with Simona Irwin

Simona Irwin, creator of Befriending Fear and The Gathering Stream, uncovers the path to true Sensitization and Nervous System Healing. Together with Mitch, they explore how trauma, stress, and perfectionism shape our bodies — and how awareness, neuroplasticity, and compassion help us recover balance, trust, and peace.

Introduction: From Pain to Purpose

Mitch — I love a good comeback story and today’s guest has an incredible story of getting her butt kicked, being in a hell hole with health, with chronic disease, with symptoms that were never ending and dragging and pulling herself out of pain and into purpose. And you know, as I was preparing for this interview, I’m I was reminded of Tom Brady in the Super Bowl. Gosh, it was probably five or six years ago. He may have been playing for the Buccaneers. I don’t remember. But basically, it was something like, forgive me football fans, this is not perfect. It was something like, he’s down 35 points at halftime. It’s impossible to come back. I’m falling asleep. People are turning the the TV off. But this dude comes out gunslinging in the second half, wins the Super Bowl, and that’s what I feel like, uh, Simona has done. Um, she’s she’s, you know, we just said, pain of purpose. She took her struggles, learned, crawled out of that hell hole and is now helping other people. And I am so excited for you guys to hear her story. Simona, welcome to the rooted. I don’t even remember my podcast. The podcast. Oh, I’m so glad to be here. And I love that intro. I’m I’m I’m very flattered to be compared to Tom Brady there. You’re the you’re the Tom Brady of the emotion world. I think before we were we were logging on, I said you’re the queen of the emotions because you’re able to meet all the emo all the emotions and move towards them. We’re certainly going to going to unpack that later. And as I’m sitting here, I remember this is the Rooted Conversations podcast. Mhm. Since we get excited when we have friends on. But um where I want to start is, you know, I found your work through Dr. Claire Weeks and her book uh Hope and Help for Your Nerves. I always recommend that to my clients who um have a ton of symptoms. They’re they’re shut down. They’ve got a lot of fatigue. Maybe it’s a lot of anxiety symptoms that shift and change and we can put labels on them and we could really work hard to try to figure out what’s going on. And when I got this book, I learned about sensitization. I’ve learned that it’s a product of a nervous system that’s been disregulated, that’s overloaded, um that’s overwhelmed. And it’s like these symptoms are normal. And instead of chasing and trying to figure out, it’s more about how can we meet them, learn that they’re not as scary as we think they are. And and it really changed my life. So, I’d love to start by kind of tell us what sensitization is and then like give us the worst of the worst of your story and how and like like some of the worst examples, some of the worst stories you can think of and how you started to to heal from that. Yeah, absolutely. So sensitization, the discovery of the word sensitization for me to um changed everything in my journey. So sensitization was kind of this like catchall bucket of, you know, all of, you know, this experience of having the world be so loud and bright and all the smells and all the sensitivities and all the symptoms and and also the way that I was noticing my body and the way that I was, you know, becoming obsessed with every symptom and every little feeling or every heartbeat. Um so sensitization really is what happens in our system when we are washed over and over again with adrenaline. It’s our system becomes very sensitive and sensitized and we begin to see through this lens of sensitivity and complete overwhelm. um where you know something that might feel like a 1% annoyance becomes a 1 million% annoyance that is actually like rippling and shaking our body when we’re in that sensitized state. So sensitization like you said was kind of coined by Dr. Claire Weekes who was way ahead of her time and um is just such an incredible woman and with such incredible knowledge and the way we stay in sensitization um is that we are trying to chronically fix it. So we’re trying to get out of it or we become really bewildered by it and we keep trying to figure out why it’s happening. So fixing it and trying to figure out why drives more sensitization. And so we’ll talk as we go along. I’ll share a bit more about my story, but we’ll talk about Yeah. What do we do to get out of sensitization once we realize that we’re in

What Is Sensitization?

Simona — it? Yeah. Yeah. I think I think in the beginning it’s like I I you know, she goes through the book and she lays out all of these symptoms and I remember I can already feel emotion coming up like thinking about it. Like I remember reading those symptoms and I could go, “Yep, that’s me. Yep, that’s me. Yep, that’s me.” like everything’s turned up to, you know, in one out of 10 it’s 100. But what it did for me is it kind of normalized like, okay, I’m not going to die from these symptoms. I’ve likely experienced the worst of it. And it’s like, I understand neuroplasticity. Um,

Mitch — I understand nervous system dysregulation. She calls it um nervous breakdown in the book. Yeah.

Simona — I think that was a term that was like coined for women in the in her time. Yeah. That my mom would

Mitch — say growing up, I’m having a nervous breakdown. Yep. But it’s like some of that volume can turn

Simona — down when we realize we’re not going to die and that other people are experiencing this. I felt like a needle in a hay stack. And the more we can show our nervous system that it’s safe,

Mitch — it seems like the less grip that it that it has on us. Yep. Absolutely. Yep. That’s exactly right.

Simona — like one knowing that we’re not alone with the level of sensitization and symptoms and that includes the thoughts and the intrusive images and intrusive thoughts and all of that. That’s often like the loneliest part for people cuz people are like there’s no way anyone else is having this.

Mitch — Yeah. And so knowing we’re not alone and also knowing that there is a way out, there is hope in

Simona — learning how to begin to implement that so we’re not feeding into the cycle of more adrenaline, which of course equals more sensitization. And I I love I wrote that little um equation down. Trying

Mitch — to fix it and plus trying to figure out why equals more sensitization. And and that’s my clients. These are guys that and women, you know, that have I’m thinking of like first responders, special forces, professional athletes where they feel like their body has let them down. You know, they’re their they pride maybe their their perception of themselves is that they’re strong. They they are strong people. Yeah. and you know their body like shut down on them and they feel like they’re weak and you know it’s they’re often the ones that are trying to to they’re very educated, they’re smart, they’re they want to learn and they’re they’re trying everything to fix it. You know, is it the gut? Is it a supplement? Is it you know this or that? And the sad thing is that if you’re

Simona — ill, if you’re, you know, have a disease in your body, everybody wants to sell you something, you know, and that information can just suck us in and it’s like it’s the next thing. It’s the next thing. And I think for me, you know, I guess the label kind of helps, but it’s like it kind of washes away all the the whatifs. And it’s just if we can come back to this is a sensitized nervous system. I don’t have to fix this. Then there’s a lot of opportunity to slow down and and meet some of that stuff, which I know you’re a pro at. Yeah. Yep. I became a pro accidentally. Yeah. Yeah. So,

