Trauma, Relationships, Self-Worth & the Psychology of Healing | Shadow Work, Grief & Personal Growth

Why do some experiences stay with us for years while others seem to fade away? What is trauma, really? How do relationships reveal who we truly are? And can suffering become a pathway to wisdom?

In this thought-provoking conversation, we explore the psychology of trauma, emotional healing, grief, self-worth, relationships, and personal growth. Drawing on insights from somatic therapy, Carl Jung's concept of the shadow, PTSD research, and modern approaches to emotional regulation, we unpack how our deepest wounds can shape our identity, behaviour, and relationships.

Topics include:

• Trauma, PTSD, and nervous system regulation
• Carl Jung, shadow work, and personal transformation
• Emotional healing and somatic therapy
• Self-worth, purpose, and the search for meaning
• Sensitivity, emotional intelligence, and self-awareness
• Relationship dynamics and attachment patterns
• Grief, loss, and post-traumatic growth
• Gratitude, mindfulness, and mental wellbeing
• Psychedelic therapy and processing difficult emotions

Whether you're interested in psychology, mental health, relationships, self-development, or understanding yourself on a deeper level, this episode offers a fascinating exploration of what it means to heal, grow, and become more fully human.

You know, the biggest shift happened from a psychedelic therapy.

Yeah, I had the shaman and went through some really deep.

Where did you do it?

What did you.

What it was mushrooms.

It's 3.8 grams in total, I believe.

Is that a lot?

And it was.

For me, yeah, it was.

It was enough.

It did the job.

And I. I processed a lot of grief and it was a lot of stuff with my siblings came up, stuff that I hadn't felt, that I wasn't allowing myself to feel.

And that put me on more of a trajectory of becoming more and more connected, I would say.

Yeah.

Aware, connected.

Allowing myself to be sensitive because I am a sensitive person.

And I was looking for these ways to numb out.

And instead of that, I'm leaning into it.

I'm leaning into the discomfort.

The be part of like embodied is somatic intelligence.

And that's.

Somatic intelligence means you're feeling what's in your body and what's happening and where it's located.

And so when I'm working with clients, a lot of the process is helping them feel where in their body they're feeling, like their emotions, where their breath is landing.

So that's like a.

Locate where the emotion is originating from in your.

In your.

You think.

Yeah.

So it's more.

Sometimes it's hard to nlp.

I don't like that.

Sometimes it's hard to know exactly where what emotion it is.

So.

And it's also identifying the motion puts you more into your head because you're more of like identifying things and creating a story.

So rather than doing that, we just look at what are you feeling in your body right now?

Where is your breath landing?

Do you feel a tightness?

What happens when you bring your awareness to it?

How does it shift?

Yeah, how can you practice when you say.

So a couple of things.

One, you say you're very sensitive.

What does the word sensitivity mean to you?

What does the word, the term sensitive mean?

Yeah, because so for me, you got.

Sorry, no, no.

So for me, sensitivity is about being very aware of what I'm feeling in my body in any given moment.

Being very sensitive to external stimuli.

Just less.

It's less of a filter, I guess.

There's.

The layer of skin is thinner between the outside world and what's happening inside.

And so there's a lot of self regulation involved.

There's.

And I think a lot of people are sensitive and there's different degrees of it.

It's a spectrum.

Yeah, it's just the tuning is more acute.

And so it's actually yeah, yeah.

And so for me, it's actually a good.

It's everything.

It's like, I'm sensitive to noises, I'm sensitive to textures, sensitive to like everything.

It doesn't just emotions.

Yes.

And just everything, though, smells.

And like, my sense of smell is like abnormally good, which is actually like a gift and a curse.

Yeah.

But the sensitivity is just a broad spectrum.

It is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a really.

I think it's an underrated sense.

Smell, scent, in terms of.

You have to rate, like, how powerful each of the five senses are.

People would put smell near the bottom, I think.

But actually a powerful scent can have a significant impact on our emotional state.

