Healing CFS, Night terrors, night sweats, anxiety & depression with Reine Cramer, 149

00:00:00 Chazmith: Welcome to Our Power is Within, a weekly podcast to inspire you to take your power back and realize that you are the healer that you've been looking for all along. We are all capable of healing in mind, in body, and in soul. I'm your host, Chazmith. 

00:00:28 Chazmith: Today's episode is brought to you by Primal Trust Academy and Community, created by Dr. Cathleen King, who is a dear friend of mine and has been featured on this podcast four times now. Primal Trust is not just a do-it-yourself program. It's an online community and your one-stop shop for all things related to brain retraining, nervous system regulation, and somatic practices for those with trauma and chronic illness conditions. It is quickly growing as one of the largest worldwide online healing communities, and it is co-led by Dr. Cathleen King and Primal Trust graduates. 

00:01:06 Chazmith: In addition to the main programs, Level 1 Regulate and Level 2 Primal Trust Mentorship, you have daily forum support, peer-led study and support groups, and a variety of daily live classes to help support your healing. Some of the class options are somatic movement classes or functional neurology classes, but there's so much more. In addition to all of the support provided in the membership, you are also now able to join the brand new Journey Groups, led by some of the Primal Trust mentors. These Journey Groups will be small cohorts where you will go through the Level 1 and/or Level 2 programs together. It will be a place to practice, to learn, to share, and to be guided for a much lower cost than private one-on-one mentoring. To learn more, check out the links in the show notes and use the code O-P-I-W to save 5% on your first month and sign up today. 

00:02:06 Chazmith: Speaking of Primal Trust, our guest today is someone who has recently gone through the Level 1 Regulate program and has made a ton of progress in her healing journey. Her name is Reine. She joins us today to share her personal healing journey with us, some of her wins, and what she has learned along the way and so much more. Her story is so inspiring and enlightening. I learned a few new tips and tricks myself, so I hope you do as well. So let's welcome her to the show and please enjoy. Reine, thank you so much for being here with me today to share your story. 

00:02:41 Reine: Hi, I'm so happy to be here and thank you for having me. 

00:02:44 Chazmith: Of course, I'm excited. I'm always excited for a good testimonial story. So for everybody who's listening, that's what today is. It's going to be another testimonial story where Reine shares a little bit about what's worked for her and where she's been and where she's gotten and all the good stuff in between. And so, Reine, what I usually like to do, and I like to keep it very brief out of respect for people who get triggered from symptom talk, but with respect for people who I know really connect to and relate to hearing someone's story, who went through something similar and came out on the other side. Could you briefly just tell us a little bit about what you have healed from or are still healing from? 

00:03:25 Reine: Yep, I've mostly healed from everything that I can talk about today. I have some few remaining tiny little symptoms that don't get in the way of my life at all. So at this point, I can say that I'm living a fully functional, normal life. But the things I have healed from have been intense insomnia, night sweats, nightmares, anxiety, chronic fatigue, depression. That's kind of the list. I've had also, a bunch of, a whole adventure with playing Whac-A-Mole with a bunch of psychosomatic symptoms throughout my life that would come and go randomly. The list I mentioned is kind of the symptoms I dealt with on a long-term basis. The rest is just colorful little details that came in and out of my life throughout the several-year period that I was dealing with dysregulation in my nervous system. 

00:04:15 Chazmith: It sounds a lot like kind of more of the emotional mental stuff coupled with the insomnia, which really does come down into the subconscious behavior and activity as well.

00:04:25 Reine: Yeah. I think my story is very much colored by psychosomatic symptoms because I would go to doctors quite a lot throughout my whole journey because I was very conscientious and very fearful, frankly, and I just wanted to fix myself like I think we all do in this community at some stage in the journey. And every time I'd get tested for things, it was always the same answer. It was like, you're fine, it's in your head, there's nothing wrong with you. My blood work would come out fine, biopsies and things. Everything typically would come out pretty normal. And so that's why I felt kind of crazy for a really long time because it's like you're almost told by the medical community that you're over-exaggerating, but then you know it's real for you, but then they're the authority figure, so you kind of trust what they say. So it can be very disorienting, very confusing. And I think it was finding a community, like the Primal Trust Academy, which is what I'm sure we'll talk about a bit more, but that's where ultimately I found a lot of help, was in other system regulation communities like DNRS and Primal Trust. But yeah, it was very psychosomatic for me. 

00:05:38 Chazmith: When did nightmares and the sleep issue start for you? How young were you?

00:05:43 Reine: It was one of the first things, honestly, maybe 19 when the insomnia started and it started strong immediately. So for me at the time, it was sleep onset insomnia. My journey with insomnia has been very colorful in and of itself. I feel like I've tasted every flavor of the insomnia buffet in my life. But it started with sleep onset insomnia where it would take me, like sometimes until maybe, like sunrise later, like six, seven, eight hours to fall asleep and lots of anxiety would come up. So I was about 19 and then it would ebb in and out of my life for several years. It wasn't like every single night for six years that I had it, but it was like for six years it would come in and out pretty frequently. So I didn't feel free of it until, I don't know, six months ago. Yeah.

00:06:33 Chazmith: And what about the nightmares? 

00:06:35 Reine: The nightmares came with the night sweats. Those kind of came together, not always, but they kind of arrived at the same time, those symptoms. And it was years after the insomnia began. It was really when my perfect storm during the pandemic hit where the chronic fatigue started to. So it was maybe in, like 2021 and it kind of came out of nowhere and it was very, very scary. Those were symptoms that made me feel like I must have something profoundly wrong with me because it's very alarming to wake up in that state and to wake up soaked and to have violent imagery and on top of that to be wiped out every day. I just felt like at that point, I was almost hoping for a diagnosis because I just, I really needed to have something be wrong with me that I could fix. I just couldn't stand being told again, like this is in your head, which ultimately I kind of was anyway. 