Simona’s Story: Sensitivity, Trauma, and Survival

Simona — I’ll share a little bit of my story. Um, I won’t go into like a ton from the past, but I’ll say, you know, looking back since I’ve been through the journey. Looking back, I can see um that I was kind of born in a bit of a sensitized state. And, you know, I had those um, you know, I was a sensitive kid. I was like a really perceptive kid. And I had these little fears ever since I was small. I remember being like, you know, someone lives in the basement and like run up the stairs and run away and like really vivid imagination. Um, but for the most part, you know, it was like, oh, that would come up and it would be normal and whatever. Um, and then through my life I had a lot of uh trauma. So, I have an ACE score of 10, which is like the most that you can have. Although that score is you know it misses some bigger things that happen in the world but it is a good indicator in terms of you know I had a difficult childhood with a lot of challenging things that came into it and you know like most people who live through trauma it’s like you don’t know you’re even living in it because it’s it’s your life and so you’ve just adapted to it and you you know you’ve frozen certain parts of yourself and you are just surviving and you’re doing life. Um, and so for me, I grew up in an alcoholic home. I have a brother who’s schizophrenic. Um, and I left home really early when I was 13 and was kind of unhoused from 13 to 21, just traveling and um, homeless sometimes and finding my way. And so within that section of my life, like a lot of really difficult things and really traumatizing things happened, but there was no downtime to process it. So it just kind of Yeah. There was one thing you

Mitch — that I read where it just popped in my head is like, you know, you you mentioned you had a vivid imagination and I remember the place where you left home early and were homeless and it said it’s almost like did that vivid imagination help during that how did that I don’t know if it helped but how did it come into play during that time and you it sounds like you were not able to slow down. Did that did those two things go together at all? Yeah, absolutely. I mean I do think I

Simona — mean it’s hard to know like chicken or egg you know what happens but I do think for me you know there was this um well there was two things one I always had this very deep sense of connection with life since I was really small I remember it just really clearly feeling connected to something bigger than me sometimes that actually is a bit of a trauma response and it’s also a maybe lessing um too. So that piece was there for me for sure. Um and then I think you know the vivid imagination and the creativity absolutely allowed me to look at my situation with eyes of adventure and curiosity and interest and and that was true too. It’s like that actually was a part of it and there was so much blessing in it but some of what I was skipping was feeling the um you know the terror of being alone at a young age and some of the other things. So that got pushed down and then you know this creative mind was like whoa this is amazing and an adventure and look at what I can do here.

Protective Strategies and the Nervous System

Mitch — And how how useful and how much sense does that make as a protective mechanism in that situation?

Simona — Totally. It was a blessing and it it it made me survive. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. And then when I finally when I was around 21, I finally kind of I was in a relationship and settled into a place and you know, life was a little bit more simple for me. And then right away I got sick, which So you

Mitch — got a you got some safety. You’re doing better. And now the nervous system goes, “Hey, here’s this

Simona — stuff that we need to talk about.” Yeah. Yeah. And back then I had no idea, you know, that was, you know, it was like 20some years ago and so people were not talking about the nervous system in the same way then. Um, but I still because when I was younger, I was very kind of like natural leaning and had been part of a lot of different spiritual communities. So I went this kind of natural route and I was quite sick with now what we would call like POTS and dysotonomia and um you know chron like complex PTSD all of those symptoms. Um but I treated them through naturopathic medicine. So it was like parasite cleanses and heavy metal detoxes and all of these types of things that felt true and resonant to me. And you know all the tests showed different things and and um of course now looking back what was also happening is that I was coming into the presence of people who were showing care for me and I was entering into communities where I was able to heal and so it’s like there was a few things happening at once but it was a period of three years and I was able to come out of it and then jumped into trying to you know make a life for myself and for me that looked a lot like perfectionism and striving and trying to show, you know, I’m not this homeless person or I’m not from this like background. I’m worthy. And so I tried to show that through being a workaholic, frankly, and trying to get security and money um and follow, you know, my values. I worked in the organic and natural food world, so it was like I had still this like activism and this way of showing up but with so much striving and perfectionism underneath it. Yeah, that makes

Mitch — sense. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. So, so you you had a you know a tumultuous childhood. You left home. Um we had a protective strategy that made this more of an adventure. We weren’t unpacking all the scary stuff that it takes to leave home and and making that decision. and we we get in a relationship, we get some safety and all the stuff starts to erupt. So, you go to your roots, you do naturally your cleanses, it sounds like, and detoxes and all of them chasing lab numbers and and looking all this and and it sounds like there’s some improvement and it’s hard to really say chicken or the egg. Was it was it the the the healthy safe community that you’re you’re in there and and getting met get needs met and feeling more safe there or or was it the detox and getting the parasites out like you know it’s kind of a who who knows. So it when did you you go into the corporate world I know you had a lot of success with that. Yeah. And then and then what? Yeah. So

Simona — then you know I am the CEO of a uh infant formula company for North America. You know it’s a global company. It’s a you know billion euro company. I have a family. I’m married. I have two kids. And so on paper I like I did it right. I came from this really rough situation and with really nothing um and you know doing all of this myself and not a lot of education and you know just really working and figuring out and and doing it’s like okay I did it I did the thing that people want right and um and then of course it you know wasn’t fulfilling I was exhausted I was leading um in you know from my trauma and COVID came around. I was already had had an experience actually 3 years before I had the big perfect storm. I went to Peru. Um I did a plant medicine ceremony and in that ceremony I had a really I had a great experience and then later um in the ceremonies I had a really difficult experience where I think like a whole bunch of my trauma was just unfrozen at once. Um and it really shook me up. So that was kind of like 3 years before my perfect storm. there was this kind of shaking up that uh happened and after that actually I found smart body smart mind and I I did that program and it was hugely supportive for me really really helpful um and I still didn’t fully you know this journey is so complex because we just keep learning as we go and so um and then co came around I had this thing that happened with my eye. I might have had COVID in the early days and this might have been a side effect of it. I took a antibiotic and like within a couple of hours had a huge allergic reaction to it. I got hives and then I just couldn’t sleep. And then one day turned into two days of not sleeping turned into three days of not sleeping. Um, and then it was like I it was just like my body broke. It was just my brain was broken, my body was broken, everything. It you know where there used to be like a layer between me and the world. All of a sudden it was like I could feel and see and sense and smell and hear everything as if there as if I had no skin on my body. So you’re just like super raw. So raw. not sleeping, filled with an anxiety that only people who have been through this journey understand. It’s like, you know, it’s like a 1,000 out of 10 level of just and it doesn’t turn off. Does not turn off ever. And it’s like relentless rumination and just and this feeling this like acute feeling for me I remember of just like as if I’m just like floating in space untethered filled with terror like like underwater kind of feeling. Yeah. For kind of underwater but for me it was kind of like empty out space. Yeah. and just never like total just completely alone really was like the root of it. Um but so that those three days you know ended up turning into uh you know a year and a half long journey more like several year journey. Um but the symptoms just got worse and worse. So you know what started as insomnia and anxiety became dautonomia. my whole nervous system just really I felt I remember like standing up and it was like u my vestibular system was like sideways. So it’s like I’m standing up but I’m seeing the world sideways and then the chronic pain started. I couldn’t walk on one of my feet. I couldn’t turn my head, my back. Um oh my gosh like all I could bar I could eat like maybe six foods. I was scared of ever. Oh yeah. Just I get it. Yeah. The whole thing. And my body. I had tacoc cardia too. So one of the early symptoms was my heart rate resting. I remember one day just taking it and it was like 160. And uh I had an aura ring at that time too. And my heart rate bit variability was um oh my god it was like I think it was 13. Wow. And I just took it off because I was like, “This is not going to help me.” Like this. Cuz I’m I told someone and they’re like, “Oh my god, that’s like it’s like you’re dead. Thank you. That’s so helpful right now.” I know. And I was like, “Great.” Yeah. Yeah. And so that Yeah. So there was all these things happening and it was so disregulating. I have I had two kids. I have two kids. Oh my god. I didn’t realize you had two kids during this. Yeah. And I was running this company and I had never taken any time off. Um I was like the the earner for our household. Um so it was like the stakes were so high for me. I I never expected to be in a situation and I could not stop