And obviously memory is.

Scent is really connect memory and stuff.

So I get that.

Yeah.

And when you say emotional regulation, how did you practice that and what does that mean in the specific context of you?

Yeah.

So for me, emotion regulation means we're moving from, like a place of reactivity and to a place of responding.

So when something happens that's impacting us, when the emotion comes up, rather than just like immediately acting on it, we are like sitting with it and taking a breath, like breathing with it, finding where it is in the body, even acting it out somatically.

If it's, you know, like animals, for instance, when something happens to them, they'll like, shake, you know?

You know, that's how they regulate.

People can do stuff like that too.

Yeah, no, totally.

Me too.

I. I think he's a good shake right now.

No.

Yeah, but it's shaking.

But also I use that.

I've used that example in the past of like the gazelle that's been chased by a lion.

Oh, yeah.

Doesn't go and develop PTSD from a highly traumatic incident.

It goes and shakes it out.

That's not an accurate comparison because we don't have the brains of else.

But regardless, it's a really interesting phenomenon.

It is, truly.

Yeah.

So when you say, what did you.

What have you written down here?

Yeah.

I was going to ask.

I think our caveat with defining already established terms personally can sometimes be an issue because I think if we don't all work off the same hymn sheet, so to speak, then life can become quite confusing.

But what do you.

How do you define trauma?

It's a buzzword that's thrown around a lot at the moment.

It is.

It is a lot of this, like, somatic psychology and psychology stuff, just in general.

And Eastern ideas are becoming more in that social media culture.

Yeah.

Which isn't always a bad thing.

But Sometimes it is, but for trauma, what I think about trauma is more so.

Less so of what happened to you, more so of how whatever happened to you was not processed.

What your nervous system holds onto, and it can.

The same thing can happen to two people.

One person is.

Is fine.

One person, like, moves on, like, doesn't have, like, this symptoms of CPTSD or ptsd, but then another person, like, is deeply impacted.

And we all have our own threshold of what we can take.

So that's how I would see trauma.

I was watching a clip, it's quite a famous clip of a psychologist talking about ptsd, and he was saying how a lot of people don't develop PTSD because something awful has happened to them, but they develop it because they've encountered someone being awful.

So they've.

He would.

I know who you're talking about.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

He.

Yeah.

What's.

What's your opinion on that?

Yeah.

Oof, that's heavy.

Yeah.

So I think the quote was something like you.

You witnessed somebody.

Correct me if I'm.

If I have the wrong quote, but I think, like, we're talking about Jordan Peterson and the quote.

Yeah.

Being you encounter someone that, like, truly wants to hurt you.

Yeah, that's real.

Yeah, but.

And.

And not just that, but also a lot of, like, veterans, a lot of people that have been in.

In battle, they don't necessarily develop PTSD because someone has been awful to them.

They also end up developing PTSD because they've been awful to someone.

So do you know what.

Do you know who Carl Jung is?

Of course.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So.

So he obviously popularized the idea of the shadow.

And yes, he would say.

And guess if you combine those two ideas, you would say that an unexpected encounter with your own shadow is potentially ptsd.

Right.

Can cause ptsd, like, symptoms inside of you.

So do you.

What's your opinion on.

On the shadow and how does it relate to relationships?

I don't know.

That's a very vague.

Love your questions.

No, I love your questions.

Like, honestly.

So an unintegrated shadow can be very dangerous.

Someone that is not acknowledging these, like, their darkness, their.

Everyone has their own darkness.

And the more we push that away, the more it actually, the more we act it out in destructive ways.

So I think that integrating the shadow and, like, accepting that we are these things, there's something like that happens there.

That's where we just become more whole in accepting it as part of us.

Yeah, I'm.

I'm very interested in the shadow.

Yeah.

I'm just trying to Work out.

There's a.

So there's a. Yeah.

If you want to become a clinical.

Because I've thought about doing a doctorate in clinical psychology.

Cause I think that'd be really interesting if you.

