Unraveling Trauma: Healing the Mind-Body Connection with Dr. Momoko Uno

Imagine carrying the weight of unprocessed trauma, not just in your mind, but etched into the very fibers of your being. Join me, Nat Nat, on a transformative journey with Dr. Momoko Uno, a leading expert in integrative medicine, as we unravel the profound connection between trauma and the body. Our conversation shines a light on how deeply embedded trauma can disrupt the nervous system, often manifesting as chronic illness. Discover the vital role of stress and cortisol and learn how a simple act of mindful breathing can anchor you to the present, fostering a path to healing and self-care.

Throughout this episode, Dr. Uno and I explore the delicate dance between emotions, trauma, and healing. I share my personal voyage from studying integrative medicine and acupuncture to the discovery of how essential authentic emotional expression is for true recovery. Together, we confront the stigma around emotions like anger, often misunderstood but essential for self-protection and healing. Understand how repressing these emotions can lead to physical ailments, and uncover ways to navigate the body's complex reactions such as fight, flight, fawn, or freeze, which can lead to chronic inflammation and illness.

We also delve into the shadows cast by medical trauma, especially in childhood, and the challenges within the healthcare system that often invalidate those with chronic pain. By acknowledging the shared trauma experienced by both patients and medical professionals, we advocate for a more empathetic and compassionate approach to healthcare. As we close, we encourage spreading awareness and kindness in mental health, offering tools and insights to empower those on their healing journey. Connect with us to continue this conversation and explore resources that support comprehensive healing.

Connect with Dr Momoko Uno here:
http://omniwellnessnyc.com/

Chapters

• 0:00 Breaking Mental Health Stigmas Through Trauma
• 6:32 Navigating Trauma and Emotional Healing
• 17:35 Healing Complex Trauma and Mindfulness
• 23:20 Navigating Medical Trauma and Validation
• 34:44 Supporting Trauma Survivors Through Validation
• 42:35 Spreading Mental Health Awareness and Kindness

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast, where we break mental health stigmas through conversations. I'm your host, nat Nat, and we dive into topics about trauma and how it impacts the nervous system. Yet we don't just leave you there. We share insights and tools of self-care, meditation and growth that help you be curious about your own biology. Your presence matters. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. Help our community grow. Let's get into this. Oh, and please remember to be kind to yourself.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. I'm your host, Nat Nat, and tonight I have a wonderful guest, Momoko Uno. Did I say it properly, Thank you. Could you let the listeners know a little bit about yourself and what you provide, and you know why we're having this conversation tonight.

Speaker 3: 0:58

So I'm a doctor of integrative medicine and thank you for having me on your show and I have a practice and multi-disciplinary practice in new york city called omni wellness and we offer all sorts of different types of services at our office. Um, and I specifically treat well, I shouldn't say specifically, but one of the things that I treat is complex trauma and its effect on chronic illness. I also have a degree in psychology too, which helps with all of that stuff.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Exactly the mind body and I'm looking forward to this because I had lesions in my brainstem and my cerebellum 11 years ago. So, yeah, and I was hospitalized for almost 40 days and I still don't have a diagnosis, so you can just imagine what kind of test I had to go through to try to find out. Yeah, um, so I think we're going to have a pretty good deep dive of um. You know the inner work that people don't realize trauma can do, and and what our thoughts and chemicals and the cortisol, really understanding what stress is. So I look forward to this conversation and playing in it. Before we do a deep dive, are you willing to join me in a mindful moment?

Speaker 3: 2:19

Of course.

Speaker 2: 2:20

Okay For the listeners, as you always hear my spiel when I ask Momoko and myself to close our eyes. Please don't Safety first. Usually you're driving or needing your visual while you're listening to this podcast, yet the other prompts you're able to follow. So, momoko, I'm going to ask you to get comfortable in your seating and, if it's safe to do so, I'm going to ask you to gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose and you're going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out through your nose. You're not going to try and control your breath. You're just going to be aware of its rhythm, allowing it to guide you into your body. There may be some sensations or feelings coming up. That's okay, let them come up. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go.