When the Body Finally Says Enough

Mitch — working. It just wasn’t financially feasible. So, and how much are you sleeping at this time

Simona — if I remember your story correctly? Yeah. So, at the beginning, I was kind of in and out. There was like some okay moments. Um, and then about about 3 months into the like sensitization, dysregulation state, I just I stopped sleeping. And I was sleeping sometimes maybe 30 minutes a night, sometimes like a couple days with no sleeping. Um, it was unbelievable. It I It’s hard to even like I remember it and I remember what it felt like. Um, but I look back sometimes and I’m like,

Mitch — how did I survive that? And it was really, really, really tough. Yeah. Wow. So, again, so many things that I can that’s one of the reasons I reached out. I started hearing your story. I’m like, “Oh my god, this woman is just like me.” You know the it seems like there’s a pattern to those of us that have been through the ringer that there is this moment when our unfrozen stuff when things happen too fast too soon. Yeah. So a system that’s not ready. Um and it’s kind of it really kind of t I have I’m tempted to ask about plant medicine because I get asked about it so much.

Plant Medicine, Trauma, and Capacity

Simona — It’s benefited me. Um I’ve you know mushrooms have typically been the things that I’ve done. I’ve not done like an Iawaska and I gain like some of the the third row country stuff. Um but I get a

Mitch — lot of questions about it and and um I guess I’m curious going through this. It sounds like it was there’s a good part of it and then maybe there’s another day or two and then all this stuff comes out and it’s too much for your system and like you said it’s like getting your skin ripped off, you know, and you’re you’re feeling it’s like you’re coming out of water for the first time.

Simona — My analogy for being unfrozen is like we’ve been held underwater and so you’re coming out of water but it’s not this slow and titrated way that your system is slowly building capacity for. It’s like rip the rug out from under you and sink or swim. And so, and you had to do that with raising kids, being the bread winner, being a CEO, like, and and now you have all of this sensation to deal with.

Mitch — And I’m just curious like what’s your two cents on on a a a first world an American going or a Canadian going and doing some of these plant medicines because they are very tempting and there’s a lot of good stories that we hear from. Yeah. Yeah. I would say um you know when I look

Simona — back now like it it was perfect. You know Peru is beautiful. The people there are beautiful. the community. You know, it’s funny. It’s like we use these words like first world or third world or whatever and to me I’m like that’s the world I want to live in. Yeah. like beautiful community and um the way like the generosity of spirit and the and the beauty and and the kindness and the connection and there was so much goodness and um and this will be familiar to you too where it was not held in a trauma informed way. I I I had done decades of work and decades of therapy and I had been through all this like shamanic training and I still didn’t really there was things that I just didn’t understand and so everything that came up in me you know um it was it was like I believed it in this moment instead of understanding that it was all past frozen stuff and frozen thoughts and frozen experiences And so when it came up for me, and I think this is what happens for a lot of us, it’s like we believe it in this moment that we’re feeling this way and there’s no separation between what’s happening and like the witness self or like the adult self being able to say like this is old and like let’s let it pass through. For me, it was like, you know, everything that came up in that ceremony, I related to it as if it was happening right now and it was true. So, an example, a small example would be in one part of the ceremony, I was stuck in this kind of infinity suffering loop and I see it and feel it and it was so scary and I thought it meant something about reality. Um and of course later I realized like no that’s just what it felt like when I was a child. Yeah. And so it took me and a lot of the work I do actually now is with people who have done plant medicine ceremonies and gone to a really dark place or had a really dark or difficult journey and to help them start to relate to it differently in terms of all you were seeing was pain that was already in your body. just looking to be processed. Well, we haven’t been taught to witness that from the adult consciousness from the the witness and we believe we are that. So, it sounds like you’re going into this get and you think you’re getting these downloads or this wisdom about your life, but it’s these really hard experiences that you weren’t able to feel at some point. So, we buried it and now it’s coming up and instead of like wave thanking it and waving it goodbye and releasing it, you’re you’re clutching to it, thinking like, “Oh my god, is this what my is this? What does this mean?” Yes. Exactly. It’s like we’re looking kind of out outward, you know, when it really what I believe happens in these ceremonies. I mean, a lot happens in these ceremonies. One of the things is that we’re kind of swimming in our own nervous system. And what we’re experiencing comes through symbol, comes through sensation, comes through song, comes through imagery. Um, and it shows us parts of our um, you know, shadow and it shows us parts of our trauma and it shows us, you know, things and and we and then it comes through our minds and then we analyze it through our minds and often that leads us astray as opposed to just being having the capacity and, you know, having done nervous system work where you could go and be like, “Okay, I see that and let me go to sensation. Let me surrender and let allow it to pass through. I didn’t have that. I just like clenched against it. It’s white knuckling doing it. Yeah.

