You’re Not Broken, You’re Carrying Unhealed Trauma, with Malisa Hepner

What if the problem isn’t you, but the pain you’ve never had the space to process?

In episode 29 of The Influence Exchange, I sit down with trauma therapist and podcast host Malisa Hepner for a powerful and deeply human conversation about trauma, overthinking, shame, and healing.

Because the truth is, a lot of people walking around today don’t feel broken, they feel stuck, overwhelmed, disconnected, and unsure why.

And most of the time, it’s not because something is wrong with them. It’s because they’re carrying experiences they never fully processed.

In This Episode, We Talk About:

Why trauma isn’t just what happened, it’s what wasn’t processed

How overthinking is often a response to deeper emotional pain

The role of shame and how it quietly shapes your life

Why talking and expressing emotions is more powerful than you think

How disconnection from yourself shows up in everyday life

What it actually looks like to begin healing 

Navigating grief, loss, and rebuilding after unimaginable experiences

About Our Guest

Malisa Hepner is a trauma therapist and podcast host who helps people reconnect with themselves, break free from harmful patterns, and find peace after life’s most difficult experiences. Her work is deeply personal, shaped by her own journey through trauma, loss, and healing.

Malisa website: https://linktr.ee/Mdhepner

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What if the thoughts in your head aren't telling you the truth? Today's guest is here to challenge that and help you understand how trauma, shame, and overthinking can quickly shape your life without even realizing it. Melissa Hefner is a trauma therapist and podcast host who helps people reconnect with themselves, break free from harmful patterns, and find peace after even the most difficult experiences. Her work is deeply personal, shaped by her own journey through law, healing, and rebuilding. And today, she is using that experience to help others feel seen, understood, and supported. If you ever felt stuck in your own mind, overwhelmed, or unsure how to move forward, then this conversation is for you. Please join me in welcoming Melissa Hefner. Let's get into it. Hello, Melissa, and thank you for joining the Influence Exchange today. How are you?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

I'm good. Thanks for having me. I'm really excited.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Of course, it's a pleasure. You are such a fascinating inspiration human being. Your story touched me emotionally, and the audience is going to listen to your story and they they're going to take away so much that maybe some people are dealing with. And I would love to just dive in and talk a little bit about So you are a therapist for trauma. And how can someone deal with trauma on a day-to-day basis?

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Well, um, I think the biggest tenets of any sort of life after trauma that isn't really dealt with is separation from yourself first, where you know, if if you've had a lot of trauma in very early childhood, then the separation from yourself would be really big by the time you reach adulthood because it makes you separate from your body. You just become this floating head that either ruminates nonstop or dissociates nonstop. Um, for myself, I was like a super overthinker, just constantly um really stuck in my head with a lot of really yucky, ugly noise and just narratives that were really harmful for me. And I couldn't feel sensations in my body very much because I was so disconnected from my body and disconnected from who my true essence was. And then the other part of that is that you start to put barriers between you and everyone around you, too. So the the large majority of my work is teaching people how to get out of their heads, how to quit overthinking, how to quit ruminating, how to quit dissociating and come back and be present and grounded and be connected to their bodies and to who they were before the world told them who they needed to be.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Of course. And if someone is dealing with a loss, how can they deal with trauma and everyday life?

SPEAKER_01 3:25

I I would say that's kind of a very similar path. Um, I think all loss is a trauma, and I think that's one of the big things that we really miss with grief is that there is a trauma to your system, even when it was expected. It's you know, so that's where you'd really get into like you hear a lot of people say like big T, little T trauma with a with a loss, depending on what it is and how much notice you had about it, that's gonna range on how traumatic of an experience it was for you. But it is trauma. And so grief really gets this reputation for being like a feeling or something you need to check off things to get through. And really, I would say grief is a weight that gets added on to everything else you were already dealing with and a huge spotlight onto anything that you hadn't dealt with.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

Sure. You know, recently my my son, he's he's young, he's nine years old, and um he goes to Taekwondo, and one of his mentors, an older gentleman, teach was teaching him Taekwondo. And recently he's a firefighter. And recently in a local neighborhood, there was a house fire and he got stuck in a basement. Oh and unfortunately he passed.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