Speaker 2: 3:23

Surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be, be with your breath, drop deeper into your body. Now there may be some thoughts or to-do lists that have popped up in your mind, and that's okay. Gently bring. Have popped up in your mind, and that's okay. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, Creating space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping deeper into the body, allowing yourself to just be with the breath. Again, more thoughts may have popped up. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, beginning again, creating even more space between the awareness and the thoughts and dropping even deeper into the body, allowing yourself to just be with the breath. Continue staying with the breath now, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes, while still staying with your breath to the body, allowing yourself to just be with the breath. Continue staying with the breath now, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes while still staying with your breath. How's your heart doing?

Speaker 3: 5:23

great thank you.

Speaker 2: 5:26

So you mentioned that you're in integrative medicine and what you deal with is the complex trauma. Trauma is a big buzzword for a lot of people. Could you explain the definition of trauma that you work with and how you define trauma for your clients?

Speaker 3: 5:42

so trauma to me at is that when something that's significant, that happens in your life that you can't really process fully in the moment and it gets trapped emotionally, psychologically and also in the body, and when that energy gets trapped and has to get stored to get processed later or for some time, you know, for some people get stored indefinitely, right so?

Speaker 2: 6:10

and then that storage of this energy tends to create blockages and then cause problems what got you into this, what made you or what curiosity brought you into this is the field of work that I want to play in.

Speaker 3: 6:29

I think I've just fell into it. It wasn't something that I chose for myself. So I studied integrated medicine first. So I got a degree in Chinese and Western medicine first, and then I it was mostly in Chinese herbal medicine and pharmaceuticals, and then I studied acupuncture after that. So there's, you know, that's a lot of energy stuff and then I studied psychology after that and somewhere during my practice I started to see the links between trauma and illness, and so it's just, it wasn't really something that I. I thought when I was going to medical school that this is, I want to study complex trauma and its effects on the body. I just one day it's almost like I woke up and thought, huh, this is what I'm doing now.

Speaker 2: 7:21

Yeah, the link to it, and can you describe to the listeners what the nervous system is, how you define it?

Speaker 3: 7:29

the nervous system is very, very complicated because there's external stimuli, right the what, what we feel from the outside world, and then what's also going on internally too, and that can be a complete mismatch. It's two different systems that are going on, and to be able to navigate through the internal and external stimuli is actually really tricky.

Speaker 2: 7:58

I think it is.

Speaker 2: 8:00

It is as I mentioned.

Speaker 2: 8:03

I had the lesions in my brainstem and in my cerebellum, so I got a front row seat to the nervous system within myself and thankfully, you know, I was released without a diagnosis, so that means without a plan, and I learned transcendental meditation a year later after that and that allowed me to go more deeper into the body and allow those somatic releases, because I had a lot of childhood trauma at a young age.

Speaker 2: 8:31

So, understanding trauma, the narration, I othered myself out of human beings, I pulled myself out of worth and so always going on the outside to find my validation, find my worth, find my sense of belonging, so that fond state of the nervous system. So you know that's the work that I do is holding space so people can feel, because feeling can feel very threatening, especially those authentic emotions and, as you said, that event you stopped the emotion from feeling because you had to basically survive in whatever environment. So you know that nervous system protected that vulnerability with defense mechanisms. How do you engage with your clients? Do you use a modality of feeling so that they can find and create safety in their body?

Speaker 3: 9:23

Absolutely find and create safety in their body, Absolutely. So you know that just getting to the feeling part for some patients can take a really long time because ultimately you have to feel a little bit safe with me, Right? And that can take a long time, you know, and it can be for some people. They come in and they're already open and ready because they've done a little bit of work. But there are other people who haven't and we're looking at months, sometimes years, for them to feel connected and safe enough with me so that they can actually open up and start exploring these feelings. But it's fundamental, it is crucial to be able to feel your feelings.

Speaker 2: 10:04

Yeah, especially the authentic ones, Because secondary emotions that we, and then we think our feelings, we don't actually feel it in our body. So there's like these layers that people have to go through and they think, okay, well, I'm feeling and it's like, oh, you're thinking your feelings, yet to actually embody it and feel it in your body, that's another layer of safety and being able to co-regulate and self-regulate that nervous system when it's very overwhelming, when these new emotions are felt, because it's a big energy that comes up with messages and experiences that have been stored down in the body.

