Healing Trauma with Laura Martin

Jillian

Hello, and welcome back to the mindset of podcasting. Today we are talking all about trauma. Now, we're not going like into stories of trauma, so there's no trigger warning on this episode. But trauma can be small things, they don't have to be big life events. And my guest today, Laura Martin, is a trauma specialist. So she talks about how we hold different traumas in our body and it can actually hold us back from being better entrepreneurs or mothers or podcasters. So she helps us learn the steps we can take to help regulate that trauma in our body. So Laura is the founder of healing to Happy. She is known for her unique approach to healing the nervous system for health, wealth and relationships. After battling her way through loss, eating disorders, addictions, domestic violence, and toxic relationship patterns, laura found herself desiring a massive shift in her life and knew there had to be something more to these selfsabotaging ways. She dove into nutrition in 2016, but that didn't resolve the health issues. So followed up her studies by specializing in gut health. She continued her way to specializing in trauma, which is where she found full symptom remission. It was a journey of evolution and growth. But since the creation of Healing to Happy in 2017, laura has gone on to help hundreds of women around the globe heal their minds and bodies using methods that focus on nervous system regulation, heart centered leadership, and feminine energies. So listen into this amazing episode. Hi Laura, thank you so much for being on the podcast today.

Laura

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Jillian

Yes, I'm excited to chat today. So I would love to start if you could let the listeners know who is Laura and what does she bring to this world?

Laura

Yes, I am a live source. I have a lot of fun oysters and champagne. But in the world, I am a trauma specialist and the founder of Healing to Happy, which helps entrepreneurs, creative coaches, teachers, really tap into the heart center leadership and going through and creating businesses that are more traumainformed and regulating to the nervous system and really expanding their nervous systems. We can have the health, wealth and relationships that sometimes we get too caught up in our travel responses in creating our businesses and so we're dismantling that within our brand and I love it.

Jillian

Yes, I love that too. And I think when we think of trauma, we always think of like a huge big life event. But trauma can actually be like small little things that happen to you. How do you help women uncover those things? Like sometimes maybe we don't even know what it is.

Laura

Yeah, I mean, oftentimes people don't even know what it is and that's the thing. Trauma gets a bad rap where we don't want to look at it because one, we think it's not big enough to look at, it's not big tea trauma but it could be you had an illness one time and now you're afraid of the food. It could be you got in a car accident and like now all of a sudden driving a car is a little bit scary or you got your heartbroken. We can all relate to that one. Like that is a trauma that we have all been through and trauma isn't the event and that's what gets confused. Trauma is how your body responds to an event and gets trapped in the emotion. So there's four stages fight, flight, freeze, fond and if we get stuck in one of those phases and we don't actually let our body go through that full spectrum, we get stuck in it and we start to live in these self protection mechanisms and we start to build up these belief systems. So it could even be money belief. We all have a lot of money trauma which is very common. We all have a lot of relational trauma even if it's not like domestic violence or cheating or anything like that. We got our heartbroken. So therefore now we're like oh, I don't trust soandso or like someone says something and you're like oh, that triggered me in this kind of way. And you start to look at little things like that where it's like maybe you don't identify with the word trauma. Sure, but do you have roadblocks in your life? Sure you do. Do you have habits you're trying to change? I'm sure you do. Do you have belief systems that you know are a little bit not aligned with the person that you want to come and become in your life? I'm sure you do. Like these are all trauma responses because our body is in this quote unquote self protection mechanism and therefore to stay safe we've built up these now beliefs or habits or systems and what have you to keep us stuck in that kind of a parallel thinking that makes perfect sense.

Jillian

And I've heard of fight or flight. What were the other two that you just mentioned?