00:07:31 Chazmith: Right. I mean, I have heard so much that they say a diagnosis can be traumatic in and of itself, right? And it can be. It's interesting though, because when you're on the other side, you almost… you feel like a diagnosis would give you some sense of relief because it would help make sense of what you're experiencing when you don't make sense of it otherwise. And I could see how, like a nightmare or a night terror, especially really terrible ones, you start to wonder like, gosh, what am I going through? What's going on in my head to have these kinds of dreams at night? What is happening or what has happened for this to manifest while I'm sleeping in my subconscious? What is it replaying? Did you ever notice a pattern? Was there a theme or a trend with the nightmares? And I don't mean in the physical context, but in the emotional context, was there, like certain emotions that were often present in them?

00:08:23 Reine: I mean, terror, like point blank, it felt worse than fear, worse than anxiety. It felt terrorizing. And, you know, to the point that you were just saying, yeah, the nightmares were concerning, but it was more like the night sweats that made me feel that something was wrong, you know, because that feels like a symptom usually of something that's a lot more severe than just psychological, especially because it was happening so frequently. Of course, now I'm grateful that I was healthy. But yeah, and then to your question about the emotional trend, it was terror, point blank. It was just helplessness. There were a lot of themes of boundaries being, like massively transgressed, violence, you know, like lost grief, like just big, big, core wound type feelings that would just come up in very violent ways. And it was, yeah. 

00:09:19 Reine: And the kind of thing that stays with you too, you know, it wasn't just like, when I would wake up, I'd be like, whew, thank God, you know, that's over. It felt like, you know, first of all, I was waking up to symptoms of chronic fatigue too. So I was, you know, even when I got a good night, I was wiped out. So when I got a really rough night like that, it was just extra tough the next day, psychologically and physically. But it would stay with me. Yeah. Left a lot for sure.

00:09:47 Chazmith: But when you look back at these symptoms now, which at the time made no sense to you and felt random, and now you know the things you've known through doing the programs and the work you've done, does it make sense how you could experience like sweats while also having a night terror because of what's actually happening? 

00:10:03 Reine: Oh, yeah, it makes total sense to me now. That was when I was in my biggest, like, podge in a way, because I would notice too, going through another system regulation programs, you know, my journey is to, recovery has been so nonlinear. And I think that's, like something I really want to promote as much as I can, is the fact that it's such an imperfect journey. And every time I had an ebb, you know, I'd be doing way, way better, like with my energy levels and my other symptoms, I'd be doing way better. And then I'd have a dip where I'd have night sweats again, nightmares, you know, I would come in a big wave. And then as soon as I would come out of that, I was even better than the last time I was in a good place. And then I would fall into another, like, wave of night sweats. 

00:10:49 Reine: So it almost felt like there was this expansion contraction experience that was happening where it was almost like my nervous system capacity was growing more and more and more. But every time it went through a growth spot, I would sort of, I would go back into my subconscious at night and sweat it out pretty much like that's how I started to interpret it. And it's proven to be quite true, you know, and then it's the intensity of it lessened every single time. But it took some while to get there. 

00:11:22 Chazmith: I really relate. I have suffered from terrors since I was actually a child that have obviously come in waves and gone. And through this whole healing journey, I've had the exact same thing. And I've kind of, I've learned from other people that you do tend to have an uptick in nightmares when you are in actual healing, you know, when your subconscious is actually trying to repair and like sort things out and heal. So yeah, I think of those times is, oh, my subconscious is doing what it's doing, what it's supposed to, it's like processing some of this stuff or bringing maybe things to the surface for that next layer of healing, you know. 

00:12:01 Chazmith: And I know you said you did Primal Trust, which very much is about really getting into exploring what our limiting beliefs are and what are, you know, maybe our deeper fears are and the things that might hold us back as you did this work. Did you begin to see that there were certain patterns in your life that were actually being amplified and shown in your dreams? Like you said, the boundaries, you know, as a thing, did you start to see a correlation as you were doing the emotional healing? 

00:12:31 Reine: Yeah, I mean, definitely the images I was getting in my nightmares were uniquely violent in comparison to what was going… was happening in my life. But you know, my life at the time when I was going through it, I was in a huge period of transition, everything had changed in response to how I was feeling, as I think is also very common on this journey for us is life sort of becomes a mirror and we sort of see the ways in which we're living inauthentically. And that very much happened for me. And I got to a point where I just basically, to make a long story short, got backed into a corner and felt like I had to wipe the whole slate clean on my life. And so I like broke my lease, I lived in Canada at the time and my family lives in France. 

00:13:12 Reine: So I broke my lease in Canada and I separated from my partner and quit my job. Everything changed, closed all my accounts, all my stuff, like everything kind of had to change because I needed to move back home to be taken care of by my family. And I moved back to France. And then there was a huge uptick in the nightmares and night sweats at that point, which makes total sense because I was literally purging everything external in my life. So it would make sense that internally the same thing was kind of happening. A lot of the nightmares had to do with violent endings. So I feel like that kind of checks out because there were a lot of violent, not to the same degree, but lots of like sudden endings and intense endings and grief inducing endings happening in my life at the time. So definitely there was a correlation, but very much amplified in violence in my subconscious. 

