How Generational Trauma Is Secretly Running Your Life | Dr. Mariel Buqué

- A lot of people are afraid to go back

into the stories of their past. They're afraid to face the pain, the traumas, that they're aware of, and also to face the things they're unaware of, the generational traumas. - Yeah.

- Why is it so hard for us to face these past traumas and pains? - It's hard for a number of reasons.

“I mean, I think that a lot of what makes it hard”

is that people start feeling really unsafe in their own bodies whenever they're talking about trauma. Trauma is like that area of mental health that we're still a little bit tentative about touching in conversation.

And so it makes it so that people don't necessarily want to get into the nitty-gritty of not only trauma and understanding what trauma is, but also like how trauma impacts their own lives, how trauma transcends down their lineage.

How trauma has been a part of their lives

because people will exist in trauma, but then have a tough time even acknowledging that it even is a thing. - So what would you say is the percentage of people that exist in trauma in US?

- Oh goodness, well, I mean, I saw a not too long ago like this statistic, I think it can be variable because we got to acknowledge the fact that some people won't actually acknowledge that they're in trauma, know that they're in trauma, right?

So, but the statistic said somewhere around like 65 or so were sent in a lifetime. So, someone will 65% of the population in the US will experience trauma in their lifetime. Some elements of trauma, now you layer in a pandemic.

“- All right, how many people actually face their trauma?”

Of the 65%, you know? - Now we're talking like really, really tiny numbers, like little now. - Because we have to acknowledge that people are also not in the know that they're existing in trauma,

people believe that the way that they're experiencing their emotions is status quo, even when-- - It's the way it's supposed to be, it's the way I am.

- It's all they know, they've never been taught otherwise,

what they've seen in their families has been a representation of trauma responses, and it's never been anything unlike what they experience in their day-to-day. So, for them to actually even get to the point of saying,

I have trauma in my life, oh, I have something to work on, oh, I can commit to actually working on this, I don't have to exist in trauma, is really unheard of for a lot of people. - What are the levels of trauma?

You know, is it like low level trauma versus a high level trauma? What are the differences? And how can we identify, oh, I think I'm experiencing trauma in my body right now?

“- Well, you know, I think we have to define trauma, right?”

Like so trauma is basically an acute emotional response to a life event that is extremely stressful. Sometimes that life event is threatening to your physical safety, sometimes it's threatening

to your psychological safety, sometimes both. And so we can understand, okay, this is what trauma is. - It's an emotional response. - It's an emotional response to an event that is extremely stressful.

- So it's like, it's what's a trigger. You know, it's like if someone says something in your space, and you're like, oh, that trigger, I don't like that feeling. I don't like what they said, I don't like what they did or their actions.

There's an event happening in the world. You're response to it is emotionally charged. Is that what I'm hearing you say? - Correct, this emotionally charged and it's also directly connected to your nervous system.

So when people say I'm triggered, what they're saying is some aspect of my experience is in a fight-flight-freeze of fun. - Yes. - That's what they're saying.

And if I'm in a trauma response, it's your behavioral response to being in a fight-flight-freeze of fun. - Yeah, you could be reactive or screaming, and you would be like,

and avoiding, like, exactly, that's the key. The freeze is like dissociating, disconnecting from your environment and really being in that protective mental space, and then collapsing, completely is the phone response.

- Or numbing, right? It's like people do a lot of numbing which drugs alcohol or addictions of any site. - All of it. - My, over the last few years,

I've really said to myself, I would love to be able to be in the world and look at every event as a neutral event. As there are things happening, I may not like it or agree with it.

Or I may like it or agree with it. Kind of looking at as a neutral event, and seeing how can I consciously communicate something about the event to get a result? My goal has been in the last few years

is to figure out how can I look at the world as events are happening, but not letting the both affect me emotionally. Yes, I'm gonna be affected by things, but not letting me hold me back, let's say,

from taking action in my life, from being a good partner of my relationships, from taking care of my health.

- It's a great goal.

- Because I used to grow up feeling very triggered

by so many things. And then I would be stuck in bed or I wouldn't take action on the things. I wanted events would consume me. Events would hurt me.

Events would trigger me, or people would do those things.

“If someone would cut me off, I would scream in the car, right?”

I would be so triggered, it was like, "I have to beat this person or something." And I tell you what, by practicing this, and it's been doing a lot of self-reflecting, a lot of therapy, a lot of work on myself.

By practicing this, the world is neutral mindset. You know what's not, there's a lot of bad things for happening. It's allowed me to look at and say, "I don't like this. "I don't want this to happen in the world." But I'm not gonna let it consume me

and hold me back from living a peaceful, harmonious life. And that's been kind of my goal. It's been very challenging.

But I've never felt this much peace in my life.

- I love that feeling. - And I wonder, is that something we should be thinking about or is that ignorant of me? And I should be triggered more by all the life's events and all of the people that are around me

and just be so emotionally charged and reactive, as opposed to, "Okay, I see this for what it is. "How can I respond from a conscious way?" - Yeah, I mean, I think that it's a goal that we should all aim to strive for.

Like I think it's a goal that I definitely share with you. - Really? - I would, yeah, absolutely.

“You know, the only thing that the caveat there, right?”

Is that, because we're human, because we're designed. - Of course. - That's right, right? - Yeah, that's not where it feels exactly. - Yeah, yeah.

- So, you know, and the thing about that design is that anything that actually looks like a potential threat, or even catapult you back into time, like actually reminds you of something that has actually already like threatened your existence

in some way, your safety in some way, that that's already gonna be something that's gonna revamp that emotional energy. And so, you're not necessarily gonna be in that neutral place, we're not meant to be neutral,

not designed that way, right? - It's not being neutral, it's his thing.

I tell my girlfriend this, I say, "I'm always aware."

She's like, "How did you know this was happening?" I'm like, 'Cause I'm looking and I'm scanning the world for threats, right? Like, it's my natural state to look for threats, but it's trying to not react from a fearful place.

So, I'm gonna be aware and present of like, not just walk around the street and get hit by a car. I wanna look around and be aware and reactive, but then come back to a centered place of peace. Is the goal?

