Episode 133: Rebuilding Faith After Generational Trauma with Brooke Deanne

[00:00:00] Introduction and Guest Introduction

[00:00:00] Autumn Carter: This is episode 1 33.

[00:00:02] Welcome to Wellness In Every Season, the podcast where we explore the rich tapestry of wellness in all of its forms. I'm your host, autumn Carter, a certified life coach, turn wellness coach, as well as a certified parenting coach dedicated to empowering others to rediscover their identity in their current season of life.

[00:00:21] My goal is to help you thrive, both as an individual and as a parent.

[00:00:25] Hi, I am jumping on as your video and audio disclaimer. Today we are talking about sexual abuse trauma exiting a cult, drug use , death, and about therapy. This is clean in terms of vocabulary, but the topics can be quite heavy and it is an amazing topic, but like I said, it can be triggering.

[00:00:59] It's [00:01:00] worth listening to with caution if you're worried about being triggered. And it's worth remembering that there are people all around us that are struggling with these things that need help finding a way forward, finding a way through. Brooke , shares a book to help you with this journey. She's also a coach. If you need any of this help, reach out to me. I am a wellness coach. I am working on my trauma certification and by the time this is live, it will have happened months ago and I am somebody who has gone through trauma, has come out the other side, is still on a journey of healing because it is lifelong journey.

[00:01:39] I can help you. She can help you. There are so many resources linked in the description. If you need anything, know that you are not alone on this journey, and this episode was made for you with love. So let's dive in [00:02:00] now.

[00:02:00] Autumn Carter: Today I have with me Brooke Deanne, she is an RTT coach and a trauma recovery coach. I don't know if any of you have had a past anywhere like mine where you have trauma.

[00:02:13] She's the coach for you, if you do, and she's gonna be talking about several different topics. I'm gonna read them off to you. She's gonna be talking about her life story and she has a good one. So we'll see where this leads. Trauma, she's a cult survivor, and she's gonna be talking about healing the mind, body, and spirit.

[00:02:33] So as all of you hopefully know at this point, unless you're new here. We talk all things wellness, so it sounds like she's gonna be checking a lot of these boxes here. What do you guys think?

[00:02:45] Understanding RTT and Cognitive Therapy

[00:02:45] Autumn Carter: Introduce yourself further and then explain what RTT is for us please.

[00:02:50] Brooke Deanne: Yes, of course. I'm excited to be here on this conversation.

[00:02:53] And this is all about wellness and that's honestly what we're trying to do right for people is if we've survived the trauma, [00:03:00] we wanna show people how to do it with less suffering. And I really feel like that's where RTT comes in. That's what happened for me. It was my story. I was really stuck in traditional talk therapy and I found RTT, which is rapid transformational therapy.

[00:03:13] So for anybody that's never heard of it, it's basically hypnotherapy. Combined with cognitive therapy and NLP, which is neurolinguistic programming. So teaching you how your brain works and rewiring your brain, but also getting to the root cause of your suffering, like the root cause of each belief. So I believe that everybody on this planet in some shape or form has the belief of, I am not enough.

[00:03:36] And you have scenarios or things that happen, traumatic imprints in your life that created that belief inside of you that thought that you were not enough. RTT gets to those and we are able to actually process the emotion that was never allowed to be felt in that experience. And then also rewire that experience for yourself so you can really rewrite your story.

[00:03:59] And that's what I [00:04:00] really like to tell people, is that you have the beautiful ability to create neuroplasticity within your own mind, in your own brain, and create this new life by rewriting your story. And RTT is really powerful in helping you do that.

[00:04:15] Autumn Carter: So let's, what's cognitive behavior therapy? I know what it is, but explain to those who might not know.

[00:04:22] Brooke Deanne: Of course. So as trauma survivors, we don't really realize this, but a lot of our cognitive function is really shut down and we live from our primitive brain or our reptilian brain, where we're just in the automatic autopilot of our life. So we're reacting from this place because we've just been in this state of survival.

[00:04:44] Because our nervous system's been dysregulated. We've had severe trauma, and now our brain is oh my gosh, we just have to survive every day. So we have less access to our cognitive function. So cognitive therapy is really learning [00:05:00] how to get into the logic and rational part of your brain rather than living from this state of survival.

[00:05:06] So being able to notice the difference, and it takes a lot of time. Because if you've, for myself I lived 36 years of trauma, so my unraveling of this took some time, and I want everybody to know this does not like an overnight process. This is hard work, but it also is very possible to be able to do this.

[00:05:25] So instead of reacting when we're triggered or when we're in high anxiety or lashing out at like our partners or our friendships or our family. We now can recognize, oh, I'm coming from a different space because I'm feeling this trigger because it's something that I think is happening in the past, and now we have the ability to access this cognitive function because we've done some of the work, we've done some of the therapy to be able to do so, we can see the difference.

[00:05:52] I don't know if that makes sense at all.

[00:05:54] Exploring Trauma and Healing Modalities

[00:05:54] Autumn Carter: And I have been diving into Somatics work for my own journey [00:06:00] as a person, not as a coach, just my own healing journey. And there are things that are stuck within our body, and that trigger happens and then that comes up. So then it triggers that reptilian part.

[00:06:13] And a better way of thinking about this than reptilian, at least that works for me, is this is what allowed the caveman to evolve into who we are now. And this is what allowed us to survive whatever we've gone through. It makes sense. I was just listening to a podcast about anxiety, an episode about anxiety, and we can have these feelings come up and then we try to label them and that can be very difficult for us.

[00:06:42] So that could be part of that trigger and it just comes up through our body. So I love that you're talking about this, and for me, talk therapy was the worst. It felt like I was going nowhere. No one in sight. And then I switched therapists after taking a, [00:07:00] break for a couple years and did EMDR and that's the eye movement, re E em, desensitation Sensitivity Processing.

[00:07:05] Yeah. No reprogramming. What is the r? Anyway, so that's what it is. And. So it sounds like the end result is similar to what you do, but it sounds like what you do is probably faster.