00:14:02 Chazmith: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The dreams definitely tend to amplify everything.

00:14:06 Reine: Yeah. 

00:14:07 Chazmith: But I do, I have found in my experience that there's a lot to be learned in them, you know? 

00:14:11 Reine: Yeah. 

00:14:11 Chazmith: Sometimes the ones that seem the most bizarre where it's like the strangest con things actually happening, but like, let's look at the deeper context here. And it's like, wow, oh, all right, there's a lot to be gained in this knowledge. Kudos to you for uprooting and doing that because a lot of times, it's hard to do that much change all at once. It's one thing to get clarity that we need it. It's another to do it. And so yeah, good job. 

00:14:36 Reine: Yeah. Well, thanks. I appreciate the validation, but I also feel like the reason why I said I felt like I was backed into a corner is just because it felt that way. It felt like I couldn't, you know, my mental state and my physical state had gone to a point where I just could not live by myself away from my family anymore. I just needed to be taken care of and to live in, community and to be on the same time zone as my family. And I know being in the Primal Trust program, and just generally, I think a lot of nervous system coaches will not recommend that you do major changes like this until you're more regulated because it can be very hard. Obviously, I did not know that at the time, I wasn't in any kind of program. So I was just, whatever, like, I'm just going to do this. But I also felt like I had no choice in a way. I felt like I had just gone too far. It really felt like the chapter of my eight years in Montreal, in Canada, where I lived had just firmly shut and I was way overstaying my welcome. 

00:15:43 Reine: And something in me also intuitively just knew that my healing was going to happen in community with my family, where I would have helped, you know, and where I could start over and where my healing could be my main focus, where I wouldn't have to go to work every day in an office and just like use the 10% energy I had left to pretend like I was functional and normal and healthy. I just couldn't stand the BS, you know, I just, I needed to crumble completely so I could rebuild. And I felt like my last few months in Montreal, I was just like a shell of myself but still holding on to the idea that I could present myself as functional. And I needed to just fall apart. I needed to just complete that cycle so I could start over. So it was brave in a way, but it also felt like it was beyond me and not my choice, you know.

00:16:36 Chazmith: Interesting that you felt that wasn't your choice. And then you said at one point that there was like, even dreams that were like, basically just like about being disempowered. Like that correlation. 

00:16:45 Reine: Oh yeah. 

00:16:46 Chazmith: Yeah. But oh, I wanted to ask you, was this new for you? Were you always the kind of person who could easily take help and let other people support you? Or was that something you had to learn to lean into through this healing journey? 

00:17:02 Reine: I mean, it's a bit of both. Like I've certainly met people through this journey doing this kind of work who have struggled asking for help a lot more than I have. Like I never thought that that was a major issue for me. But I will say that I… I've been a very hyper independent person. Just generally speaking, it didn't feel so much like, I can't ask for help. It was more just like, I just very much wanted to, you know, like I left home when I was 17 and my family lived in France. I was like, I'm moving to Canada, like by myself. It was just very like, I want to do my own thing, go my own adventure. So I was living a life of hyper independence in Canada. I think I'm someone who also needs a lot of space, a lot of time alone. Sometimes I struggle to balance living in community and meeting my own needs for solitude. So I feel like I have a bit of that. But yeah, I also had a partner in Montreal. I feel like that's where I struggled because he was kind of my family there, the only family I really had. 

00:18:02 Reine: And I had a really hard time letting go of that relationship to move back home with my family. It's kind of what kept me there for a while because it was such a beautiful relationship. And it was kind of the one thing that was keeping me a little bit regulated. But with him, I very much struggled to ask for help. And I still felt a very self imposed pressure to keep it together because I didn't want to be a burden. I didn't want to, like, lose him because I felt that he was the only good thing in my life at the time. And so like, I very much was in some way, like pretending to be more together than I was to keep him. And this was very self imposed. It's never anything that he said, but it was just me. Like, in some way there, I do feel like romantically, I struggled to ask for help. With my family, never. But in partnership, yeah, I think so. 

00:18:49 Chazmith: So we kind of already talked about how you mentioned DNRS and Primal Trust. So tell me a little bit about that backstory. We know you got rid of everything in Montreal, you moved back home to be supported in community. When did you discover the whole concept of nervous system regulation and healing? 

00:19:07 Reine: I discovered it, like piece by piece in Montreal. I was always been very into this kind of self healing thing and mind body connection. So I've been reading bits about semantics and bits about, you know, the nervous system and the vagus nerve. Like these are all terms that were very familiar to me by the time I entered Primal Trust, but I'd never put them all together. And I definitely did not have the full picture. And I had a huge lack of support. I definitely needed a teacher, I needed guidance, I needed a program. So I knew about the concepts several years before I found Primal Trust and DNRS, both of which I found in 2022. After I moved back to France that same year, first I found DNRS. And then I moved to Primal Trust, just because I, there was something about the community aspect of it that there are lots of live classes, you really meet the people that are doing this with you. And there's a real human connection there. 

00:20:08 Reine: And it feels like a very alive community because it's always updating itself and has new classes and new teachers and new programs coming out all the time. So I've made a lot of friends through the program. So for me, I needed the community aspect and Primal Trust really delivered there. That's why ultimately I kind of shifted from DNRS to Primal Trust. But I found both of them in 2022, was familiar with these other system concepts before, but not to the extent that Primal Trust has taught me. And certainly I didn't have any idea of how to put it all together into a legitimate daily practice. So it wasn't doing anything. I just knew it mentally.