The Importance of Trauma-Informed Support

Mitch — Was there also I’m wondering if I’m hearing this correctly. It sounds like there was a lack of traumainformed help and that maybe the container was not set up or there wasn’t a foundation that

Simona — prepared you for this is what you’re saying. Yeah. Yeah. It was before it was, you know, it was a while ago, so it wasn’t so popular in the moment. And and um and I also, you know, I don’t think I was aware of the level of trauma in my could you be do. So, I was kind of like, “Oh, well, I know I have a brother who’s schizophrenic, so I should be careful with this. And I know I’ve had a hard life, but I I didn’t really understand what complex trauma is or how it shows up again later. And so, uh, and the facilitators certainly did not. They were kind of they just didn’t have that experience. So, I was not held and supported, which of course again is a part of my story. It’s like terrible chaotic things happen and I’m not held and supported. Here I am again replaying this and feeling completely alone. And so it was it was like a perfect mirror of what was inside me,

Learning to Witness Instead of White-Knuckling

Mitch — but I did not have the capacity to meet it at all in that moment. That makes so much sense to me as well as as someone who has complex trauma who had who had a lot of plant medicine journeys uh in college and things like that. I was on tour with widespread panic selling mushrooming chocolates and t-shirts, you know, and I was doing a lot of those and like I remember going to my first I think I did EMDR was my first like trauma we built up to it for like six months and I remember being in it and I’m like this feels like what it feels like to be in a psychedelic experience and she’s like no like and um because my trauma was coming up in these experiences I didn’t know what that meant. It was always scary. I knew I always had to work through something. And kind of tying into something we’re going to talk about later, she goes, “What what do you do?” And I’m like, “I dance.” And she said, “How do you work with that intensity when you feel it?” And I’m like, “I dance.” And she goes, “Do you want to dance now?” I’m like, “Yeah, I want to dance.” You know, and I will also say that I still now I like the micro dose every now and then. I don’t really like a I can’t imagine doing a bigger dose. to just where I’m at my process. It feels like it feels like too much. Um but the micro doing now is so nice. It’s so loving. It’s so silly. Um there’s not this like terror that comes up. And I think that speaks to um the work the work that

Simona — we I’ve been through. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s, you know, for me that catalyst that kicked me into that bigger perfect storm. You know, in hindsight, of course, I’m like, “Oh, this this all makes sense.” and and if I hadn’t have had that and then found smart body, smart mind and then some of that work and you know and in between I did a lot of sematic experiencing and then I still had a perfect storm because I think really that perfect storm was just this second wave of trauma that had to come out eventually and you know here was this opportunity where it’s co I’m going to have to work from home you know if this is going to come out at any moment of my life Well, this probably was the right moment for me. And those tools gave me some capacity and all the hospitals were closed. So, when it happened too, I was like, I should go to the hospital. I should And in Canada, everything was closed. So, it was like, no, like you’re just you’re here with this. And like, you know, I’m going to have to figure this out. And I was really lucky. I had a naturopathic doctor and she was like, “Okay, listen.” And like I see what you’re saying. I hear you. There’s a million things like we could test you for mold. We could, you know, like mold, lime, you’ll probably be positive for all of it. But you have a nervous system like Oh my gosh,

Mitch — that’s a what an amazing doctor. I can’t man my do I have a functional medicine doctor like that, too. And so I get Oh, yeah. how much of a blessing that is cuz she could put you through the ringer and poke you and prod you and supplements and protocols just made me worse at that

Simona — time. Yes. Yeah. And I was like, “Oh, I Yeah. Cuz I looked in my past. I was like, I guess it helped me then. But in this moment, I think cuz I had all the histamine stuff and, you know, all this stuff happening. I couldn’t even take one supplement, let alone, you know, eat anything. I tried to take sleeping medication, you know, I was given uh benzo and and I had never even taken a prescription really ever in my life for anything. You know, tried to take these things, they just made everything worse. Tried to take CBD oil, made everything worse. And so, yeah, it was just like, listen, you need to try these neuroplasticity programs. And there was some, you know, all of I don’t know what it was in me, but I’m really grateful for it where there was a willingness and I felt so horrible. And I looked at my kids and I really was like, I I cannot I do not want my kids to have the same sort of life that I did where like a a mom that just is not available or can’t function or can’t do this. So, there was this like no matter what it takes, I am going to figure this out and I’m going to be a mom to these kids. And so, if it’s this bizarre neuroplasticity program that makes no sense to me, I’m going to do it and and see what happens. Yeah. It’s like

Acceptance and Allowing

Mitch — to to get to the dance, you cannot accept what you are feeling. And when you get to the dance, you got to accept how you’re feeling. Talk a little bit about um about I think it’s a great thing to talk about because we’re talking about Claire Weekes and it’s like it’s um you know it’s accept. What are the first one? I know it’s accept or it’s what is it? Yeah. Yeah. I don’t I don’t

Simona — I’m I’m going to say it wrong, but I’m going to give like the gist of it. Yeah. Well, it’s it’s this idea of like acceptance and and there’s big piece of allowing and then this floating with the odd and unusual sensations and like let me tell you obviously you know too you know when you’re sensitized for a long period and for me then I added on not sleeping you know um and I had all the physical symptoms they were horrible but about even after I had started my neuroplasticity journey and doing all these like brain retraining rounds and actually all of that I just kept getting worse and worse and like I got better in some ways with capacity. But it now, you know, with this wellness hat that I can look back on, I was making more capacity and my body was like, “Okay, like just keep releasing the trauma. Like just keep letting it go.” And about 6 months in, I got these like relentless intrusive thoughts. They were horrible and like images, like violent images. Um, just like looping on things. It was like my brain just was not working properly. And it was so for me that was like a huge part. And there was so much shame and so much like, oh my gosh, am I crazy? Is this like is this what happens before people become schizophrenic? And that of course creates more adrenaline and more sensitization. And then there was like the depersonalization, derealization. Um and so all of it for me even when I started the work it didn’t get better for me. it got worse and I like, you know, coming up to this peak moment of really feeling. Um, yeah, just having this mind that was just like all this stuff coming up all the time and this body with the heart rate and, you know, all of the sensitivities and all the histamine and all all of the the stuff and um yeah, it was like really really really difficult. Um, and then like you said, um, I had to learn I had, it was a journey. I had to learn to eventually just be

Mitch — like, “This is how it is for me right now.” Yeah. and horrible and running away from this and being terrified and thinking of these like me homeless under a bridge and all these scary thoughts that were coming to mind and that I’m going to ruin my kids’ lives and blah blah blah. You know, none of this is helping me, but what’s going to help me is just like this is what’s happening for me and how can I start to tend to it? Yeah. And then like a couple things that I wrote down with that is that’s that people need to know and understand that’s so common with this work. It’s

When Healing Feels Worse Before It Gets Better

Simona — going to get worse before it gets better. Yeah, that’s that’s so common, you know, especially if you come in like like we did it sounds like with with maybe some idea. I mean, I was reading the body keeps the score and got to the childhood trauma part and went, “How dare you even consider your childhood was abusive or whatever.” And I went right past that chapter. Uh and so there’s an awareness and then there’s an awakening and that awakening is not uh always so pleasant. You know, it’s it’s the all the things that we’ve suppressed because we didn’t have uh the capacity to deal with the intensity. Now the big scary things are coming up. Yep. And uh you know what I love about Claire weeks is I had the same exact experience. Things got worse. I built a lot of capacity and it felt like, you know, when is this going to get any better and I love Claire Weekes’s, you know, acceptance and allowing because what it does, this really spoke to me is, hey, you got fear from the thing that happened whenever it happened and and that’s valid and that makes sense. And now we’re adding a secondary fear to that that is driving and bathing us in adrenaline and cortisol. and that is actually keeping us stuck. So the thing that happened 10 years ago, the car accident, the the abuse, whatever that may be, yeah, that’s terrible. Um, but it’s like it’s living here in our system now. And and it is what is causing all this these symptoms and disregulation in the nervous system just means that we’re stuck. We’re likely overloaded and overwhelmed. And if we can even take that secondary fear and turn the dial down a little bit, it’s amazing what