You have to do something to do with your shadow.

In order to become a clinical psychologist, you have to go through some sort of training.

And this psychologist told me what it was called.

And I can't remember what it was called, but it's really interesting.

If I find out what it is, I'll send it to you.

Is like the official term for shadow exploration.

And you have to work out your own.

What lies in your.

Your individual shadow.

It begins with an M. Yeah.

What it is.

But anyway, the shadow is exceptionally interesting.

And.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Do you.

Would you ever get a couple to.

I wonder if.

Because I'm really chatting out my ass here.

But we'll just go with it.

You've got a couple in front of you and they're trying to sort out some issues.

Do you get them to talk about the positives or do you get them to talk about the negatives as well as in.

Do you.

How deep down the rabbit hole of.

Of issues do you want to go?

Because that would be a good way into the shadow.

Another thing about.

I know I'm talking a lot.

I'll stop in a minute.

Peter.

I love it.

I love it.

Okay, good.

Jordan Peterson also said that a great route into the shadow is resentment.

And resentment is definitely something that you see a lot in relationships.

But once you reach that point, it's probably going to fail.

But.

Yeah, I guess there isn't really a question in that.

But if you were in a, like a couple's therapy type situation.

Is that how you describe it?

Yeah.

What.

How would you walk a couple through that?

If you and I went to couples therapy together and you're both the woman and you're also the therapist, how would you.

Actually, that's not going to work, is it?

Because you can't be both, but two separate people.

How would you navigate.

What do you.

How do you navigate a couple therapy sessions?

Exactly what I'm trying to say.

Yeah.

As a therapist.

As a therapist.

Yeah.

As a therapist, I can answer both questions separately.

Okay, cool.

As far as how deep would we go into that rabbit hole?

Like, I want to go all the way into that rabbit hole.

I think that's where.

Really.

Yeah.

If we're going to talk about the issues and the things.

Because it's about what is being said, but it's also more about what's not being said.

I think it's more as the issue.

And so for.

For my specific, like my particular modality, it would be more of a embodied practice.

So seeing the way that they can ask.

And a lot of those issues will come up in real time is experiential learning and just like an in the moment experience in, like whatever is coming up and what.

So we're gonna find, like, where the blocks are, and that's what we're working with.

We're working with the blocks that are.

Because, like, the love is there, the love is between.

It's always there.

But what gets in the way?

Okay, what gets in the way?

So what are the barriers to?

Yeah, the barriers to.

Yeah.

What's your idea of going back to like, ptsd?

This is another.

Maybe it's someone else.

I'm not sure.

But he.

His theory is that.

I don't know if it's his theory, but the viewpoint I heard them talk about was PTSD is a result of unlearned knowledge and wisdom that hasn't been extracted out of a situation yet.

So it's like imagine.

Imagine you're walking.

Life is kind of like this in general, to be fair.

Imagine you're walking around in the dark and there are potholes.

You know what pothole is?

That's a very English term.

It's also.

Yeah, I know what a pothole is.

Okay, cool.

So maybe it's a different definition.

Well, they're just like big crevices in the ground.

I don't know.

And your brain is trying to stop you from falling down them because in.

And the only way it can stop you from being alert is because that hole is still there.

And the only way you can, like, fill up the hole, so to speak, is by taking out the knowledge that is buried deep within that experience.

It's kind of viewing life as.

How does that.

What.

What does Stan standpoint.

Does that take on life?

I guess it takes on the idea that wisdom is there to be received in any situation.

And that's.

That's the antidote to.

It's kind of like awareness is the antidote to suffering.

I don't know.

How do you think.

Do you think that that's a reductive way of viewing potentially overcoming ptsd?

Not at all.

I think of it as.

So, like, when.

How do you know that you've healed from a breakup, for example?

How do you know when, like, you know.

Cause in a really big.

Like some breakups can just be like, soul.

Like rip your heart apart, you know, tear you apart, everyone.

Most people have like experienced that.