00:20:46 Chazmith: Yeah. Now did you do, within the Primal Trust community, did you do the actual Primal Trust mentorship or did you do Regulate? 

00:20:54 Reine: I did all of it. So basically, I entered in 2022, like I said, at the time, Regulate had not come out. It was… Creating Calm was the name of the course. So I did that. And then I did Level 2. I watched the recording because they had already happened live. So I did, Creating Calm. And then I did my first round of the Level 2 mentorship, which I thought was so great. But definitely, my first round of both those programs, I did everything that you're not supposed to again, you know, like, they tell you to really take your time and absorb the material. And I was just like, binging every video because it just felt like I was famished with this information. And something about it was… rang so true to me on a cellular level, like I could just feel how this was the path to my recovery. I just knew it. It was like my full time job, you know, and I wasn't working at the time anymore. So it was just like, I was just consuming as many of the videos as I could. 

00:21:50 Reine: And then when Regulate came out, I was doing better, but I still, with my symptoms, like my fatigue was getting way better. Most of my other symptoms were clearing up piece by piece, but the insomnia and the nightmares were still quite active. By the time Regulate came out, maybe like, I don't know, six months later, or maybe something like that. Like it came out in October of last year, if I'm not mistaken. So when Regulate came out, I decided I had a little bit more regulation, so I was a little bit less desperate and like, in a state of urgency. And so I thought, you know what, I'm really going to do things by the book this time and take my time. I'm going to do all the workbooks, which I did not do the first time. I was just, like, boring. Like I just want to watch the videos, you know, don't want to do the homework. 

00:22:35 Reine: So this time I really did it. And Regulate helped me tremendously with, I think it kind of, like sealed the deal in terms of the nightmares and the night sweats and things. And I also want to throw out there for anyone who's dealing with nightmares in particular, night terrors that I found out about something called, it's another like nervous system neuroplasticity tool that's specific to this. It's called the dream completion technique. I forget the name of the doctor, but it's an EMDR technique that was developed by an EMDR practitioner, the dream completion technique. And it's basically just a form of brain retraining around nightmares, typically people who have PTSD style nightmares to help them rewire those. And that technique alongside Regulate was like, that really, really helped a ton. 

00:23:25 Chazmith: Was it something you could do on your own, or was it something you needed to coach for? 

00:23:30 Reine: I did this on my own. You can, I mean, yeah, for me, it's like, as with any of these tools, I think it's good to do it with a coach. But it's not with this technique, it wasn't particularly recommended, you know? 

00:23:41 Chazmith: Okay, so you were able to learn it online and then? 

00:23:44 Reine: Yeah, yeah, for free. 

00:23:46 Chazmith: And then apply it.

00:23:47 Reine: It was just, I found it on YouTube. If you Google the dream completion technique, you'll find it. It's basically just a visualization practice. I suppose it depends, maybe, you know, like if you're having nightmares on something that has actually happened in your life that reminds you of, like a very specific trauma, and it can be hard to revisit those images, then for sure do it with a coach, you know? But for me, because the images I was getting in my nightmares were so different than what I was going through in my life, and it was really just the emotional weight of it that was tough for me. But because I had my Regulate tools, I was able to apply those to the dream completion technique. So for me, I felt like I had the capacity to do it alone. But it's for each person to sort of determine if they're there or not. Either way, it's a great technique. And I think it's definitely worth giving a try if you deal with this kind of thing. 

00:24:38 Chazmith: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for sharing. I'll find a link and I'll include it in the show notes for anyone who's listening that might find that supportive. So you went through Regulate, nice and slow at the pace that she suggests, and then you found this technique and you kind of did these side by side. And I'm guessing you probably finished Regulate by around the end of the new year, right? 

00:25:01 Reine: Yeah, yeah, I did it. I did it live Regulate. And I think they released the modules week by week. And I think maybe there was a break around Christmas. And then we finished maybe around February or something. Maybe January, February, so around then. Yeah. 

00:25:17 Chazmith: Yeah. Okay. And was there anything in particular because I know it's a very comprehensive program that goes over so many different things? Was there any part of it that was particularly supportive for you? Or do you feel like it was really all of it brought together? 

00:25:36 Reine: Yeah, I mean, I think it's the way it was put together that was really, really helpful. Because it touches on a little bit of everything. And I think for most of us, but I can only really speak for myself, a little bit of everything was involved in why I felt the way that I did. It wasn't just nervous system, dysregulation though, that was a big part of it. It was also some trauma from my past. And there's a whole module on that. And you know, what I appreciate about Regulate particularly is that it gives you so many tools that you can really personalize the whole experience because you don't, I don't use every single Regulate tool that I learned. There's so many of them, you know, but your intuition just knows what it needs. And it takes what it needs from the program. And there's more than enough to really make it your own and make it work for you. 

00:26:25 Reine: And another thing that I really want to say about the program, because I know that so many of us are perfectionists, and that's like the big reason why we're here sometimes, the big dysregulation, you know, inducing quality to have. And I have it. First, when I went into Primal Trust, generally speaking, and into Regulate, I thought that if I didn't do every single tool that was presented to me in the most pristine, perfect way, in the best routine every day, you know, like that it wasn't going to work. And I know lots of us feel this way, because I've had this conversation with so many people in the community who have that fear. And I can guarantee you that to this day, I don't use a single one of these tools perfectly, I never have. But they work nonetheless, you know, it's, for me, I've come to find that it's more about how consistently you use them and how perfectly you use them. And I really want that to be out there because it just, for me, it was just a relief when I decided to stop trying to do it all perfectly and just give myself some grace. 

