Coming Home to Self: Moving From Self-Doubt to Self-Trust With Susanne Goldstein

[00:00:02] Welcome back to Stress Busters for Wildly Busy Humans. If you're ready to release your stress and reclaim your joy in life, you're in the right place. I'm your host Vivianne Winters Israel. Let's get to it.

[00:00:21] Hello, Wildly Busy Humans. Today we have a guest. I'm very excited to introduce you to Suzanne Goldstein. LPC, and you'll need to tell us what that is in a bit.

[00:00:33] She is a nervous system practitioner, educator and EMDR trainer. We'll need to know that too. With 28 years of clinical experience, she helps high achieving women heal narcissistic and relational wounding and come home to themselves.

[00:00:52] Because trauma lives in the body. Yes, she pairs somatic work IFS and EMDR with education on how peptides may support physical recovery. I want to hear that. She offers workshops, VIP intensives and a 90 day return to wholeness and a self-trust retreat.

[00:01:15] So I am grateful to have you here with us, Suzanne, to speak to my audience. While my audience may not be predominantly your target audience, your skills and your experience have great value for all Wildly Busy Humans. Yes. My first question for you, what do you see as the three most important aspects of moving from self-doubt and second-guessing themselves towards self-trust?

[00:01:44] So first of all, Vivian, thank you so much for having me and introducing me. And I would say those three things, the first thing is insight, right? I would say the second thing is grace. And the third thing is compassion.

[00:02:01] Because when we are in a self-doubt state, which is a stress state, we are actually in some type of survival pattern that has kept us safe and connected in our lives. It just isn't working anymore.

[00:02:22] So the first is insight, right? Which opens space within our self to be able to have some compassion and grace for those parts that have been working really hard to create safety. I would say I agree with that. Beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful. And that was the first part you said? Yeah, those are kind of the three things, like the insight first,

[00:02:51] and then bringing grace and bringing compassion. And I guess maybe they're a little bundled. So I could also say, like, when we are in a stress state, it's a conditioned response of doing. Yes. Right? Doing hypervigilance, which is a messenger that something is dangerous and we need to prepare and predict. So maybe if I bundled those first things together, the second thing would be healing in relationship.

[00:03:18] Because when we're in a stress response, we're in usually isolation, like overdoing, overachieving, overworking, multitasking, which has deep impact on our brain function. So I would say that would be probably the second.

[00:03:35] And I think the third, maybe I'm kind of interweaving all of these, would be to understand that stress is a physiological, like nervous system injury that's happening in the body. Well put. And then maybe that goes with insight too. So if we can start to have some insight in these three corridors, we can begin to have a different relationship with self.

[00:04:05] Excellent. And as a wound, that was beautiful. It absolutely, absolutely is. Now, can you expand on what you refer to as coming home to themselves? Yeah. It's returning to our birthright, which is open heart connection. So we are born open heart connection, connected little beings. And in our life, we're without judgment.

[00:04:32] We're just not raised by perfect environments or perfection. So there's times during our lives where we begin to foreclose that open heart connection, which causes stress in the body. And then we develop all these kind of symptoms of trauma, like anxiety and depression and stress and sickness in the body to overcompensate. I think I just lost my thought.

[00:05:02] Can we circle back to that question? Here's my humanness, right? I love it. That's fine. Yes. And it does happen. Yeah, we get here. We get all in here. And we have to get back to, okay, well, it's fielded. Was I now? It's like, where did it go? We weave in our heads so much, it's beyond.

[00:05:23] What would be your top tip for wildly busy humans as far as connecting with or allowing themselves to release stress? Just to understand that stress has a purpose, right? But that purpose might not be needed. It might be an old pattern of survival that has been in your life forever. And I can tell you from my own experience, would that be okay? Absolutely. If I shared.

[00:05:52] So overcompensating, having these survival patterns of attuning to everybody else in my environment, which is a good making for a therapist, to making sure everybody's emotional worlds were okay. It creates tremendous stress in the body. So my world was always like just full on Formula One race car, right? All the time.

[00:06:16] But then that Formula Race car started to drive in peanut butter and it started to make the body really sick. Stress created a lot of inflammation in my body, which led to several different surgeries and kind of sickness in the body and failing of joints and some other things.

[00:06:39] So in my releasing stress, which is something that was the language I was taught, right? To always be in that hyper vigilant mode of doing. It was a teacher to say I needed to pivot and start to bring in insight and grace and compassion as these teachers and start to have a different relationship with stress.

[00:07:05] So healing the body and the brain through things like eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing, EMDR. It is an evidence-based trauma modality that I see the magic in it all the time, even though it's got a ton of science and internal family systems, which looks at these adaptations of these survival kind of patterns of stress in our life as how they're helpful.