Speaker 3: 10:49

Absolutely, and if you've been feeling afraid for a really long time, you're not going to be able to feel some of the other stuff, the other feelings, at all, or you know, what ends up happening is that a lot of people just have one main emotion that they feel most of the time, which covers the other ones, and so that's the trick. You know, it could be just anxiety or just anger, but we all have our preferred emotions, and to be able to recognize that that's usually a mask for something else that's deeper, that takes time.

Speaker 2: 11:19

Yeah, as I say, in my practice it's befriend anger. And some are like you're not supposed to be angry. Be angry and it's like no, anger is a protective emotion and most times it's protecting the sadness, the fear, the vulnerability. So if you're not friending the anger, you're splintering yourself some more, not allowing that vulnerability to come up so that there's a full connection and you can connect into the self.

Speaker 3: 11:46

Yeah, I think anger is really our best friend. It protects us, and I think it's so important to get close to our anger because there's this unfortunate belief in our culture that anger means that you're a bad person or you're not spiritually involved. Yeah, and it's true. It's just a reaction.

Speaker 2: 12:12

Yeah, I really. That's why I've been very vocal about the anger part, because in spirituality and religious texts, the anger part becomes that you're belittled and you're not doing it right and you shouldn't be feeling this emotion and it's like you're human. It's a very protective emotion. If you didn't have anger, you would be harmed a lot of times. Absolutely yes, and you're not getting the proper information of you know, really understanding. Yet I understand the aspect of anger, hijacking the behavior and using, you know, violence to protect itself. Yes, that part of the behavior, yes, it's to correct, to better understand, yet the emotion anger itself, to tell people that they shouldn't be feeling it and it's a waste of energy and all this. It's like you're doing so much damage for people to better understand and relate to themselves.

Speaker 3: 13:05

Yeah, you have to get really in touch with your anger and feel it, Because if it gets repressed it causes a lot of medical problems.

Speaker 2: 13:14

Yeah, a lot of disease and illnesses that people don't realize. And you know I cringe when I hear people say that they have anger issues and I'm like it's not an issue. You gotta ask yourself what's the anger protecting? And most times it's that people don't know how to feel their vulnerability, their sensitivity, because either you know they were harmed in that state or it was weaponized against them or ridiculed. So I'm not going to feel that no, absolutely.

Speaker 3: 13:42

It is true that some people might have a challenging time managing the anger. You know that's totally a different thing. But you know, I think that we should all have anger issues. There's a lot to be angry about.

Speaker 2: 13:53

Yeah, yeah. Now talking about anger and people feeling the anger. We are November 7th today, which is the Thursday, and on the 5th was the elections. So yesterday we got the news worldwide who the new president was, and I just want to hold space for asking you how you're taking care of yourself in this space, how, if you have any anxiety, if you're feeling any anger or displacement, how you're processing the new reality and this new power dynamic that's going to be in place in the US.

Speaker 3: 14:36

Well, I think, in the short term I'm hoping that it's going to be a little bit quiet so that I can just process the shock of the information, and my sense is probably sometime next year is when we'll really be seeing what's going on. So I'm just going to try to stay calm until the next wave of, you know, challenging news comes to the surface. But it was, I'm feeling, I think you know when, when, at least when I feel shock, a state of shock, then I go a little bit numb. You know, I get overwhelmed and I shut down and I'm not feeling very much. So right now I'm a little bit in that.

Speaker 3: 15:17

In that state it was like, oh my God, then overwhelm, angry, anxious, fearful, shut down, and then I went numb and one of my friends emailed me and she said how are you doing? And I said I think I'm just going to live in a fantasy world for four years and then I'll come out of that coping mechanism. Is that reality? No, I was joking, but yeah, it's intense. You know, because I work with, uh, the gay community and you know people who are transgender, and you know it's new york city and, um, you know people from all sorts of all over the world and and people that also, um, are probably not even, uh, legal in the country too. That's a huge concern, you know, if they have children.