00:27:27 Chazmith: Yeah, absolutely. That feels a lot lighter, doesn't it? 

00:27:32 Reine: Yeah, yeah. 

00:27:34 Chazmith: It's heavy load to bear to push yourself to be perfect and do everything perfect and be this perfect person and carry yourself a certain way and never ever, you know, fall apart like all these things that, yeah, like you said that a lot of us find our common characteristics of people who end up with chronic illness, it's heavy. And then it's like, no wonder that so many of us, you know, feel so overwhelmed and exhausted all the time. Yeah. 

00:28:04 Reine: Yeah, yeah. 

00:28:05 Chazmith: The body's just doing what it knows how to do. 

00:28:09 Reine: Yeah. 

00:28:10 Chazmith: Yeah. So what are you using today? Like, are you still using the tools today? Did you decide to do round two of the Primal Trust mentorship? 

00:28:20 Reine: Yeah, I'm in the mentorship again, it's my first time doing it live. So I wanted to experience that because the first time I did Level 2, like I said, I did, I just watched it recorded. So it's a different experience to just, even if it's on Zoom at the end of the day, it's like to watch it live and just be a part of the transmission. You know, live just feels so, again, it's just you feel like you are surrounded by people who get it. And it feels something about it. It feels safe. And, you know, very co regulating in a way, like you don't even have to use the tools, and it's just healing because you're in the presence of people that understand you on some level. And also that, you know, this journey, when you deal with these kinds of symptoms, it has a way of just cracking you open like a walnut really, like it just puts you through the ring of so much that it's almost like you become the pure version of yourself, I feel like all the BS has to fall off eventually. It's a big part of the Primal Trust program to come into your truest nature and to be in a room, even a Zoom room full of people who are being cracked open like walnuts is just so powerful because it's like, something about it feels so pure and like, yeah, just healing and soothing, so soothing. And so honest. 

00:29:41 Reine: So I love that about the Primal Trust community. I still, to answer your question, use many of the Regulate tools. I have my own morning routine, you know, that I do now, again, at first, because I was such a perfectionist, my morning routine was like two hours long, I was doing like a million things. And with time, I've been like, you know what, like, I don't need this. I want to live my life. I don't spend two hours like, meditating and doing all these like rituals. So I've boiled it down to the tools that I love the most that'll be most helpful to me. And I just use two or three, you know, in the morning and throughout the day if I feel like I'm getting a bit tense, and then maybe at night sometimes, but mostly it's just I wake up, I do a little hour, some sort of ABC, we call it in Primal Trust, but it's like a creative visualization tool, kind of like what we learn in DNRS as well. I do one of those little meditation, some movements and exercise every day. And if I'm feeling tense, I'll do some breath walk throughout the day, I'll just try and stay regulated as best I can. But I don't make a whole thing of it now. It's just tailor made and flexible. And yeah. 

00:30:50 Chazmith: What are you learning in Primal Trust about yourself? Like what are some of the biggest lessons that you've been learning that have been really eye opening for you?

00:30:59 Reine: It's so big because I feel like I've learned so much. Well, I mean, again, I've learned that I think maybe a bit annoying to hear when you're in the thick of your symptoms, because you just want it to be over when I get that. But I have learned how much they've helped me actually, like how much they've helped me get rid of so many of the things that weren't working in my life and how, like I said, they helped me peel back the layers of, you know, the protector identity that I'd become in my life. Like I'd become a version of myself that was going to be palatable for people, kind of a people pleaser, very concerned with people's opinions of me. And I just feel like this whole journey had a way of teaching me how to not care so much what people think. It had a way also, of introducing me to myself in a real way. Like I had to do some real inquiry around what my true values were through the program and what it is I really care about, what I really want to create out of my life. 

00:32:00 Reine: And so doing that kind of work, particularly through the Level 2 mentorship and implementing a daily structure to sort of make those values come to fruition and all those dreams have, those come to fruition too. I feel like giving me peace that I can like, really pursue the things that I love. And even if people judge me and that feels bad, I know how to regulate bad, like I know how to regulate shame and grief and fear of judgment. So those things don't stop me anymore. I have a lot less resistance to pursuing the things that I love. And so the result of that is that little by little, I'm creating a life that I'm actually really happy with. And I'm just, like checking off my bucket list. And it just feels like there's a huge gift in the suffering because on the other side of that is your true self, you know, and then you get to live authentically and Primal Trust, the program and the community has been very, very instrumental in helping me get rid of what wasn't working and bringing in what was going to work. 

00:33:09 Chazmith: How would you regulate grief or shame? Like a concrete example for anyone listening, because you said I have the tools to regulate when these feelings come up. How do you do that? 

00:33:22 Reine: Well, of course, I mean, I could tell you the, like, by the book, how Regulate, the program teaches you how to do it. And that's helpful. But I feel like the way that I've made those tools my own, what I do when I have a big feeling like this, I just did it earlier today, actually, I go outside in nature if I can, there's a park near my house, it's not always available. I can do this on my bed, like whatever. But if I can go outside, I will sit on a bench. I'll just check in with myself somatically, physically. And then this is kind of what I call, like my emotional strength training practice. It's like that's almost how it feels. But it's truly just trying to be with the intensity of that emotion without trying to change it for as long as I can, you know, safely stand it basically, it's just trying to like presence it, just without trying to change it in any capacity, without trying to judge it, without trying to like breathwork it away, without trying to meditate it away. It's just being with it. 