[00:07:17] Brooke Deanne: EMDR and hypnotherapy are very similar. It's just a different approach really is what I have. I've done also EMDR for myself, to be honest.

[00:07:26] I've done somatic work and you, name it. I've done psychedelic assisted therapy. I have done probably every modality I feel like that's out there to be able to just heal. And I've been fortunate enough to be able to have the opportunity to do that and try all these things because I really wanted to learn what really does work for someone that has been severely traumatized like myself.

[00:07:51] Because my trauma started when I was a very young little girl and I was like two or three years old, and that started with sexual abuse. [00:08:00] Then living in a very unsafe environment a very volatile environment. And so that disconnected me from my body from the very beginning as this little girl.

[00:08:10] And I've actually gone into hypnotherapy sessions into my mother's womb. When she had me when she got pregnant when she was very young. I don't think she was even 18 yet. And of course, as a young woman, she's oh my gosh, I don't wanna have this baby. This is terrifying, right?

[00:08:29] She's terrified to have me. And that was actually the imprint or the somatic sensation and the messaging that was coming through within that hypnotherapy session for myself, which was pretty wild. So even in the womb, I was already feeling unwanted. I was already feeling I don't know if I belong here.

[00:08:46] My mother doesn't really want me. She got pregnant too young and wasn't ready to have me. But I took on that imprint in that feeling of I'm not wanted by my own mother. So that's the kind of powerful work that I think [00:09:00] is really important, that we have these unconscious memories that we don't even know that we have, but they also are operating in our life.

[00:09:07] Like we're making decisions, we're acting a certain way. We're staying in relationships and all of these things because of these unconscious things that are happening that we don't even know about, like we're not even aware about them, and that's where this type of deeper work, it lets us get the access to those because we can't do that like in traditional talk therapy right now.

[00:09:27] We can't, do that in our normal every day. Like we can only access these parts of self when we do this deeper work and do this subconscious work, which is really through EMDR, hypnotherapy. Somatic work is very subconscious too, 'cause we're feeling those things or psychedelics.

[00:09:47] Generational Trauma and Personal Stories

[00:09:47] Autumn Carter: What are your thoughts regarding generational trauma?

[00:09:51] I am working through my trauma informed certification, although I am informed from life experiences, so [00:10:00] now it's becoming official, I guess you could say with the quotes.

[00:10:03] Brooke Deanne: Congrats.

[00:10:03] Congrats. That's awesome.

[00:10:04] Thank you. It's, very empowering to go through this and be like, I now can label that like I now have.

[00:10:10] I use the word label, but I have the vocabulary for this part of it, which is really great, and it has given me the space to understand my mother more and the decisions that she made because of her trauma and her triggers and not processing them, and it's very interesting. But anyway, they were talking about.

[00:10:30] They are actual therapists. They've gone through a lot to get to where they're now, they were addicted to having narcotics, like living on the street. Like a lot has gone on here. So it was their get to know us and then here's what we've learned and here's how to apply it type of thing.

[00:10:50] And he was talking about a client that he had who suddenly, while in the shower. Had Holocaust [00:11:00] triggers happening to her. And come to find out it was on her maternal grandmother's side. What her maternal grandmother, I think was the survivor and. It imprinted on her in that way. So then she had this happen several times to the point where she was afraid to take showers and them working through that.

[00:11:23] And I've heard that from other people. What are your thoughts regarding that?

[00:11:29] Yeah, that's really deep, honestly. And some people are gonna be like that doesn't make any sense. Like people that I don't understand that. But generational trauma is real. And just like I talked about that imprint in the womb that I discovered.

[00:11:42] I took on everything that my mother endured. You took on everything that your mother endured because you literally were created within her womb and had all of the imprints that she had. And then she had all the imprints that her mother did, right? So it really is passed down generationally.[00:12:00] 

[00:12:00] And those things do come up, those same beliefs, and we don't realize it, but we are literally. Doing the same thing that our grandmother and our mother did until we awaken to that reality. We don't really notice it, but we are, doing the same things that our mother did and our grandmother did unconsciously.

[00:12:17] And so it's up to us to have enough self-awareness to say, ah. I'm doing that thing that my mother did, and I never liked that thing. So this may show up in relationship. This may show up as you being your own mother, if you have children you may unconsciously be doing the same things to your children that your mother did to you that actually harmed you.

[00:12:39] And so that's why it is very true. It sounds weird at first, but then you start to realize oh, you know when people say that, oh, you're just like your mom. Yeah you, are, just like your mom because your brain was learning and being conditioned as you grew up.

[00:12:56] And from zero to seven, we're taking in [00:13:00] everything that our parents were doing. What was our surroundings, how we felt like it created who we are today was that original like programming and conditioning that we have, and we're still doing that as an adult. So unless we decide to change it. To do the work to say, no, I don't wanna operate from this space.

[00:13:22] I don't wanna have these beliefs. They're not even usually yours. They're your mom's beliefs, or your grandmother's beliefs, or your dad's beliefs and or things that were created from your experiences. So it's about unraveling those and healing yourself so that you don't. Pass this on to the next generation.

[00:13:40] You don't pass this on to your children and so on. This is really doing the actual healing work so that we can be aware and conscious enough to be able to change things for future generations. It's really important work.

[00:13:55] Autumn Carter: I've gone through that, but it was also. The reason why I [00:14:00] started with somatics is I was sick of the fight and the pushing and pulling within my own body with different things because there's, yes, being self-aware, but then there's, what am I gonna do about it?

[00:14:11] What should I do about it? Where do I even begin to start this journey? And I know so many people end up stuck there and they're like, okay, it sounds like too much work. So this is just who I am. I'm sure you've all yes. And then everybody else listening knows at least a couple people like that.

[00:14:29] Yes.

[00:14:29] Brooke Deanne: Yeah. Where you give up, because that just when you said that, like that pooling or that resistance or that uncomfortability guess what? Your brain is literally wired to keep you comfortable, like it's wired to keep you safe and comfortable. So if you're going into places that feel uncomfortable and you feel uneasy.