Laura

Fight, freeze, fawn. And so when we want to go through these phases we have fight, normal, sympathetic fight, flight, freeze. I think we know those ones. And freeze is like when we will be in shutdown and fond is kind of the same thing as kind of disassociation. We're kind of bouncing back and forth and so when we want to shake it out, like you can see it with animals, right? When they get triggered by something, say more. So we see this with wild animals. Domesticated animals are a little bit different. They do have anxiety and attachment issues and things of this nature. If you have an attached, anxious dog, you will know what I'm talking about. But when you look at wild animals, you can see they'll go into they'll hear something, they'll get startled, they'll stop, and they go into freeze response. And sometimes they'll play dead, and sometimes, whatever it's called, play possum, what have you. And then the attacker will, you know, pause for a second. They'll be able to flee, you know, and then you'll see them at the end, and they'll shake it out of their system, and they'll get back into calibration, and they move on with their life. As humans, something happens, and we just track the emotion so we don't get through it, we don't move on from it, and we're just kind of stuck in this. Why am I having a limiting belief? Why do I have this scenario continually happen in my life? You know, we see these patternings kind of repeat themselves. I see it a lot with my clients where it's like relationship issues or arguments or money blocks or things of this issue, and they're like, why does this keep happening? And it's like, where in your storyline did this happen? Where an emotion got trapped, where this belief system got put into stone? And now we have to create safety around that so we can actually build resiliency for the future.

Jillian

And I know a lot of this involves taking care of our minds and our bodies, because that's where most of it gets trapped. How do we start with that?

Laura

Broad question. For me and my clients, what we start with is the basics. So my previous life, my first six years of my career was all nutrition based. I was an IBS anxiety specialist. So I specialize in polybagal theory and the gut brain connection and nutrition, right? How can we take care of the human and create safety? Are you sleeping enough? Are you eating the right foods? Do you know how to eat for the cycles of your life? Especially as women, you go through four of them. Do you know how to eat from them? Do you know how to take care of yourself and really tap into your basic bodily needs first, right? And then from there, we can start to look at some things and start to be like, okay, so how can we play with safety? So for me, I come from a background where I had a whole bunch of big p trauma, sexual assaults, domestic violence, addiction, mother loss, like, all these kind of things. So safety to me was chaos, right? I actually, when it came to meditation and yoga and the things that we quote, unquote, hear about how we get healthy and whatever, that stuff did not sit well with my nervous system. So it's really looking at where are you actually at right now? And what's that next stretch to get into safety? So obviously, running around and being chaotic and drinking and doing drugs like I was is not the right way of doing things. That's just living on a trauma response. So stretching, that would be okay. How can I practice getting into my body, putting my hands on my body, tapping, like playing with systems like that, breathing a little bit deeper, making sure that I'm doing a body scan, like, I used to set timers on my phone to remind me to breathe because I would just forget. And having to work with that to get to a space where now, like, I can sit in meditation, I can do Pilates and yoga. We get to play with the nervous system in this way. And it's not that we're stuck in our ways, which a lot of people think with the nervous system like, oh, I'm this way, and therefore I'm going to always be this way. It's like plastic. Yes, you will be that way if you don't apply heat, but just like, if you apply heat to plastic, it's mobile. It depends on and this is why I'm rambling right now, because it depends, right? It depends. How early on was it in your life? How extreme has it been impacting your current situation? How healthy are you? What is your vagal tone like to get you to bounce back? Like, it's really individual, but for anyone, it's really looking at, am I treating myself well? Am I eating right? Am I sleeping right? Am I getting outside? Am I moving my body? Can we start there? And then from that, it's like, okay, so how much time am I spending in my body? Like, do I know what safety means? And that's the difference between what I do and what a therapist does. Like, a therapist, they're all about the origin. I want to talk about a child. It won't lend to it. And talk about the event and things like that. And I'm not mocking them. It's very valuable. But it's like I found when I was in therapy, I came out of it being fantastic. Now I'm mad at my mom. What do I do now? It didn't really do much for me other than make me realize how broken it was and being like, oh, great, I'm always going to be this way. I needed something to read solidify. How do I shift my nervous system so I can actually start to change that? And from there, we can actually start to individually work on what people need to work on.

Jillian

Yeah, that's such a good place to start because I love what you said about finding resistance, doing certain things. So it's not about, like, you see online, like, all the people doing yoga, meditation and all the things, and you're like, Why can't I do that? But starting with what actually works for you and building up to get to that safety area. I love that because I was very resistant to yoga for quite a while, but now I do it all the.

