Midlife Wake Up Call

Jody Brooks 0:00

Before we begin today, one gentle heads up. This conversation touches on trauma, including abuse. So look after yourself as you listen and come to it only when you feel ready. Because my guest today has spent her life learning something I think we all need to hear. That's the hardest things we carry do not live in our heads. They live in our body. In the racing heart, the clenched stomach, the habits we row off as just being a bit quirky. Her name's

Three Phase Healing Start

Jody Brooks 0:27

Anissa Hudak, and she is a trauma healer who teaches a quietly revolutionary approach. That you do not have to relive the pain to be free of it. You don't have to retell the story, and you can heal without walking back through the fire. Her story asks a question I want you to hold gently. What if freedom was never about reliving it, but about finally understanding it? Stay with me. Hello, Messy Midlifers, and welcome back to the show. Answering the call to connect today is Anissa Hudak. Welcome to Messy Midlife.

Anissa Hudak 1:03

Thank you for having me.

Jody Brooks 1:05

I am so excited for today's discussion. We had an amazing meetup earlier on before we recorded the show and had quite an in-depth discussion there about some points that we shared and the reason that I'd reached out to you in the first place. I know it's going to be an amazing show today. Obviously, as a bit of a warning for the listeners, there may be some subjects, some topics in here today that could be a bit triggering around sexual

Trigger Warning And Setup

Jody Brooks 1:34

trauma and abusive relationships. So just a heads up, if that is something you could be triggered by, there will be discussions on that in the show today. However, the reason that I reached out to Anissa was an approach on you not having to relive the trauma, which I know we're gonna get to in the second half of the show. But as always, with all of my guests, let's start in that messy middle moment and your messy middle moment that was for you, Vanessa.

Anissa Hudak 2:09

So there I was sitting in a yoga teacher training class for PTSD. And I was about halfway

Yoga Class Realization

Anissa Hudak 2:18

through the first day, and I sat there and said, Oh crap. The first person I have to work on is this gal right here, before I could even begin to help anyone else. And that that was the moment. And so I it started this quest, this journey of self-discovery, self-healing. And along the way I was able to take people with me and bring them along on their journeys as well. And and so it it was really an an amazing, still is an amazing journey. I became a certified yoga therapist and I was helping folks move trauma out of their bodies utilizing yoga therapy. And at which point I I had already been raped when I was 18, so about 10 years ago I was raped again. And at this time I was a yoga therapist. And I said, alright, so what am what am I gonna do? I'm gonna put my clinician hat on and everything I'm gonna tell my client to go do, I'm going to go do. I'm gonna put myself through the paces. And that's what I did. And so I started up talk therapy again. And I was working, I had a private studio space

Talk Therapy Limits

Anissa Hudak 3:42

and I had a class and women who were all like me. And we were all saying the same thing. We feel great after we get out of yoga class. I mean, we like float out of yoga class. And then we go into our twok therapy and we feel like crab again. And I was like, you know, we could put a man on the moon, and yet we're still doing twok therapy. There's gotta be a better way. So started doing some research. And I mean years of research. This wasn't just something, you know, I I came across in, you know, six minutes on Google. This was years of research. And I finally came up with a group of techniques that they're all neuro, they work with the unconscious part of the brain. And they can all stand on their own. However, when we weave them together, they become incredibly effective for handling trauma in the unconscious. It really allows the unconscious to isolate and process the event or events, make sense of it, learn from it, and have some acceptance, some resolution, some closure, and be able to move on. And so I did this and learned how to do this. And it has been absolutely amazing. And so that's what I do. I help other women who were like me.

Jody Brooks 5:12

There was a couple of bits that really hit me as we went through. So, in that moment, I know for me, my moment of awareness was filled with quite a lot of fear in that moment when I sat there and I was like, okay, I'm gonna have to do this stuff, and I'm gonna have to face fears that I had. It's almost like I tried to outrun it, but in that moment I was sat there and I was you you can't outrun this anymore. You're gonna have to face this head on. It's interesting that you were in a yoga, learning to do yoga, etc. Was that part still part of you trying to outrun it that had got you there? A lot of people don't even know they're trying to outrun it.

Anissa Hudak 6:00

Great question. As I was sitting there, I remember absorbing this information that was being given to me and saying, Oh crap, you mean that's what's wrong with me. Like I I was completely oblivious. I thought that the things that I was doing was just me being quirky. And yeah, I was I was a sexual assault survivor, you know, and so why wouldn't I be triggered by certain things? Of course. Yeah, you know, I I didn't want to watch it on TV and I may not go out at night because, you know, it's dark, and if I have to, I'm gonna like park under a street light because and and have somebody walk me to my car, and you know, like all of these things that I had put in place, and I then I realized, you mean people don't live like that? Oh, you mean it's just me? Well, maybe not just me, but I just thought it was me being quirky. I didn't realize that truly PTSD had crawled into the nooks and crannies of my life, and it was holding me back, holding me hostage in ways I did not want. I didn't even realize it. And then when I was looking at it, and I'm sitting there looking at it, saying, Well, I don't want to live like this. I wasn't afraid of what was next, because I didn't know what was gonna come next. I just knew I didn't want to live like that. And I, you know, it very it wasn't until quite a ways down the road did I say, Do I really want to face this? I wasn't at your point yet. I was more like, what if everybody knows that I'm like a freak? And this is how I live my life. You know, I I felt very exposed, very vulnerable, and and like I was an absolute freak.