“- Yeah, and I think a lot of what you're talking about”

is having, there is like this space between when your nervous system says, there's a potential, right? And then there's this space where there's mindful thought and conscious thought, and then conscious action

that happens thereafter. I think that's where you're talking about. - That's what I'm looking to create. That's what I'm looking to create. - That's very, very doable, very feasible,

for anybody even individuals that have undergone trauma and especially international trauma. - But the cycle, it's more of like the psychological threats and the nervous system threats is what I'm hearing, you say is what are challenging for a lot of people.

It's like something happens and event happens and it triggers our memory, right? A memory from a traumatic experience. - Yes. - But what if we remove the memory,

what would happen then? Will we be reactive and triggered? - Well, you know, I think you're talking a bit about how we can reconfigure even like our cellular memory to actually respond less to what could have been triggering

in the past. Because you know, we have so many different variations of memory. We have all factory memory, like the scent memory, right? So there's so many ways in which our senses

can produce triggers for us. - In the next day. - Right, so we have the sound memory. - The sound memory. - Yeah, yeah, there's a familiar taste

and just like brings you right back into childhood, you're like, wait, something, something's up. Something's like bringing me back into a place that isn't now, right? And so we have to talk about the ways in which, you know,

you reprogram your mind, you reprogram your nervous system to be steady, to feel like it's in a safe place. Even if a memory gets retriggered by way of any of your senses. - I think a lot of people can relate to this

with friends, family members, relatives, you know, where like something from childhood triggers them as an adult. And they haven't figured out how to either heal the memory of the trauma or just be in the environment

with people that triggered them so much as a kid growing up. If someone has a relative or someone that's in their environment in their space that triggers them so much. How do they not kick them out of their life completely? But also create a boundary

so that it doesn't affect them. With the words they say, with the actions they have, things like that.

And that's why, you know, I love this work so much

because you can be really creative with a client as to what will work for you, right? Where can you create some element of a boundary that can also keep you at close proximity to the people

“that you love because you still want to be in the life?”

- Yeah, you want to be in the life. - And you want to be able to still be unified in some way but still preserve your energy, right? In the psychological world, especially in like dialectical behavioral therapy, we call environments

that still embody some of the trauma responses or the chaos of strong environment. So you're going back into that strong environment that's like immobile, it's inflexible. The trauma responses are embedded in that environment

and have been for generations. People just operate that way at home, right? So the biggest thing that we have to do is not only to train the nervous system to be able to be well in the strong environment, right?

But to train people to hold on to that

because eventually, even if it's microscopic changes,

the environment will shift. Because you'll be showing it differently in your environment so the environment is going to shift accordingly. - What are a few strategies someone can do

to, I guess, work with their nervous system around people that trigger them? - No, you're talking about my job, this is my situation. This is stuff I don't know.

“- How can they shift so that the environment shifts?”

And I'll preface it this way. This has to be daily practice. When people have to get into the practice of nervous system regulation on a daily basis, especially if they come from a lineage of trauma

or if they've experienced trauma just in their lifetime. And the three practices that I like the most, I like them because they're accessible because you can do them anywhere. And because they actually work.

And the three are like breath work. I think people like the same take of breath has been so widely popular. I was like, are you taking a breath? I love that.

- I do it all the time. - Me too. - That's one of my favorite things that I've been able to acquire as undergone my own journey that now, by default, I do that too.

And I think it's all the same. - Yeah, because it's almost like, your body is taking care of you now, right? Like, you've done all the work to like, I gotta take care of this body,

I gotta take care of this mind. And now it's by default. And that is building mastery. It's like, you have mastery over the task of actually doing deep breaths whenever your body needs it.

- As opposed to holding it in all the time. - Yeah, our short breaths are holding it in. It's interesting. Okay, so number one is breath work. - Yeah, and breath work, that is at least for five minutes.

So the nervous system needs at least that amount of time to actually catch up. And it's important to value breath work, even though we have so many ways in which it's been, I think over dawn, or people just like,

just count it because it's been talked about so much. But the thing about breath work is that eventually your nervous system can't operate in the stress response and in the breathing response I'm not saying this.

- It has to relax. - It's gonna have to. And so you keep it going until you feel that. For trauma survivors, it can take a little bit longer

“because there's a lot of undoing, a lot of decades, right?”

And so the breath work is gonna be key. One of my other favorites are like, humming, humming, also-- - So powerful. - Breathing and humming at the same time.

This is what they teach in yoga and, you know, deep meditation practices. - Yeah, a lot of chanting practices utilize them. - Yeah. - And the home sound, right?

Like, really bringing that out, actually, triggers the parasympathetic nervous response, which is the part of the nervous system that initiates, it's also called like a ventral vagal response, which initiates

a relaxation process, a rest of recovery for the nervous system.

So it's really essential for people to actually do,

humming. And the same role applies. Do it until you feel like, okay, I'm in a steady place. One client, one time, like, there's so much of the humming out there, I prescribed it,

that they're a horse, all right, yeah, but, you know, like, I think, you know, that also is a testament to commitment, right? Like, if you can commit to it, like, do it and do what works. And the third one that I like is rocking.

- Rocking, rocking, rocking. - Rocking, rocking. - Yeah, because if you think about the risk, make element of rocking, and it actually, like, it's almost like, you know, soothing, yeah. - It's soothing, it's like, like, baby in the womb,

you know, you're like rocking back and forth. - It's so funny. - It's so funny. - I naturally rock, you know, pretty much my whole life, especially when I'm standing, I've never been good at sitting still, or standing still.

So I'm actually just kind of like rock, before I throw up standing, 'cause otherwise, I'll just talk really to stand still. - Yeah, yeah. So breathing at least five minutes a day,

but I think just trying to remind yourself throughout the day to take deep, slow, intentional breaths, humming, and then rocking your body, this could be sitting down, it could be standing, it could be laying down as well.

- Yeah, and I think for the busy minds and busy,

So I think it works for me to do all three.

“- Yeah, I just integrated, I do my own thing, you know?”

I rock, I breathe at home, and it allows me to really integrate the practices, to get the full effect, and to also, you know, just like my mind is so preoccupied also with making sure that I'm on the technique, that I add a bit of my own, 'cause I'm very present sounding.

- Yeah, that's good. What's the difference between the traumas that happened to us and the generational trauma that happened to our ancestors? - Mm-hmm.