[00:14:48] Of course you're gonna wanna avoid it. 'cause your brain is gonna say, Ugh, that doesn't feel good. Let's not go there. So your automatic reaction is going to be, I'm gonna give up on this, is not okay, this is [00:15:00] not comfortable. It's the same thing if you decide to go on a diet, right? We go on a diet, how do people do this?

[00:15:04] Or they go on a diet. They're really good for a while, and then all of a sudden they're like, oh, two weeks later, they're like, ah, screw it. It was too hard. It was like, this is too much. Like you stopped going to the gym, you stopped doing what you were supposed to be doing to lose weight. Because your brain says this isn't comfortable, I.

[00:15:19] This is not what we normally do. We do this. And so your brain is always pulling you back into what's comfortable. And this is why a lot of us fail in the things that we're wanting to do. We don't push through the uncomfortability. We don't push through the une of being able to keep going. And so that's why I like to teach people like lemme teach you how your brain works.

[00:15:39] Because once you know how this thing between your eyes works, like you have so much power because your mind is how you create. How you want to live your life. And so if you can master this and discipline your mind, there's limitless possibilities for yourself.

[00:15:55] Autumn Carter: That's so true. You, went with diet and I was [00:16:00] thinking just New Year's goals.

[00:16:02] How many people make the same goals over and over again and then they lose that trust in themselves because they can't actually even take that first step

[00:16:11] Brooke Deanne: Yes. To the next thing. Yeah, because it's too scary. There's a part of our ego also that doesn't like change. And it also, if there's anything that's fearful, it's gonna try to avoid it.

[00:16:25] So it's also gonna be a part of you that's gonna have to build up your own mental fortitude or your own mental capacity to say, you know what? I'm gonna embrace this. I'm gonna be brave, and I'm gonna have this fear and I'm gonna go and do it anyway. And this is a lot of the reason why people stop therapy.

[00:16:40] Or whatever work they're doing. 'cause they're like, this is too much, I can't handle this. And then they just stop doing the work. And then a year later they realized, God, I'm still stuck in the same relationship, or I'm still stuck and I don't feel good. I'm so anxious, nothing's going right in my life.

[00:16:56] Because you stop doing the work and then you wonder why you're still in the same [00:17:00] place that you were last year. So I just always wanna give people the, reality check of. When things get hard you're finally getting somewhere, you're about ready to have a breakthrough, like you're about ready to unravel a new layer of you.

[00:17:16] So when it gets hard, keep going. Don't give up. This is the part where it starts to get really good.

[00:17:23] Autumn Carter: For me, it's remembering that relief is on the other side and then it changes. It's a different kind of hard, but at least I get that relief from that one thing.

[00:17:36] Brooke Deanne: No, we froze. Are you still there?

[00:17:40] Autumn Carter: Uhhuh there? Oh, there we are. It says my side.

[00:17:46] Brooke Deanne: Okay.

[00:17:48] Autumn Carter: Oh,

[00:17:52] there we go. You're by yourself. Okay. You're not frozen now. So it's my side. I. Okay. [00:18:00] Can you tell me, unless you had more that you wanna share on that, otherwise I would love to talk more about your own journey through this. Yeah. My own journey through trauma.

[00:18:13] Cult Survival and Family Dynamics

[00:18:13] Autumn Carter: So you are a cult survivor, which is a big thing.

[00:18:19] Brooke Deanne: Yes. Yeah. I was born and raised into a cult, so third generation. So we were talking about generational trauma earlier. That's some real stuff, yeah. Wow. So it really passed down. I was born into it. I didn't question it. First of all, when we're children, we don't question our parents.

[00:18:35] We're, supposed to trust them. We're not supposed to question them. And I just thought that what I was doing was the truth as they called it, that this was the religion I was meant to, follow. This is the God that I was meant to follow. And my parents were very into it. They were very strict within this religion.

[00:18:54] It was already strict enough, but my parents lived and breathed the rules [00:19:00] and my father was very narcissistic. So he was very controlling, manipulative. He would withdraw his love. And his affection if you didn't perform. Just the way that he wanted, he expected perfection really out of the whole entire family.

[00:19:16] He wanted to present our family as like this perfect spiritual example within our religion. And that's really what this religion was about. It was very judgmental. Just for anybody who wants to know, I was raised a Jehovah's Witness, so we couldn't celebrate birthdays, we couldn't celebrate holidays

[00:19:34] it was like this religion that I always felt a sense of, I was a little girl that I didn't belong in because I was like, I want to celebrate this stuff. I'd have to go and sit in the library when everybody else was having birthday cake or celebrating Christmas and making crafts, and I would feel so alone.

[00:19:51] I would feel so sad, and I was just like, Ugh, I really wanna do these things that everybody else is doing. But I was taught from a young age that everybody on the [00:20:00] outside of the society was bad, evil, worldly as we called them, and we were not meant to be a part of that world. We literally were told that you're not a part of this world, you're not to associate with anybody outside of the society.

[00:20:14] And it was very tight knit. We just stayed within our community. And we were told how to act, what to dress like, who to be, who we could associate with what we could read, what we could watch. And we were just basically controlled and manipulated and I didn't question it at all until I was much older.

[00:20:38] Autumn Carter: What made you finally start to have some of those breakthroughs?

[00:20:44] Brooke Deanne: It didn't happen honestly until 2017. I always question it. But then my then husband came to me and told me about the child sex abuse cases that were going on within the religion. And they were actually being, [00:21:00] widespread on you could go and watch the trials that were happening in Australia and the Royal Commission about these child sex abuse cases that were being covered up from the society, from the religion. And when I found this out and I started watching the videos and seeing like the people that were the leaders of the cult speak and also really not tell the whole truth on the stand I started to question everything.

[00:21:26] I started to. Say, wow, if these people are not being told that these people are running around within the churches. I had children, so I thought to myself, what kind of mom am I? If I let you know what would, what happens if my kids go over to someone's house and these predators? I don't know what their names are because these cases are being hidden and they're not being punished for what they're, doing.