Jody Brooks 7:50

It's interesting you say there as well about all of these ways of coping, essentially, that you'd built that are I can sit here, I'm sure you can now look on and go that they're like survival techniques. This was a whole barrage of lots of individual survival techniques that essentially, like you say, were almost hiding what lays behind and also formulating in some respects the illusion that you'd dealt with the trauma, but actually that trauma was still sitting there driving your everyday, but not would it be fair to say not in a fear sense, but in a survival sense, so there's a slightly different feeling to it in that it was you surviving, so therefore it was almost like it was strength rather than ultimately a feeling of weakness.

Anissa Hudak 8:52

Absolutely, indeed, indeed, yes. I had already been into talk therapy at that point several times. You know, I I have done the talk therapy hamster wheel, you know, where you go, you you do a bit of work, you feel like you're good, you step away, and then something pops up, and you go back in and you do a little bit more work and you feel like you're good, and you step away, and what happens? It's the same thing, it's the same cycle over and over. And I had done that already several times over. When I was sitting there in that class, realizing, well, first you gotta get it out

Nervous System Offline

Anissa Hudak 9:29

of your body as well. Like it's not just a talk therapy thing, like you gotta get it out of your body. That was like poof. Learning about the science behind it and it's biology that we're not taught in schools. You know, if you break an arm, by the time you get to high school, you kind of know what's gonna happen. You're gonna go to the hospital, they're gonna take an x-ray, they're gonna show you the x-ray and tell you, look, you broke your arm. They're gonna put you in a cast. Six to eight weeks later, you're gonna go, they're gonna cut it off, and they're gonna say, look, you're better. Everybody knows that. However, when your central nervous system goes offline, we're never taught how to reset it. And we all have one. We all have a central nervous system, and yet nobody is teaching us how to reset it when it goes offline. So everyone at some point living this human experience is going to have PTSD. The question is, can they come back from that?

Jody Brooks 10:29

When you hear the phrase PTSD, people associate it commonly with huge traumatic, like massive traumatic instances, whereas on a larger scale, and we obviously associate it to veterans, to war, to those kind of things, but there is now obviously this much more growing understanding that effectively it's any form of trauma, and and I think that word trigger is I used it at the start of the show, but it's very true. There are bits I know from my childhood, there are bits from my childhood trauma that I don't think I would say I'm triggered by anymore, but I acknowledge that when I see those things, I acknowledge in me that there is a memory of a past existence, and I think for a lot of people, PTSD exists around an awful lot of things that we maybe would not align it to normally. What would you say are some of the key indicators for a listener? It's quite a strong phrase to use, PTSD, because I think people, again, like I said, associate it with massive big traumas, etc. But how would somebody essentially know that maybe they're suffering PTSD from something in their everyday life?

Anissa Hudak 12:04

So, two things about what you you said before I answer your question. Sorry. As far as the trigger, triggers

Triggers And Symptoms

Anissa Hudak 12:13

are our friends, triggers are the breadcrumbs that lead us to stuff that need to be dealt with. And everybody hates tr triggers. I don't like them either. They're not, you know, I'm not a big fan. However, they are the breadcrumbs, they are leading you to what you need to go deal with next. And the brain does not allow you any information it doesn't feel you can't handle. So when it thinks you're badass enough to deal with it, it presents it to you. So triggers our friends. We can be frenemies with them. We don't have to necessarily like them. We can be frenemies with them. And PTSD, you know, everybody is like, oh, that's such a big thing, you know, it's just trauma. Well, it's it's all the same thing. It doesn't matter how you package it. It all happens the same way. And there's a lot of things that go into whether you get PTSD or not. And this is something that people don't realize. How much stress, trauma, abuse have you dealt with your entire life? Did you live in a happy environment? Did you live in a very stressful environment? What happened prior to the incident? Like the hour leading up to the incident? Were you very stressed? Were you not? Were you relaxed? These are all things that play into whether the central nervous system is going to go offline or not. And what people also don't realize is that this is this happens in the body first. This is a physiological thing that happens before all of the mental health stuff starts to pop up. PTSD is a conglomerate of over 75 different symptoms. So it takes someone to looking at the entire person to actually diagnose it. There are all of the mental health things, you know, which you would associate with the hypervigilance, the anger management, the weepiness, the anxiety, the depression, you know, all of those kinds of things, right? And then there's the physical stuff. And these are the things that people don't like connect the dots here. We're looking at irritable bowel syndrome, palpitations of the heart, racing heart, high blood pressure, and some sneaky things that people don't realize. Do you have you ever s noticed that somebody has a hard time hearing? They have the TV blaring. And it's not because they need hearing aids, though you think they do. It's actually because the chemicals that is created in the body due to this whole physiological thing creates an inflammatory situation in the body. That actually inflames the the inner ear, the middle ear, and it makes it very difficult for people to hear. Same things happen with their eyes. You might notice that people start wearing sunglasses more and they start sh closing the shades in their house. Part of that is because they want to be secluded and they they're doing some self-isolation, but it's also because of the light is hurting their eyes. And that happens because, again, inflammatory situation in the body, the optic nerve becomes inflamed, and it can't has a hard time with letting the amount, the proper amount of light into their eye. There's all kinds of things. Now left unchecked, we then see autoimmune issues like diabetes, lupus, fibromyalgia, things like that. For instance, I was actually diagnosed with diabetes at 45. That's kind of young for diabetes. But because of all the cortisol that had been going through my body since I was born, you know, I I got a wonderful parting gift, if you will, from PTSD. So there's there's so much there. I hope that I've answered your question.