Laura

Time and a lot of people are like, to be honest, I've been in this self development world for six years now, and I was only into CrossFit and Hit training and doing yoga. I was like, I don't understand. But even though I knew it was good for my nervous system, I didn't get it at all. And my brain couldn't actually get comfortable in it because the stillness was actually very uncomfortable. And so it was like working my way down, being like, okay, can we walk a little bit more? Can we do five days instead of seven? Can we do three days instead of five? Can we just work our way down in a way and also get over the full body Dysmorphia comics that we get stuck in as well, and then work with our nervous system on that being like, in what other ways? Because you can't just take something away when it comes to your nervous system, you have to replace it with something. So it's like, what is this protecting me from? Whatever habit you have, whether it's smoking, whether it's drinking, whether it's working out too much. They can be healthy too, they can still whatever. But whatever it is, it's like, what is actually protecting me from? And when you get that answer, you start to rewire that being like, okay, so what can I replace that with? What need is getting met from doing this habit that I'm clinging to? And how can I replace that with something that is more aligned with the future version of myself that I'm trying to become?

Jillian

Yes, I'm like you're convenient, right to me, because I'm like, that's exactly what I did. I was resistant for so long, so I just did what I could and then eventually I got to where I could be more into it and more connected with yoga. So being a podcaster, most of my listeners are podcasters. I have found that since I've been telling my story and using my voices actually helped heal some of the things I've been going through. So do you encourage women to speak out more about their stories and the trauma that they've experienced?

Laura

Yeah, I mean, that's entirely the course that I have right now in Wrecking balls. Shane can't live in the light. And if we continually and I did this for a very long time. I built a very successful company. I did the whole thing not speaking about my drama, not speaking about it. And it was always this fear of like, what if they find out? And it's like, I'm an imposter and we all go through, like, we never will not have imposter syndrome. You will always have it. At every stage, you will have it. That means you're learning something new and you stepped into a new arena. It is a good thing to have. But when it's that type of fear of like. Oh. My God. What if they figure out all of this. That I've been through this whole kind of thing. And it's like. If I may get to a point. Like. What brought me to who I am now is like. You go through some type of structure and you're like. You know what? I'm sick of this mask. I'm sick of it. Let me be fully seen. And there's ways of telling your story, too, where it's like, it's not low. Pity me. Hear my story. It's like, look at who I become. It's one of those things where I'm always careful, like, when I teach my clients, like, storytelling and content and things of that nature. It's like, share from your scar, not your current wound. If you haven't actually processed what you have been going through, and it still is very open and you haven't figured out the lesson yet, then it's a little bit too soon. And it's not to say there's any shame around it, but as a podcaster, as a creative, as a coach, as a mentor, all the things, it's to teach someone something. And so what are you learning from that? And that's okay. That when I was going through my break up, I didn't even know how to speak about it, so I was like, I haven't processed it yet. I'm running programs around Sacred Singlehood at the moment. Like, oh my God, what do I do now? It's like, of course, universe, thank you very much for this portal of activation. But it's like it's like sitting there and kind of telling yourself the story of, like, what lesson am I learning right now? And how can I use what I'm going through? Because everything happens for us. The thing you're going through right now is the story that you're going to tell eventually, right? Like, we all know that we love, especially podcasters, we love storytelling. That's the thing. It's like our heart is activation of hear My Strength. And it's just looking at it in that way of like, how can you activate your voice to activate the truth in someone else and know that whatever you're going through, it's always for someone. Whether it's for your podcast, whether it's to tell your children the story some day, whether it's to run a company, you never know what it's for, but have the full belief that it's always for something.

Jillian

Yes. And when you get that person that connects with your story and reaches out to you, that's the best to know that you've influenced somebody and just from sharing what you've gone through 100%. Is there anything else that you want to touch on?

Laura

No. I mean, anything that comes to mind that you think your listeners struggle with when it comes to storytelling or trauma or anything like that?

Jillian

Yeah, just the fear of telling our story and being scared, like you said, of what people are going to think. I think that holds us back a lot. And that's why a lot of people don't share their story. That judgment.