[00:21:52] And so I think that really started to make me question about everything and then I started to do my own research and then Wow, because you're told you're [00:22:00] not supposed to do research.

[00:22:01] Autumn Carter: Hold on. So this, it sounds is before you even came to the realization that you were sexually abused, it sounds like?

[00:22:09] Yes.

[00:22:09] Brooke Deanne: Okay. Yes. So I will say this, I didn't realize that until much later in my healing journey when I started to feel really safe. That memory surfaced. I thought my sexual predator was someone different. And then the actual memory that had been so repressed came to the surface and I realized who the predator really was.

[00:22:29] And it was someone that was and should have been a very safe person, but it makes sense why my brain blocked it out. And this is something that I find very often. I, deal with a lot of child sexual abuse cases for women that they've repressed these memories so deep within their subconscious because it was easier for the brains to hide it than to actually process it.

[00:22:53] Yep. It was just too much. Same for me. And mine came outta

[00:22:55] Autumn Carter: nowhere. Just in a moment where I felt very safe and I was just like, [00:23:00] wow. And I held onto it for two days, just okay. And then finally talked to my husband about it. I was like, so this came up the other day and it was as we're falling asleep that I'm like, okay, it's dark in our bedroom.

[00:23:13] I can finally say it 'cause like he can't see me. But thankfully he, he is always been really good about holding space for stuff like that. And it was just that moment where I could. Acknowledge it outside of myself after doing it for two days. But it's interesting how it is further on the healing journey and in a moment where your body and brain, I feel safe in this moment.

[00:23:38] So here's a doozy of a memory and things that happened.

[00:23:44] Brooke Deanne: Yeah, it's wild, isn't it? Yeah. So you didn't even know that it had happened. This was just wow. Yeah. So it makes a lot of sense while you're doing a bunch of somatic work because a lot of those memories are just so somatic. Because you don't [00:24:00] really have a lot of memory if they, especially if they happen very young.

[00:24:06] They did. Yeah. It's just, it is so interesting. That also came up in my hypnotherapy sessions. I was able to access memories I would've never been able to access without it. And also in psychedelic assisted therapy, because I need to know if it was my truth. Because sometimes you can feel like you can almost doubt yourself.

[00:24:26] Like when those memories come up, you're like is that true? Or is my brain tricking me? Am I just making this up in my head? And it really can lead to a lot of self doubt, but that's why I always tell everybody if you feel like you need to know the truth, then. Have a hypnotherapy session and, you feel if your nervous system is ready and you feel safe enough, you'll be able to access those memories if they're actually really important for you to understand.

[00:24:51] Otherwise I say, you know what? Somatic work is perfect. You don't need to have a story. You don't need to actually know what really happened.

[00:24:59] Autumn Carter: Which is [00:25:00] exactly what my somatics coach told me and has been helpful because I got to that point where I just plateaued for months with my therapist, who I was doing EMDR with because I was afraid to open that Pandora's box.

[00:25:15] I was afraid that once things come out, they could not be shoved back in. Can I really process them all the way? Is this going to be too much for me? Can I not handle this? Especially because this came out years after I cut off that relationship with that person who also should have been safe. And then after I switched therapists, because she's going to take a month off and was like, I can't handle that.

[00:25:40] So I switched therapist. I don't think I can handle, a, month without therapy. Anyway, switched therapists and then we started working on other things and I realized because I started somatics around that same time, I actually don't need help with that anymore. It's amazing how that works.

[00:25:57] Brooke Deanne: Yeah. For sure.

[00:25:59] And

[00:25:59] Autumn Carter: anyway, [00:26:00] so this became about me. So tell, let's go back to your children. You have children. You, it sounds like you were raising them in the faith, and your ex-husband was also in the faith.

[00:26:14] Brooke Deanne: Yes, We both were. And so we both actually left in 2017 and within that same year, I really realized that I was in an abusive relationship and just awakened on so many levels of, to what was really going on.

[00:26:26] So I left the relationship and the cult at the same time. Wow. Which was an act of bravery, I would say, yes. I had to just jump head first and didn't know what was gonna happen, to be honest. But I did I really struggled I didn't realize how trauma bonded I was to, to my then husband. So I felt like I was coming off of a drug.

[00:26:49] So if anybody's ever been in a very toxic relationship and had that experience, it, it feels like the body is just chemically coming off of something because you've had [00:27:00] these highs and lows for so long within the relationship, so your body,

[00:27:03] Autumn Carter: did not understand when I cut out this family member for that.

[00:27:08] Yeah. I feel seen.

[00:27:11] Brooke Deanne: Yes. Yeah. It's literally feels like it's, an addiction, right? The body feels that addicted space to that partner. It's like your drug, oh my gosh, how do I get another hit of my drug? And so that was a really big process and, unraveling and I call detoxing from him.

[00:27:30] And then also detoxing from the fact that I was leaving this religion and I didn't know what my belief system was gonna be. So I really threw the belief system away and didn't know what to believe anymore. So I felt very angry at God to be honest. I felt betrayed. I was like, okay, if there is a God, he lied to me, like, why was I born and then into this religion?

[00:27:50] And then it turned out to be a lie, and then my relationship was a lie. So I just felt like my whole world shattered in that moment and I was just trying to pick up the pieces and I really was stuck in survival [00:28:00] mode. So I started

[00:28:02] Autumn Carter: Hold on. Did you, at what point I, it sounds like you cut off family members.

[00:28:07] Was that while you were leaving the religion?

[00:28:10] Brooke Deanne: I lost the community. So the friendships that I had within the community really faded away very fast because if you're not in the, cult and you're not doing the, rules and abiding by their laws, if you will you lose the entire community, no one will speak to you.

[00:28:28] So that really faded away. And then my parents over the couple of years, I mean they immediately treated me differently. But then it was like they only hung out with my kids and took care of my kids for a period of time, and then they completely cut off all contact. I've been estranged from my parents for the past four years.

