Yes, it is. But if you the adoptee like me the adoptee, if we read it looking for these little treasures we're going to find in the first part, that's what the whole thing is about.

He's not writing the first part to say boo-hoo, look what happened to me. He's writing it to say, look what I discovered in one of the worst aspects of being human. Look what I found. And then he teaches us how to find it too. So I find his whole book just miraculous. A lot of people say that his book is one of the 10 most influential books ever written.

It's incredible. So yeah, it's five bucks at the paper paperback store. It's easy.

Haley Radke: So good. Is there anything else that you would recommend as we explore this topic of meaning? Any other books or resources or anything?

Pam Cordano: Yeah, I write about this on my website and I spell it out maybe more articulately. My website has a section on meaning where I break it down and talk about a really cool clinical trial they did with advanced cancer patients, connecting them to Viktor Frankl's work with meaning.

And it was an incredible clinical trial where people who really were done because they were dying, they got a new lease on their life and they became less anxious, less depressed, less despairing, more connected, and really into their life, even though they were dying.

And so it's a wonderful clinical trial that I describe on my website that is really special to me. It's so special to me. I flew to New York to meet the guy who spearheaded this clinical trial. I was like, I have to meet this guy and work with him because I loved his work so much and I felt if these people dying of cancer can do it, then we adoptees can do it too.

That's how I felt.

Haley Radke: Okay, I'm gonna link to that for sure in the show notes. Oh, that sounds so interesting. Speaking of meaning and experiences and all of those good things, you have two different events coming up that I want you to tell everybody about.

Pam Cordano: Yeah. The first one is that Anne Heffron and I are doing adoptee retreats in Berkeley, California. We have one coming up in July, one in November.

The first one that we had in February this year was just a wild success. It was off the hook. I couldn't have predicted how amazing the experience would be. We have 10 adoptees, the two of us, and we just work like mad for four days to have breakthroughs in our healing process and to really utilize the power of a group to magnify a healing experience.

We're taking that to New York and London in January.

And then in October of this year, and in April of next year, a colleague of mine named Patty, who's a Jungian analyst, she and I are leading a group of 10 women on the Camino de Santiago in Spain for a healing pilgrimage to go and experience little ancient towns and walk for eight days in a row, and then meet up with an artist and integrate our experiences.

And the first one got booked immediately and now we're booking for April of 2019. So that's not adoptee-specific, but it's for women between the ages of 40 and 90.

Haley Radke: Wow, that sounds incredible and I bet it's gonna fill up fast. So if we would like to get in touch with you about either of those, where's the best place?

Pam Cordano: My email, pcordano@comcast.net.

Haley Radke: Perfect. I will link to that, as well, in the show notes on adopteeson.com. Thank you so much, Pam, for talking us through meaning. I can tell it's just so dear to you.

Pam Cordano: Thank you. It is. It's my thing.

Haley Radke: So good. Thank you.

If you are finding the Adoptees On podcast valuable, I want to invite you today to partner with me. I have monthly partners from all over the world who stand with me and help support the production costs of bringing you this show every single week. Adopteeson.com/partner has the details for that. Thank you so much for your generosity.

Also, I want to let you know that my trip to San Francisco is coming up. As Pam and I mentioned briefly in the show today, we get to meet in real life. I'm so excited. And so that's Sunday, May 20th. Anne Heffron is going to be teaching a Write or Die class, and we are going to have a meet-up later on in the evening for podcast listeners.

So I'm gonna be there. Pam is also gonna be there. I would love to invite you to come and meet up with us, hang out just a couple hours of getting to know each other in real life. If you're going to come meet me in San Francisco, adopteeson.com/events, as well as our Facebook page on the events tab, has all the details for you there.

I would love it if you would come. Please come. I'm coming all the way from Canada, so it's only fair, right? That you drive a little ways. It's fine. It's fine. It's good. I have goosebumps. I'm so excited. When Pam texted me to tell me she had booked a hotel room and she was coming to meet me, I cried. I literally started crying. I was so happy. So please come. You can be in on that big hug. Big group hug.