Jody Brooks 16:23

Completely there is so much more to it. I think I was as we were talking then, I was just remembering that I recently read an article as well that was talking about how people who had witnessed the Twin Towers 9-11 from the other side of the world and had only seen it on TV actually ended up with PTSD. So there is this new kind of growing thing now that as well that how that they were genuinely affected, and there was reading a case about a guy who was in treatment, having nightmares, waking up, couldn't do all of the like all of those symptoms from just witnessing it. And it made me then think how there are probably a lot more people suffering from the symptoms of PTSD without aligning it to that, not believing that because we would think that you had to be present at 9-11 or you had to be at this huge traumatic instance, whereas really it can be anything in your life that has triggered those effects and caused you essentially to go into survival mode.

Anissa Hudak 17:42

Absolutely, and what folks don't seem to realize is that you know it's not weakness. I mean, if somebody gets cancer or breaks

Trauma Is Not Weakness

Anissa Hudak 17:51

an arm, do you think they're weak? No. So why do we think they're weak if their central nervous system goes offline? I mean, it's kind of a no-brainer, like you know, I mean what's the big deal? There's no weakness there, there's no shame. And we need to be talking about it more as it's just another thing that can happen to the body, because it is just another thing that can happen to the body.

Jody Brooks 18:16

I love the way that you say like your nervous system going offline, but when I work with clients, I explain the same thing. And when we uh when we witness or we're subjected to something that our subconscious perceives as traumatic, it reacts much quicker than we would ever know, and it shuts it away and it makes sure and it puts it somewhere, and it's like we you never want to look at that again. That was bad. We've dealt with it, you never want to look at that again, and then that's where it festers back there. Quite often, then there's these bits, and I suppose with PTSD, when some stuff that I've done recently with working with some people with addiction problems, we've talked about this a little bit about how it festers away in the background, and you don't even really know it's there. And I was just now drawing that conclusion to the things that you said where parking under the street light, walking you to your car, and not actually knowing where these have come from, but these are essentially where your nervous system's gone offline, it's filed a load of stuff away. You said like the the triggers are the clues, they're the breadcrumbs that will lead you eventually back to the source.

Anissa Hudak 19:35

Well, I was just gonna say, so let's say you and I are in a car, okay? Now, I've never driven in the UK, and I know that that's where you are.

Same Event Different Impact

Anissa Hudak 19:43

So, how's about I'm driving you in a car in the UK? Never done this before, right? So it's probably close to being harrowing. I think that's safe to say, right?

Jody Brooks 19:53

I would have to say, as someone who's married to an American, you would find it harrowing because our roads are very small.

Anissa Hudak 20:00

And like when you would find it harrowing because I'm driving, right?

Jody Brooks 20:05

Now, inevitably my husband doesn't drive here for that very reason.

Anissa Hudak 20:11

Okay. And since I generally drive at about 90 miles an hour everywhere I go, yeah, let's just say this is a recipe for disaster. And inevitably we have an accident. Okay. Now, let's say you had just gotten off a call with a client, and it was kind of daunting. So you have that playing on your brain. You and I can be at the same accident in the same vehicle. I can walk away and be absolutely fine. You can walk away and have PTSD. How is it that two people could be in the same accident in the same vehicle, and yet one has PTSD and the other doesn't? And that's because of all these other things that kind of add up to it. Again, in the last hour before the accident, you had a stressful situation. You've had a stressful childhood, you've dealt with these kinds of issues a very long time. It's not uncommon. So so two people can experience the exact same situation together, and one can have their central nervous system go offline and one may not. Does that mean that the one who didn't is stronger? No. Just wasn't their time. It's gonna happen. At some point, it will happen. It just wasn't that incident. Now that incident gets, you know, put into the bucket, if you will. And when enough stressful it situations occur, you will get PTSD. It's just a matter of how much more can your central nervous system take. So and it's not a bad thing. Everybody's gonna have their turn. The question is what do you? Do when it happens.

Jody Brooks 22:02

I love that because I always say there isn't a scale for trauma. Everybody's trauma is individual to them. And when you say that there, do you think sometimes that also makes it difficult for people to seek help? Going back to you sitting there having your moment in the yoga studio, you minimize what's happened to you because you feel that bigger things have happened to other people and they've survived or it hasn't been a problem for them. So that then leaves you going, okay, yeah, this did happen, but compared to that, it's not that bad, so there can't be anything wrong with Oh my goodness, this is the this cracks me up.