So the major difference is placed in biology. So there's a genetic component to intergenerational trauma. And so intergenerational trauma has this way in which there is a genetic transmission that happens from parent to child.

- Really? - And so it creates a predisposition to vulnerability to stress. - Give me example. What's the common example you see in your practice

that is a generational story?

“- Well, I mean, you know, there are people that will come in”

and say, you know, ever since I was a child that was difficult to sue. And I was, you know, I had like this hyperactivity. There's a lot of trauma survivors that also like believe that their symptoms are coincide with ADHD,

because there's a lot of overlap and the experience in the symptomatology. So there's a lot of that. There's like people that reflect back to their childhood

and they say like, I've always had like the experience

that felt like I was always anxious. When we dig into the layers and we dig deep, we start noticing okay, especially because I do a lot of like family tree work and like really going down the lineage to know like, well, what are some of the trauma

responses or what are some of the responses around also like inflammatory responses like depression or anxiety or other kind of like mental illness, you know, kind of experiences that were held in the family. And when we start going down the family line

and we start exploring not only their childhood and how they responded in their childhood, what their attachment patterns were in their childhood, but also how perhaps like their mother had an inner childhood. And the mother's mother had an inner childhood.

- And then never healed it. - Never healed it. Express it as a trauma response. Yelden screamed in the home, you know, had like emotional outbursts, what did that do

that actually created a disruption in the attachment that you could have had like in your childhood, it created an insecure attachment. You then went out into the world and experienced bullying, a pandemic, like all kinds of things.

And then that trauma, that trauma, you know, propensity or vulnerability got triggered out. And so now you are continuing the cycle of intergenerational trauma because it was modeled to you genetically, it was passed down and then, you know.

- Now is it genetic or is it, let's say, the mother breaks a cycle before she heals her trauma, the generational trauma before she has her child. - She can. - And she creates an environment of peace, you know.

Is it the environment or is it the biology, the genetic code that has passed down? Because it's like these environments are kind of passed down. You witness your parents doing it, you just follow the pattern

and you follow the environment pattern. - Yeah.

“- Is that genetic, is that environment, what is both?”

- It's both. It's like, you know, for as long as psychology has existed, we've had like theories on nature nurture. Darwinism also kind of just started that way, like way back when. So nature being like the biological aspects of our experiences

and in nature being like the social aspects of our experiences. And intergenerational trauma is really the only trauma that is situated at the intersection of both. So we have the nature side. - Yeah, so, you know, on the nature side, the genetic expression,

like we're getting a lot of information from like the field of epigenetics, which helps us understand how behavior impacts genes.

And so basically what happens is that, let's say a mother.

A mother has stress and depression in her life. Let's say that this mother is actually pregnant at five months' justation. So she's pregnant, she has a baby in utural. And because she's at five months' justation,

that baby also has all the precursors sex cells that they're gonna have for their lifetime. Regardless of the, whether it's male or female, they already have those. So the mother, she experienced chronic trauma her entire life.

And so because that became the status quo, her genes re-expressed. So her genes said, okay, this is the way that things are. We are a stressed body. And so, because her genes are now saying,

we are predisposed to stress, that's being handed down to the baby in utural, actually a conception. Wow. So the baby is conceived into genes

And because she is already still stressed

while she's having this baby, all those stress hormones, namely cortisol, those are being passed down to the baby in utural. And what's happening to the precursor cells? Those are also ingesting a lot of stress environments.

So you have three generations in one body. Wow. It's typically being passed down the stress vulnerability, but also the social piece, the mother stress. She has all her things going on.

She's predisposed to trauma. She's got all these things going while she's still pregnant. Her vitamin is still stressful, yeah. And so everybody in that lineage of three generations in one body is experiencing stress.

Is there just three generations? Or is it like every generation that's had it? Well, you know, I mean, I think it's a little bit of a chicken and egg, kind of phenomenon when it comes into generational trauma.

Like it's like, who started it, right?

“But I think I illustrate that because it's,”

I think a little bit easier to see. Like, oh, well, maybe it started with mom. Maybe she was, you know, the person that-- Maybe she had an extreme trauma, and there was a reaction response, yeah.

Exactly, right? And so now we at least get to see where the genetic line started from the trauma perspective. You think about that, but you're like, man, I'm carrying the weight of multiple generations

of trauma in my genes, like physical weight, actual weight, that could get a little dark and heavy. If you really put the emphasis on that. So how do we actually break that cycle once and for all? We're none of that trauma stays with us.

And we don't pass it down to our kids. It definitely has to be a very like whole system overhaul for most folks. Like it has to be, you know, an integration of holistic practices in our day-to-day lives.

Every single day. Like a daily practice. Every day. Can't wave around it.

“Because we got to think about what we're undoing.”

We're not just undoing the decades of trauma that-- But you experience, yeah. You're doing-- you're undoing all the-- You really need to have a rebirth. It's like a spiritual psychological, emotional,

nervous system rebirth, in my opinion. I feel like I've had a couple of them in the last decade. 10 years ago, kind of opening up about my sexual abuse trauma. And then, in the last few years, just dealing with all relationships in general, like all intimate relationships that I've had.

I've never really faced them until a couple of years ago.

And I feel like I had to re-- I had emotionally spiritually die in a sense. Psychologically, I guess. Allow it to burn. And then, then, build from the ashes, kind of psychologically.

And it's a process. I'm not saying I've finished it or did everybody. It's like a constant journey of going back to the different stages of childhood, healing each stage, integrating that age with my current self.

So there's full integration and healing of every different memory from my life. That was a traumatic response. Yeah. And it's been a beautiful journey that has allowed me

to have peace and harmony on the inside, which I never had that until really 10 years ago, I didn't start feeling it. But until a couple years ago, when I started feeling a more and more peace on the inside. And it allows me to, again, see the world differently.

I'm not saying I'm not triggered by things, but it allows me to see it. And I say, OK, this sucks.

“How can I consciously communicate what I want to change?”

Not from a reactive, overwhelmed, stressed, traumatic state, which I feel like you can't really get much done from that state. No, I mean, you can push things down and numb, and it's still operate fairly well.

But all of that, all of that will come back. Because you're in survival mode, too. Because numbing is still survival mode. But you're not thriving. You're not creating a abundant life for yourself

when you're in a traumatic response, are we? No, not at all. I mean, I think abundance comes from being able to get into the depths of your soul. So I love that you're talking about the more

like cycle spiritual angle, because that is definitely I operate from a holistic angle. And so a lot of the work that I do is very mind-body spirit.