And lastly, I just want to ask if you would share the show with someone. Adopteeson.com has all the links to all of our show notes, all of our episodes, all the places that you can download and find the show.

And what if you share it with just one person that you think might be struggling a little bit with finding purpose in their life? I think that listening to Pam talk about meaning and just the simple little things that we can look around for in our life and say, wow, this is so valuable. My life does have meaning.

I think it would be an encouragement to them. So share the show with just one friend that you think might like to listen to this today. Thank you. Thanks for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.

63 [Healing Series] Triggered Triage Kit

Transcript

Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/63

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Haley Radke: This show is listener-supported.

You are listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. I'm your host, Haley Radke, and this is a special episode in our Healing Series, where I interview therapists who are also adoptees themselves, so they know from personal experience what it feels like to be an adoptee.

Today we tackle something so many of us deal with: What do you do when you get triggered? Let's listen in.

I'm so pleased to welcome back to Adoptees On, Pamela Cordano. Welcome, Pam.

Pamela Cordano: Thanks, Haley.

Haley Radke: Pamela is a fellow adoptee and a psychotherapist who specializes in helping you to discover meaning in your life. And today you're going to help us with: we get triggered all the time, so you're going to help us with a triggered triage kit. I love that.

Pam Cordano: A triggered triage kit, what every adoptee needs.

Haley Radke: Yeah, how much do you charge for that? Because I would pay a lot of money–

Pam Cordano: A lot of money!

Haley Radke: –to carry that around with me.

Pam Cordano: We need special purses with bling or whatever. Man-purses with bling. Everybody can have a purse, A trigger triage kit.

Haley Radke: So before we talk about the kit, which is awesome, can you just tell us what does it even mean to get triggered? We see and hear that word all the time. It's like a buzzword now, “getting triggered”.

Pam Cordano: The thing is, we all know what it is, right? Because we experience it. It's really just overwhelm. It could even be trauma. Our system just gets lit up like a Christmas tree with too many lights on it, and it's more than we can handle. And so we get overwhelmed or unable to really tolerate what we're feeling. And we often have our pattern ways that we deal with being triggered. Some of us get panicky and anxious, and some of us go toward addictions, and some of us get kind-of sleepy and disengaged, or disassociated, and we all have our ways that we deal with being triggered that we probably all know, to some degree.

Haley Radke: Okay, I think I've had all of those. Plus stomach issues. Lots of stomach issues for me.

Pam Cordano: Yeah. Sometimes I think that we don't even quite catch the moment it happens until we're fully into it, and then we're like, ‘oh my gosh,’ and we're overwhelmed, and we're triggered. It takes practice, and it takes maybe living more and more years to really get good at identifying when it happens, so that we can catch it sooner.

Haley Radke: Okay. I'm just like, ‘Okay, I need to figure this out. How do I catch it sooner?’ Okay. So last night I was reading a book and my favorite genre is psychological thrillers, pretty much. I almost am always reading one, and I don't know if you read much of those, but I'd say about 10% of them have some form of an adopted person showing up to exact revenge on their birth family–

Pam Cordano: Oh my gosh.

Haley Radke: And you don't find that out till a little later on. Yeah. Nice. What a nice picture.

Pam Cordano: You read this out of choice? Before you go to bed?

Haley Radke: Well, it's only about 10%, I would say, so, you know, most of the time it's okay. But last night I was about halfway through the book and I started feeling a little suspicious, so I went to the end, because I don't like surprises anyway. It takes a lot to surprise me, I would say. I don't know why I enjoy thrillers so much, it doesn't make sense, I know. But I went to the end and I find this out, this is an adopted person who is coming to obliterate her family. And I just got so mad. Yeah. And so I was trying to sleep and I couldn't, of course, because all the things: my heart was racing, and my stomach was in knots, and I wanted to break my Kobo, and it's like this heightened response to something that shouldn't make me, I don't know, I feel like it shouldn't make me that angry–

Pam Cordano: Wait, wait. But who's that saying that it shouldn't make you that angry? That voice is quite suspicious. Who is that?

Haley Radke: It’s me, my inside voice! I don't know.