Anissa Hudak 22:48

It's like there's a pecking order, a trauma pecking order. There's

Trauma Pecking Order

Anissa Hudak 22:53

no other way to describe it, and it cracks me up. So, you know, okay, you were in a car accident and you got PTSD, but but so and so was in a car accident and somebody died. That's much worse, you know? Um, so I don't mine isn't really that bad. You know where I see a lot of this is actually in the baby and child loss community. And it's very interesting. Women who suffer an eptopic pregnancy say, well, gosh, my pregnancy didn't even go into my uterus. Like I can't even count it as a pregnancy. So, you know, I shouldn't really talk much about it. And then those who suffer a miscarriage say, Well, I didn't carry the term. You know, somebody who had a stillbirth had way more trauma than I did, so I'm not gonna say much about mine. I and they minimize it. Stillbirth. Well, you know, my child didn't live. Someone who had a child who lived had way worse than I did, so you know, I'm not gonna say much about mine. I'm not gonna get help. Someone who had an infant who died, same thing. Well, I didn't my child didn't live to be a teenager or, you know, an adult. So I don't I don't have any room to say anything. They have way more trauma. It kills me. It's like this pecking order, and everyone minimizes because their situation isn't as bad as so-and-so's. Trauma's trauma, hello. It doesn't matter. Get the help. The worst pain you will anyone will ever experience is your own.

Jody Brooks 24:29

So true. I and I say it to people all the time when I work with clients. I I just say to them, it trauma is trauma. Your trauma is your trauma, and there is no scale. And if it negatively impacted you, if it's negatively affecting you, if that's how you felt, and again, I always say perspective. There can be two people in that situation, and one person can not find it traumatic, and one person can find it really traumatic, and again it doesn't minimize or maximise either or either person, the reality for that person is real, and everybody's reality is individual and as unique as they are, and so therefore their trauma is as individual and as unique as them. I didn't use the word childhood trauma to refer to my childhood until I'd made peace with it, because I had this very almost I'm gonna say bipolar, which is probably a very bad choice of words, but I had this bipolar childhood where on one hand it was amazing, and I grew up in this idyllic rural community and at the heart of a village and a community, and yet behind closed doors, what happened behind closed doors was incredibly traumatic. So I laid into the lovely part of my childhood and minimized the other part until I was in my 40s when I could actually go, actually, that was bad. That was bad, and I became a people pleaser. So my coping strategy throughout my entire career, I'd been a people pleaser because I learned very early on as a child how to please a room full of people to keep myself safe and to minimize the anger in the room, and I then did that for 32 years of a career until I had my moment where I was like, This don't work, because I'm exhausted. So I think it's very interesting, and now I do say to everybody, look, your trauma is as unique as you are, and the reality of it is as unique as you are as well. And don't let anybody tell you any different. If it impacts you negatively, it impacts you negatively.

Anissa Hudak 27:03

It is as unique as your thumbprint, and so is healing.

Healing Is Unique

Anissa Hudak 27:08

Your journey into healing is just as unique because nobody has the trauma that you have in the exact same way. It's unique. And so finding what works best for you is the trick. And I think this is the real sin of it, is that you know, inevitably all of our central nervous systems are gonna go offline at some point, right? And when you're diagnosed with cancer, all of a sudden you get this team of doctors that walk in and they're like, I'm gonna help you with this, and I'm gonna help you, and I'm this specialist, I'm that specialist. And yet, when your central nervous system goes offline, there's nobody there. And they say, Oh, go get a torque therapist. They don't even tell you what kind. You're left to your own devices. There's no team to help you. That's a sin. And because everyone is an individual, just like they are with physical characteristics of cancer, it does need a team to help you figure it out. You're not you shouldn't have to do this on your own. And that's why I'm blessed to do what I do. As I'm sure you feel the same way working with your clients. I mean being able to help folks.

Jody Brooks 28:23

I love how my guests always take me to the next part of the show. Because I was sat before thinking, we're heading towards the end of the first half, and then you beautifully start talking about how everybody's healing journey is unique, which is definitely for the second part of the show. That conversation there has been so empowering and so incredibly rich that the bits that stand out for me is how in your journey what looked like coping mechanisms were actually signs that something was wrong, and they were the very bit that you needed, had your almost realization about is these things that I've done that I thought kept me safe were actually holding me back and keeping me locked in my trauma, and how this uniqueness of PTSD and our trauma is as unique as all of us and as real as it is for that individual, and also that element there of how we can be in the same situation as someone and we both come out differently. One comes out unscathed and one comes out completely traumatized by the situation. Is there anything in our discussion around the messy middle, the trauma, any of those bits that I haven't shone a light on that you want to bring out for the listeners before we take a break and then come back and talk about healing?

Anissa Hudak 30:01

If you get an A for wrap-up, oh my goodness, that was like I mean, just put a bow on it. It was lovely. I can't think of anything else. I mean, just wonderfully done.