And the spiritual peace is really essential,

because it's not just your connection to higher power. It's really just also your connection to yourself. You're really disconnected from your true authentic self. You're not living abundantly. Yes.

And if we want generational abundance, and we have to get into the depths of everything that's there, into the mud, if you may. Yeah, I think if you're triggered or have a nervous system response to a lot of things,

you're constantly in their survival mode, right? And it's hard to create an abundant-- it's hard to dream from a place of survival. It's hard to create something beautiful from that place. I mean, it makes a lot of sense, even from a biological perspective.

and that's survival mode, you're in a chronic nervous system

overall, right? So our nervous system

“is designed to actually make it so that whenever we”

are in a fight-fly freeze of fun, any nonessential functions, any nonessential organ functions, bodily functions, are brain even, like the cortical region of our brain. All of that is mildly shut down. So we're talking about like alchumizing

and creativity and like all these things. Those things require a lot of cortical structure, like manifestation of all the things that you want, like really requires for you to get into your creative mind. And if your cortical brain is not fully functioning

in the ways that it-- because it's in survival mode, then you're not really going to get to that actualization. It's so interesting because I was in a relationship once where a couple of years of stress, right? I was-- it's all my responsibility.

I should have gotten out, but I stayed in and then

wanted to make it work and always do different things.

And I remember for like a year before the relationship, I was like getting ready to create a book, right a book. And I was excited about it. And then in the relationship, I had no energy to create, because a lot of it was survival in this relationship.

It was kind of like come back home.

“It should get a yell at me and what are we managing today?”

What's the stress level, all these different things? And I kept wanting to try to create this book, but I had zero energy or creative thinking to make it happen. And I kept being like shaming myself as like, why do I not the energy for this?

But it was putting all my energy and kind of survival mode and just make this one environment work out. The moment things ended, it's like I finished the book in a few months. It's like I had all this energy and creativity,

because that wasn't in that survival mode state. I want to ask you a question about-- we mentioned mental health for a moment. What are the main, I guess? I don't know all the terminology perfectly.

So what are the main mental health challenges that people face today? Is it depression? Is it anxiety? Is it ADHD?

What are the terminologies of mental health that are prominent today? Those are primary ones. But actually depression is on a worldwide scale. That happens to be one of the leading causes

of disability, one of the leading causes of just global on wellness. It's very debilitating kind of condition, because it's not just a mental health condition. It's also like a bodily condition.

It's an inflammatory condition.

“We know a lot of, I think some of the initial studies”

that came out that coincided with psychotropics. Some of the medications from the '80s, '90s, and all of that helped us to understand some of the ways in which the brain, it operates a certain way to facilitate depression, but we weren't necessarily talking about other studies

that were happening, which we're talking about, more of the immunology that's implicated, like anything that's inflammatory that's implicated in depression as well, diet that's implicated in depression as well. A lot of, so many factors, yes.

So many things. So depression is like a big one. But whenever someone comes to me with depression,

I always like to look at the full picture, right?

So I look at all of the life, everything, I look at all those pieces. And depression is one of those mental health conditions that has, there are a number of them, but this one has like a, a weight identified and classified as either single episode or multiple episode.

When a person is in a single episode, I usually look for an environmental trigger. What happened? What happened, right? But when there is a multiple episode,

I wonder a lot more. Meaning what, relationship, food, environment, loss of a job, yeah, divorce. The small tea traumas, if you may, like some of the things that are like your day-to-day,

everyday traumas, but nothing that really compromises your safety in anyway. But whenever we're talking about multiple episode depression, I get very curious about a person's history, their family history, what happened to them,

what happened within their family, and I really start digging, because when, when you're talking about life-long depression, you've been depressed your entire life, we have to really start wondering,

is trauma implicated in your history in some way, and is that what's keeping the undercurrent of depression, right? Depression's the main one you hear about. Anxiety, there's psychosis which we don't talk a lot about.

Psychosis is, you know, it's a extreme version of dissociation. There's some genetic loading there too, but she was schizophrenia. There's genetic loading to some extent with depression and anxiety.

There's trauma, trauma is a whole separate category. You have complex trauma, you have developmental trauma, you have reactive attachment disorder, which is mostly for children,

"Oh, they're acting a certain way that is different."

Maybe something happened. Something happened, yeah. So I'm curious, these, I just want to understand the terminology of these things. So in the term of mental health illness,

with depression, ADHD, psychosis, would these be considered illnesses? What would these be, the terminology? These, I would say illnesses because... Conditions, what is it?

I know there's, you know, there are a number of us, especially the holistic psychologists of the world, like we look at illness and disorder. We like to not look at it as that, in some ways, we like to really kind of like,

look at the global picture. But if we're talking about the diagnostic and... I'm an individual, yeah. Yeah, and really the manual that we, as psychologists and psychiatrists,

have to basically abide by when we're creating diagnostic goals,

then, you know, these are considered mental disorders, mental health. Disorders, okay. Disorders are illnesses, it's actually the same. Now is this disorder? Is it a symptom?

I don't think that word. Is this... But that's what it's called. This disorder, this challenge. Yeah, yeah.

Is it a symptom? Or is it a disorder?

“Is it a symptom of trauma or a unresolved healing that causes this disorder?”

And if we heal the trauma, we'll be able to eliminate these symptoms or these disorders. I think we'll be able to get rid of a lot of stuff, a lot of it. Some of it, as I mentioned, because there is that genetic loading,

and we gotta think of the genetics that we talked about already, right? Like, we're talking about lineage of genetic loadings. So, you know, if we start doing the work now, maybe we'll see a lot less of these disorders happening within our families and our communities. So, there is a lot that we can do to actually rectify the abundance of mental illness that's out there.

I believe that there is a lot of the mental illness that exists in the world that has an undercurrent of trauma, and we just haven't talked about that undercurrent or that possibility as much. But I don't know if we'll be able to absolve ourselves a 100% of the mental illness in the world, but I think that we can do a really good job in this generation to break cycles. We're kind of an individual...