And that's when you say trauma, that affected my nine-year-old son. Oh, I bet. And we didn't know how to talk to a nine-year-old that's still learning in life. And he's saying to us, What happened to Steve? Why did he pass away? And that's that's hard. Yeah. That's extremely hard. And my wife and I talking to ourselves, saying, How are we gonna move forward and make sure he's okay? My son is okay.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Yeah, well, and with kids, we do get so scared that they can't handle the truth. But whatever you don't say to a child experiencing grief, they're going to fill in the gaps with their imagination. So it really is better to be honest. Now, would you want to give like awful, awful details? No, but I think it's perfectly appropriate to say he's a firefighter, he went to fight a fire, went inside a building that he couldn't get out of.

SPEAKER_02 5:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

I'm I what you know, what's wrong with saying that? And then the other part about what I've really learned is kids' grief doesn't look like our grief because they don't have the capacity to even form the emotional sentences, let alone speak them. So what's really important is to give them creative outlets to, you know, and rituals for grieving, like painting a rock for them or something creative, just anything, you know, that feels true to you and and the types of things that your family enjoys to do, but um, rituals and enduring connections. So even a child who had a loss outside of the family would still need that enduring connection where there is some sort of tradition. And with that type of loss, it's kind of hard to know. I mean, Taekwondo is one of those like intimate sports. So the relationship really is pretty intimate. And so, you know, with that type of loss, this may be somebody that he holds on to some grief for for the rest of his life. And grief really is just the love and the memories and whatever. But keep keeping some way for him to feel connected with him, like visiting the grave or planting a plant, you know, that he can take care of, whatever it is. I mean, again, true to you, but we as a society are so afraid of rituals around grief. It feels morbid or wrong or scary or dark. And it is the things that really provide a lot of relief whenever you get to take part of them.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

Of course, of course. And if someone is dealing with trauma or what are some of the tools that you could teach a person, a family, whoever it is that they could deal with and use on a day-to-day basis?

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Well one really important tool is teaching people to talk about their stuff. Sure. Trauma tells us that it that connection is very unsafe, that everybody leaves, and there's no point in trying. Nothing I do is good enough. I, you know, so many subconscious narratives just floating around. I'm too much, I'm not enough, I have the weight of the world on my shoulders to carry and no one to help me carry it. And those are that may be true when the trauma occurs. All of those things may have been true or they may not have. And and likely someone just didn't know how to walk you through a really traumatic experience because the trauma doesn't come from what happens, it comes to the response to what happened. So if you didn't have anyone around you to hold you, to nurture you, to carry you, to, you know, to offer you any sort of emotional support, that's when the trauma grows. And so much of that is because we don't know how to talk about it. No one lets us talk about it. And so even though I know it feels really scary, really unsafe, and like there's zero point in doing it, finding one safe person or even recording voice notes, recording yourself on video, something to get that stuff out because the more silent you stay, the more compounded all of that stuff becomes because it's just a loop in your brain that goes over and over and over. So emotion is energy and motion. It is important to get those things out by talking, by doing some movement. So that would be one really important factor in recovering from trauma. The other would be to work with someone in some capacity to identify your shame. We are all riddled with shame and we don't even realize it. I know for myself that I would never have imagined that that every ounce of my life was being driven from a place of fear and shame. Never. And after uncovering what my shame was and what those narratives were, it's so easy to identify now when that stuff pops up. But my brain was full of shame. It all sounded like my voice, but different characteristics of my voice and just arguing with one another. And I just thought I was crazy. And that's what shame will do to you is all the programming that you've received your whole life to tell you you're not good enough for all kinds of reasons, it's growing in intensity every day of your life until you learn how to deal with it. So that's the other big part that I help people quiet the noise of shame and of overthinking and teach people how to come back to themselves, how to, you know, grow a love for yourself. Because I was a person who was like, you have to love yourself, you have to like yourself. I believed I did. I did not in any way like myself. I'm still uncovering ways in which perfectionism is sneaking up in my life. You know, it's just, I would encourage you to really figure out your shame. If you do that and you start talking to someone, anyone, because we think that like, like I've been in the middle health field for a long time, even before I opened a private practice. So I mean, the truth is, and I I fear judgment sometimes whenever I say this out loud, but I say it anyway. Um, but I always like to name when something feels vulnerable to say because everything feels vulnerable for me and I'm scared of vulnerability, you know? Um, but I was like, well, why would I go to therapy like they don't know anything more than I know? So like what's the point? And and why would I talk to my friends about it? Because they can't help me. They don't, they're not like emotionally intelligent. And then I've realized the point of talking is just to get it out. That's the only reason. Yes, there are benefits to therapy. Obviously, I believe that I'm a therapist, but the talking is literally just to get it out of your body, get it out of your brain. So if you can just start with those things, working on your shame, and there's lots of information out there about that. The book that changed my life and that I recommend to every person that I work with and on every show I ever go on. It's called The Finding Peace Work book, and it's by a guy named Troy Love. You can buy it for $25 on Amazon, and it is so good at helping you identify your shame and the narratives that come along with that. So working on your shame, working on learning how to feel safe enough to tell somebody what's going on in real time, not two weeks later, whenever you've decided you've quote unquote worked through it in real time, what you're going through, not for any other reason other than get it out. You just need someone to witness you.