Secondary Fear and Turning Toward Discomfort

Mitch — that can do. Like to give the listeners an idea, I remember reading this book on the way to Hawaii and I had all these things that I wanted to avoid. I remember I was fasting all the way to Hawaii so I could like not mess up my stomach. And I landed in California and I’m reading all these symptoms. They’re all me. And it’s it’s kind of this like fake it till you make it. It’s almost like, okay, you’re going to sit in this fire of discomfort, but it can’t burn you. And you got to let you got to know that. And I used that that trip. I remember getting to the airport and going, you know what? I’m going to have that beer with my wife that I’m terrified of. And um I just kept doing stuff like that while I was uh on vacation. just, okay, we’re terrified. We’re going to go up this mountain. We’re terrified. We’re going to hang out by the pool today. And the more I just stood there and looked at it, the less it it’s the I remember coming out of that that uh trip and I’m like, what is it about Hawaii that makes me feel so good? And it’s because I turn down that secondary fear. I I refuse to. And it’s a journey, like you said. It’s not like overnight I’m fixed.

Simona — Go. I’m still working on this stuff, but it’s so much better than it was. And I just think that secondary fear is such a a big part of it. Oh my gosh, it’s a huge part. And you know, that is the piece that keeps us in the sensitization. It’s really, you know, in my work, I use this river analogy all the time. And it’s by the time we’re aware of these different things that are floating up, really, they’re already floating down the river. Our only job is to not run in front of them and stop them and try to analyze it and figure it out and be terrified of it. It’s like just let it float down the river, you know, and and like I said at, you know, the beginning of the journey, there was this crossover. So I believed what was floating up was happening now. And so that was distorting my perception of life and and everything. And eventually what I realized is it’s just it’s both you know part of what happens with trauma is the in the memory this felt sense you know gets stored in one section and then like the sound and the smell over here and then like the thoughts we were having when we froze in that moment and so part of what happens when we create this capacity and all the balls start to float up for me at least and with the people that I work with is I noticed it’s not just the sensation that comes up, but it’s the nervous system state and the thoughts of that moment. So, thoughts like I’m going to die if I do this or I’m this is too much or I want to die or you know whatever. It can be so many versions of that. And so a big thing that I work with with people is like it’s possible that those thoughts are part of that frozen moment and we don’t need to tend to them and we can let them just float down the river and you know tend to this body and be here and find your ground and your steadiness but we don’t need to jump in front and we can allow those to continue to move and those may be thoughts of that frozen moment and actually not relevant to this current moment where you do have more capacity and you do have

Why Regulated Support Matters

Mitch — community or you do have someone you can reach out to and that’s why it’s so important. I mean, you can do so much on your own and thank God for courses like like your community that you have that we’re going to be talking about. It certainly helped me a ton and I think about Irene and Smart Body Smart Mind. Doing that stuff at home is great. And um that can only get you so far because you can only see so much. And it really takes a trained regulated nervous system. That is what you are paying us for is something that’s been up that mountain, knows what the trails are like, knows what to watch out for. And when you can see that in someone else, they can they can see what we can and they’re able to pause us to direct us to feel and to sense. Because what I was doing was my uh all or nothing perfectionism, the was just blowing past what I called the yellow light and the red light and then ending up in jail, meaning I was just beat up and tired and thinking I needed more because there’s something to fix. And there’s so many of those patterns that are just so ingrained um in us that that we’re not going to recognize. And that’s why it’s so good to have um someone and courses like yours. What I love about your course too is the community. It’s it’s a lot of sensitive people like myself and and really getting to hear what they’re going through is a way community works is is really cool because it’s like you get more I don’t know you can just listen and that can be therapy for the day if you will especially in the beginning when we don’t have a lot of capacity turn that video off and just listen and so many other people can speak um to to what we can identify and resonate with what’s going Um, the one thing you said though too that like it makes sense cuz I remember a story for me. You’re talking about the sounds are over here and the thoughts and the feelings and the smells. And when I was in with Irene and Seth in Canada, I did a a they pulled a a we called it a Mac truck out of my nervous system. It was quite the experience. And afterwards, so I had a bad fall when I was in Germany traveling abroad. I was drunk and I smelled IPAs on Seth afterwards. Seth like I’m remembering that because I’m I’m very dis not disoriented after the session and I go to give Seth the hug and I’m like, “Dude, you smell like IPAs.” Yes. You know, and the next day, um, we reflected on that because it was like, “Hey, do you remember what you said yesterday?” And and this is kind of cool, too. I fell out of a second story window uh during that experience, not with Seth, but that the next day when I woke up, my neck was hurting so bad from my neck all the way down. So that stuff was working its way out.

Building Capacity and Self-Trust

Mitch — And it and it’s so cool how trauma can work it out. This there’s so many different avenues.

Simona — And when we build capacity in these doorways, it can kind of happen at any time because now we have more space. And it’s like that’s why I think building capacity is such a big thing because it’s like that swimming pool analogy. It gets bigger and those things find a way out on their own instead of us trying to to figure it out. Yeah. Yeah. I I mean I love so much of what you said there from like the smell, you know, and like Yeah. how that comes up and then and then the next day to wake up with that body pain and you know so much of the time people who are sensitized they wake up and they’re like oh my god it’s gotten worse or oh my god I’ve got a new symptom or this is terrible and then it’s like I’m going to turn to become obsessed with this now and try to fix this and you know this journey is so much from it’s about going from this like hyper individualized perfectionism I have to figure it out and do it and heal it to this like can I trust that this too is part of the process and it’s just moving its way out of my body and if I don’t turn to this pain and obsess about it and try to make it leave you know if I actually just like let go and trust like oh my body is still moving something out and I can trust it like it’s on my side you know we’re in relationship with our body and with our nervous system and you know at The heart of this work for so many of us is broken attachment systems. And what this work does, you know, in this mysterious kind of magical way is um it for it kind of forces us to come to terms with that and begin to find trust and connection again with our body. And we get out of chronic illness and chronic anxiety loops actually by doing less by trusting life, by building community and relationships, and actually by healing that deep internal wounding. By beginning to be like, “Yeah, I I feel the chair underneath me. Oh, I can trust my body is doing something for me, not against me. Let me give it a few weeks and see what happens.” And all of that begins to change us so radically. and we come out, you know, regulated, trusting people who don’t feel like