Eliminate these mental health issues in an individual level if they are willing to do the deep healing work. Because essentially, yeah, because I feel like... Correct me from wrong. These are like symptoms of trauma. You didn't grow up depressed. Certain things happen that event happened in an environment, continue to foster the feelings of depression, the state of depression, and if we can heal the memory, the trauma, the event,

“and reconnect to our pure self, our whole human self. What did those things start to go away?”

That's precisely the goal. So, you know, where we started off with psychology and psychiatry, we started off with symptom management. A lot of psychiatry, you know, we're still kind of there a little bit. Which is like, here's the drug to manage the symptoms. Band aid. But that's not healing. Yeah. That's not resolving. That's just managing it. Precisely. But that doesn't... Do anything to bring back to wholeness. Yes.

And integrate the person. Integrating the healing, right? Exactly. And that's the goal. That's the goal for me, that's the goal in my practice. I want full integration of that person.

I want them to see, really see their authentic self. Some people have never even

had an opportunity to see, like who they could be at their true core self, because it's been mass by so much of the trauma and the symptomatology that's associated with the trauma like the depression. Yeah. So, you believe that people can heal these mental health challenges as well, if they integrate fully. Many of them, especially the ones that, you know, because I think we have, like bipolar disorder and we have, you know, schizophrenia that have

a different mechanism for them, but many of them, absolutely. But many of the ones that a lot of people are facing depression, the big lady, the ADHD, the depression, especially, yeah. Right. How important is finding a meaningful purpose in life, support you in overcoming feeling depressed or depression? It's like so critical. It's one, yeah, 100%. I mean, like when we're talking about what happens after trauma, meaning making is at the

“center. It's like one of the biggest things, because you have, you have to see your life”

having some sort of value and that there's meaning associated with your life and with everything that's within your life in order to actually, like even feel motivated to do the heavy lifting

meaning making, it's automatized in that journey. It's created in that journey, right? But I think

“at the very least, you have to have hope that meaning can be making, can be possible.”

Because what it sounds like to me is a lot of people attach meaning in a more negative, harmful state to events, to words, to actions that happen around them, and therefore that meaning causes more depression, ADHD, or negative thoughts, all these different things that hurt us. But if we created a different meaning around the event, to the words or the event, the breakup, with a lost-age career, created a new meaning around it, and had a different intention of different

purpose moving forward, we wouldn't have those mental challenges as much. Yeah, I mean, I think

people, you know, just haven't been trained to ask themselves the right questions around meaning

making, right? And so what's the right questions? Well, there are questions are, you know, well, someone experiences a traumatic event, or they tear little tea. What questions should we ask? Yeah, we should be asking, you know, um, so questions around, well, let's talk about what was learned in that circumstance. That's a really hard question to ask because sometimes people feel like you really, you think that that needed to happen? No, it didn't need to happen.

It did happen. It can't change it. You can't, that's, that's in your history now. No. What can we take from that experience? And it doesn't even need to be the traumatic event itself for your response, your reaction. What can we take from that to learn how to now create a healing protocol for you? And it's about, you know, being able to ask questions that get people thinking outside of the box because what happens when you're in a state of trauma is that you're,

you're frozen in many ways. You're thought they're frozen. You start thinking a lot of the same things, right? Like it's a lot of protective functions. Your feelings are frozen in time. Like people like constantly feel worry, anxiety, like a lot of things that are, you know, just them being in a protective state. And so we can start asking questions to freeze some of that up. That's, that's going to be like really key. But I, I like that question even though, you know,

“I think it can veer us in different directions, but I'm open to that whenever it comes to work”

with a client, right? Because wherever we go, I'm with them. I'm going with you and we're following that path. If someone stays committed to their story of, of meaning that it, it was this horrible event and it ruined my life. The divorce, the job loss, the injury, whatever might be, what happens if they hold on to the meaning in a negative way as opposed to,

that was a traumatic event. I don't wish you don't want upon anyone. But here's what I learn

from it, here's what I gain from it, here's what I'm going to do with it in a positive way. What happens to those? Well, the way that I interpret that is that that person is one still in a state of fear. They're not ready to really get curious about what other definitions meaning can have in their life. They just really stuck on the one definition that it tarnished their lives that it, you know, it got in the way and they're just stuck there, right? And so if that's the case,

then my role as a clinician or their role as a person that wants to get out of it, hopefully, is to work on the fear. You got to work on where is fear trapped? How is the nervous system operating around here, right? Like, where can we free them up in a bodily sense because an nervous system requires a lot of that body-based way. And so we have to really get curious about

“that and like go in that direction versus, you know, the questions are very mind-focused, right?”

But we need the body-based practices in order to create safety in the body. To release also, right? At least to fear the pain, the trauma, and reconnect to the safety of your body, is it, right? Exactly. And so that, when a person can feel that there is safety in their body, they can feel that they can actually go into the depths of their minds in a way that doesn't feel scary and existential. Right. Speaking of fear, I saw some of my recently, I don't know if

this is true, but I saw some of my recently that human beings are born with three fears, the fear of loud noises, the fear of falling in the fear of abandonment. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, we tend to add more fears as time goes on. I don't know if that's true of those of the only three or we don't have fears at all, but it seems like we gather, we collect more fears through childhood and adulthood. Why do you think we gather so many fears and collect them?

Well, I think you're talking about like primary fears, right? Like those feel like primary

that start over slons. As a baby, you're going to need to feel deeply connected and attuned to a

caregiver. Otherwise you don't live, yeah. Basically, right? And so like it's basically a fear of

losing life or a fear of losing safety. So it makes a lot of sense, but the accumulation of it also makes sense because we operate in mental representations in categories, basically. So we have specific categories in our minds that are primarily created in our childhood, and then everything else that happens in life, we put in the different categories and the buckets of our minds, and they just start accumulating and growing. So if you have a big fear bucket, then you're going to have a lot of

fears that are going to, you know, like come into your life and stay there because your fear

“bucket is just, you know, so nervous. What's the biggest fear you've had to overcome?”