So how do you know when that like has been healed?

And I think it's when you can look back on the experience with gratitude and for what you've learned, for the wisdom.

And we are here to experience.

Just experience, period.

Like we're here to experience.

And the wisdom that comes from experience is like how we grow.

It's how we self actualize.

Invaluable.

Yeah, exactly.

Self actualized.

Right.

Let's.

I saw.

Let's change a little bit.

I saw a quote.

I don't know if it's your quote, but it was on your Instagram and it was.

You cannot know yourself in theory, only in relationship, which you've kind of already addressed to be fair.

Thinking about it actually as I say out loud.

What does that mean?

A really interesting idea.

The more I think about it.

Yeah, that is my quote.

And for me that means.

So the way that we think about ourselves in the world and the way that we would ideally, how ideally we might behave based on our values, based on our.

Our ideas about ourself and how we should be doesn't really tell us much about who we are.

I think like who we are is like.

I kind of.

I am coming from a behaviorist point when I would say this, but I think that who we are is really what we do and the impact that we create.

And we're only going to really see that in relationship with another person.

Not only.

But I feel that that's the.

That's really when we're going to get to the patterns that come up.

When we're triggered.

When we're.

Yeah.

In this vulnerable space of opening up.

It's kind of like the analogy that comes to mind.

Have you been in one of those.

I'm sure you have.

You know, there's like rooms that have got mirrors everywhere and you can't find your way out.

Like fun house.

Yeah, like the fun house type thing.

It's like everyone in the world is a specific mirror and when.

And they distort the way you see yourself a little bit.

So you look in what you look in a mirror which is effectively one person a and you.

The reflection looks back at you as a slightly different person.

That's the way I view what.

What I thought.

It's in the sense of you can't know who you truly are.

You can only know who you are in relation to another person.

Right.

Or in just in relationship.

Period.

Right.

Yeah.

How you.

How we're referring to the world around us.

Yeah, that's Very interesting.

I want to think about that more.

Yeah, that's, you know, going back to Ewing, he came up with the archetypes the anima and the animus.

And I think like, the short answer as to what the animal and the animus are is the anima is a man's how a man relates to the world, and then animus is how a woman relates to the world.

Obviously the concept of relating is really.

I mean, I have a very limited knowledge of that.

There's way more to it, but I do remember that.

So obviously the idea of relating to someone is, is.

Is key to how we view ourselves and who we are and not just a person.

To be fair, I think in your quote, it isn't.

It doesn't apply just to a person.

It could apply to a business that you work for.

Yeah, but just, just anything, anything that you come into, into contact with, it doesn't have to be a living being.

Yeah.

Right.

What else have we got?

Oh, yeah, gratitude.

Gratitude.

I'm really struggling with gratitude at the moment.

A few years ago I got it really well, but I feel like we do exist in a world that is trying to do everything in its power to make you not grateful.

So with each passing year, it always becomes more and more difficult because everything is pushing you in the opposite direction of gratitude.

So therefore, it takes your self force or contrasting force to create the same level of gratitude.

So talk to me about gratitude and how you practice it.

Yeah, so for me, gratitude is best done as a embodied practice rather than one that's.

Know it doesn't hurt to list what you're grateful for it.

There's been positive, you know, results from that for lots of people.

But I think that more like in.

In the moment gratitude, where you're letting, like, you're letting it land, you're letting the experience land.

Say you're like, have this delicious coffee or cake or, you know, just like the presence of another person and you're, you're just letting it really, you're letting it sink in and you just like, I'm grateful for this moment and you can name it.

Like, I'm grateful for, like, this is so good.

This is like, this is amazing.

You know, whilst you're doing what you're doing.

Yeah.

In the moment gratitude.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, like, look what I'm seeing.

Like, I can see everything.

Like, you know, if you want to like, be grateful for sight, you know, just like experience what it's like to not have that and then like, have it again and then suddenly it's like, oh, we're like looking at with new eyes.