SPEAKER_00 12:40

Yeah, absolutely. You know, thinking about it, you're talking about shame and going back, you know, my younger, I would say, 20s, I had a lot of shame. I will hold everything in. And then it takes that one moment, Melissa, for me to explode. Yes. And I will always say, oh, I'm right. I whatever. Absolutely not. It was incredibly wrong. I should have learned from at that time, it took years and years and years for me to realize I'm just damaging my own soul. Yes, it's floating on anyone, anyway. Piling on to your shame, yeah. Horrible, horrible. Yes, horrible. And and I as I got wiser and I learned, and not only just learned, learning about myself, my inner self, I started apologizing to the people I did hurt in my life. And I've learned so much and gotten pretty much become a better human being and a man, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

So yeah, I totally resonate with that because the more we hold things in and internalize it, and especially if we're people pleasers, if we're one running around just trying to make other people happy, and we're internalizing and intellectualizing all of our experiences, our nervous system just becomes fried. It's burnt out. And so the slightest things agitate you and you can't deal with them. You're living in a constant state of survival. And the way I explain it is when we're in survival, we're running from the bear. When we're running from the bear, we're not dealing with emotions. You can't, you know, if you're running from a bear, you're not gonna turn around and ask the bear how it's feeling, right? You're gonna like try to save your life. I was waking up in that state, going to sleep in that state 24 hours a day, seven days a week for 44 years. So yeah, I reached a place where I mean, I was I was so snappy to everyone. And then, and then honestly, that's why I got into such a dark place because my reactivity was just so bad that I was like, everyone's better off without me. And then the other part of that is while I was really reactive and it was unkind and of course did damage to my kids, I didn't need to die because of that. Like I was an imperfect human. And so whenever I realized that too, like through healing, just like, man, you you wanted to die because you weren't perfect. Like that's so sad. And so, yeah, I think the more we can extend that kindness and compassion to ourselves, the easier it gets to extend to others. And it just changes the way you interact with everyone because the work I really focus on is uncovering the subconscious and making it conscious so that you can see I'm not any different than them and they're not any different than me. Because one of the biggest tenets of trauma is that we will then put ourselves or everyone else on a pedestal, making ourselves either higher or lower with everyone. We can never just be I am me and they are them. It's always got to be a higher or lower. And so we're either criticizing them because they're lower or judging them because they're lower, or criticizing them because they're higher and judging them because they're higher. When really we're all one. We're not any different. We look different, we act different, but at our core, we our needs are not different. And so I think that really helped me. There was a really symbiotic relationship in forgiving others and forgiving myself and offering that kindness because like it's okay that we weren't perfect, you know. We yeah, we did some things and we owed some people some apologies. We had to forgive ourselves for that stuff. Like we weren't, we no one was as hurt as the damage we did to ourselves, I guarantee it.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, trauma is is so important. You know, Melissa, you have a loss, someone very close to you, and I would like to dive into your personal journey through trauma and loss and what inspired you to talk about it because there's definitely people listening or watching that's been through a loss, losing a mom, a dad, a child, grandparents, and they're probably lost in their ways and don't know how to move forward in life. Can you please share some your personal journey, please?