[00:07:34] And then with peptides, which is new and emerging in the area of healing health injury in the body. They're natural amino peptides in proteins in our body that our body is very familiar with, but can support the aftermath of stress in the body. So those are kind of the areas that I use to help my own system heal from stress.

[00:07:58] So I think it's starting to pause to answer your question and recognize that the stress is no longer serving me. And then reaching out to be in relationship with someone who can hold what you bring, right? Because that part of you is very strong to begin to have a different relationship with it. That's amazing.

[00:08:21] And so glad you started talking about peptides because I was going to ask about, I'd not heard of that peptides, how supporting physical recovery. I mean, having, you know, actually just now having said that, I can see how that could work, but I'd never thought about it as a tactic. Yeah, there's a tremendous amount of research, you know, that's emerging.

[00:08:46] There's a lot of research on animals like mice, but now we're starting to move into getting that on human data and looking at how certain peptides help with metabolic function, with reducing glucose spikes, which stress releases. Mitochondria in the gut, which is directly connected to your brain health, cardiovascular health. So I always call it like stress is kind of like issues in your tissues.

[00:09:15] Oh, that's great. You know, and we need to get into the tissues and help the tissues repair. Oh, I love issues in the tissues because it's one of those little soundbite things that will help you remember it. It's like, oh, yes. Yes. Remember that thing? Issues with the tissues. Perfectly beautiful. I love that. Okay. I have another question for you. Sure.

[00:09:38] I want to ask everyone is what one thing do you think each individual might do that could, by ripple effect, guide humanity towards a world of increased kindness and connectivity? To do your own healing. Very good. Yes. Yes. We are operating out of survival and stress. And the world needs an army of healers.

[00:10:06] And if we can begin to look inside at our own patterns that are kind of keeping us sick and disconnected, as we reconnect, there's more capacity to be in relationship with self and others. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you. That is so in alignment with what I do. I mean, so for so many years now, I've heard self-care be equated to me time. Yeah. Time is great.

[00:10:35] But I see that as something that elevates your day. It's not true self-care. So I think the word true needs to go in front of self-care, which is not selfish, but the foundation of taking the best possible care of your loved ones, children, patients, students, partners, as well as yourself. So I love hearing you say that. Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting because sometimes people aren't even taught the language of self-care.

[00:11:05] Right? So we're not. Women. So I think then men and caregivers naturally are people that go that way. Yeah. They take care of everybody but themselves thinking, well, I can't do that. I need to put it here. But when you take true care of yourself, show up better for yourself and by second intention, you're showing up better for everybody else. Those that matter to you and positive impact on just everybody you come in contact with.

[00:11:33] So I love hearing you say that. Yes. Yes. It sounds like we could talk for a really long time. I'm loving what you're saying too. And they have to do it again. So I would like to get a couple of your alphabetic pieces to understand. An LPC. What is an LPC? Yes. Let's do it. So licensed professional counselor. Okay. Yep. So I've been in this field for over 28 years and I am licensed.

[00:12:02] And I am an EMDR, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing consultant and trainer. I'm an internal family systems provider. Yes. Okay. That's all the, the fam, the internal family. If you've ever seen the movie Inside Out. Oh, I like that. Oh, yeah. All the part. That's the internal family. Okay. And then, yeah. And then I'm a peptide brand partner with a company called LEMD.

[00:12:31] So those are, those are all the syllables. Perfect. And I love Inside Out. But I thought they did an incredible job of illustrating. Oh, yeah. Even for kids, but for the grown-ups, because nobody told us this stuff. We didn't tell you. Incredibly complex, triggery stuff. Beautifully. That was such a incredible movie. Kudos. That was absolutely spectacular. Absolutely.

[00:13:01] I love. And so that's really what happens inside of us. Trauma fragments us. And then these managers show up. Everyone's trying to drive the ship. Yeah. And stress is a big one. A question for you. A CMDR. That sounds like something that may be used in post-traumatic stress. A hundred percent.

[00:13:23] It is the number one modality for healing post-traumatic stress, relational and developmental complex trauma. Yeah. Because it helps. So trauma enters a part of our brain that is about survival in order to keep us alive. And trauma is really anything less than nurturing. You know, you could have a significant, you know, disturbing man-made natural disaster. You could have five years old. You fall off the jungle gym and all the kids laugh.

[00:13:53] It gets stuck with no time stamp. It never gets integrated. So EMDR helps to build a neural pathway where information can really fully process through. So I kind of say through eye movement, the left and the right brain and the nervous system begin to play nice in the sandbox. They all begin to connect with one another. I like how you put that. That's very good. I actually had an odd experience of this.

[00:14:23] It was just a little over a year ago. When I was very little, there were neighbor kids that were older than I was. And they had this thing where they would roll up in this rug and roll down a little hill between houses. And, you know, it was fun. And they would unroll. It was good. But when I was rolled up in the thing, it was backwards. So I didn't roll out. And I stayed in that thing. And I got left in that thing. And my little seven-year-old self freaked out. Yeah. And I was terrified. That's scary. Very scary.