Mitch — we’re doing it all ourselves. Yeah, that’s it’s amazing. It’s it’s like what is safety and self safety comes down to selfrust and and learning to believe that no matter what happens, I’m going to be okay. And and sensitization is the opposite. It’s like something’s wrong with me and I got to fix it and if I don’t, I’m going to die. Is that pretty much get it? That’s exactly right. And and

Simona — you can even hear it in the words that you said and I I’m like exactly on the same page with you. Those are the words of like a young unsupported child, right? which is like, you know, in some ways, you know, whether it was totally true or not, my little brain believed in peak moments of scary things in my house or whatever, like I’m all alone and I’m going to die, so I better and then my brain is is like, “Okay, well, here’s all this adrenaline, and so let me try to figure this out or fix this or think that there’s some sort of magical thing I can do to make this person stop drinking or or whatever and like start fawning or you know whatever those things are. And yeah, that was part of just what happened back then. But now life is inviting me into a different type of alignment where I don’t need to avoid things where I don’t need to not eat for the day to avoid toxins and what’s going to hurt my stomach or smells or metals or or whatever. And I still am someone who chooses to buy organic food and live a healthy lifestyle, but I don’t buy into this idea that everything is harming me because I’m not in the nervous system state anymore where I’m not seeing through the lens of a uh a world that tries to punish and harm me. I see through the lens of a supportive, loving world. And so that’s what I feel and that’s what I see in others. Amen.

Environmental Safety and the Roots of Shame

Mitch — That’s beautiful. you know, as you’re describing, you know, the early stuff and and feeling unsafe,

Simona — I also think about environmental safety. I don’t remember where I got that term from. I think it’s from the CPTSD book. Um, NARM, some NAR NARM book. Um, but environmental failure. So interesting how as a kid it’s unsafe. You know, what do we need? We need unconditional love. We need safety. We need individuality. If we don’t have one of those things, it’s, you know, it’s it’s not good for our development. And so, you could say the environment has failed us. We didn’t get what we needed from it. Even if we’re not overtly abused and have uh it could be, you know, being misattuned, like not getting what we need it, not being met in our emotion. And what’s interesting with that too is what we tend to do because we can’t don’t have the capacity or the the thought to be able to look at our environment and say you failed me. We we turn it on oursel because that would be that would really disrupt things to to to look at our parents and say hey I’m not getting what I need for a child to be able to say that. And so we turn on oursel and we become that’s where all that anger and shame and you know I got to do this alone and I got to be perfect and I got to fix it. And it’s it’s just so interesting to see how we tend to treat ourselves the way we were treated until the perfect storm happens and we get to we get the opportunity to relook at these things, revisit them. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, you know, for for me when I teach the befriending fear course, it’s like the first part is all about sensitization. The second part is about like avoidance and incremental training and exposure therapy and how we start to, you know, get out in the world a bit more and build capacity. And then really this end part is these questions about like the relational aspect of what are we playing out in our body that is really our unfinished business of our early family life and sometimes also like our ancestry you know it’s been repeating again and again in our families and how am I playing that out with my sore back right it’s like if my sore back makes me feel like victimized by life and I feel angry at it or if I have chronic fatigue and there’s this exhausted part of me and then I hate that exhausted part. It’s like yeah, what what does that remind me of growing up? Did I have a mom who was like exhausted in bed all the time and did I hate her for it? and like what is you know relationally I find there’s so much interplay um in our symptoms and when only once we have the capacity so first sensitization growing capacity you know getting some of our life back but then we can start to ask these deeper questions of like wait what is going on here and how can I begin to like notice this and also just

Moving Toward the Symptoms

Mitch — allow it to let go that’s a perfect transition cuz I I I uh I know you’ve done so many courses, right? Just like I have like um once I got into befriending fear, it’s like just the name of that called my name for quite a while. And and once I got in, I’m like, “Oh, this is awesome.” Like she’s done smart body, smart mind, she’s done sematic experiences. She’s done DNRS. Um she’s the queen of of of symptoms and or emotions, I feel like. And one thing I heard you say that I I really want to highlight is, you know, with with everything that you’ve been through, someone who’s sensitized, who’s sitting in the fire, who’s got the anxiety of a 1,000 on a scale of 1 to 10, who sleeps 30 minutes, you think um that we would just constantly be trying to calm you down, right? And and I tend to make fun of this or I’m trying to figure out how to do it in my content um without being rude because there is its place, but it’s like making fun of these soothing tactics, right? And it’s like if you look on social media, you know, nervous system work looks like rubbing your face and like doing fascia, squeezing really hard, maybe doing breath work until you pattered. I had a breath work instructor told me to go ahead and pass out, you know, or whatever. And so those of us that are typo, that are willing to do anything. Yeah. We may spend all day long soothing oursel. And I think what you said was it really for soothing yourself really made things worse. And what really helped was going towards the the symptoms and that’s why I love your your handle on Instagram moving towards it makes so much sense like so help us understand that because it feels

Simona — kind of counterintuitive. Yeah, absolutely. You know, what I found at the heart of so much of um chronic illness and complex trauma is really like the anxiety OCD kind of anxiety compulsion loop. And it’s like we feel something and then we get filled with adrenaline and then we turn we try to look for something to make us feel different. M and when we do that over and over again, we reinforce the idea that feeling this anxiety surge or sympathetic charge in our system is dangerous and it reinforces this loop that keeps repeating which leads us to like self soothing all day long and avoidance. So it’s both like compulsions and then avoiding anything that is going to bring up anxiety in the system because another part of this just briefly is often because of neuroplasticity what also happens is when we get washed with adrenaline or we’re really sensitized it’s also becomes connected to all these symptoms. So, if I get a kick of sympathetic energy um and I have associations in my brain that connect that to my POT symptoms and my chronic pain or passing out or having an intrusive thought, then just because of neuroplasticity, when I get adrenaline, all of those parts of my brain are going to fire and they’re, you know, going to be they’re going to be active and they’re going to be happening in my system. And this is just neuroplasticity, you know. It doesn’t mean anything’s getting worse. It doesn’t mean anything horrible is happening. It’s just how our brain works. It’s like the pre-rehearsed way of doing things that our brain has learned. When this happens, we shut down and don’t sleep and

Mitch — Exactly. Feel like we’re on fire. That’s right. We just do this. It’s a memory and it repeats the memory again and again because our mind and our brain is just in like it’s the original AI.