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah. Well, so I had complex post-traumatic stress disorder from a very chaotic, traumatic childhood where I was in and out of foster care, in kinship foster care, um, ended up primarily being raised by my maternal grandmother, um, still had a relationship with my parents, but they just knew they were addicts and were incapable of making good choices for themselves or for us, and you know, which greatly contributed to our trauma. Um, and then I lost my dad to a drug overdose when I was 15, and then my mom died when I was 22 with complications related to hepatitis C and cirrhosis. And I was pregnant with my first child then. So all of that had not been dealt with. And then I've spent the last couple of years really healing finally from all of that, gaining really good insight, really good tools, and working with others for them to do the same. And then this past December, which was four months ago, um, it was four months ago on the 13th, uh, we lost our 18-year-old. He was close to 19, but he was 18 to a synthetic opioid overdose, uh, to this new synthetic drug that's hit the streets and um unknowingly, and is 10 times stronger than fentanyl. And it's called cyclorophine, and uh it's narcane resistant, so uh presumably he died immediately. Um, but the reason that I've been so vocal about it is A, I want to talk about my grief. I want to live my grief out loud. I was already doing a podcast or you know, a couple. Um, and it really honestly, because the work I did on myself convinced me of my worth and my value as a human, and that I'm so sure that I don't deserve to live any other type of life than one full of love, joy, abundance, peace. And so honestly, as hard as losing a child is, I made a decision right then, and I think it was that decision to that said, okay, um, yeah, I'm sure there's parts of this that are gonna be really god-awful. And there are. I mean, I'm not saying it's easy, but I think making that decision was kind of like the decision to love myself to begin with. It was one decision and a confirmation of that decision. So it really doubled down for me on my my purpose here too. I I believe that I'm here to, I mean, I'm here. I I believe my personal belief system uh states that we're all here really to kind of learn how to transmute our childhood experiences and all the programming receiving and get from that place to love for ourselves and and unconditional positive regard. So I think that's the human purpose of being here, but then also we have our little side missions or whatever. And I believe that I'm supposed to share in real time what's happening in my life because it's the medicine for someone else. And so knowing what I know about grief, I've been through the grief process before. I've I also lost my maternal grandmother who raised me. So there's been a lot of different types of losses in my life, and we are a very grief phobic society. So using the tools that I had already gained through working on my trauma coming into this loss, um, I knew that nervous system repair was going to be really important. I knew because we are the ones who found him in our home in his bedroom. That was very traumatic, as you may imagine. So I knew we were going to have some real PTSD from that. So I'm constantly looking for the signs of that. The biggest way that it's really rocked me internally is fear around other losses. Like for a little bit, I couldn't be too far away from like the rest of my family without just kind of like I wouldn't say I'd go into a full-blown panic because I'd I have the tools to work through it, but it was difficult. It was really difficult. And then the other part is like um real jumpy, like noises kind of make me jump out of my skin. So I I I'm watching for the signs of dysregulation, but I'm I'm caring for my nervous system. And, you know, I'm making sure I uh I'm eating, I I drink water intentionally. I need to move a lot more. I'm not gonna lie about it. Um, there was months where I was sleeping a lot, but without shaming myself. I knew, I knew that so much was being repaired inside out when I was sleeping because that was a major trauma. It's literally the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. And God knows I've experienced a lot of things. So I had to repair and I didn't shame myself for sleeping. And so um the other part of wanting to share too is when you lose someone that you love this much, especially a child, the pain that can really come from the loss is knowing that other people are going to move on with their lives. Like his friends eventually, like probably 30 years from now, the amount of times they reference him will be much less than it is now, right? And so the more I talk about him, the more he lives, and the more he gets to help other people too. Because he didn't think this, he just knew he was so smart and it would never be him. Anytime we talked about fentanyl, he he, you know, he was that would never happen to him. So it I also have another, you know, goal of just letting people know there's this new scary drug on the street, and you gotta be careful.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

Yes. Right. Right, absolutely. Thank you. Deeply thank you for sharing that with us.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

I appreciate it. I'm sure my audience appreciates it too. Why do you believe it's so important to talk openly about trauma, shame, and imperfection?