[00:28:46] For me, it's been great. I don't know about you. To be honest, it was, I feel like it was a beautiful gift, even though it's painful, to have to grieve not having parents or not, or grieve, [00:29:00] like the whole process. It's still the most healthy thing that could have happened for me emotionally.

[00:29:06] I couldn't have those versions of my parents and my life. And I will be happy never seeing my father again. So I am actually it's, I'm in a good space.

[00:29:18] Autumn Carter: It's allowed me the space for healing. Yes. And I've had several conversations with our kids and we'll continue to that. Not everybody who looks safe on the outside is actually safe and not everybody.

[00:29:33] So when we look at. Disabilities. It's easy to tell the people who are physically disabled, but the ones with mental illness, it's harder. So we've had a lot of those conversations and we'll continue, like I

[00:29:46] Brooke Deanne: said. Yeah, that's super smart to say it like that, I think because it is true. You don't realize how mentally unstable people are until.

[00:29:56] You start to do this inner work and then you see how much damage [00:30:00] these people around you have caused. As you start to unravel this trauma and you're just like, wow.

[00:30:06] Releasing Inherited Anger

[00:30:06] Brooke Deanne: Or how

[00:30:06] Autumn Carter: many stories you tell yourself that are theirs. It's their baggage, their luggage. Give it back. Yes. The anger that I held within my body, it wasn't mine, it was my dad's.

[00:30:18] Now I don't even really get to the point of anger. I would have the raging anger like inside out, like maybe that's why he's my favorite character. How he just has that flame come out of nowhere. I think it's comical now, but having that inside my body living that was so hard and now I get frustrated and I get like everything but anger like the cousins and everything else when I even need to.

[00:30:46] Feel that emotion and release it. It's very interesting just how many things we take on that aren't actually ours. And the work allows us to realize that

[00:30:58] Brooke Deanne: completely. I would agree that I have, [00:31:00] I think anger was a lot to do with my father's as well. My father had so much anger and I felt all of that all the time.

[00:31:08] I was always in the, line of fire for his WR and. I think that realizing the anger that I have with inside me is a lot to do with the anger that he had.

[00:31:20] Generational Trauma and Expectations

[00:31:20] Brooke Deanne: We're talking about that generational trauma. We do take on these things and we're doing the work for them, if you will.

[00:31:29] Autumn Carter: All of the men, since the May flower, like my family goes back that far on my dad's side, has been in the military. Up until my dad, he tried to join the police academy instead. But just thinking about those generational expectations on the men and the fact that my dad had a daughter and no other children, so couldn't carry on the family name like all of the male, but makes sense that [00:32:00] so much of him was broken just from those things, let alone everything else that he's gone through.

[00:32:06] His own mental health stuff because I have my associate's degree in medical billing and coding, so learning about different mental health things and oh, he would receive that diagnosis and that one, and. I'm diagnosing him when I don't even have the qualifications. And then my undergrad is in Applied health and having to go through some of those same classes and have that presented to me and presented to me with my mom and other people in my family, it's, it was very eye-opening.

[00:32:38] And I think that's why I've always been drawn towards medicine is because of that and also because my father grew up in a cult as well, which is Christian science. Okay. And the religion I am now, some people call a cult, so you never know. Mine's a lot more open than any of these.

[00:32:56] Breaking Chains and Finding Freedom

[00:32:56] Autumn Carter: But he was the one who [00:33:00] started to break those chains by questioning things within his religion.

[00:33:03] So it's also a chance to thank him for at least opening that gate. So to speak.

[00:33:10] Brooke Deanne: Yeah, for sure. Because as long as someone does that then the next generation's not stuck. And I'm really grateful that I got to do that for my kids. We've been out now for almost eight years and.

[00:33:25] They now the opportunity to do everything that I didn't get to do at that age. Celebrating birthdays, celebrating holidays, really being able to choose who they want to love or choose who they want to hang out with. They just have so much more freedom and the ability to. Learn who they are authentically without being suppressed.

[00:33:45] And I've had that same gift, in the past eight years. I've done so much growth, so much evolution within myself, not only mentally, but just being able to be authentic with who I want to be or how I want to show up in this world, and letting go of [00:34:00] the judgment or the masks that I had to wear for so long because I was told who I had to be.

[00:34:07] Autumn Carter: So let's go to your ex-husband for a second. How has his journey been? It sounds like you guys have had totally different journeys.

[00:34:17] Brooke Deanne: We did have very different journeys.

[00:34:20] A Tragic Loss and Spiritual Awakening

[00:34:20] Brooke Deanne: He's actually no longer with us. Unfortunately. We lost him in 2020 to an overdose,

[00:34:26] wow. It was very tragic. While I intuitively had a premonition that he was going down the path of. No return. I was trying to help him even though we were divorced. Obviously I wanted him to be a father to the kids. I wanted to support him however I could so that he could show up for our boys, and he just mentally could not find any of his stability.

[00:34:52] After we left the cult, he went on this other side of him where he wanted to party and do all these other things because [00:35:00] we weren't allowed to do those things. We married really young. We got married at 18 and we were married for 17 years. So we didn't have all of these other experiences that most young adults get to have when they still have the safety net.

[00:35:15] Yeah, exactly. So we didn't really have it. So it was like he was just living his best life, which was more power to him. But I think it was more like he was masking this, also very deep sadness within himself as well. And while I had those same things, I guess I just dealt with it differently than he did.

[00:35:33] And unfortunately that's what came to the outcome that he had. But his death really ignited something within me to have. My own spiritual awakening because I threw away the belief system. I threw away any of what I had believed prior to what I had been told. And so at that time when he died, I was just like lost.

[00:35:54] I was like grieving. Even though our relationship had been very toxic, I still [00:36:00] on some shape or form had loved this man that I knew. That was inside. And the other stuff that he showed and displayed on the outside I knew wasn't him. It was just his trauma. But at the same time, I saw my children grieving.

[00:36:16] And that as a mom is like the most it sounds like you have a child. Watching, I have four. So you have four kids. Like watching your children grieve is like a, it is like something like as a mama bear and you can't go and fix it, or you can't put a bandaid on it, or you can't help them.