[00:14:52] And, you know, my arms were down like this and stuffed with their mouth and kind of inhaling little things. And, you know, grits. And, you know, when you're like this, you don't understand time. It just seems like it. And I finally got out of there. And I knew that scared me. And I was scared about that for a while. Now, I can be perfectly happy in a closet, which basically people are claustrophobic. That may not work for them. I'm happy in a closet.

[00:15:22] But, quicker than go. Restrain my arms. It's scary. As a critical character. It was hard with wearing the mask. The little dome mask worked better for me. But I had a particular tooth cleaning where there was some amazing equipment I hadn't heard before. And there were like two and a half people in my mouth with all this stuff. And I was like this.

[00:15:45] And I had what I qualify as a post-traumatic stress experience. Yeah. Was like really there. I could smell the rug. I felt the things in my mouth. And they kept saying, are you okay? And well, my mouth, I'm fine. I'm okay. Anything. And I was like quite knuckling there just trying to get through it. I couldn't really talk to them. We were trying to ban you. But I had never had any kind of a flashy backward thing. Yeah, I'm 72.

[00:16:15] I was 71. This happened. And that was a long time ago. So it was odd to me that I knew what that was and what it was from right away. Yep. It never happened. Or I only had one other big thing when somebody tried to be, they thought cute. And I almost clawed them because they were doing in front of room demonstrating. In a hospital demonstrating. I told them about my issue. And they said, oh, no, we'll be fine. We'll take care of you. No, he got into this little power mode. And yeah.

[00:16:43] Matt over me and was leaning his weight on me. Yeah. It's dangerous. Like that seven year old. Yes. The other instance. And I just saw this flashy back. So it is interesting what you were saying that it just gets stuck there. It gets stuck. Yeah. And I didn't really think it's it being a stuck thing until just those two instances that came out with it with fangs and cloths. That's exactly right. It's a present trigger in the present that blows up the seven year old memory.

[00:17:14] Yeah. And it's like you're right back in the rug. Yeah. I was reading the rug. Leaving the rug. Yes. All of them. So you've had that like embodied experience of stress from that. Yes. Fortunately, only the first. Only that. Yeah. Particularly one in that one other instance. But when you have something like that and it made me have a different. Compassion, a different level of a empathic ish compassion, if that's a word. That's right. Yes. Towards people who are dealing with.

[00:17:43] I mean, I have definite sympathy for folks that have to deal with it. But having had that, thankfully, only one experience, I have a different understanding of that because I would see folks coming and they'll have like service animals, stuff that they can help them with this. It was just as much as I didn't enjoy the experience, it was valuable. Yeah. It shows you how sophisticated our systems are. Yeah. Because the nervous system is like anticipating danger with what happened in those two incidences

[00:18:13] and then you're right back there. Yeah. Right. And so this like stress, it's like can be ancient. And sometimes it might not even be ours. It might be passed on. So. And yeah. Which ones will keep there? I mean, I've been through significant life crises, medical, physical injuries and whatnot. And what comes through is a little thing from when it was. Yeah.

[00:18:38] Because it was really scary when you were seven and there weren't the resources for you to navigate it in that. Yes. Totally. Exactly. Yes. Very true. Thank you for sharing that. Oh, you're welcome. You're welcome. That's the first time I've actually shared that. Now, I understand you have a gift for our audience. I do. Yes. I do. I love that. So a wonderful place to start is with a quiz. It's a free quiz.

[00:19:06] And it will just kind of give you a baseline of maybe where you are now. And if something in today's conversation stirred something in you, that might not be by accident. It might be an invitation. I have a 90 day program who for people who are ready to move from inside into healing. And we work at the nervous system level and the somatic body level and reconnecting to self. That quiz will be in the show notes.

[00:19:35] And my website is Suzanne M, a big M, goldstein.com. And you can find me there. But we'll have that quiz ready for you. I just know that like healing is possible, you know, and it happens best when we're held in relational, deeply supportive containers. And that's exactly what I've built. Exactly.

[00:19:58] We need the opportunity to get out of our thinking head and into our feeling body to do big work because the head's always meh. Yes. Got it. Well, this has been a pleasure. Oh, thank you, Suzanne. It has actually been a pleasure for me. Absolutely. Thank you so much. I appreciate your joining us. Me too. I appreciate this time with you. Thank you. We may have to have another discussion. I know. It would be really great. I'd love that.

[00:20:29] Thank you for tuning in to Stress Busters for Wildly Busy Humans. If this episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it. Don't forget to grab your free curated guide to my Wildly Busy Humans self-care shortlist found in the show notes. Until next time, remember, true self-care isn't selfish.

[00:20:55] It's the foundation for taking the best possible care of your loved ones and positively impacts everyone you encounter.