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Um well, I heard this saying a long time ago, and it said, shame dies in safe spaces. And I recognized this through girlhood, even like there's stuff that happens to kids, just random stuff, and you feel so embarrassed about it because you don't know that anyone else has experienced it too. And then as I was an adult, I'd share things with my adult girlfriends, and we're like, yeah, that happened to me too. And the relief that you feel. And so when I heard that phrase, I was like, it's so true. And you know, every time I find that one safe person to share something that feels so vulnerable to share, and it feels so much better to get it off my chest, it reinforces the notion that like the more we share, the more normalized things become, and the less shame we have to feel. And I know for me, hearing that's just shame. Like you're not crazy, you're not broken, you're not anything other than a person who needs to learn how to ignore what their brain is telling them, to learn that everything your brain tells you is quite literally a lie because it only deals in the negative perspective. That's what it has to do to keep you alive. It it will feed you catastrophe over and over and over because that's the only thing that's gonna keep you from walking out the door, right? Right, right. So the more we can educate ourselves and each other and and understand we're just humans, we're not gonna be perfect at any of this, but we have to find our community and people that we feel comfortable sharing our stuff with because we're meant to do this alone. And so finding a way for you to feel safe to share your heart with others is so important and so valuable because that connection that says, I see you, I hear you, I value you. I mean, yeah, we got to learn how to do those things for ourselves too, and first and foremost, but like we need people. And this idea that we don't is one of the things that are really hurting us because I know that's been my real big struggle is identifying that I really craved connection with people, but I've been told my whole life I'm too sensitive. So when this connection isn't feeling deep enough or wide enough, or they're not, you know, seeing me and I'm feeling misunderstood, I'm just shaming myself because I'm too sensitive. Where now as I'm fully okay with going, no, we all need this, and we're just lying to ourselves, saying we don't. And so the more open we can be with ourselves and one another, the less shame has room to work inside of us, and also the less shame has room to work in others because we're showing people like this is a normal everyday experience. We just don't talk about it enough.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Yeah, yeah. Also, when did you first realize trauma was noise you could work with?

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Um, well, honestly, probably not until um I started my podcast. Like that book that I told you about was um recommended to me by someone from my podcast. She was one of the early guests, and um she is a therapist that works with the guy that wrote that book and they practiced the finding peace method. And as I was talking, she like I can do this now, like identify people's shame when they talk, but as I was talking, she could hear my shame. And so she's like, let me offer you this, you know. And we had a couple of interviews together. Um, and then she, you know, encouraged me to buy the book. So I did and went through a little book club series on it. But that's whenever I realized, like, that's just stuff that's clouding the truth here. Like, that's not real. I mean, of course, my understandings grow and evolve and deepen the longer I do this work on myself because the work doesn't end. I mean, I don't ever, I'm never gonna like have a day where I don't use these tools and I'm not still uncovering subconscious patterns. I wouldn't say I'm still like on a healing journey because um I think we can really kind of lean into the idea that we need to be fixed. And I am I'm of the understanding that I don't need to be fixed. There are some things that, you know, obviously I can always work on and I do, but um yeah, I think I just had to realize this was just a bunch of programming, and we all have it. Like our subconscious starts programming from the second we're born and it takes it in at a much faster rate than our conscious does. And it's all with a negativity bias from a base of your ego. So it's going to see everything only from one perspective. And so I think learning that and getting deeper understandings of that over the last couple of years has really helped, but it started really early on. I mean, it's I had learned some things before that, but truly it was kind of the Kickstarter of most of my healing.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

Sure. And talking about healing, um, you are you have a few workbooks.

SPEAKER_02 28:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:22

I would like to talk a little bit about them. Let's let's shift this a little bit and let's dive into your workbooks.

unknown 28:28

Man.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

So you have one, right, that says, what is it? Safe to be seen. And um the beauty of imperfection. Did I say that correctly? Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Okay, okay, um, so they are workbooks, they're but they're just little like PDF files. Um, they're instant downloads. I just wanted um that was one of the earlier ones. I think I've only made like five because I was making them monthly and then Jake died, and I just haven't gotten back to it. But um they some of the later ones have like a full 28 to 30 day practice involved where there's shadow work, um, you know, to uncover your subconscious stuff. Like, when was the first time I felt that way? You know, why, why do I feel this? You know, whatever. Um, but safe to be seen really is about um from my perspective, like I walked around feeling so misunderstood and devalued. And I had to realize that what I was doing was creating scenarios for myself to not be seen. Because do you think that I was actually sharing any of my real self with most people? No. So I had to like create that safety within, but then also learn how to feel safe whenever I am removing the mask and showing people exactly who I am. So that really helps with visibility wounds. People, uh, a common phrase, this isn't really a phrase I use, but I hear it a lot, is like people who are afraid of being perceived, like they worry about it. Um, so yeah, it's it's to deal with like visibility wounds.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Absolutely. And where can people find those PDFs?