[00:36:35] And it feels so helpless. Like I felt so helpless for my children. And so that was a whole experience in itself. And so that really awakened me to be like, okay, where is, where did he go? What does happen to us when we die? And it felt like the more that I asked these questions, the universe just had mentors and teachers and people show up in my life to be like.

[00:36:56] Here's your answers. And it started to just resonate with me. [00:37:00] And long story short, I talk about this in my latest memoir that I just released, shattered, broken, and Beautiful. But I talk about the fact that. He really came through, and I don't know what everybody's belief systems are on here, but he really came through from the other side and showed me signs and had people come to me and, tell me that he had to talk to me and all of these things.

[00:37:21] And psychic mediums were showing up in my world and I didn't really even, I was afraid of psychic mediums because of my old belief system. And so it was a pretty wild journey, but it helped me heal.

[00:37:34] Autumn Carter: What about your children?

[00:37:37] Children's Healing Journey

[00:37:37] Brooke Deanne: They have done so much healing work on themselves.

[00:37:41] And they're like little warriors. I'm so proud of them and how much growth they've had. But they're still evolving, right? It's really hard for them to grow up without a father. I have a partner now that plays out as a father figure, but they've lost their father.

[00:37:56] That's irreplaceable and that's something [00:38:00] they're often gonna have to live with for their whole entire life. And so I think that grief is just love with no place to go. And so you just have these ebbs and flows of, the process. Anger grieving, sadness, acceptance.

[00:38:15] Sometimes you accept it and sometimes you don't. And I think it's just part of our life experience here. That makes sense to me. Yes, for sure.

[00:38:31] Autumn Carter: So here's my question. If you were to start this all over again. Where would you start? What would be your first step?

[00:38:43] Brooke Deanne: That's an interesting question. So I live my life from the perspective of that. I wouldn't change anything that I did. I wouldn't change the route that I went. I wouldn't, I feel like the route that I went was the exact way that [00:39:00] my path was supposed to go in order to get to where I'm today. What do you wish

[00:39:06] Autumn Carter: you had sooner then?

[00:39:07] How's that a different way of doing it for other people? Because that's really what the question was asking. I do like

[00:39:12] Brooke Deanne: that. Yeah. I think what I would've liked to access sooner is to learn how my brain operated. B

[00:39:19] Navigating Triggers and Finding Safety

[00:39:19] Brooke Deanne: ecause having been diagnosed with Complex PTSD and living those triggers on almost a daily basis because my body was just.

[00:39:28] Spiraling out of control and my mind was just so unhealthy from all my experiences if I would've known those things. In the beginning, I think I could have handled my complex P-T-S-D-A little bit more with more ease. Granted, it's still there and I feel like it's gonna be there my whole entire life.

[00:39:45] It's just gonna be different, how I can approach it, or how I spiral, or I don't spiral, or how I can come back into my rational, logical thought and be like, oh, wait a second. This is just my trauma showing up. I don't have to go down this spiral, or I don't have to overthink it. Everything is [00:40:00] okay.

[00:40:00] So I think that is probably key. Learn how your brain operates so that you can become the master of it. So you can learn how to when you're acting from a wound or from a traumatic imprint from the past, or when you actually know what's happening in your reality right now because. Your brain is always either in the past or in the future.

[00:40:24] And so it's up to you to realize how do I come back to this present moment and actually sit with what is going on right now for me, what I'm feeling right now in this moment? And so that way you can start to see, okay, is this really something that happened in the past and I'm just feeling all of this stuff from the past?

[00:40:41] Or is this what's really happening right now? Because if. You live in that way it becomes much more peaceful. I don't know how else to explain that. It's just more a lot of inner calm because you can be like, okay, something's coming up for me right now and I can slow down. I can [00:41:00] sit with this and I don't have to let it take me fully out.

[00:41:04] Autumn Carter: I had to reach over and, okay, is this the note that I took yesterday? So I had some spare time. So I logged into my class for my phone and was looking around in my car, like where is there paper? I have a pen. Where is there paper? So I have my notes in two different places, but from that trauma course that I'm taking, the note that I took it down is safety.

[00:41:30] If you have a safety and a resource, you're able to start to heal yourself because that trauma trigger is because you did not fully follow the healing journey. So how do I explain this differently?

[00:41:49] It's feeling like you are fully at peace and you can fully let go of that. Just when you look back at that memory. You don't feel. [00:42:00] Tons of emotions coming up. You don't have other things that trigger kind of that train car effect where this, did this that did this. So when you, like I, how I was able to have it hit me without panic and just have that ring of truth that I was sexually abused and be okay.

[00:42:25] Yes. Now what feelings am I going to attach to that? That was because I was in a safe space that I could then start processing to start to release that trigger. Yeah. What are your thoughts towards that?

[00:42:36] Brooke Deanne: No, I think that's very powerful. You said it is about being able to resource from within that safety.

[00:42:45] People may not understand this because I know for myself, being so severely traumatized and having all of this anxiety and stuff, we don't really know what safety is until we actually are able to finally access it. It can be scary because it's so foreign too.[00:43:00] 

[00:43:00] Exactly. So you're like, wait, what is this I just want everybody to know that if you don't know what safety feels like, then you probably don't have that within you yet. Because it's an actual imprint, it's an energy, it's a feeling, it literally, you feel that within you. So you'll be able to access that at any time.

[00:43:19] So if you're triggered in the moment, you're gonna be able to access that safety within so that you're not spiraling out of control. So you can navigate the, rapids, if you will. If you think about that trigger as like you're on this whitewater rapid and you're like right in this ride, and you're like, oh my God, get me outta here.

[00:43:38] But you can still find the safety even though the waters are rough. So if you haven't been able to access that, first and foremost, I would say find the way, that path to that. So whether that is through somatics, whether that's through hypnotherapy, whether that's reaching out for psychedelic assisted therapy know that.

[00:43:58] There is a path and you will be [00:44:00] able to get there.