Jody Brooks 30:14

Do you know what, listeners? I'm gonna sit here and polish my A that I've just been given on my wrap-up as you listen to this very quick break, and we catch our breath and we'll join you in a few moments. Before we keep going, I want to invite you into something a little more personal. If Messy Midlife is speaking to you, you don't have to walk through this season alone. You can join the authentic life community. A place to connect with me, connect with others, and explore the nine principles of authentic lover. It's a place for honest conversation, judgment support, and real connection without judgment. If that sounds like what you need, come and join us at authenticcoaching.me and look for the authentic life community. Okay, let's get back to today's episode. Welcome back, Messy Midlifers. Before the break, we had the most amazing discussion with my guest today around trauma and how it shows up in our lives in ways that are quite sneaky, really, quite secretive. And I hope that shone a light, maybe for some of you who feel stuck but don't know why you are, and maybe can now identify that maybe there is some of this trauma locked away, as happened for Anissa in her yoga moment, sat there of realization. And we led beautifully onto how everybody's healing journey is different, also. I know that the big reason that I reached out to you in the first place was there's a huge part of talking therapy and a huge part for a lot of people having that moment, be it in yoga or the doctor's surgery or sat at home, that is filled with fear about having to relive a trauma in order to beyond it. And that's not a foundation of where you come from, I know. So explain to us a little bit now about the healing journey that you beautifully crafted and take people on now that allows people that freedom without the re-traumatization.

Anissa Hudak 32:41

Gladly. So I've broken it down into three phases. And the first phase is awareness. You need to be aware that you have a problem. You need to be aware of maybe some of the patterns that you're running, maybe some of some of the coping skills, whether they are negative or positive. Awareness. Now, talk therapy is an amazing vehicle for this. Talk therapy can help you reach that awareness stage. Do you absolutely have to talk about everything? No. That's up to you and your therapist, however you want to deal with it.

Beyond Talk Therapy

Anissa Hudak 33:22

That being said, talk therapy comes from the conscious part of your brain. You are there about 5% of your day. So I think it's pretty safe to say that you're not going to solve any major problems from a place where you're only 5% of your day. Now, the next phase is getting it out of the body. Now, the next two phases you can do either way, first or second. It doesn't matter.

Trauma Stored in Body

Anissa Hudak 33:46

It's really about where you're at. So we take that awareness. And the next part is we got to get it out of the body. Because PTSD trauma is stored in the body. It happens to the body first before it becomes a mental health or a physical issue. It starts in the body. There is a physical mechanism that occurs that makes the central nervous system go offline. So we need to reinstate that central nervous system. Now, of course, I might be a little biased. I think that yoga therapy is the perfect vehicle to do this with.

Movement to Release Trauma

Anissa Hudak 34:22

However, not everybody enjoys that, and that's okay. Although I will tell you, it is not like what you're doing at your corner yoga studio. This is very specific, it's and it's very different. That being said, what are some other avenues you can take? Running, kickboxing, martial arts, hiking, even going for a walk. These are five different ways that would be brilliant to help you with moving the trauma out of your body. From there, we also need to get it out of the unconscious part of your brain. Yeah, think about this. The fight-flight freezer-fawn mode

Unconscious Processing Phase

Anissa Hudak 35:04

is held in the unconscious part of your brain. So it probably makes sense that we get it out of there. And oh by the way, you spend 95% of your time every day in your unconscious. So that's probably where you're gonna solve most of your problems anyway. We need to allow the unconscious to take that event or events and process it. That doesn't mean you gotta talk about it. You're allowing the unconscious to do the work it needs to do. And there's very little talking that happens with that. However, we we let the unconscious do its thing and process it. It's going to learn things. It's gonna really take things and make peace, acceptance, understanding. And that's where you're gonna find the resolution. So again, phase two, body work, phase three, unconscious. It doesn't matter which one you do first, whatever you're ready for. I will say doing getting it out of the body does really help with working with the unconscious because it gives you a bigger bandwidth because you're letting go of some of that baggage that you don't even realize you're carrying. However, is there a right or wrong? No. Nobody's gonna take away your birthday if you go and do your unconscious work first, then your body work. Okay? You gotta do what's best for you, and this is where it's so unique. This is about you. What works best for you, because your healing journey is just as unique as your trauma is.

Jody Brooks 36:38

For me, my unconscious work, I did by becoming an avid journaler and learning

Journaling Awareness Story

Jody Brooks 36:47

to journal. So after my awareness moment, I was listening to you then and thinking, I can see what I did, even though I didn't know I'd done it at the time, but I've now worked out what I just did. Listen listening to you. Is my awareness moment. Listeners will have heard this so many times now, but for those in case someone's listening to the show for the first time, my awareness moment was in a toilet cubicle, toilet stall at work in the office after a meeting where I broke down in tears, put my head in my hands, realised I couldn't go on any longer, looked up and saw on the back of the toilet cubicle door a sign that said, Do you need to speak to a mental health first aider? And in that moment, I answered quietly in my head, yes, but am I gonna talk to any of you in this building? No. So I then left work promptly, didn't do any more meetings, and took some time off work because I realized that I was not in a great place. And I journaled every day, pages and pages, for the next two weeks until I saw the patterns and I saw the similarity in the words, and I saw those things come to the surface that my subconscious was absolutely screaming at me, but I hadn't allowed myself the time to see. And I was guesting on a podcast yesterday, and I got asked the question like, when you talk about awareness, what do you mean? Sometimes you get a bit flawed, and I was like, and I said, It's as simple as sitting quietly and learning to sit quietly and to what you hear, not make a judgment on, but what gradually comes up? For me, it was journaling. What other ways are there that people can make that connection to the unconscious, particularly

Accessing the Unconscious

Jody Brooks 39:03

like you're saying there, if this is traumatic stuff that is locked way, way back, how can someone pick up those breadcrumbs and follow the trail back to that piece they need to unlock?