SPEAKER_01 30:14

Uh the easiest way is on um probably the easiest is to I have a website, empowered with Melissahepner.org, or on Instagram is where I'm the most active, and it's Melissa.hepner. And just in my link tree, right there. I have a link tree in every single one of my like social media stuff. So that's probably the easiest ways. And you can get access to all my workbooks or anything there.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Yeah. So you are also a host of a podcast called Emotionally Unavailable. And congratulations, John. I think it was over 300 episodes. That is fascinating. That's fascinating. It took me three years, Melissa, to create my podcast, The Influence Exchange. And there were many reasons why it took three years. Shame, we spoke about shame. Judged, what would people think? Yes, and the why. Why are you doing this? And three long years until finally last year, I I said, I'm gonna take that step forward. And I I don't care what people think, shame or being judged. Yes, and it's been an amazing, amazing road. And I'm speaking of amazing people like yourself, Melissa, that's sharing a story that's so touching. And I'm a person that I'm learning from yourself. I'm learning from you while we have this conversation. So I'm excited that I did create the podcast. Yeah. And for someone like you to have over 300 episodes, that is incredible.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Well, thank you. You know, just so you know, I do three episodes a week. So, you know, it didn't take that long to get to 300. I'm celebrating two years at the end of April. On April 29th, it'll be two years. But I was I kind of looked at how I was a consumer of podcasts and what hooked me. And for me, it was when I found something I liked and wanted to binge their content, that there was a lot of content to binge. And I loved shows that had a lot of releases. So I committed to three a week. It hasn't always been easy, but I've committed to three a week and have always stuck to it. Um, but I for no other reason, if if nothing else came from it, getting to meet people and learn. I mean, my show has been so transformative for me. I've everything I've learned has pretty much come from guests on my show. And I'm so grateful to that. And I also it's like I love to talk, I love to just yap and and connect with other people. And so, you know, that's been really helpful too, where um I can have the kind of conversations that I really like. And post-grief, like that's been a really good outlet for me because um I don't know in in your personal life, everything's just so kind of like real and raw when you're grieving. And the people are trying so hard to help, nothing helps, and everything just hurts a little bit, you know. Like sometimes they just the well-meaning stuff that they say, it just hurts, and you're like, eh, but no one on a podcast is gonna do that. You know what I mean? Like they just don't do that, and so like it's been really nice to also my little podcast community that I have formed through making those relationships. But I kind of the evolution of my show really has been getting to the point where I felt safe enough and strong enough to be like, actually, this show's about me. It really is. Like, like this show really is about me learning through the connections that I'm making. But like I wanted to get better whenever I started this show. I wanted to feel better. I was still deep in a mental health crisis, those first few episodes. So, like, I was coming out of it. I wasn't in the darkest of the places, but I I that was one of the things that I did to help me come out of the darkness was to start the show. And I named it emotionally unavailable because I was very emotionally unavailable. And that was something I had just learned about myself. And so I was like, this is so funny. I think it's hilarious. And so I was like, it's funny, but and it's catchy, but also it's so true. And I have gotten to learn in real time through this show. It's so that's been fascinating to like see the development and evolution of myself and the show as it's gone on. But it took me a while to get to where I was brave enough to be like, yeah, no, this is about me. Like, I, you know, I want to connect with others and I want to learn from them. And I hope that the connection that they hear over, you know, when we're sharing stories helps them as much as it's helping me, but it's it's it's about me.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's great. You know, my my podcast as well, I overthink. I overthink too much, and I don't know why. So, how can you that has a great track record um how can you help someone like myself break the cycle of overthinking?