[00:44:02] Autumn Carter: Absolutely. And it just brought me back to my first several, actually, my first month of therapy.

[00:44:08] The Slow Journey of Healing

[00:44:08] Autumn Carter: It felt like it was taking forever and so slow. I'm just, I want the relief. Give it to me now. It's not like taking an aspirin and then you're fine.

[00:44:17] That's not even my like, drug of choice. It's ibuprofen. But anyway. We spent the first month. We would, we had an hour every week just going through what does safety feel like? What does it look like? Let's build that container within yourself. And then when you're having these emotions, let's picture where you're placing those thoughts, those feelings, those things that you're not ready to work on yet.

[00:44:49] Place it when you visualize all of that, place it in a place where you can still access it in our therapy sessions. And it ended up being very valuable, but it felt so slow. [00:45:00] Yes. But I really needed to build that out and experience that in between the sessions and that came into mind.

[00:45:09] Brooke Deanne: The journey can feel slow. I know. I felt like that at times too, and I was always trying to hurry it along. I was always trying to rush it along and I always like to tell people, you know what? You can't rush your journey. Like your nervous system is only gonna allow you to go as fast as it's gonna let you go.

[00:45:25] As fast as this nervous system is ready for you to experience, so I like to call the first years of my healing surface level where I could only touch parts of my pain because my nervous system wasn't ready. It wasn't sustainable for me to continue to go down into that grief and dig through all of these deep memories and feel all of this pain.

[00:45:50] I just wasn't prepared for it. And so that first initial work that you do that feels slow and feels like, oh, do I have to keep going? I wanna give up. [00:46:00] That's all necessary for you to get to the root, to be able to dig into the depths. It's all part of the process, so be patient with yourself I would say just be really compassionate with you and know that you know what, if it's slow at times that it's okay.

[00:46:18] You can't go any faster.

[00:46:19] Autumn Carter: The thing is though, I wanted to do exactly the visual that you're doing. I wanted to dig it all out and then walk away from it. I can be back there. I'm not going anywhere near that Again, it's no longer gonna touch me. I just wanted to rip it all out and walk away, but I think.

[00:46:34] That's the thing is you were talking about how you didn't use these words, but I'm sure you felt empty when you walked away from all this stuff because things were removed. And it's now what you feel the holes in your life from removing these things. And you were in a religion that was all encompassing.

[00:46:56] Brooke Deanne: I was, yes, it was all encompassing. It was like I lost [00:47:00] a complete identity, lost both of my identities, my identity and their relationship, my identity and their religion, and I just didn't even know what identity I was going to have. So it filled a lot of void and I distracted myself on, so many levels because that was the only thing I could do.

[00:47:16] And thankfully I kept myself busy, so busy that I didn't have to feel any pain. My, that was my cure all. Which it sounds like your ex did that in a different way.

[00:47:30] Yeah, because ultimately we, it keeps us safe, right? If we're, busy, then we don't have to feel, and so we're doing that behavior unconsciously, like, how can I keep filling my gaps?

[00:47:43] So I don't have to feel, or I don't have to sit with myself, or I don't actually have to think. And that's what I was doing, and I just had to realize that I. There's no shame in it. It was the only way that I knew how, at the time, how to cope with what I was dealing with. And I think [00:48:00] this

[00:48:00] Autumn Carter: is extremely important for somebody who's witnessing and trying to help somebody through trauma, through a breakup, through whatever a, big thing.

[00:48:14] And a breakup can be traumatic. So there are traumas with the capital T and there are traumas with the lowercase T and it is absolutely not our place to label it for somebody else. We can only do that for ourselves. And depending on our personality, depending on what we've already experienced, some things that can be a capital T for some people or a lowercase T for others, and you never know.

[00:48:41] So there's that. The takeaway for this is giving somebody the space to process and being there, holding that safe space for them and realizing that safe space can feel scary because they're used to something that's unsafe. So if you wanna think of [00:49:00] domestic violence here, and that whole thought of why don't they just leave?

[00:49:04] Because this is known the domestic violence, but the unknown is so scary because you can't. Picture, you can't place anything on it because it literally is unknown.

[00:49:17] Brooke Deanne: Yes, you got that spot on. So true. It's why women that are in domestic violence relationships will literally go back up to seven times before they actually have the courage to leave

[00:49:29] because the unknown is so much more scary or the fear that the partner puts into you because they tell you, you're not gonna make it without me, or I'm gonna take the kids, or whatever they're using. A lot of the times it's financial. And I see this in a lot of my clients these things are happening for these women because they just, they can't get over the unknown.

[00:49:53] Autumn Carter: It's scary. And it can be scary to have all of these holes, these openings in your life [00:50:00] to start to fill them again.

[00:50:02] Empowerment Through Choice

[00:50:02] Autumn Carter: Yes. And it can become so empowering to realize, wait a second, I get to choose. I get to choose what's going in this time, not somebody else. This is mine.

[00:50:12] This is

[00:50:12] my own container.

[00:50:13] That is me, that is my future. And also realizing that you have the opportunity all along the way to change things out. To evolve. Yes. Yes indeed. I love that how you said that you get to choose and that part can be very scary. I was not allowed many choices growing up, so when I first moved out, I would have to ask other people to make choices for me because I'd be overwhelmed so easily by them.

[00:50:43] And sometimes I still get that way. And it is nice at this point in life to realize. I have a spouse and I have four children. So five other personalities that would like a say in different things like where we're going on vacation is the [00:51:00] latest one. And realizing, hold on a second, let's actually get everybody's input so everybody feels invested.

[00:51:08] So I, I really love going back that you would not change a thing and if you did try to change something. Now looking back, I. It wouldn't be the same because you definitely needed that, all of that space to reprocess and to get used to. Yeah. What do I want my new norm to be? For sure. We covered so many things.

[00:51:33] Is there anything that you feel like we have not covered or anything you want to speak to?

[00:51:38] Brooke Deanne: No, I think we covered over some really awesome stuff. I think we left some great knowledge and some insight that people can take and use into their own lives, and I really feel like that's what this is all about, is these conversations are about, I.