Speaker 2: 16:11

Yeah, lots of feelings around that, yeah how is how have you stepped outside since yesterday?

Speaker 3: 16:21

since yesterday. Uh, yes, I was in the. Do you mean in the city?

Speaker 2: 16:25

yeah yes, just outside of your home because some people that I've spoken to they're like no, I just had to stay in my cocoon and just really protect them because they can work from home. So they didn't have to go and engage in the public. Because nervous systems communicate with each other and the most easiest one is anxiety is very contagious. So how does the emotional state feel in the city and people around? I think?

Speaker 3: 16:54

most people came in with different feelings. Some were I would say, most people were feeling sad. That was the first feeling Everybody came in and was like I'm just really sad that what happened. And then there were some people who were feeling really anxious and vulnerable, especially if they weren't white, white you know, or if they weren't straight or something. They just felt really vulnerable. And so there was lots of different feelings. Everybody came in with something to say about the election.

Speaker 2: 17:28

Yeah, yeah, how are you going to hold space to help process? Because complex trauma in itself it means that you can get reactivated very quickly with that fight or flight fawn or free state. And you know the mantra that I have to use to remind myself when I feel the dysregulation and the overwhelm is what happened before isn't happening now. To try to get myself in the body and and not the nervous system's feeling of past things absolutely so.

Speaker 3: 18:07

One of the tricks that I often do for myself, and then also for my patients too, is just to state what day is it today. So today is November 7, 2024, and whatever the trauma that happened in the past is in the past.

Speaker 3: 18:23

So to really put it in the mind, because I think when you can disconnect, as you said, from the past and recognize that you're in the here and the now, that helps a lot and then, to you know, as you were working on with breathing, to make sure that the breath is stays regular and and calm, and then also to make sure that your body, your body, the, the tension, because I think that the breathing, keeping the breathing even and slow, and then making sure that your body, the muscles are relaxed, I think that signals to your nervous system that everything's okay yeah, a lot of times we don't realize, you know.

Speaker 2: 19:04

That's why I use this mindful moment to allow people to see, because I know some people will like breathe and they're like don't tell me that I'm already doing it, and it's like okay, yeah, it's the focusing on the breast so you can see internally what you're feeling, because a lot of times people won't realize oh, I didn't realize, I was so stressed in the neck or I had this tension going on and when you know, the nervous system is activated, we're doing very shallow breathing. So all of our cells isn't getting proper oxygen and if you're not getting proper, proper oxygen, the brain isn't able to function properly. So you're really in that survival mode and not being able to have the clarity to think things through.

Speaker 3: 19:42

You're just very impulsive with things totally and you're disconnected from your frontal lobe and we kind of need that to make good choices.

Speaker 2: 19:49

Otherwise you're going to make, we're going to make, continue to make compromise choices and it's based anxiety yeah, I really appreciate what you are doing and the space that you're holding for the people in a very vulnerable population that is going to feel you know the threats and the targets of the next four years. There's a big you know wave that is coming towards you of holding space for so many that may not have even recognized the complex trauma but this just open and awaken something so that they have a safe space that you're able to give them some verbiage of their experience.

Speaker 3: 20:31

Yeah, the nice thing about New York City is that in general people who are actually in the city, it does feel like a bit of a bubble there. So there is a layer of protection in New York City. Because I asked everybody that came to see me, are you feeling safe in the city? And everybody said yes. So, but you know new york city also has its own trauma of like 9-11 and you know that's very much. It feels removed but also not a hundred percent either, and so that collective trauma around that experience, so that can sometimes get activated, especially for those patients who were close to 9-11, to the ground zero, that it does get reactivated.

Speaker 2: 21:17

Oh, yeah, yeah, because that's you know. The nervous system doesn't know past, present or future, it just knows sensations. So if we're thinking something, then it signals to the nervous system oh, this is happening right now. And people don't even realize the energy of their thoughts and how it impacts their immune system to fight on something. That's why there's autoimmune, where people are like, well, how would my immune system attack itself. And it's like the mainstream isn't talking about how your thoughts and the way that you relate to yourself, and not feeling your emotions, can create this conflict within. Could you give a little bit more detail to that?