SPEAKER_01 35:32

Well, I mean, I can give you like a simple answer, but obviously nothing's that simple. But overthinking happens when we're dysregulated, when our brain wants to feel some sense of control, it gets thought caught in like a little thought spiral and says, Oh, I can keep you really busy with this so that you don't have to feel. So as long as you understand that any overthinking is related to a feeling that you are trying to avoid, that's your first step. And then so whenever I first started having, I couldn't even identify that in real time that I was overthinking. I had to clear, I had to teach myself to start checking in with my neck and shoulders and back. And if they were hurting really bad, I knew I was just overthinking. Because I all my overthinking was fighting with someone in my head at all times. Okay. Like instead of it was like, how am I gonna solve a problem? I was mad at someone at all times. Because that was one of my archaeotypes of shame that really took over. Like in that book, he talks about the different archaeotypes, and the hugest archaeotype for me was one called the royal. And that is the one who blames everything outside of myself for my behavior because my I cannot handle the fact that I'm behaving that way. And so I'm gonna find a reason why it was somebody else's fault at all times. I was constantly fighting with people, and because I I would freeze or fawn in public. I was very adverse to conflict. So, like, I wasn't actually gonna say what I thought when you said something to me. So I would just spend the rest of my life arguing with you about it in my head while I'm showering or brushing my teeth or driving down the road because I didn't like have the nerve to say, I don't like that, or you know, stand up for myself or whatever when I was face to face. So seriously, I was always in my head fighting with someone. And so I I trained myself, like, okay, Melissa, if you feel that tension, you got to check in. And so that was the first step. And then I realized, oh, I was overthinking. And then I realized how often I was actually overthinking. I'm like, dang, this is really actually hard. Like I'm always in my head. And so um, learning how to identify that you are overthinking is is a huge part of it. And so if you have to set up some system in place where you're checking in with your body or you're making yourself pause to be like, what was I just thinking about? That's a really important piece. But um, you know, honestly, when we are trying to avoid that feeling, what I started to do was go, okay, um, I was overthinking. What was the theme of the overthinking? And typically, like, I I would, I would at first I would have to be like, what wound was that hitting? Like, did I feel rejected? Was I feeling abandoned or betrayed? I did recognize after doing the work that I had a huge betrayal wound and everything betrayed me. Like I was just walking around like betrayal, betrayal, betrayal, betrayal, you betrayed me, you betrayed me. And then I just had to realize, like, okay, this is a very open wound, and there's a huge difference between I feel betrayed and you betrayed me. So that was an area I had to get really honest with people, like where I'm like, I know this doesn't make sense, but I feel really betrayed by that.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

And so that was a process too, because of course I had to get brave enough to actually say the words out loud. Um, but honestly, just understanding that overthinking is just your fear, your fear of failure, your fear, your fear of being rejected, your fear of being abandoned, your fear of being neglected, of betrayed. Um, and and just go, oh, like I you felt afraid. I'm recognizing some fear here. Okay, great. What do you need to feel better and give yourself that? I will say, and I have to use this practice all day, every day in my personal life, but like talking to yourself the way that you would have really wanted your mom or dad to talk to you when you were about five years old every single time, it helps so much. So you don't have to talk out loud. You just have to like really hold your inner child and your nervous system and just say, Oh, you're needing some attention. So if I'm overthinking, I need attention in my heart. Something inside of me needs love and compassion and nurturing and understanding and reassurance, you know, just saying, like, are you gonna die if this thing goes south? No, you're not. You're enough. And so much of that overthinking really goes back to a lack of trust in ourselves. So that's where it's it's sometimes easy for us to identify our lack of trust in others, and not always so easy to identify how much we don't trust ourselves. And so reminding yourself, you can trust yourself, you are enough to withstand anything that comes your way. And that's been a huge one in grief for me is that I'm enough and I'm worthy. So holding both of those really helps me to not do all of the sitting in remorse and regret like any parent, it it's fair. Any parent in my situation that sat around thinking it was their fault or all the different decisions we could have made as parents that would probably have saved their lives. I see how that happens. I I I'm not shaming anyone for doing that. But what I know is it's not going to change anything. I don't get Jake back. No matter how much I beat myself up, no matter how much I wish it was different, I don't get him back. And so what's the next step? There's a choice there. And my choice was made the day I found him. And that choice was I love myself. And no matter what, I deserve a life full of love, joy, peace, and abundance. So that's the series of choices that I have to make every day. So that's why we overthink, is because it gives us that false sense of security when really we just need to realize we feel really insecure. So let's deal with that. Let's feel it, let's process it, let's move on. Get out of your head, into your heart. That's what I tell everyone.