00:34:25 Reine: And I find that the more I've done that, the less I've been afraid of those kinds of feelings, because I show myself time and time again, I'm capable of being with shame in its most intense form. It's not so bad, actually, when I sit with it, it is really bad at first. But then it's like anything, it's a practice. And the more you do it, the more you realize like, oh, I'm actually capable of just sitting with this, even when it's intense, I'm still stronger than it, you know, so I call it my emotional strength training, because it makes me feel like more emotionally strong, more emotionally resilient, flexible. It sounds kind of simple, but it's just truly the practice of growing my comfort zone, in terms of like, what I can tolerate emotionally, and it gets bigger and bigger over time. So if I feel shame, like before our call today, I was feeling some fear about it, because, you know, I was just, I don't typically do a lot of podcasts, and I was, like, feeling some anxiety. 

00:35:23 Reine: And then there's a lot of imposter syndrome type thing, now that I'm feeling better, you know, it's like, I'm looking back at my past, I'm like, was it all just like, did I just make it all up or something? You know, I just got all like, fearful about it. And so I went to the park, that's exactly what I did, I sat on a bench in the sun, and like the fear was there. And I just felt the tension in my solar plexus and in my heart, I just was with it, you know, and almost kind of like melts away gradually, but it doesn't have to for it to be effective, just letting it be there. 

00:35:54 Chazmith: Yeah, I mean, you're just sending this message to your brain and body that, like, Hey, I'm with you right now, whatever you is, whatever that feeling is, and we're safe, like we're here. We’re in it. 

00:36:04 Reine: Yeah. 

00:36:04 Chazmith: Okay. And I think there's a time and place that we learn and we learn this and regulate, there's a time and place to distract yourself and take yourself out of it if it's too intense for you to be with. But once we get to a certain level of regulation, rather than constantly distracting yourself, you start to learn to be with it and be okay, to just be with it and be like, Oh, I can sit with this shame, I can sit with this fear, I can sit with this sadness. And you're teaching this part of you that these feelings are okay, and you're not trying to change it or fix it because there's nothing to fix or change. And then it, yeah, and then it kind of just loosens up, lessens, dissipates, relaxes a little like over time. 

00:36:46 Reine: Yeah, yeah. That's totally it. And it's, you know, that's kind of why I said that it's really intense at first. And definitely there needs to be some kind of, like titration process with this. For me, I know that when I started to really feel my feelings semantically, which by the way, I thought I was an expert at for a really long time, but only because I cerebrally and mentally understood emotion very well. You know, I'm like a writer and like I would journal about it, but it all came from the mind, I wasn't capable of feeling it physically, I would get overwhelmed immediately if I did. I came to find out later, but mentally, I thought that I was an emotional regulation master, because I could talk about fear all day, I could talk about grief all day, I could write poetically about it. But I couldn't really sit with it for a long period of time. And I found that out through Regulate, because it took me some time to get to the point where I could sit on a bench and like, just be with shame and all of its intensity and like, let it be that like, definitely, I didn't just one day be like, hey, I had a horrible, violent nightmare, like, let me just go sit on a bench and like, think about it, you know, it was a process. 

00:37:56 Reine: And titration is involved in that, like, at first, you might only be able to drop into your body for like a second, notice that you're feeling that tension, and then you have to come out and distract yourself a little bit, like you said, probably in a way that's as constructive as possible, but Regulate teaches you how to do that. And Regulate, you know, it's not a program that everyone must do all these things exactly the same way in order to heal it. This is a flexible process, and you're going to have to make it your own, and you're going to have to define your own boundaries. And it could be helpful to get a coach in that context, too. And Primal Trust has a lot of mentors and coaches that can help ensure that you are using these tools and applying them within your zone of capacity. But yeah, titration is important, like you said, definitely don't just like, dive into it. 

00:38:45 Chazmith: Sure, if you never really were experienced, like never really at a somatic level, were able to sit with those emotions, then it can be really intense. I'm so glad you brought this all up, right? Because I think that's a lot of us, like so many people, I would totally agree with you. I also thought I felt my feelings, but again, it was all mental. Oh my gosh, I'm still realizing, I'm just like barely scratching the surface of being able to actually be with the real sensation of the emotion at a body level, because my mind has been such a dominant force in my life for 40 something years. So–

00:39:22 Reine: Yeah.

00:39:23 Chazmith: It's like, wow, this is a whole new world. 

00:39:26 Reine: Yeah, oh my God. Yeah. Yeah, like giving, taking the power away or giving the reins to your heart after it's been in your brain for so long. That's a tough one. It takes a long time, you know, to even just learn how to trust your intuition. I also think in these programs, you know, you hear a lot about a heart-centered approach and tuning into the heart and feeling into the heart. And, you know, I know that when I first started to educate myself on all this, that just seemed so elusive to me. I was like, what do you mean tune into the heart? What is that? You know, it just seems so, too metaphorical. Like I couldn't almost like, somatically feel what that meant. So it took a process as well for me to sort of drop into my body enough to understand in a real pragmatic way what it means to feel, to be connected to your heart, to listen to your heart. You know, same thing. I felt like, how do you do that? How do you listen to what your heart tells you? Just seems so elusive. 

00:40:30 Chazmith: Yeah, I feel that's a lot of information that we get in the healing, chronic, like healing community, right? It can be a little overwhelming sometimes because somebody might say something and they make it sound like it's just so simple, but no, there's a process to things. And you've lived in your head your whole life. It's not like, oh, let me just drop down. Oh, I've been in my head, but let me just get into my body. No, it's a process. 

00:40:57 Reine: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:40:58 Chazmith: A rewarding one. 