Laura

I'll take it one step deeper with that. It's the fear of the rejection of it. We all have that deep desire to be fully seen and fully expressed and to have the confidence and the radiance and the magnetism, and we know someone who's like that and we desire it, and yet it's like, but what if I don't have that? Like, what if I share my story and it's met with, I don't know, it pisses someone off, or like, my family views me something differently, or my friendships now know this thing about me, and it's something I always talk to my clients about. One that's just a story you tell yourself, right? That's, again, trauma. That is your roadblock. That is something somewhere you got rejected at some point, and therefore something told you you are not valued as you are. So let's self defense. It's a very feminine wound that every single one of us has. Every single one of us has. And the more you realize none of us have a freaking clue what we're doing, the easier life gets to become. Like, all of us are just like seven year olds in human shells walking around being like, Am I doing this right? We don't know. None of us know. It's just like, who you claim to be. I always run this joke with my friends because I'm a very bold person. I have the red lipstick and I have the personality or whatever, and it's like, because I pretend every day is freaking Halloween. What do I want to be and what story do I want to tell? And I'll dress up in these bold outfits and you're like, what are you doing today? I'm like, I don't know. I felt like being an alien seems like a good idea. Just stop taking it so seriously. It's like fear. We live our lives pretending like one day we're not going to have it. Every one of us is afraid. Just the people that make the bold moves are the ones that are sitting there going, yeah, I have 49% fear, but I also have 51% trust, so I'm going to lean into that. But if we're coming from a space all the time of like, I have 80% fear and 20% trust. We're not like, one nervous system match for the universe that doesn't match your reticulated activating system. You're only going to try and fulfill your belief of things don't work. This isn't for me, this room. I can't sit at this table. My voice doesn't matter. Like, you're always going to find beliefs to solidify that. That's literally how your brain is wired and made. But that's when you start to use that 5% conscious thinking brain to seek out a different narrative and to start to reprogram the way things work. You know what I mean? So it's really like sitting in that fact. Like, we're all afraid. We all have imposter syndrome. We all think we're saying the same things and we talk too fast or we're saying the wrong things, or we messed up on the words, or we didn't use the right phrases, or we said the wrong words. Especially for me when I'm speaking on science, I'm like, Is that all right? I don't even know. I jumped on my Mastercard the other day. I was like, I don't even know. My microphone is on right now. Can someone let me know? And I'm like, okay. It's just like, let your human be there in the process of creating change. Like, we live in a world now, especially because of COVID and everything. People want people. Let that be and let your story be told and let your fear be part of that story. Like, getting on your lives and being like, I'm terrified right now. How are you guys doing? When I first started out, I'd have to be like, Guys, I'm so anxious right now. Can you tell me if I'm speaking too quickly so I can slow down and stop speaking so quickly? And they're like, yeah, sure. It's like, we're all feeling these things, but we just want the permission slip. So write yourself that damn permission slip every morning if that's what you need to be. Like, it's okay. It's something I say to myself every single day that I can do hard things because I'm afraid, too, all the time. With everything I do and every single thing, I'm like, I don't know, is this going to work? Who knows?

Jillian

Let's go.

Laura

And it's like, we can do hard things. There you go. There's your permissions left.

Jillian

Yes. And nobody wants or people don't connect with a perfect person because there is no such thing. They connect with you when you make your mistakes and when you tell the imperfect things that you do, which I know I connect more with people when they do that.

Laura

And that's the thing, right? What I realize when I think of when I'm coming up with sales or I'm working with my clients on that and creating their systems and structures and like, is this email enough? Is this funnel enough? All the very masculine energy kind of thing. It's like, how do you like to be spoken to? How do you like to sell? How do you like landing pages to be? How do you like your content to be? What podcasts do you listen to? I bet you it is not the perfect story of how banging their love life is and how healthy they are and all these kind of things and oh my God, it's when that perfect person you see is like knocked off their pedestal and you're like, holy pickles. That's a real human. If they can do hard things, that means I can do hard things. Look at who you're connected with and what stories vibe on with you and what really lights you up. That's it. But yeah, we're always striving for perfection and also witnessing when that comes out because that's just a social media thing. We all have highlight reels and we all have this stuff and we love our filters. And don't get me wrong, we love the filters, but we all have that kind of stuff. And it's like being able to recognize I'll give a personal example. Like for me in my social media, I purposefully make it look like it's a magazine. I'm like, I want to look at it like it's a magazine. It's very orchestrated, it's very constructive. I know that's not people's things. Sometimes they just want the real nitty gritty, whatever, like but like, being able to look at the difference of the two, they're still people and we're still even. The nitty gritty is portraying an image of the nitty gritty. Like it is all art. It is all an art form. So stop looking at things being like, oh, my other life is so perfect and I can't speak about this and I can't do that. No, we're all doing that. It's all orchestrated. And to be able to self regulate through that being like, oh yeah, I'm triggered right now looking at this thinking I need to be perfect. I should probably put my phone away then let's probably go regulate myself then.