I think that held you back the most. I think for me, you know, I grew up in poverty. And that for me, the thing about growing up in poverty is that it's not only the fear of do we have enough. It's also that that mental expression, that narrative stays with you throughout life, and it creates that, and now we call it like deficit mentality, right, or other kinds of things that it might scare citymines, all those things, right? And so not having enough,

not being able to survive in that way is definitely like been an enormous fear for me for like throughout life because that's, I was born into such poverty that I remember like, with my grandmother, like she carried like a bucket of water to bring to her home, right? Like from like this tiny little spring, you know, like not having outdoor plumbing, like indoor plumbing, in the Dominican Republic. Wow, you grew up there? I was there until I was five, yeah,

“and then I came to the US. And so like, you know, I mean, like you, you see that growing up, right?”

Like, and there's like that much scarcity that to ever go back to anything like that, feels like it can happen at any time. But it's like you don't want to go back there. I remember when I was 20, kind of 23, 24, 25 that range, I was living on my sister's couch, I had no money, and I was in student loan debt at the time, I'm living off three credit cards. So 2008, when kind of the economy crashed that time. And remember thinking like, this is not fun, you know, it's just not fun, like eating

my sister's leftovers, like not being able to pay for rent and just figuring out how we're going to get food the next couple of days, right? Like, where's the money going to come from? Now I had a roof of my head, but I wasn't providing for myself. Like, my sister was even on a 20-something-year-old man, right? And I remember thinking to myself, after I started to make money for probably five years,

“I remember thinking I just never want to go back there. So it's still kind of in a survival mode,”

even though I had money, like, I had enough money in the bank for six months, and any year, to, like, live off of, was still kind of operating off of scarcity and not enough, and I need

more to feel safe and secure. And I never want to go back to that place. And it's, it's challenging

to break that physically, the nervous system, and also mentally psychologically, and just knowing you'll be able to generate and create enough. It's a challenge to break through. It is, and, you know, like, the actual logistical challenge. I mean, that was there for sure, right? Like, I had to do a lot to be able to break away from that, right? And to help my family navigate out of, you know, that that position of working-class poverty, right? Like, but the psychological piece,

that takes serious work, that takes serious work, right? Because, you know, like, it's about money management. It's about, you know, like, things that I made desire and want to

purchase, but that's always in the back of my mind, you know? And so, like, it's like, really kind of

fighting them. I learned a whole new set of skills. Yeah. I learned with money, it was like, I'm still educating myself today. You know, I'm still learning and teaching myself different things about money from saving, to investing, to tax strategies, to managing it, all these different things. I don't think you ever stop learning. Yeah. And because I'm learning, I feel more and more confident with it. I feel more and more okay with it. But if I don't

understand it, how am I going to feel okay with it? Yeah. And most of us, when there are taught this as kids, you know, whenever taught this, we're not taught this in schools, how to manage money, so. And if we grew up in lower income houses, we probably weren't taught how to manage it either. Yeah. So it's like, you really got to self educate yourself on so many areas of life if you didn't learn. Yeah. Money, healing, relationships, how to deal with failure, all these things.

Yes. There are some people that I've met who can't remember their childhood. Supercom. I met this one girl. I don't know about 10 years ago. She's like, I don't remember anything before 17. I go, what? It just didn't make sense to me, right? I know have, you know, I don't remember every year of my childhood and I don't remember everything. But if I can

go back to that place or see a photo, yeah, I remember this. But I met someone for the first time

and said they didn't remember before 17. I go, that's interesting. I later realized there was a lot of trauma. Yeah. So someone isn't able to recall childhood memories in general and they just have it blocked. Is that because of trauma or is that something else? So trauma can be very much implicated. I mean, like, you know, humans were so variable that, you know, there can be other things. But when it comes to this type of experience that you're talking about and people

saying, I don't remember a whole chunk of my life. I don't remember my childhood. It is incredibly common for trauma survivors, especially individuals that have undergone either complex trauma or chronic trauma or just have been in that trauma response and that survival mode for almost the lifetime. And I mean, there is a bit of biological psychological explanation for that.

“And I think we got to like really get into memory and how it operates. Like, what is memory? Right?”

So we have short-term memory. We have long-term memory. And short-term memory really operates at this, like, 30-second interval. And anything that isn't encoded into long-term memory dissolves with short-term memory, you no longer remember it. Now, when we're talking about the nervous system, remember we have like a dissociative process, that dissociative process makes it so that

also, like, you're in, you're operating only with the essential functions that you need,

which means that that memory encoding that's compromised too. So when you're in constant survival mode, and your memory isn't shifting into long-term memory, you're not encoding that. You can't later retrieve it. So retrieval isn't going to be possible later. And like, you're not going to remember what happened when you were eight years old, because it was a compromising of your memory process. Is there a way to remember things if you've blocked it for so long, or is it kind of

you've lost these memories? I mean, especially in childhood, like, some of it were supposed to lose, right? Like, pruning away. We're not designed to remember everything. But, you know,

if memories weren't encoded into long-term memory, it's going to be hard to remember them,

“because they're just not there. However, I mean, I think we have to, you know, further break down”

memory, because we have implicit and explicit memory. What's the difference? So explicit memory is more of those, like, you know, you remember, you know, that childhood girlfriend that you had, right? Like, and, like, you remember moments about, like, it's, you remember what you had for breakfast. It's, like, very concrete conscious details of your memory. Implicit memory is more like sensory memory. So the body still remembers. Smell the sight, the experience, the music. The touch, like,

we remember in, you know, more implicit way, right? And so, like, people when they're talking about not remembering, they're talking about explicit memory, not implicit, because implicit, they're remembering a lot, because they're living in that body that's constantly reminding them through triggers that there's a memory there. Let's say someone has got out all the things, you know, depression, all the stress, nervous system has broken down, they're just in a low state,

all these things. Everything triggers them, right? If you wipe their memory off, and they woke up without having the memory, cellular memory, or the mental memory of the trauma, the little tea, big tea, the chronic trauma, all these different things, what would have hypothetical scenario, but you were able to eliminate these memories. Once you essentially be more positive

“or have, like, a more a better outlook on life. I mean, I think that you, you know,”

could have more of, like, what we talked about earlier than neutrality, so you're right, you know, observing it. Yeah, yeah, you know, like, because everything will be new, right? And so you won't have something that, that actually is attached to emotion, like an event is not attached to emotion, and, you know, a scent is not attached to emotion, so you won't have the trigger response, you'll just be looking at something with, with a new set of eyes. So, yeah, just feel like a

lot of people doubt themselves, and they have a lot of self doubt tied to previous events, right? I failed, this person made fun of me, I was laughed at, I was bullied, they broke up with me,

and they doubt themselves, because of a series of events. How do we break that? So people can learn to believe in themselves more, even if they have different events happen that didn't go their way.