Anissa Hudak 39:18

For most people, now you know, you're you're in the business, you're in the industry, and so you have a kind of a leg up on folks. You are able to do a lot of your own work, whereas for folks who don't have the background, it is very difficult to actually get into your own unconscious. And so finding a practitioner who can do that and help you with that is key. So that would be number one. I think meditation is a wonderful way of doing some self-work that can help you not only bring about awareness, but also acceptance, non-judgment. And that's literally listening to nothing, which is a beautiful thing. You know, it's funny. I solve like 99% of my problems on my yoga mat. I will be in the middle, and it's usually always Warrior One. I'll be hanging out there in Warrior One, and all of a sudden, you know, when you're doing yoga, you can't be thinking about stuff. Like you have to be focused on what you're doing, or else you're gonna fall over. And here I am hanging out in Warrior One, you know, minding my own business, focusing on what I'm doing, and all of a sudden, a problem that I had gone to the mat with, poof, the solution appears. To the point where I usually have to get off my mat and either write it down or do it immediately, and then head back to my mat. Inevitably, it warrior one on my mat. That's when that happens for me. For a lot of people, it is meditation, journaling, coloring. Coloring is an amazing way of

Silence and Creative Therapies

Anissa Hudak 40:58

getting into your unconscious, and people don't even realize it. And not necessarily with the TV on or music going, just silence. However, the silence is where the scary stuff live. And people, you know, abuse thrives on silence. And so you will find that most people who are dealing with trauma will not sit in silence because it's too scary. There will always be something happening, whether it's music on, TV blaring, kids running around, whatever. They won't sit in the silence. And that actually holds a lot of people back from doing yoga because they're afraid of the silence, which is where I I, you know, challenge them that that's not what I do. I talk the whole hour. It's like the Anissa stand-up hour. However, you know, because it's it is, it's a v it's a very different thing than what you're most people are accustomed to for yoga. So, you know, like as I was saying, coloring, meditation, some po some people for needle point, painting, you know, art therapy is a really big part of trauma recovery. And there is tapping back into that creative part of the brain, helping to bring it forward, helping to bring it, get it out of the unconscious. And that's where a lot of that comes from. Music therapy, these are all really wonderful ways of getting into that unconscious part of the brain. However, for most people, they will need another practitioner to help them with the big stuff.

Jody Brooks 42:45

One of the things I encourage people to try and do is to find something that allows you to go into flow state, and colouring

Flow State Brain Chemistry

Jody Brooks 42:54

is one of those, running is one of those. All of these things, and I've just recently been doing some research and some work around this, and it's really interesting because flow state produces all four of the chemicals that our brain needs to be stable. It produces dopamine, it produces oxytocin, it produces serotonin, and it produces endorphins. So, as you were talking, then I was like, oh my god, here it is again. Like I'm a great one that you just get when you're doing it, I get all the time, I know it's because my vision in it's my reticular activating system at the moment because I'm studying all about flow state and dopamine and all of that. So every time it comes up, I'm obviously red car, I'm looking for it. But it's so true how allowing us finding that activity that allows you to go into flow state gives your brain the chemicals and your body the chemicals it needs to feel complete and safe, which then In line allows us to process that information that it's being kept locked away that it doesn't want to deal with because you need to be in a safe sense to do it. And I was thinking one of the new ones for me recently has come running. I've turned into a runner. I vowed I'd never turn into a runner, but I've turned into a runner. And I love now 6k run, and that's it. My mind is just gone. Swimming is my other one. I can do a thousand meters in the pool, and I just that's it. Anything that allows you to go into flow state and pushes your brain into a safe space to allow it to think.

Anissa Hudak 44:43

I love swimming. I'm right there with you. However, you can take the running and just run with that. You can do that for me. You could probably do it for most of your audience. Yeah, no, no, this girl is not a runner.

Jody Brooks 44:55

I was one of those people too that used to look at people and go, but you know what it is? When you do take up running, the reason you're smiling is because you've joined the other side.

Anissa Hudak 45:05

Probably, right? However, I will say, I I love a great bike ride. Give me a bicycle.

Jody Brooks 45:11

You can keep the bike ride. I I just know.

Anissa Hudak 45:15

I will ride next to you while you're running.

Jody Brooks 45:17

Yeah, I and I'm strangely as well, it's not I'm uh I've found a love for cross country running. So like out in the wilds, like across jumping over tree stumps, all sorts of things. It wasn't even like the road running easy version, but yeah, so I think finding something that goes into flow state, like you said there, colouring, running swimming, woodworking is a beautiful needle pulling us anything.

Anissa Hudak 45:46

There's so many things creative.

Jody Brooks 45:49

Yeah.

Anissa Hudak 45:50

Because that really gets into the different parts of the brain, gets them activated, gets some clicking, and really is, as you said, you get all those good yummy hormones going, and life is good, and you're able to really get into that unconscious of your own. However, for the vast majority of people, they do need a practitioner to help you them do the heavy lifting.