Speaker 3: 21:53

About what part specifically?

Speaker 3: 21:55

The thoughts and how it can activate your immune system to start attacking itself and understanding that that part of the nervous system I mean, I don't know exactly what's going on, but by you know, I'm guessing that a lot of that has to do with with um. You know, when you have high cortisol levels and you're in an inflammatory state and your body is in a vulnerable, it becomes vulnerable because the way that you're an adrenaline right Is that your internal organs become vulnerable. It's like they become abandoned because your blood flow is going out into the limbs to go into fight or flight. And I think that when you're in that vulnerable state where you don't have all your resources working for you, it just leaves things to be more open for attack and for things to go wrong.

Speaker 2: 22:45

I think what are things that you would suggest to anybody to start inquiring about, say, if they have chronic illness or diseases. What are things that you would prompt them to start looking into internally, to understand that internal medicine and start supporting themselves?

Speaker 3: 23:06

Well, I think one of the important things is to start considering what kind of challenges that you might have experienced in your childhood, right, because I think a lot of that happens, usually all before seven or eight years old. I think most of that trauma is the deepest because we go through that, you know, as you know, the egocentric phase, right, and when you go through a traumatic experience during that time you think that it's happened because you were the center of it and you caused it, that it's happened because you were the center of it and you caused it. And that is really very, very a tricky thing, because most parents, you know, didn't have the awareness or the language to diffuse that energy and to say, hey, you didn't do anything wrong. Like, for example, if your parents got divorced and you were five years old, you know you're highly likely to believe that you did something wrong and that's why your parents got divorced, just because that's how you know, developmentally speaking, that was what was going on in your brain. So you know to think about the first seven, seven, eight years of your life and to examine that a little bit more clearly, to ask yourself, hey, what happened? And there's some people will remember.

Speaker 3: 24:20

It gets really tricky when you don't remember a whole lot. When you don't remember a whole lot, usually there's a good reason why you didn't remember a whole lot, right? So you know, chances are that something did happen and it's being repressed not always, but you find that that's common though. Yeah, that there's repressed memory, if you just. It's kind of like, if you, when patients say to me my childhood was in a complete blur, I really don't remember much at all. It's you know this. I I'm gonna be looking into that more. So usually if we kind of focus on it, then more and more memories will come to the surface. They usually come up in feelings rather than thoughts or specific memories, and then if you have a feeling, then we can usually trace that back exactly, yeah, and it's all remembering that the body's protecting you.

Speaker 2: 25:16

As frustrating as it may be, or you think that there's something wrong with you because you're not able to recall or have memory, it's always looking at it through the lens of the body's protecting you. So now it's to let the body know it's safe to release this stuff, that you have the capacity to experience what there is.

Speaker 3: 25:36

Absolutely. It's unfortunate that in medicine often illness is seen as pathological, right, Something's going wrong. But the way that I prefer to see it is that it's more like a coping mechanism, Like every illness, like, for example, if you develop a tumor or something. It's the body's way of trying to encapsulate an illness from preventing it from spreading, so it just kind of keeps it contained and keeps it contained. And so if you start looking at illness as a way that it's a maladaptive, but it's still a way that your body is doing its best to maintain integrity, Rather than what's wrong with me, I've done you know something's wrong with my body. My body is doing something bad or wrong. It's really trying to do its best to keep it together To the last breath. The body tries to do that for us.

Speaker 2: 26:28

Yeah, because the nervous system has one function don't die and so it's going to try its best to still stay alive. That's why, like when you know I'm going to try its best to still stay alive. That's why, like when you know I'm going to get into a sensitive topic that might be triggering yet suicide, when somebody actually takes those acts you don't realize how much strength it takes, because the body has one function don't die so to be able to override that aspect, there's all these filters and mechanisms that go in, so it's really understanding the depth of pain somebody is suffering internally to take those actions.