Pam Cordano: Okay, so can I interrupt this, bring up something about what you just said? How we talk to ourselves when we get triggered is really important. And you and I have talked about this before on your show about having that internal adult that talks to us. So when we're triggered, if we have a voice that comes in and starts to criticize us, that says, “Oh you shouldn't be this upset,” or “You shouldn't be this triggered,” or “What's wrong with you?” Then we're just adding insult to injury when our system is hyper-aroused, and it's super uncomfortable on a physical and emotional level. So how we talk to ourselves with our triggers is something we can learn to do differently. With help. I learned it in therapy.

Haley Radke: Okay. I need to learn how to do that, because I often do have that inner talk, like, ‘Why is this thing that no one else seems to be affected by pushing me over the edge?’ And the other thing that's happened quite frequently, I haven't talked too much about this, but I'm in a little bit of a situation with my church. I would say they probably feel everything is resolved on their side, and I am doing my best to get to that point, but every time we go, in the service now, I really pick up on any time the word “orphan” is mentioned, or the word “adoption” or anything about blood or family, there's these key words, right? And even though in context what's being presented in the service doesn't necessarily have anything to do with my situation, or even with adoptees in general, it's those things plus this conflict I'm having, then the whole rest of the service I'm just like, ‘Yep, this is what happens.’

Pam Cordano: Okay, so I know you're not my client and we're not doing therapy right now at all, but if you were my client, I would ask you to just pause. Because both examples, from reading a story about an adoptee killing their birth family, and then this example with the church, and these words, and the way that we adoptees have an experienced understanding of these words which is different from how they might be talked about at church. These are two huge examples of triggers. I don't know if listeners even listening to this might be like, ‘Whoa!’ and overwhelmed already, you know what I mean?

So actually the first tool in the triage kit is pausing. When we start to notice that something's going wrong in our systems, like we've read a story that's really triggering or upsetting to us, or we're hearing something that we're not expecting to hear, but we hear it and it triggers us. As soon as we start to notice that physiological hyperarousal –like that's what I was feeling when you were sharing the examples– the first thing to do is to try to learn how to pause. Some people call it “the sacred pause”. It's a pause to try to take a good look at what's actually happening in the moment, and to get one's bearings so that they can even know how to start breaking it up into little, more bite-sized pieces, to even figure out what to do.

Haley Radke: So what does that look like when I am, say, sitting in a service and this is happening? What does the pause look like? Does that mean I exit?

Pam Cordano: The more we can start to slow our awareness down –this is mindfulness– and pay attention to what's happening inside of us in the moment. If you were to really break it into a slow motion kind of thing, even if you're already triggered, you might notice your heart's speeding faster, or that your body's gotten kind-of firm, or that your muscles are tensing in resistance to what's being said. Or you might feel a fight-or-flight feeling like you want to get out of there.

And all of this, with practice, can be observed before a decision is made about what to do with anything. So if you were really, really overwhelmed, it might be the best thing for you to quietly get up and exit, because it's just too much. As we learn to bear sensations in our bodies, either with the help of a therapist, or with a meditation practice, or a yoga practice, we become more and more comfortable handling more and more reactions that are physiological and stem from trauma and overwhelm. And that's where we become more able to make choices about what to do next. Because if we're not used to this intensity, these feelings in our body, we might just be used to cutting off our awareness of our bodies, and not even really know what's going on until we're really overwhelmed to the point we have to maybe just go in our rooms and shut the door. Or for other people it might be, like, engaging in some vindictive behavior or whatever. We go into some other action. So ideally, like if I was that little angel on your shoulder and you're in church, and on the other shoulder is the one saying, “Guy, why is this upsetting you? It's not upsetting anybody else. What's wrong with you?” So if I'm the nice little person on your shoulder, I might say, “Okay, hold on, hold on, we don't have to listen right now. Let's just take a breath and pause. What's happening right now?” And the question, “What's happening right now?” is really: “What's happening inside of you right now?”

And the answer is really about sensations, like, “My chest is tight. I'm sweating. My shoulders are super tight, my jaw is tight. I have this urge in my body to just get up and get out of here.” Answers like that would be available with enough loving asking of the self, “What's happening right now?”