Jody Brooks 46:16

When you say they're a practitioner, specifically a practitioner of

Choosing the Right Practitioner

Jody Brooks 46:24

what or who should someone seek out to go on this journey with?

Anissa Hudak 46:31

Well, of course, again, I'm a little biased. I think you should come find me. No, someone who has my credentials. So what I do is I am a hypnotherapist, a timeline therapist, and an NLP results coach and practitioner. And again, all of those can stand on their own. I'm sure if you've ever heard of a guy named Tony Robbins, he and I have actually we've done all of the exact same training. However, he took one itty bitty part of the training and built his entire business on it. I do the whole enchilada. And a lot of people who are practitioners with me do the whole enchilada. And by utilizing all of these modalities, we are able to help people really get into their own unconscious and like I said, allow the unconscious the opportunity to process events or events, experiences that they need to. Gives it, you know, that that time to do that. Learn from it. You can learn something from everything. And yeah, it may not be great, but you're gonna learn something. And then be able to to process it and have the peace. Find the acceptance. And there's no judgment. There's no judgment here. It's just, you know, being able to do the work and and uh having a situation where you can, finding those practitioners that can do that. We are available all online. You know, I'm in the middle of Manhattan, Kansas, where the livestock outnumber the people. And I can tell you that the cattle don't really dig what I do. Although the bison like the yoga, I will tell you that. I do everything online.

Jody Brooks 48:22

And most That's a new form. I've heard of goat yoga, but not bison yoga. I think you may be able to earmark that category right there.

Anissa Hudak 48:31

Yeah, it it was interesting. We'll just we're gonna leave that one alone.

Jody Brooks 48:35

It's gonna take a lot of core strength to do some bison yoga.

Anissa Hudak 48:40

Well, thankfully they don't jump on your back. Thankfully. However, they dig it, they they kind of, you know, they get mellow and they just hang out there with ya and you know, they they don't charge at you. Which is always a you know, bonus. They might step on your mat. They might crap on your mat. However, they don't charge you. So uh yeah, we'll just leave it at it was interesting. So yeah, everything's online. There's like no excuse. No excuse. Everything is available online, and uh it's effective, it's gentle, because you don't have to talk

Avoiding Rehashing Trauma

Anissa Hudak 49:20

about it. You don't have to rehash it. You know, talk therapy, we get to a point where you're just rehashing the same stuff over and over. Every time you say that, it imprints on the brain and it gets harder and harder to get it out. Yes, talking about whatever is important to get it out. Journaling is a great way of doing it because you get it down, it's on paper, and then it's done, it's out. You only do it once, you only have to do it really once. So, yes, talk therapy is a great thing to an extent. It brings you into awareness. Hanging out there too long, not a good deal. You gotta move on, you gotta get into those other places, the body and the unconscious. And so, yeah, you know, people who have the the right credentials, you know, there's all kinds of people who do all kinds of things. And again, your healing journey is as unique as your drama. And so what worked for me may not work for you, and that's okay. Find what works for you. Maybe it is someone who does a different type of modality. It's not wrong, it's just different. But you're different, I'm different. It's okay. Do what m works for you.

Jody Brooks 50:38

I love about the many different techniques. I was reflecting as you were talking there. In my 30s,

Mixing Modalities Over Time

Jody Brooks 50:47

I had hypnotherapy. Well, actually, in my twenties, I had classic talking therapy, CBT. In my 30s, I had hypnotherapy, in my late 30s, I did emotional freedom technique. So in my journey, I've used different techniques all the way through. And one of the things I always say to clients is it might take you part way of the journey, it might take you a little bit, but also don't enter into one single thing thinking that it must be the thing that saves you. It might be the thing that takes you a bit nearer, the next thing, and because we lock trauma away in so many different ways, we're probably gonna need several different things to get that trauma back out because it got in there in several different ways, it got in there through our sound, through our touch, through our taste, through our eyes. Used all of our senses to lock that trauma away, and so I my personal belief, and I would ask you the same, is that quite often we have to use multiple parts of our senses, so therefore multiple modalities of treatment to also process that back out of the body.

Anissa Hudak 52:01

They say that the same man does not step into the same river twice. Where you are on day one of your healing journey, you will never be again. And so I often tell my clients, and excuse me, not often, always tell my clients, when you're starting with me,

Track What You Tried

Anissa Hudak 52:19

I want you to get two notebooks. And the first notebook is for journaling, any any nightmares or dreams that you have, like that goes into that book. The other book is what if you tried? You know, what if you tried? So, like let's say you've tried lavender oil to help you sleep. Write down what was the brand. How did you use it? How long did you use it? How often did you use it? As much information as you could possibly put down. How did you feel afterwards? You know, all this kind of stuff. And then in 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 18, whatever, 24 months later, go back to it. You're in a different part of your healing journey now. You're two years down the road. It may not have worked for you then, however, it might work for you now. You could also look at, well, I tried X brand. Why don't you go try Y brand? That might it took me five different brands to find a melatonin that worked for me. Same dosage. I was using it the same way. I mean, it's kind of like a science experiment. You gotta make sure you're doing apples to apples and oranges to oranges. However, five different brands before I found one that actually worked for me. Same dosage, same way of using it. Five different brands. So not everything is created equal. And again, you have to find what works for you. And you know, that lavender oil might only work for three months. And then you're like, yeah, well, that's not because it isn't good anymore, it's because you're different now. You've now progressed three more months, so now we gotta find what works for you now. And so it's it's kind of a never-ending challenge in some ways, but if you look at it as you're healing, and so what's the next step? And then going at it from that perspective, I think that's really helpful, and really keeping track of the things that you've tried because somebody might say, Well, have you tried this? And you can go back through your notes and say, you know what? I haven't. Or yeah, I tried it on this day, that that that that know what you're talking about.