00:40:59 Reine: Yeah, for sure. For sure. But I know it's quite common. You know, I've had this conversation with quite a few people too, where, you know, before they really get a real education on all of this, they would go to a therapy session and someone would just tell them like, where do you feel that emotion in your body? And they would be like, I don't know how to answer that question. You know, it's just too, it doesn't make sense when you first get started with this. So, but I think, you know, understanding these principles, it always starts as a mental understanding, and then it becomes an emotional understanding, and then it becomes a physical one. But it's a whole process. So if you understand something mentally, you're already on the path to understanding it physically. It's just that my understanding is that it always starts with, like a cerebral knowledge, then you start to emotionally resonate with it, you sort of reel on it on a completely different level. And then it becomes like you embody it physically and like it makes total sense, you know. So it's a journey. 

00:41:59 Chazmith: Yeah. And, you know, something that I love that you shared about just sitting, how you were able to now regulate emotions through sitting with them, is I know that, you know, I've only been really tapping into true like, somatics as I've now come to understand, because I've been on this, you know, doing this podcast for two and a half years, and I've heard that term thrown around so much. And I'm realizing that there's a lot of different definitions for that term, and a lot of different ways to approach somatics, right? Like so many. And I was not fully understanding what it meant to like, feel it and connect it to the body only until just like several months ago. And then it was like a light bulb, you know, but something that I noticed was that, okay, now I sense this feeling or this, let's say, sensation in the body, and I can lean into the body wisdom. And now I know that this sensation is linked to this emotion. But what I noticed the process is like, wanting to still fix it. Okay. Oh, oh, there's feeling of not being good enough. Okay, let's fix that right now. You know, so still going into fix it mode, like, okay, now I have this information. What's next? My mind goes, how do I fix it? 

00:43:15 Reine: Yeah.

00:43:16 Chazmith: Still sends this message of, oh, it's not safe. She wants to fix it. Something's wrong with us. We're broken. And so learning that, and then being able to take that next step and seeing how there's so much, so much power in just being able to observe it, notice it, witness it and be with it is also some magic. 

00:43:41 Reine: Oh, yeah. I mean, this fix it identity thing, it's, I feel like it's just one of the hardest things to unlearn, learning how to trust that your body is doing what it's doing for a reason. And that maybe you don't actually have to fix it. And maybe if you get out of its way, it might resolve itself. When I first learned about these concepts, I was like, it's like you're asking me to dive into the void and ask no questions. Like, I was like, what do you mean? Of course we want to fix our pain. Like it makes total sense. Again, logically. So I totally get that. And I still, sometimes I'm the same as you, you know, sometimes when there's, kind of happened today a little bit, actually, when I was like, looking around, and feeling a little bit of tension, I felt myself being like, Oh, quickly, I got to do some breathwork, you know, and then I caught myself. 

00:44:32 Reine: I was like, breathwork is great, but not if you're using it to fix your emotions, you know, and I was like, you know what, I'm not going to try and make this go away, like, I'm just going to let it be there. And then it just dissolves eventually. But it's a practice. And I get that it's so hard. And I think it's normal that it's so hard. If it wasn't, we'd all be doing it, you know, it can take a long time to learn how to be trusting in this way. I'm still fully needing to practice this on a daily basis. Like there are many moments where I'm trying to fix the way I feel, still. It's so hard to unwind. 

00:45:06 Chazmith: Yeah, absolutely. It really is. The struggle is real. 

00:45:10 Reine: Yeah. 

00:45:11 Chazmith: Oh my goodness. So where are you at today in terms of, let's say in the darkest, hardest times and where you're at today? Are you in terms of, what can you do today that you couldn't do? You said you're starting out slowly creating a life that really aligns for you. What does that look like? 

00:45:28 Reine: Well, a lot has changed. You know, I feel like it's almost in a good way, hard to answer this question of like, what can I do now that I couldn't before? Because now I feel like I can do whatever I want. You know, it's almost like, I don't feel limited. Before, I felt like I needed to really conserve my energy. If I did one productive thing that day, I'd be proud of myself. And now it's just like, I'm going through my days, filling them with a bunch of things that I love to do. So the first thing I want to say is I feel a lot more, I almost want to say limitless, but then as a part of me, it's like, scared to, like acknowledge that for some reason. But I do feel, let's say, not as limited as I did back then. So, you know, I think through the values deepening inquiry process that we do in Primal Trust, I was able to sort of eliminate a lot of projects I was working on that just were taking up a lot of time that I didn't actually care about. I was just invested in them for the wrong reasons. And I've been able to boil it down to like the two main things that I love to do. Coincidentally or not, are the two things I've done since I was a kid, you know, that I was like born loving, which is making music and the musicians like writing, producing and all that, which has been such a joy because I lost the motivation to do it for a really long time. I've been getting back into that. 

00:46:51 Reine: And then the second thing I spent a lot of time on is just getting back into coaching because I've actually gotten a coaching certification way before I found Primal Trust and before my perfect storm hit. And I was really enjoying the process of doing that. And then my perfect storm hit, I felt like I wasn't capable of holding space for people. And so I completely stopped. And then in the last few months, I've just gotten back into it. And so that's been really, so great. So those are the two things I'm like devoting my time to right now. It's like making music, just growing my coaching business and like, leading sessions and going out in nature and traveling again, which I couldn't do for a while because it just was too exhausting. And I have friends all over Europe. And so I just go visit them and going to the sea and you know, how do I even answer that question? It's like I do so many things that I love. 

00:47:40 Chazmith: I love that. I can tell that, I mean, just as you talk about it, it's obvious that you're, you know, excited about the life you're living right now, which is really awesome. 