Jillian

Yes, I find that a lot too. I have to put my phone down after so much. If I start finding myself in that.

Laura

Comparison mode oh my God, the comparison graph is real. Yeah, it's so real.

Jillian

Yes, all the time. This is a great conversation. Thank you so much for being on Today. How can the listeners connect with you? Because I know they're going to want to go be in your space.

Laura

Brian's coming out over my Orchestly curated Instagram. My Instagram. It's laura Patricia Martin. So its Laura Patricia Martin. And then our podcast brand course, content creation one is Healing to Happy. So healing t o happy. And that's where you're going to get information based on my personal one. You're just going to see beautiful images and nice little stories and things like that. But you'll probably also get a voicemail for me being like, oh my God. Hi, thanks for coming to my party. Like everyone that comes through, I just need to connect with people. So if you are listening to this and you come over to social media, just come say hi. It's all we do. We like to make it a party.

Jillian

Yes.

Laura

And I'll make sure those are all.

Jillian

In the show notes. Thank you again for being on today.

Laura

Thank you so much, Jillian.

Jillian

Wow, what a great episode with Laura. She made me realize the process I had taken to get through some of my trauma that I didn't even realize, especially with yoga and how many years I resisted doing yoga. Like absolutely resistant and it's mostly because I didn't want to get quiet with myself. But as I gradually started doing it, it really helped to heal what I was going through. So if you're resistant to something, maybe check in and see why. Why are we being resistant to that thing? And it can be anything and it might be due to some trauma that we're holding in our bodies. And if you discover that there is some trauma, definitely go chat with Laura cause she is amazing and yeah, I just absolutely love what she is doing. So her tip if you do have some trauma that you're trying to work through is to start with yourself. Start with taking care of yourself, sleeping, eating right, moving your body, just do what you can each day to take care of you. And that is the most important thing. 

Your podcast tip of the week. Have you checked out chartable yet? So Chardable is a website where you can see where your podcast is ranking and if anybody has left a review. So I use this for all of my clients and my own podcast. When I do analytics, I always let them know where the podcast is placed on what charts, in what countries, just so they know. And it's a good little thing to have. And it also lets you know if there's any reviews or anything like that. There is a version that is free, which is what I use. I don't pay for it, but I know that you can get a lot more things with the paid version. But I like just to know what country and where they are on each chart for my clients. So go check it out if you have a podcast to see where you are ranking and if anybody's left a review for you. 

Okay, so my update for this week is Halloween is coming. I love Halloween. I love Halloween. Okay. I'm not into like the spooky gory Halloween. No, no, I'm like into the hocus pocus Halloween and the funness of it. I do have to say though that I will be. Watching Halloween dies. I am a big fan of the Halloween movies because they're not all blood and guts. It's just that real scare factor. Like, you know, when that Halloween music comes on, you feel it. You know that feeling. So I just love being a little scared. I don't like being super scared and I don't like blood and guts. So I think that the Halloween movies are perfect for that. So I will be watching Halloween Dies if it hasn't come out already. I'm not sure exactly when it comes out, but I love to decorate for Halloween. It's just one of my favorite holidays, and unfortunately, my kids are getting too old. A trick or treaty. Like, my son wants to go with a group of friends this year, so I think this will actually be my first year I'm not out on the streets trick or treating, and it makes me really, really sad. But I will be handing out candy and watching all the other trick-or-treaters. But yeah, I'm a little sad this year, but I get to stay home and hand out candy, and I have not done that since I was in high school, so I'm excited to do that this year. I'm trying to feel excitement instead of feeling sad. But, yes, I absolutely love Halloween. I don't know what I'm dressing up as yet. I do dress up as something every year, so I have to really get focused on that and make that happen. But yes, I'm so excited. I'm going to have so much fun. So thank you so much for listening to the podcast. Please leave a review and a rating. Wherever you listen to podcasts, let me know what you want to hear about and I will talk to you next week.