“Well, I think some of it has to be like a reconfiguration of their self-concept, like it's,”

it's very self-oriented, right? Because like, now we're talking about when someone said something to them about their clothes, how now they, like, you know, have this like perception of themselves and how they dress, it's negative, you know, or ill-fitted because of what was said. So now it's become a part of the self, right? So a lot of the work has to be central to the self, like how do we get you to a place where, you know, you're embodying, either more neutral, more positive sense of self,

and that your core self isn't, you know, an amalgamation of like all of these negative experiences and how you then translate it and internalize those into how you see yourself and how you see the world. How do you teach that to someone? What's something someone can do if they're listening or watching it? They don't believe themselves, so they have a series of events that remind them, see, they're like, "Yeah, I'm not good enough for this, so I don't deserve this." What can they do

“to start having a different view of self? I like the idea of challenging thoughts, right?”

But the thing about challenging thoughts is that the first step is that we have to write down the

limiting thoughts that have been there. We have to write down the emotions that have been associated with those limiting thoughts, and then we have to challenge those thoughts, like actively challenge them. There's so many of us that are walking around this world, not having challenged a lot of those initial ideas that we've created around ourselves regardless of where they came from. They could have been from a parent who told you you know you disappoint me, you're not good enough, right?

And that manifested into a mental representation of themselves is not being good enough, right? But we have to look at the root, and then challenge the root, and then also work on the emotional piece. An emotional piece that I like the work around emotions to be like very body-centered because emotions are very situated in the body. And so it's a mind practice and that we're writing all these things down, but it's also a body practice. It's an integration. It is.

Mind and body. You've got to integrate it. You can't just be analytical around it. If your body

is still reactive, you've got to integrate it too. Yeah, always. What do you think holds you back

from your highest self right now? I definitely have had my fair share of imposter syndrome of wondering if I, you know, if I meet the market, I've been in spaces where I've been the only person that looks like me. And so it's definitely me. It looks like you've kind, energetic. Just so good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

“Great to see you all. Great smile. What do you mean?”

I mean, you know, like I'm a black Latina, right? I'm from the working class. I've entered a lot of elite spaces, you know, for education, you know, I got an Ivy League education from my doctorate, and I was very much, you know, not seeing myself mirrored in a lot of these spaces. So it definitely, like, made me wonder a lot. You're standing out as we were so lucky, yeah. Yeah, and you know, it can be very isolated, that experience, you know, and so I think that it

makes you wonder, like, do I belong here as my voice, you know, welcome like that sort of thing? So that definitely has been, you know, it's something that has been a struggle for me. And I think it will forever be like something that I know has been there, but I work really, really hard on a daily basis. So if you're coaching someone else that's in a similar situation, they're, they stand out in their industry. They look different, they don't fit in, I guess, right?

They're not mirrored, as you said. Yeah. What would you, how would you coach them if they said? They, they feel like, I don't know if I belong or I feel like an imposter, what would you, how would you coach them to interpret that differently? Yeah, I love that question. I would, you know, I would start with a body always, right? So I would definitely like do some imagery exercises with them to, like, place them in their mind in that space and do some relaxation exercises with them around

that, because that's always my thing. To get them relaxed first, to start creating from that space.

And the exactly, like, I want safety. Yeah, always safety. However, I do always want to ask, like, who told you you don't belong? Because that's a question that we're not explicitly asking ourselves, like, someone said that in the STEM field, like, women aren't, you know, there isn't open spaces for women, right? Like, something happened there, right? Who said that women don't belong in STEM? And so that's, you know, like, I always want to ask that question.

Of course, we, you know, some of the answers, like, but I think society, you know, like, there's been, like, ways in which we, um, we've created spaces that have been for specific

that's open for you? So I, I think that the, the reason why I ask that question is because I think that, you know, it opens up the mind to, to really wonder about that. And I think it also offers like a little bit of empowerment to the person that's receiving that question. Like, yeah, who told me that I don't belong, you know? And like, really stepping into that. And I've done that for myself and it's been incredibly helpful. Yeah, it's good. What else would you say after asking that question, how

would you coach that person? I would want them to, um, you know, like really do some, like, heavy

“lifting around the emotional piece. I think that that's always going to be an important aspect of”

doing work that's imposter syndrome centered, right? Because at the heart of it is fear, right? And so fear of, there's a fear of a lot of things. But, you know, like, fear belonging is a big one, right? Like, do I belong, right? And so if we're talking about fear of belonging, if we're talking about not feeling good enough, a lot of those, you know, areas are, we really need to work on. So that's the depth work, right? The other stuff is a little bit more superficial. It's like where we start,

but then we got to get into the motion part. Yeah, interesting. What has been the thing your most proud of that you've overcome? You know, definitely getting to this level of education, I think is something that I hold a lot of pride around because I worked so hard. And I was able to overcome at least like the bigger pieces of imposter syndrome around that. And also,

“a lot of things like I wasn't taught to operate at this level, right? And, and so a lot of”

it was self-taught. At this level of education, you know, I'm definitely a first generation in that

regard. There's a lot of bureaucracies that you've got to learn and know, like when you're operating and like, you know, educational spaces that are higher, higher ed in this way. And so, if the fact that I, my own, like, am a very intuitive person, so my own intuition help me to really scan environments in a way that helped me to learn the environment in a very concrete way and then learn to operate within it, but also just be myself. I like bring myself. I say,

I bring my sauce because I'm like, I'm going to bring my whole Dominican self into whatever states that I'm like a part of and, you know, everybody like who's around me, you're like, you'll have to adjust, right? Like rather than me, like adjusting to the environment and like reconfiguring myself. So that's been something that I've been like really proud of just like stepping into spaces that where I felt like before I don't belong and just just proclaiming that I do.