00:47:49 Reine: Yeah. Oh, yeah. A lot of freedom is great. 

00:47:54 Chazmith: So if you are open to sharing, because a lot of us, I don't know if you've had this shift, but like, I know for me and for many people that I've witnessed, we think we know our values, right? But then as we do this deeper work through, like layers of Primal Trust mentorship, we start to discover that where we started at and what we thought were values maybe were, like false values through, that came from, you know, wounds or limiting beliefs or just like trauma or just different things. And then as we start to really tap into, true self, we start to realize that we have shifts in our values. Did this happen for you?

00:48:33 Reine: Yeah, it's actually kind of like a pretty current subject for me because I recently had to, like, weed out a bunch of values that weren't true for me. But–

00:48:43 Chazmith: Do you want to share like one you had to weed out and one that you brought in? 

00:48:46 Reine: Yeah. Well, I think it's kind of tied into what I was talking about before, particularly with the music and the coaching, but even more with the music, music, writing music, being musical, expressing using my voice. These are things that have been at the, sort of, core of my being my whole life, but because it's been at the core of my being my whole life, it was the most vulnerable part of me and I struggled sharing my work for so long. And because I was so afraid of being judged for it, but I'm still a creative person, I almost like, cunningly my brain was like, maybe instead of valuing music and like promoting yourself as a musician and really devoting your time to that, you should just start some other random like art business or just like go into business with this person. I just kind of kept, like distracting myself from the truth of how much I love music and coaching as well. These are the two things I've come to realize I've always loved. Of course, coaching is more a reflection of how much I love self-inquiry, but those are the two things that I've always really done. 

00:49:53 Reine: So the values I've had to leave behind are like, I don't know if I could boil it down to a word, distracting myself from those two things by starting other projects that are safer to fail at because I care less. You know what I mean? So I had actually filled my life with projects and businesses and things that had nothing to do with the music or the self-inquiry type coaching thing. And they were clogging up my schedule. I didn't care about them as much as those two things, but I devoted all my time to it because it felt safer to some parts of me, because I was like, well, you know, if that doesn't work out, I won't be emotional about it. I won't care. But if someone judges my music or if, like, a coaching session doesn't go well, well, I don't know if my heart could handle that. You know, like I really care about that. 

00:50:44 Reine: So it's been like quite the journey to progressively get rid of all the projects, like stop and cancel and leave things that weren't working so that I could devote myself to those two things, fully and bravely. Because of course, there was resistance that came up as I chose to really make those two things the [core] of my attention in my life because now I'm in a vulnerable position to my protective parts. Like now you could really get hurt, you know, and have to remind myself, well, I'm not the same person as I was, you know, years ago. Like if I do get hurt, I can handle it now and I can be with those emotions. And so there's nothing to fear. So I don't know if that really answers your question. Kind of like a long-winded answer, but–

00:51:28 Chazmith: Yeah, it's good. It's good. Yeah, I love it. Thank you. I'm excited to see what's next for you with your music and art. So is there anything that I have not asked you that you feel having gone through the journey that you've gone through and gotten to the side that you feel is, like, pertinent that you would want to share with anyone listening? 

00:51:51 Reine: I'm not sure. I mean, I think the two biggest things I always want to say to anyone that's on this journey, I think I've already mentioned, which is, like, you don't need to be perfect to heal. That's probably honestly the biggest takeaway that helped me the most. And that it's not linear and it's messy. And so I just think I touched base on it in our conversation, but I suppose if I can just leave on those notes, it's like, it is totally okay to be imperfect on this path. You will be, it's completely inevitable. So don't even try to be perfect. Just try to be consistent. That's all. And then understand that if your process is messy and your recovery journey just feels like it just goes up and down and you're crashing and coming back out of it and like, it just feels like this big mess. Same, you know, I think, very normal. And I think we all kind of feel that way in our recovery journey. And it's weird, but at some point, you'll realize you're doing way better than you did a year ago. And you didn't even see it happening because it was such a nonlinear process. You were kind of like, didn't expect it was going to turn out this way. So yeah.

00:53:02 Chazmith: Yeah. Awesome. Last question that I ask everybody, if you could only share one message for the rest of your life with the whole world pertaining to healing or not, just one message that was going to be your parting wisdom that you shared with the world, what would it be? 

00:53:17 Reine: What came up for me was just like, F the rules. I feel like that really helped me just to be like, do it your way. Forget the system. Forget how everyone tells you, you should be healing and what it should look like and how you should be using the tools and Forget all the shards, Forget the rules. Just do it your way. Make it yours. You know, everyone heals differently. Everyone heals in their own unique special way. So F the rules, like just make it yours. 

00:53:47 Chazmith: Love it. Love it so much. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here and being vulnerable today and sharing your story because we know that these stories really do help so many people and there's going to be somebody who listens and maybe went through something similar that you went through and for them, it really clicks and they connect and resonate with you. So every time we touch one new person, that's worth it. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. 

00:54:11 Reine: Well, thank you. I'm glad I could be here and share a little bit of my story with you. 

00:54:18 Chazmith: Friends, that's it for today. As always, I hope you found this episode insightful or inspiring in some way to support you along your journey. If you find value in this podcast, please remember to subscribe, like, and share it to help me spread the message that healing is indeed possible. You can also follow along on my Instagram channel, Our Power is Within, where I will be posting small weekly challenges every Sunday for you to join in on with me. And remember, if you have a guest request or a topic you would like me to dive more deeply into, please let me know. Otherwise, until next time, make this week great.