And then you might say, “This, that, and this is happening.” And I might say, “Okay, let's just take a couple of breaths.” Because breathing is always good for being triggered. A couple of big breaths. And that changes things in the body and the nervous system. The shoulders can drop sometimes and you can see a bit of breathing, and even just being talked to by somebody inside yourself is helping. And we have to go bit by bit with being triggered of, ‘Can we hang in there or do we have to make a change?’ Like, a behavioral change. Like, get out of the room, or something else, depending on the situation. Put the book down, throw the book away! Put the book in the backyard until tomorrow morning and tell your husband to get rid of it.

Haley Radke: That's pretty good.

Pam Cordano: What do you think?

Haley Radke: Well, I've already calmed down, because I was breathing when you were talking me through that, and I was like, ‘Oh, I've already calmed down.’ That's good.

Okay, pausing–

Pam Cordano: What do you think it was that calmed you down? Was there a moment that you noticed something started to shift into calmer?

Haley Radke: I was doing deep breaths. So sorry for the sound on that, I'll mute it. But I was doing deep breaths and when you said, “And then your shoulders could drop,” that literally happened, my shoulders dropped back and I just felt like my whole posture was more relaxed.

Pam Cordano: Yeah. So, if we say that the first thing in the trigger triage kit is to pause, then the second thing could be to take a couple of big breaths and just oxygenate yourself. And then to ask the question, with a really kind voice, of, “What's happening right now?” and trying to notice what's happening, even in a sensation way, because the sensations are the most honest answer. Our brains could start saying, ‘Oh my God, that woman is such a jerk. I can't stand her! She always does this, blah, blah, blah!’ but that's not gonna get us anywhere.

But if we say to ourselves, ‘What's happening right now?’ and we check inside, ‘Okay, I feel like I'm gonna throw up,’ or ‘I feel like I'm gonna pass out,’ or whatever things might be happening inside of us, if we have a kind voice asking, then our response has a chance to be listened to. And then now we're relating to ourselves in a way that a mother or father might relate to a child in a loving way.

Haley Radke: That feels peaceful.

Pam Cordano: That's good. Problem solved!

Haley Radke: Yeah, I'm good! But this is my recounting of the triggering moment, it's not necessarily the moment.

Pam Cordano: Right. So there's more, so we could go on and say more things about the trigger triage kit.

Haley Radke: What would you do next?

Pam Cordano: Well, something we talked about a lot at the adoptee retreat with Anne and with the participants, was we talked about how there's two different networks in the brain. One network is called the default network, and it's just the same stuff we already think and know, that's based in fear and based in our previous experiences in the world. It kind-of goes around and around in circles. It's just recycling what we already know, it's not open to new information. And so our default network is really that voice that says to you like, ‘Why are you reacting to this story? Nobody else is.’ That's the default network talking and it's just this patterned way we talk to ourselves, that often isn't very nice, because it's fear-based, and it wants us to get in line and pull it together or whatever.

And the other network that's completely unrelated, it's an entirely different network, is the direct experience network, which takes place in the present moment. So that's the place where something new can happen and where we can actually change what's happening with us. And so in the example of being in church where you're hearing stuff and you're triggered, with the example of pausing and taking a couple of breaths, already taking a couple of breaths is in the present moment, it's a direct experience in the present moment.

And then talking to yourself and saying, “What's happening?” The question really is “What's happening right now?” So the answer is going to be what's happening right now, and now we have a chance for something new to happen and for there to be something that can heal in the trigger. Because we're in the direct experience network, where new things can happen.

So to me, therapy is about helping clients get into the present moment and into their direct experience so that they can have a new experience. I never want to sit with a client and have them just tell the same stories with the same emotions over and over again, because they're going to leave the session in exactly the same shape as when they walked in.

Haley Radke: I love what you say about that's a healing thing to go into that, like you're reprogramming.

Pam Cordano: Yeah, you're literally changing your brain.

Haley Radke: And I think what our default is when we're triggered is to run, right? And if we can build these couple steps in, this is giving us the opportunity for healing instead of avoiding it and then always getting triggered by the exact same thing. Because you can't always avoid it.