So gratitude for me is about that.

Yeah.

Restore the childlike wonder of the world.

Yes.

Yeah.

Right.

What else, what else could we talk about?

I've done all my questions.

What are your.

You mentioned something about working out what someone's are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So core desires.

Think of desires like it's the doorway to what?

Like to actual the core wounding, like to what really our needs are at the deepest level.

Our desires can tell us so much about ourselves and everyone has their own.

And who are yours.

Yeah.

And then all what are mine.

So for me, I, you know, there's been some stuff with self worth and enoughness and I think my core, my desire is to be seen fully and for who I am.

And I think, yeah, being seen is a big one for me as a projector too.

I don't know if you know anything about human design, but.

Yeah, that's a little about that.

What's that?

Yeah, I don't know enough to like really talk about it much, but other than that, I know that I'm a projector and I know that.

What does that mean?

That does resonate, like a lot of the stuff.

It lines up with your birth date.

So you take your birth date, birth time, birthplace.

So it's very much like you're taking your birth chart for astrology.

But there's another gray mark where there's manifestors, manifesting generators, there's reflectors, projectors, generators.

What's it called?

Birth design.

Human design.

What is my human design?

I watched a podcast recently on like numerology about this guy who's talking about how like, what you're.

Okay, cool.

So we can do this now, your date of birth.

I can do it now.

99.

What else was at birth time?

5.05Pm and your birthplace?

Guildford, Surrey, UK.

Right, here we go.

Yeah, it's exciting moment.

It's gonna dictate my life.

Right.

I'm interested in athletic.

That's fine.

Just tell me my type.

No, don't do this to me.

Please tell me.

I can't.

Can I guess?

First it says it can't work out what it is.

I, I, I'll just have to do it another time and get back.

That's not the right app.

What did you do on Human Design?

Calculator.

Go to Google and there's.

There might be like a Jungian.

No, that's.

Is it free?

They're gonna make me pay for it, aren't they?

There should be a free one.

I could send you a link, but.

It's all right if I can't get it?

I'll just try this.

If I try this, if it doesn't work, then I just will.

Carry on talking.

What are you doing?

Oh, of course it's American.

So you gotta put the.

I think he might be a protector.

I'm gonna guess protect projector.

I'm getting.

That's what you are, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

I want to be a manifestor.

I know Everyone wants to be a manifestor.

Do they?

Yeah.

That's funny, Gil.

Being a protector isn't easy.

No.

Oh, it's not working.

I'll do it, and then I'll get back to you then.

But, yeah, I'll take.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what does a projector.

And what does that entail, then?

So projectors are.

They're more of the.

The guides of humanity, and they're.

Yeah, fair enough.

Working alongside.

Yeah, the.

So the.

There's like a initiation, I guess, for each one.

And for the projector, it's.

We're waiting for invitation, which is, like, the hardest thing, because you want to act.

You want to, like, say something, but.

Or you want to help someone, but it won't land correctly unless, like, you are actually invited.

So projectors spend a lot of time waiting.

But a lot of us are drawn to.

Are more sensitive.

Are drawn to psychology.

Yeah.

Wait.

And know how to ask questions.

Waiting for invitation.

Invitation to do anything.

To ask, to say.

Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah.

For success to happen.

And I would highly recommend, like, a podcast with somebody that actually knows more about this.

Okay.

Okay.

I like that.

It's so interesting.

Yeah, No, I write new olives.

It's so interesting.

He was like, my.

What's it called when you add up all the numbers in your birthday and then it tells you what sort of.

Anyway, it doesn't matter.

Oh, I think we might have it.

Oh, it says here I am a generator.

Oh, that's.

That's good.

That was actually gonna be my first guess.

Just because, like, you're able to work, like, consistently every day, it seems.

Okay, cool.

Like, see, seeing your podcasts and it seems like you're very consistent.

Yeah, generators are great.

Yeah, generators.

We need them.

And my then authority is evolutionary sacral.