SPEAKER_00 41:17

Absolutely. Thank you again. I I truly deeply appreciate it. So, Melissa, I will have so many more questions. I will love, but then again, we're gonna be here for three to four hours probably. I like to end my podcast and have one question before we end. I usually ask my guest, what final thoughts or message would you like to share with the world?

SPEAKER_01 41:45

Um, I would say there is hope for those who are feeling really hopeless, like you've tried everything. Um I was just talking to a client about this today. Anytime your brain is saying, what's the point? What's the point in trying? What's the point in doing that? What's the point? It always turns out the same. Um, that's just your brain lying to keep you safe. It's going to continue to feed you catastrophe to keep you safe because it doesn't know how else to do that, other than to say change is dangerous. And so start there with that understanding. Start to question the things that you think because everything your brain says to you is a lie. Unless you're trying to use logic to solve a logical problem that requires logic, emotions aren't that. They're they're not going to use logic to be solved, and they're not to be solved in general. So start questioning. That's interesting. That that was my response to that. I wonder why. You know, just get curious. Don't believe and lean into everything your brain is saying to you. Understand that it is going to get better and fairly quickly with just the right information. You just haven't gotten the right information yet. It took me 44 years to get the right information, but once I did, who most of that information has led me to one conclusion, which is I never should have hated myself for making mistakes to begin with. We were designed to be imperfect. And all those things that I deemed as flaws before, I see as my magic now. They make me who I am, and who I am is great at my core. I know what my intentions are. Um, and I'm not always in charge of what my impact is. And so when I make a mistake, I just reflect and I say, how do I feel after that interaction? Do I want to feel like this? Do I want other people to feel like that? And then I adjust accordingly and I repair and I move on. I don't beat myself up anymore. There is a life on the other side of all of the pain and trauma and shame and just the daily monotony of the human experience, the societal fear that we can be feeling right now with everything that's happening.

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

Now more than ever, it's really important. To learn how to go within. That's actually one of my workbooks is Surviving the Shit Show. It's about like how to create a good inner world when the outer world is falling apart. Because I know that people are afraid. I know there's reason to be afraid. And I do not want to discount any of the bad things that are happening in the world right now. But the world needs people like us more than ever, people willing to share their hearts and their stories and have that compassion for one another. The more compassion that we have, the better this world becomes. And I always tell people when you change, the world around you changes. You know, when you changed, I bet that rippled out to the people in your house. And now the people in your house are going out into the world, much happier, healthier people too. And then they're affecting change. That's what we have to do. When the world gets scary, we have to focus on ourselves. We have to learn how to love ourselves unconditionally. And so that's what I would leave you with is just find the right information, whatever it is. Whether it's, you know, finding more podcasts like ours, getting the right book, finding the right therapist or guru or whatever it is that works for you. Do that though. You're worth it. And there is so much love and joy and hope and peace and abundance on the other side of whatever it is you're experiencing right now.

SPEAKER_00 45:18

Yes. That was extremely powerful. Thank you for that.

SPEAKER_02 45:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:24

Melissa, I appreciate you sharing your story with us today. You are an amazing human being again and extremely inspirational. So I, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. Thank you. And I'm looking forward to the next time we connect.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

Yes. Well, you're so welcome. And I thank you for asking me to be on.

SPEAKER_00 45:46

Absolutely. Enjoy the rest of your day. Take care.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Thank you. Bye.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Before I go, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for pressing play. Thank you for listening. Thank you for watching on YouTube. I truly appreciate you taking the time to be here with me. And if you're watching this on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button. And if you're listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or any other platform, follow the podcast so you don't miss out on the next episode. Because we're going to keep having real honest conversations like this. And remember, your influence grows every time you choose courage over comfort. I'm J V. Stay curious, stay consistent, and keep influencing others. Thank you. Peace out.