Pam Cordano: Yeah. And it takes sometimes more than what we do with ourselves, but even if we're in therapy, we still have the six days in between the sessions where we have to deal with life and our own triggers ourselves. It's really the awareness of what's happening in our traumatized systems, and then the kind voice that understands we've got a reason to feel that frightened or angry or overwhelmed.

So we have kindness and we have awareness, and those two things are really going to help us. And that's really what therapists do is they're kind and they're aware and they're investing themselves in us.

Haley Radke: So will you fit in my bag that I'm gonna carry around everywhere? In my kit? Nice, sparkly–

Pam Cordano: Yeah! And then when you– this is what's happening with me is then when you get really good at this you're just gonna kick me out, because you're going to want to put something else in your bag. I'll be in the way at some point. And that's when we know we can handle it ourselves.

Haley Radke: Oh, this is so helpful. Thank you.

Pam Cordano: Another thing to think about with when we get triggered– and of course there are variations. There's mildly triggered, moderately triggered, severely triggered. When I'm severely triggered, which happened to me a couple weeks ago, I can have a feeling of kind-of paralysis. Not physical paralysis, but I don't know what to do, and I feel terrible and I don't know how to get myself out of it, and I have to wait a bit for something, whether it's some rest, or whether it's the right conversation with the right person, or some part of me to show up to help myself. Sometimes I can't do this on the spot, like we're talking about with the church example.

But when we're not that severely triggered, when we're more mildly to moderately triggered, and we pause and we ask, “What's going on?”, a lot of times if we're not used to this yet we have an impulse to do something. For me, if I'm triggered and I just can't cope with it, Ben and Jerry’s sounds really good to me.

And so part of my brain knows that if I eat a whole pint of Ben and Jerry's, I'm not going to sleep very well. I'm going to feel bad in the morning. Like, I'm going feel like too much sugar in the morning. But what we can do with ourselves or some people, they have other things they do. They maybe they do online shopping, or they're playing phone games, or whatever to try to soothe themselves. And there's nothing wrong with soothing ourselves, but when the soothing behaviors aren't really our goal in the long run –like, I don't wanna play Candy Crush for too long, like half an hour's okay, but I don't want to play for hours– then we can work with ourselves. I can say, “Okay, Pam, I know you want to go play Candy Crush right now. That's fine. You're welcome to do that, but let's just give it five more minutes. Let's see if we can bear this feeling for five more minutes before we go to that.” And that's a way of titrating our tolerance for how we feel. And again, this is not when we're extremely triggered. This is just when we're mildly, we're moderately triggered. So we build in space to experience what we're feeling, even journal about it before we go to the trusted behavior that's going to soothe it or change it.

And then there's always other things, too, I'll just throw these out. Like it's always good to do, if we are up for it, when we feel triggered and we're inclined to be either like, we want to do flight, fight, or freeze. If we can manage it, it's good to do a few gentle yoga poses and be with our breath. It's good to call a friend or somebody that we trust and talk it through with them and go toward a person who's safe. It's good to journal. It can be good to turn on music that is soothing or happy or comfortable music. There's a lot of things we can do. It could be good to go read poetry or some kind of inspirational text that reminds us about another way of feeling in the world. So, we can make a connection to things that make us feel better. That's always a good thing to do, too, if we can manage it. When I'm really triggered, sometimes I just can't. I just isolate and, you know, go down the rabbit hole for a while, and then I've come out and apologize later.

Haley Radke: Yeah, if I didn't have two young kids, I'm sure I would be spending more time in my bedroom with the door closed some days.

Pam Cordano: Yeah. As long as you're nice to yourself in there, it's fine with me. We can’t go in the bedroom and be mean to ourselves, that's just terrible.

Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. I won't give you any more examples of the things that I've said to myself because it's been worse. So anyway, this was really helpful. Thank you. You mentioned the retreat, you and Anne Heffron run adoptee healing retreats, and there's some coming up. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?