I don't know what that means, but we'll go with it.

Sounds cool.

Yeah, sounds cool.

Go with it.

Anyway, I'll look further into that.

Right.

Where are we?

Well, let's talk a couple more things, and then I'll let you get on with your day.

Can we talk about how when you're.

When you lost a sibling when you were younger, how did that impact you?

How did that frame your view of the world?

We don't have to if you don't want to.

No.

I love your questions, honestly.

I really enjoy your questions, all of them.

So I think that, like, I started writing poetry about death when I was, like, way too young to be doing that.

Gave me an awareness of.

Yeah, it gave me an awareness of just life.

And the.

Just.

Honestly, it wasn't the.

It could have affected me in a much better way than it did initially.

I think now I've grown and I've, like, transcended these patterns of, like, you know, adolescence.

But it did give me some angst and, like, you know, I was a big gothic.

Yeah.

Were you?

Yeah, I was.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

It's kind of weird, right?

That's not weird.

A lot of light now.

Yeah.

You've gone for the opposite look now, haven't you?

Yeah, I have.

I really have.

I've changed a lot of things about the way that I see the world, and it was very nihilistic, I think, and, you know, like, what's the point of this?

Like, what's the meaning?

We're all gonna die.

And why did my siblings, like, why didn't they get a chance?

Why did they have, like, they.

You know, that's not.

That shit's not fair.

And so just this feeling of unworthy.

That's where the unworthy wound, I think, comes from.

Like, how am I worthy?

Cause I was born, like, 12 days after my sister died around that.

And my dad would always say, like, oh, you, like, replaced her sort of thing.

Like, not exactly in those exact words, but basically meaning that that, like.

And so that created this first this feeling of, like, having a guardian angel, but also the sense of, like, I don't deserve to be here.

Like, why do I deserve to be here?

And I guess that's where a lot of the.

The things that I've been healing from actually come from have been, you know, from that place of how can I, like, perform my worthiness?

Like, how can I give back?

That, like, excuses my existence.

Exactly.

That's quite an expectation, isn't it?

You feel like you've.

You've got a burden on you.

Of.

Not a burden, but there's a weight on you, a responsibility.

I'm a burden?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, how can I not be a burden, you know?

And so a lot of that is.

Well, that's the wounding, you know, so on.

Like, I know that.

And then also like, that's the wounding is how do I demonstrate worth and value.

Yeah, I think everyone's trying to work that out though, aren't they?

We all have our different reasons.

Yeah.

And I think it's hard nowadays because we are more than ever searching for what it is people can do for us and what we can get out of them.

And we're.

And we're spending less time seeing people for.

It's like, you know, the.

The religious idea.

The religious idea that everyone is born with a divine spark inside them and they're all redeemable and they're all worthy.

And to use a cliche, special in some way, because that's such a common viewpoint now, or at least it was.

People make the assumption that, duh, obviously, but actually that's not obvious at all.

And if you look at history, you can quite clearly see that throughout history, that was not the.

That was not the collective standpoint that people took to view everyone as if they're worthy and they're all.

They're unique.

And I need to think of a better term than special, but we'll go with special.

And what we're seeing now, I think, is we're kind of seeing that concept being eradicated a little bit because there's been a death of religion.

And you could put spirituality and religion into the same camp because I think spirituality also brings with it that idea.

But yeah, it's hard nowadays because everyone is.

Is feeling.

I think we're all feeling more pressure to be worthy and to.

To have a purpose in life.

And it needs to be an external purpose that other people.

Other people appreciate more than we almost appreciate ourselves.

So I think.

So I get that that's.

That's a really tricky thing to.

To wrap your head around.

We're all struggling with it, maybe.

Right, right.

And I think that there's also truth to, like, the way that we emerge from the wounding that creates our, like, our value and actually real life value.

Because, like, if you're not looking at the world like, what can I do for the world?

Like, what are you really giving?

And I think that the people that have, like, healed through these wounds are able to use them in a way that actually help them.