Simona — It just takes the past and projects it into the future and repeats it unless we interrupt the pattern and choose something new or give new information. Well, part of this work which is hard is we kind of have to defy gravity a bit and say like, okay, you know, I’ve been through this for a year now. I’ve been to every doctor. You know, of course, all of us get checked out a bajillion times first. Once we know that, then eventually it’s like, yeah, you know what? all these symptoms can come up and there’s the drive to self soothe and actually this time I’m not going to and I’m just going to you know sit with these symptoms and I might like relax and I might yawn and I might resource myself to be able to stay with the sensation but I’m not going to self soothe to get rid of the sensation. So that’s the big difference. And when I do that, I teach my brain that having a sympathetic spike is not dangerous. And then if I do that, you know, 10 times, then the next time it happens, I’m actually going to start to have it’s going to remember, oh, when Simona gets this, she actually relaxes. And so then this new neuroplasticity happens where, oh, I don’t need to send off these signals. You know, Simona doesn’t respond to those. So we can deprioritize that they have nothing to do with safety anymore. And actually we can start to ride it out in a new way. And that be and you know it sounds easy coming out of my mouth. When I first did it and with through exposure, it was scary and it was hard and I did go into, you know, depersonalization and I did go into having, you know, panic attacks sometimes and and I know how hard that is and I don’t want to oversimplify it and I had to be willing for all of that to be here and to just not believe it to eventually come out of it. And it was a many month practice of doing that. But I remember one time I started to have a panic attack. And I was like, “Okay, wait, wait.” And I got on the couch and I put my hands behind my head and yawn. And I was like, “All right, take me away.” Like, “I’m ready to die.” Now’s the perfect time to have a panic attack is what I’ll tell my mom. Like, “Thank God. We’re can we cheer it on instead of running away from it.” Yeah. I was like, “I want to relax.” And then for me, it almost became devotional. It’s like, I don’t want to miss a second of this. And like, let me feel my heart. Let me feel my breath. Let me feel my fear. Let me feel my numb legs. Let me let me hear that thought that shows me an image of me, you know, dying on the way to the hospital. Like, let me watch the whole thing and like how this crazy beautiful system works and let me take a breath and just like love myself and let this happen.

Allowing Instead of Fighting

Mitch — Gosh, imagine that. You know, I I’m going to bring this analogy in, but I I was telling Irene, like off the record the other day, like we were doing, and I said, you know, trauma work is kind of like having this normal body and then all of a sudden you wake up one day and you’re covered in dog poo or something like that, right? Yeah. And you’re like, “Oh my god, this dog poo is” and you scrub it and you scrub it and you everything that you’ve ever learned to clean yourself doesn’t work. And so you literally have to learn to be okay with it. And eventually you got to learn to love it. And then when you learn to love it and be okay with it, sometimes it just falls apart. It falls off.

Simona — Yeah. It’s so counterintuitive. You literally are staring it in the face and everything in your body wants to do the habitual automatic thing that you know that has kept you safe. Yeah. Your whole life and you’re going, I’m going to sit here. So, it’s not like what’s the difference between fake it

Mitch — till you make it and allowing that. Yeah, that’s such a good question.

Simona — You know, for me, because

Simona — part of what’s coming up in the sympathetic charge is trauma and is a feeling of aloneeness, it makes perfect sense for us to think that the right thing to do is to try to fix it and try to like stop it and try to save ourselves from it. Um, and it’s really tender because often that’s actually what we wished happened in our childhood that someone came in picked us up, made all the bad feelings stop and like, you know, ran us away from it. And this is this is really hard and it’s sensitive and it’s entangled, you know, with attachment and all of these things, you know, but really um and sometimes we feel like we’re abandoning ourselves when or gaslighting ourselves when we don’t respond. But the real truth and like the real love and the real secure attachment actually comes from this place of anything can happen in here and I’m going to stand with myself with an open heart and love and I’m not leaving and that I’m it’s I’m not taking it to fix and I’m not running away from it. It’s actually like life is hard. this this is happening and I’m going to be right here with it and I’m going to watch the storm come and go and I’m going to hold myself and be here, but I’m not um I’m going to I’m going to let it happen and I’m going to grow from it and I’m going to become actually more resilient from that. And so that’s like this tiny little switch of like we’re not like white knuckling it. We’re really, for me, there’s like a deep call to love in it and a deep secure attachment that’s like we actually can’t run away from this. Life is painful. Life is full of trauma forever. You know, we we’re born and we die and people are born and they die and bad things happen. And actually what we need is a steady presence that can be like life is a [ __ ] storm and I’m right here with myself and I’m never leaving myself and I can handle it. That I

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches

Mitch — appreciate you sharing that so much because that script has I got that from uh Befriending Fear and it’s it’s helped so so so much. Um it sounds like what you’re describing this brain retraining this is the accepting allowing it’s kind of like the rain it’s recognize uh allow investigate and nurture these are things that we can do at home and that’s more of a a topdown approach right and and then sematic of you know feel your butt in the chair um notice your breath look around orient these are more bottom up. Yep. And I feel like there’s kind of a war between the top downs and the bottoms ups. And I’m curious what you would say about that. And for someone that is sensitized, where would you have them start? I know everybody’s different. We cannot but like

Simona — Yeah. No, it’s general idea. Yeah. It’s a it’s a perfect question. And you know, the truth is is um in my experience, we need both. They’re critical. You know, when I think of sematic experiencing, which I love, you know, and some of the the videos they show of like the animal and the animal like shaking it off and it’s like, yeah, that there’s some big truth in that in terms of our primal nature to and to move things through the nervous system. But what is different about humans is we make beliefs and we give meaning to things. So for in for an example on me it’s like yeah you know something like I could be really surprised by my mom doing something that feels traumatic or seeing her in something sad. So like yeah that that sensation is here but what’s also here is what I the meaning I made out of that which is my mom doesn’t love me my mom care about me and I’m actually not going to fully um in my case I’m not going to fully get better by just doing bottom up exercises with the sensation of the trauma of seeing really scary things. I actually need to go in and like sometimes question those thoughts and look back at those beliefs and you know is it really true that she didn’t love me or you know did is she was she just you know in this situation and and so for me like and and then I also on the top down way I need to understand my mind because if I don’t understand my mind then I’m going to get stuck again and again with making meaning out of these sensations. So it’s inseparable for me the work. Um but what I would all what I always start people with is education. What is happening in my body and let me help you understand why it’s not dangerous. And then I’m going to teach you how to be with it sematically. And then after we can be with sensation I’m in that part I’m going to invite you to not go into your thoughts. But then once you can be with sensation, I’m actually going to invite the thoughts back because they’re going to give us good information about the meaning that you’ve made about these things that’s stuck in your body relationally. We’re going to untangle that. So that’s the kind of the three-step process that befriending fear walks people through. And that’s the order. And it really forever it’s a