Pam Cordano: Yeah. We had our first one in February in Berkeley, California. And it was just incredible. I knew we had a good program lined up for everybody, we had 10 people that flew out to see us, but I didn't know how it was going to feel to be in a room with 12 people, all of us adopted. Something about the resonance of adopted people where we don't have to explain anything and we just get to work, really, at what's in our way of becoming more comfortable in our skin and more joyful in having more access to what we want in life. So it was a wonderful experience. I feel changed by it.

So we have one coming up in July, again in Berkeley, and one in November in Berkeley. And then Anne and I, in January of 2019, are going to go out to New York and then we're going to go to London and have a weekend each place. So we're really excited. And then we're going to have a Part Two adoptee retreat for people who have already taken Part One who want to come to Part Two, and we're just going to reinforce and build some new aspects of healing.

Haley Radke: Amazing. Amazing. So if people are interested in attending that, where can they get in touch with you?

Pam Cordano: They can find Anne Heffron or me on Facebook and message us, or they can also email me at pcordano@comcast.net.

Haley Radke: Awesome. And I have links to all of your social media and your websites up on Adopteeson.com so people can find you there too. Great. So in addition to the adoptee retreat, you have something else that's really exciting. Please tell us about it.

Pam Cordano: Yeah. This is not adoptee-specific, but a friend who's a Jungian psychologist and I are leading a group of 10 women on the Camino de Santiago in Spain, and we're considering it, like, a non-religious pilgrimage. It can be religious depending on the person, but it's just a pilgrimage of growth and transformation. So we'll be walking for eight days in a row, and then we're gonna meet up with an artist in Santiago and we're going to do an integrating project. And the trip filled up really quickly, so we're really excited about that. And we're gonna have another one in April of 2019, and we're going to do the same thing. We're just going to walk for eight days and spend two additional days on the Camino, an ancient pilgrimage pathway in Spain.

Haley Radke: That sounds incredible.

Pam Cordano: Yeah, it's like one of my dreams to put healing together with traveling. Even though we're not going to be acting as therapists on the trip, I just think traveling in an intentional way is therapeutic in and of itself. So I'm really excited about it, yeah.

Haley Radke: Beautiful. People can get in touch with you for more details if they would like to come along.

Pam Cordano: Thanks, yes.

Haley Radke: So good to talk to you. Thank you for the very, very helpful triggered triage kit. I think that people are gonna find it really valuable. I already do.

I hope you had some good takeaways from Pam like I did, and some of those things seem so simplistic, but honestly, when you are in the moment and you're having this experience that is so emotional, that's what it takes is those tiny little steps to bring us down back into awareness of what's really going on for us.

So I want to challenge you to try it. I'm going to be trying it out, too. Lots of deep breathing in my future, friends. If you would like to come and meet Pam in person, and myself, and our friend Anne Heffron, who Pam does these wonderful adoptee retreats with, come to San Francisco, come and meet us in May! Sunday, May 20th, Anne is gonna be teaching her Write or Die class, which I'm very excited to take from her, and then later on in the evening, we're going to just have a hangout meetup. Just hanging out, that's it. Excited to spend time with listeners and some former guests of the show and you can come, I would love it. If you check out Adopteeson.com/events, has the details, or you can go to our Facebook page and click on the events tab there. All the details are available for you and I'd love to meet you in real life.

This show is listener-supported, and what that means is there are so many of you standing with me, actually donating to the show monthly as a financial partner, which helps keep the show going. You are helping to cover all the production costs and all the behind-the-scenes things that it takes to run a podcast like this. So I just want to say thank you so much to my generous donors. And if you feel that this podcast is a valuable resource, if you have learned something from it or if you know another adoptee that would find value from it, I would really love it if you would consider partnering with me. Adopteeson.com/partner has details of how you can join up monthly, or there's a one-time donation link right on the homepage of Adopteeson.com. Thank you. Thank you so much.

And another way that you can help support the show is by telling just one person about this episode. Maybe you know of an adoptee that struggles with triggers just like me, and they would find some of these tips really, really valuable. So I'd love it if you would just text them right now and say, “Hey, have you heard the latest Adoptees On episode?” Or send them a message on Facebook. I think it would be really helpful for them to learn these techniques that Pam has taught us today. Thank you for listening. Let's talk again next Friday.