Jody Brooks 54:33

I just got lost in it a little bit there thinking about how it's so true that it's one element of our lives that we don't seem to get clear on that we are growing and changing and developing, and so we're on a different part of that journey. We're not wearing the same clothes we wore ten years ago, we wouldn't dream of doing that. But when you said there about we almost get annoyed if something like a lavender oil stops working or whatever, but we just yeah, it's we're different people, we're different human beings, and so that is gonna change as well. And what works for you is gonna change as you grow. I glanced to the side to see my clock, and I'm not quite sure where that time has gone already. I just was like, whoa. So before I ask you the final question, and before I sum up, is there anything in that second half about the healing journey that I haven't asked a question on or that you haven't had the opportunity to share that you really feel it's important the listeners hear before we head to the home straight?

Anissa Hudak 55:51

No, I think you're a magnificent house, and you've asked me everything, and so I think we're good. I think we are complete.

Jody Brooks 55:58

Good. In which case, I am sure, and you did say earlier on if there are listeners out there who would love to connect with

Where to Find Help

Jody Brooks 56:08

you or have more questions or would like to find out more about how they could reach out to you as a practitioner for help. What's the best place for them to do that?

Anissa Hudak 56:18

Well, I show up on social media kind of like a bad penny. You know, I'm always there. You can find me on Facebook, you can find me on LinkedIn, you can find me on Insta. I am not groovy, I am not on TikTok. Sorry, not groovy, not there. But you can find me pretty much everywhere else. Phoenixwomenhealing.com is my website. There is a three-minute quiz there that you can take. It's just a couple of questions. And I have kind of broken down for a lot of women who experience trauma, they just collapse, they wither. But there's also this other type of woman who she armors up, she gets strong, and even maybe a little protective. Some might call her a bully. Though I call them strong survivors, and I'm a strong survivor. And so the quiz will help you kind of decipher: are you a strong survivor and what type? There are three different types. And so it goes into what the three types are, and you will get your results immediately. You will also get an email detailing more of the results and a breakdown and kind of a little write-up of it, real quick read. And then from there, what do you do next? How do you start to heal? And I'm very excited about everybody going and taking the quiz. Because I will make sure.

Jody Brooks 57:50

I will make sure that the link to your website is I always do that, like it is below in the show notes. So that the listeners can click on that and reach out. My final question for you if you could plant a seed in the mind of the listeners today that

Seed to Plant

Jody Brooks 58:09

would grow slowly over time and bear fruit, what would that seed be?

Anissa Hudak 58:14

Mmm. Mmm. We've touched on so many good things in this conversation. I would have to say, number one, there is no shame. There's no judgment, and there's no guilt. Everybody's central nervous system's going offline at some point. You know, embrace that and let's move on. And two, try, try, try again. Because your trauma is as unique as everyone else's, your journey will not be the same as everyone else's, and you have to continue to try. Get the notebook, start writing it down. It's a science experiment. And remember, when something stops working, that's not a bad thing, that's a good thing. That means you've moved on in your journey and embrace that.

Jody Brooks 59:01

Amazing. Amazing. There are so many bits from today's conversation when I listen to it back. And when I finish now, I know that my brain's gonna be a hundred miles an hour for about the next two to three hours as I process the whole conversation. I want to before I sum up, thank you for spending this time with me and the listeners and sharing so openly. It was a great episode.

Anissa Hudak 59:28

So much fun. Thank you for having me on. You're a magnificent host. Thank you.

Jody Brooks 59:32

Listeners, it's been an amazing episode, and if you'd have read in the notes beforehand some of the subjects that we were gonna

Final Takeaways

Jody Brooks 59:41

touch on, and I did say at the beginning of the show, it could be quite triggering. But I think what stands out for me was the joy and the healing tone of the whole show. And that it was an embodiment of really showing that you don't have to be re-traumatized to move beyond your trauma. And that PTSD is a lot more real than we think it is, that trauma is as unique as you are and it as is as real as your reality. In the same breath, our healing journeys are also as unique as all of us. And I think the final bit for sure is that if it stops working, it's great news because it means you've healed and you're in a different part of your journey. Listeners, thank you so much for tuning in as always. Uh, Midlife, it's not a crisis, it is a calling to connect. And you're not broken, you're simply becoming the best version of yourself. Until next episode, take care, and I'll see you soon. Thank you for spending this time with me on Messi Midlife. If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who might need to hear it today. You can find the show notes below and more resources at mind. If you have concerns about your physical or mental health, I don't like it.