Education, Embodiment, and Neuroplasticity

Mitch — mixed mixed bag. Yeah. And I think that’s why I love like the learning to that’s I just wrote out well first is education so that you can start to see these things because once you can see it you don’t have to be it doesn’t mean it changes I think you can learn and then eventually you will embody when you’ve done the reps you’ve seen it happen enough times like oh this thing is not that scary. So so now if I have education and I can be with the sensation a little bit more I can build my capacity. So now this sensation can come and go and now I’m relaxing into it and the body is going like, “Oh, he’s he’s doing something different.” So that habitual pathway is being interrupted. We’re we’re creating a neuroplastic environment. And so now now we can go now because of neuroplasticity, capacity, education, a little bit of embodiment and experience, we can really start to go in and question these things and work with some of these parts. And now instead of like your experience with the plant medicine, we’re not getting fully absorbed into the experience like I remember uh going into a part and feeling how big this grief was. But it’s like for the first time because I had the capacity I kind of caught it like this and I’m like usually I would be it would just be me. I am the grief. I ain’t the fear. I am the terror. But I was like oh my god. And I think we’ve talked about this before maybe um but it was like a psychedelic experience. I don’t know how to describe it because all at once in this moment I’m holding this part of me. I’m getting visuals from it. I can feel how how much emotion and rawness is there. I also am my adult self back here having this experience watching all of this and laughing hysterically at what I just did that I separated from it that created some space and with that space we get to decide we create a new relationship a new association and uh it’s like that that part’s not running the show anymore

Simona — and it integrates into our adult consciousness. Yeah. And it’s just rinse, wash, repeat. Yep.

Mitch — Learn to follow what feels good for you and give yourself permission because your nervous system is the map. Like you could sit we could sit here and do like a one through five all day long and depending on the person that could get thrown upside down every way from Sunday. And you know I think it’s the people that I love. Um you know I still kind of feel like a baby in this work. I’ll probably say it for the rest of my life, but I’ve been doing this for like four years, three, four years. And the people that are really good, they’ve gotten their ass handed to them. They they’ve learned from multiple modalities and mentors. You know, you and I could probably sit here and have a pissing contest about who’s done the most courses, right? And we probably taken a little bit from all of that. And what that allows for is intuition in the moment of following and meeting the moment versus like, oh, here’s step one. Now we’ve we’ve we’ve completed step 1 A. Now let’s go to 1B. Because that is not how life works. And if we can we can trust and allow but I but and and get out of get out of our heads and allow our body to and our nervous system to guide then we can be our own medicine. and and we need another healthy nervous system to to model that

Trusting the Spiral of Healing

Simona — along way. I think Amen. Yeah. Uh like couldn’t agree more with all of it. It’s all it’s a spiral. It’s like weaves in and out. And eventually when we actually stop trying to get to a destination, we get to start to enjoy the spiral and enjoy like the fascination of like whoa like a human nervous system is wild and you know this body is wild and what we’re going through is is is fascinating and and and you know as we get a more fluid responsive nervous system exactly as you said it it takes us we have to be willing. You know, again, it’s that cycle of life and death. It’s like, oh, I learned this structure. This was perfect and now I have to let it go and now learn this structure and I actually have to let that go. And what I thought was 100% right at this part of my journey actually that’s being composted and it’s growing these flowers and they’re bringing me to the next step. And the way shows the way shows the way. And our job is to f like make choices of course, you know, but also to just follow. And like the nervous system is this incredible intelligence. Um and you know, getting our asses handed to us opens um this humility, I think. And it’s like, oh, I’m kind of like a fool for for love, for life, for the nervous system now. It’s like, oh, I’m going to follow this devotion that I have. Um, and it’s led me to more like pleasure in my body, more love in my life. You know another time we’ll talk about the dance and by rhythms and moving things through our body through movement and you know but all of that has become has come into my life through this work and you know it was hell and that you know that dark night or being in the womb or you know being in that abandoned you know empty space birthed so much richness. um you know that both of us have such an inclination to share with the world and that really touches me. You know there’s two thing I’m I’m taking two different sentences that you

From Hell to Purpose

Mitch — said about your journey. I’m kind of putting them together and it it’s just so interesting that it was hell and it was perfect, right? And so it’s like both of those are true. And like before imagine it was black or white, right? And so we got to grieve that. But we learn that that failure is just more information and that the way we got here is perfect and and like when you’re in it, whoever’s in it right now and they’re saying, you know, [ __ ] that. Um, I hear you and and and keep going, you know. Um, I think I think we’ve I love that you’ve shared your journey of of you know, we said getting your ass handed to you and coming out the other side. Uh, that’s certainly what’s attracted me to your work. You have incredible programs and communities that that you’re creating that are working with people that are just like us. Uh, sensitize all the symptoms. They’re the the underdogs that aren’t ready to give up. And um I think these the befriending fear course, befriending oursel. There’s like there’s so many modalities in this course and there’s so much to learn. There’s also the community aspect and and what it means to be in a an in a field of people showing up and wanting to heal. I think that um what is that like it’s like quantum. that it exponentially increases possibilities and things can happen with you just being in that environment and and even with just with just learning. And so I want to encourage everyone to to take check out Simona, check out her Instagram page um moving towards appropriately named and uh the course is the gathering stream. All the thing all the uh all the amazing courses are underneath that. The one thing we didn’t get to talk about too was the embodied movement. So maybe we can we can chat about that next time. And you also do one-on-one work. I’m going to be doing a one-on-one session with you later this week. So I guess thank you so much for for sharing this uh very vulnerable story and sharing your your story of pain to purpose and and all the amazing things that you created for for people that are sensitive like us and and want some help. I uh you know, I think it’s

Closing Thoughts

Simona — amazing. Thank you so much. Yeah, it’s so so great to be here with you and I love what you’re doing and I love what you’re bringing and you know this is like just like you said for the people who are just deep in it who are in that kind of hell realm of symptoms and rumination and thoughts and images and fixing and stuff. you know, it’s really it’s so important for them to know that people have been there and that there is a way through and the the way through is really like with like with ourselves, with community, with each other. Um, and this is for me it’s like this is the the healing movement that’s sweeping the planet which is, you know, we need each other and we need each other in this work and we need to find our resilience and our courage without avoidance and without running away and we all need to grow our capacity and you know this seems to be what the world is asking and so you know it’s an honor to be part of uh responding to that call and as you describe having all that. I’m thinking of like if this is you, like be the buffalo. I think the buffalo is the only animal that turns towards the storm and and walks through it knowing that that’s the quickest way through. I think everybody else is uh doing the Amazon Prime, the quick fixes, the the the detoxes, the supplements, the the fixing. And um when you’re ready when you’ve done all that and you’re ready to uh to move towards it to move towards the storm like be the buffalo like

Mitch — has got a fantastic community for for you. Thank you so much. Well, thank you for coming on. I’ll uh I’ll put all the links to your website, your social media, and your community under um if anybody has any comments or questions. We love that. And Simona, thank you so much for coming on. We’ll uh we’ll have to do it again sometime. Sounds good. All right. Byebye. [Music]