[00:51:52] Feel into it. All of our stories are, so intertwined and we're all connected on this deep level. We just don't really [00:52:00] realize it. And so it's why we can listen to somebody and be like, oh my gosh, I'm resonating with what she's saying. And then that will awaken you to, okay, this needs to heal within myself.

[00:52:09] And that's what I always like people to do is just pay attention to those things and then don't ignore them or forget about them. Write them down and then come back to them. What did this bring up in me so that I can reflect, and this is really the personal development work that's gonna help you grow and evolve into the version of you that you wanna be in this lifetime.

[00:52:29] Autumn Carter: What do you recommend to somebody who feels a trigger coming on?

[00:52:34] Brooke Deanne: Breathe, stop and breathe. Your breath is like the best thing to be able to access the safety within to tell your nervous system. Wow. Right here, I'm right here. I'm right now.

[00:52:50] I am okay. I am, I'm safe right now. Can take care of myself. I'm not that little girl anymore. I can stand up for myself. Everything's gonna be [00:53:00] okay. And that breath will help you. Take a moment to stop. Challenge the trigger and choose what path you want to go from there. So I would like to say stop challenge and choose, right?

[00:53:13] Stop. Take that breath, take that moment, and then you can start to see, okay, where am I going? Am I gonna allow. My brain to take me down the path has gone down millions of times, or I'm gonna go down a different path today am I going to see what's really coming up for me and am I going to react differently or respond differently?

[00:53:33] And this gives you more choice. And this is how you're actually re-patterning and retraining your brain to operate from a different space and to react differently in every situation.

[00:53:43] Autumn Carter: Love it. There are so many different things, tools that you could do, but that's. Really key one, and what I like to do is I focus more on my breathing out than my breathing in.

[00:53:53] Yeah, perfect. So I'm not hyperventilating, because sometimes when I get to that point, I'm not [00:54:00] fully breathing out, I'm just focusing on breathing in. So if I'm slowing down and breathing out, then I can allow my other senses to come back online and everything else to happen. Do you happen to have a copy of your book nearby where you can show us what it looks like for those that are watching through video?

[00:54:18] Oh, and there's a butterfly. I love butterflies. Yes.

[00:54:21] Brooke Deanne: Me too. Butterflies were a big part of my story.

[00:54:24] Autumn Carter: And how thick is this book? Show us the side of it. Yeah, not bad.

[00:54:28] It's book club worthy. You could totally read that in book club.

[00:54:31] Brooke Deanne: Oh, thank you. I actually am, I have created a book club for this month for my Warrior Goddess members and anybody that's interested in we are gonna be reading my book. And then in the months to come, we're gonna be reading a bunch of books about complex PTSD and healing and growth and all of those things, and having really beautiful conversations.

[00:54:52] And connecting with one another.

[00:54:54] Autumn Carter: This won't come out soon enough. Send me the links though. And I will still put that in my newsletter for now because I [00:55:00] know people who need it names are coming to mind right now. So I will put that part out in my newsletter and I can still link it, but it won't come out for several more months.

[00:55:10] Okay.

[00:55:11] Brooke Deanne: I love that. Thank you though for, doing that. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's about healing, right? Yes.

[00:55:16] Autumn Carter: We'll see. Maybe my internet will work for a second.

[00:55:19] Final Thoughts and Resources

[00:55:19] Autumn Carter: Thank you for being on. This was. Amazing. And thank you for being willing to be in the spotlight while I was off screen for the internet.

[00:55:27] Thank you. I feel like looking the outline that we covered everything. If you feel like there's anything else, I can throw it in the newsletter when this does go live. And if any of your links change throughout, we'll have them, for everybody listening. All of the things that we've brought up, we will make sure to have linked especially the link to her book

[00:55:51] this is important stuff, so if you are in a book club, make sure that this is a book that ends up in your book club. Make sure to share this episode [00:56:00] as well as her resources that are going to be linked with others. We need to share this love and this light. This journey is worth it. It is hard. But it is so worth it and I love, different tools that you mentioned that I have not tried, like hypnosis, that I am excited to start to explore more because it is about gaining more tools in your tool belt or tool chest, however you wanna think about it and helping yourself.

[00:56:30] As you're helping yourself, you can better understand how to help other people because it creates that ripple effect. When you heal yourself, you can better show up for other people and they can better show up for other people. And it's those rings in the water as you throw in that rock.

[00:56:44] So thank you for being here. Thank you for allowing us to have this conversation, Brooke, and this was just amazing. Thank you for your time. Thank you so much for having me on your show. I appreciate [00:57:00] it.

[00:57:01] Thanks for tuning into this week's episode. I am your host, autumn Carter, a certified life coach dedicated to empowering individuals to rediscover their identity, find balance, miss chaos, strengthen relationships, and pursue their dreams. My goal is to help people thrive in every aspect of their lives. I hope today's discussion inspired you and offered valuable insights.

[00:57:24] Stay engaged with our wellness community by signing up for my newsletter at wellness and every season.com/free resources. When you join, you'll have the option to receive a five day guide called Awaken and Unwind, five Days to Mastering Your Mornings and Evenings, along with Free Guides, special offers on my programs, practical tips, personal stories.

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[00:58:06] So please spread the word about our podcast and about our newsletter. Thank you for being a part of our podcast community. I look forward to continuing our conversation, sharing stories and exploring wellness in all of this aspects. Take care until our next episode. You can also work with me one-on-one or on demand through one of my programs by visiting wellness in every season.com/programs.

[00:58:33] One last thing to cover the show legally, I'm a certified life coach giving general advice, so think of this, this more as a self-help book. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. I am not a licensed therapist, so this podcast shouldn't be taken as a replacement for professional guidance from a doctor or therapist.

[00:58:54] If you want personal one-on-one coaching from a certified life and parenting coach, go to my website, [00:59:00] wellness and every season.com. That's where you can get personalized coaching from me for you. See you in next week's episode.