Yeah, that's cool. I love this stuff. You've got your social media is amazing. You've got a lot of

great resources there. You're teaching, you're inspiring, you're entertaining, and you're connecting people to this work of healing generational trauma. You've also working on a book right now. Yeah. You've got a course you're working on that's coming out soon. Yeah. What is this course going to be teaching people about specifically? It's going to really get into the depths of trauma and how we heal from trauma through a number of holistic practices. So my hope is that for individuals

that are just hoping to really enhance their knowledge of how to really integrate practices that are going to be very helpful in the trauma journey or for healer practitioners that are out there wanting to really enhance their own practice, coaches who might ever write like an in-be trauma informed that this can be a really good hub and center for them to be able to acquire that knowledge. And access can be through my website, which is drmerialbunquet.com. Yeah, I click on courses and there I am.

There you are. You haven't used letters too. We can start too. I do. I do and I actually offer one coping skill each week on my newsletter. Yeah. So one coping skill that people can integrate into

their week and then also all things my world basically. That's cool. Very cool. So if we go to

drmerialbunquet.com, then you get the newsletter that can find out about the course. See you on social media as well. What do you Instagram's your main thing? Instagram and TikTok is a lot of fun. Yeah. Yeah. I like to lighten the conversation on trauma a little bit because it is very heavy. So it's dark. It's very dark and all people don't want to face it. But that's the thing is that if I can open up just a little, a small smidgen of conversation in there and people start getting

“really curious about trauma and I think that on TikTok I've been able to do that where I am”

if it's a little bit of humor and people are like, okay, it's not that scary to talk about. I can do this. What do you think is going to happen in the world of the next three to five years if people

personal end that we'll see the continuation of these generational cycles of trauma. I think it's going to be

“that we're going to continue to institute policies. We're going to continue to just operate in the”

world in a way that is driven by a lot of hostility and aggression that is a representation of unhealed wounds. Yes. It's interesting in 2017, I wrote a book called The Mask of Masculinity which is about how men can start to heal, can start to drop the masks that trying to protect them from the outside world and reveal themselves be a little more vulnerable, open up and really just show their authentic self from a healed place, not from a hurt place or defensive place. Because I

believe that a lot of the problems that are happening in the world are caused by men who are, you know, wearing a mask or hurt or angry or traumatized and there hasn't been a safe space specifically for men until I think more recently to start opening up about their traumas. I don't think it's been acceptable for men to talk about these things. And so I'm so glad you're doing this work, I'm so glad there's a lot of people doing this work because I just feel like people need resources

to start the healing journey. It's my therapist says it's a journey. It's not a one time event where you just, I'm healed and it's all better, you know, it's an integration of healing process

“over time. But I feel like more people like you need to be doing this step of work and teaching”

us how to heal. Because I think if we can all heal, men specifically speaking from my point of view, it's like, you know, if men can learn to heal and be more loving and authentic, then I think it's just going to be a lot more harmonious environment in the world. And so, but I also think that, you know, a lot of women need to heal too. There's a lot of problems that if women can heal too, they can create a safe space for men to be their authentic selves. It's like working and

together more as opposed to, you know, arguing and fighting as much. So yeah. That's my intention. That's my mission here. I love it. I love it. It creates, you know, a lot more vulnerability from that place of vulnerability. We can, you know, bridge curiosity, safety. There's so much that comes from that place where the work is done. Vulnerability encourages, you know, takes root. And it creates definitely more of that harmony, it's speaking to. This is the challenge. I just

wish people could have conversations consciously. You know, just like, maybe I don't agree with a lot of things that you do or other people do or they don't agree with me, whatever. But to be able to question and like you said, do you say question and just say, challenge the thoughts. That challenge the ideas, but not from a aggressive emotional state. I feel like if we can question and have a conversation from a place of calm, then it's going to be able to help us

come together more in just a lot of different areas of life. So that's my intention. Yeah. Starts with the nervous system, though. You know, like if we're like heavily triggered, and you know, the conversation that we're having is is triggering because it's disrupting, you know, whatever is going on in our minds. Like, or it's just challenging us in a way where it's like pushing us out of our thoughts. Yeah, it makes it felt comfortable. We're like,

I'm going to protect myself. We're going to scream and react and call you an idiot or we're going

“to go straight into fight mode. Yeah. But you can't solve anything that way, can you?”

It's really challenging to have. You can't be creative and solution-oriented in the ways that you would be if you were in more of that. I love that. It's a question I asked everyone at the end. It's called a three truth. So imagine hypothetically it's your last day on Earth many years

away. You live as long as you want to live, but it's your last day. You know, it's always

you want to be. And you accomplish all your wildest dreams. But for whatever reason you've got to take all of your work with you to another place, your books, your courses, your content, we don't have access anymore. But we have access to three things that you would leave behind with the world, three lessons or three truths. What would you say of those three truths for you? They would be that you are not just what happened to you. You are a bundle at least so much more.

I would let people know that healing is a lot of work. It sucks. It just bends you and twist you into different uncomfortable shapes, but it is incredibly worth it. And that no matter where

you are in your healing journey, today is always a good day to start to break the cycle.

Hmm, yeah. I would acknowledge you, Maria, for your journey, for stepping into this field of practice you were telling me before about how you had another career in advertising in New York City.

in being of service to helping people with these different challenges in their life. And you said,

“I'm going to take on eight more years of school. And we take on this college debt and student loans”

to follow a mission, a purpose that was more meaningful for you. It's really hard for a lot of people to do. And so I really acknowledge you for listening to your heart, for listening to your truth,

for taking that step, and continually adding value to so many people in the world by doing the

individual practice when I'm one that you do, the coaching you do, by sharing this content of social media, by working on books and courses. I really acknowledge you for stepping into this season of your life, which is adding a lot of value for you and to the world. It's really meaningful to witness

and to see you overcome so much to get to where you're at. Thank you. I really acknowledge you for

that. Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate that. Of course. Of course. It's been a journey. I treasure and I'm grateful that I'm here. And thank you for highlighting my journey. Of course. Yeah. Of course. Yeah. Of course. People can follow you. We'll have everything linked up. Your website, Dr. Mariela, bouquet.com, social media, Dr. Mariela bouquet.

“Final question for you. What's your definition of greatness?”

Well, greatness to me, you know, it's found in everyday people that people that alchamize from the ashes, you know, and become cyclebreakers very much like you have. And I just think they're the bravest souls on this planet. That to me is really great. Mm-hmm. How do you? Gracias. Thank you. Thank you. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes

“in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.”

And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our greatness plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward.

And I want to remind you of no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.