Speaker 3: 27:04

Yeah, actually I'm an author and my third book is actually about suicide. So I get it. You know it's so much pain, so much emotional pain with people who take their lives. It's tragic, but I get it. I understand the excruciating pain that these people go through. They just have to end that pain. You know there are, you know, obviously, alternatives that you don't have to do that. But I can see how people end up in that state when their their life gets smaller and smaller and they, they lose options and that's all they can do.

Speaker 3: 27:48

Yeah, and you know, sometimes people have physical pain that the medical system cannot identify and resolve that and nobody's really validating their experience so that in itself too yeah, chronic pain, chronic illness and it's excruciating pain, is very, very difficult, it is exhausting and it's depressing and and some people, if they can't find some doctors, if they can't find a cause for it, we'll say that it's in your head and they'll send it to you to a psychiatrist and it's so invalidating, it's awful when that happens, and so I get patients who have these mysterious illnesses where nobody can work out and and they've been diminished and invalidated for years, being made to feel that they're insane, basically because the doctor couldn't find the root cause of their symptoms, sterile and unfortunately, because medicine is very traumatic, so doctors to bow down and say I'm not able to find it and take that hit like the L for them it can be a very bruising to their ego.

Speaker 2: 29:00

So they place it onto the patient that you're the issue, it's not me, you just don't have and it's like that is, like you said, so invalidating and it can set somebody back so much, especially if they have chronic um, a complex trauma.

Speaker 3: 29:15

It makes it worse for them, and doctors need to learn how to have better language around this to say to them I hear you, I believe you that you're in pain, but my knowledge and where medicine stands right now cannot understand what you're experiencing. We can't diagnose you, but your symptoms are real yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:36

Yeah, end point. Yeah, and the empathy that can be there. It's still needing to be developed and everything else, but yet you know, when people understand what doctors and nurses have to go through and how traumatic medicine is, and you're not able to have any faults and you're, you know, judged and stereotyped, that field in itself has a lot of trauma, just being trained in that profession.

Speaker 3: 30:04

Yeah, and it's. It's. There's so much judgment in medicine and it's just a really critical field and if you don't get everything perfect, then you're, you feel stupid, and nobody wants to feel stupid. Yeah, it's very, very critical yeah, and you're in.

Speaker 3: 30:24

You're, you know, ridiculed in front of your peers too yes, all the time, and and I have first-hand experience being ridiculed pretty much every day, all day, every day. You know that was pretty much my medical training and to it took me years to undo that and to be able to say, hey, I don't know what's going on and to be okay with not knowing what's going on.

Speaker 2: 30:53

Yeah, that is such a safe space for a patient, so that that feels validated. That, okay, I may not know, but it doesn't mean that somebody else may not know, like I'm not the end all neither.

Speaker 3: 31:07

Yeah, you know, once in a while I'll get somebody and a patient. They've been referred around a lot to different people and I'm, I, I'm honest, I'm like I'll tell them I'm going to try my best, but sometimes I also, I can't figure it out either and it doesn't improve. I feel terrible, but I believe that they're obviously they're in a you know, a lot of discomfort by the time that they come to see me.

Speaker 2: 31:31

Yeah, yeah, it's awful the space that you're creating for people so that they can see you know there's different ways yet the empathy and the deep listening that you offer that, even if I don't have a solution, I still see you and I validate your experience, which that in itself is healing for because a lot of times they don't even get that, they don't even get somebody to listen to them or see them and validate what their experience is. I may not have a solution for you yet, that opening of being validated that is something that you can't even put money on because of the sensation opening that happens yeah, it's so unfortunate that the number of people that come in feeling like they're crazy, you know, yeah, it's, it's, it's, really it's, it's a shame.

Speaker 2: 32:29

I went to the er five times and they kept telling me I had the influenza and flu. One man asked me if I was on street drugs. One doctor asked me if I was on street drugs and I doctor asked me if I was on street drugs and I was like I never even asked you for pain medication. I'm asking you for help. And you're seeing that my TSH for my thyroid is like it was. I forget what the limit, but it was like 150 or it was at the marker of like the highest point. So they want to rerun another cause. They were like it might even be higher, but all we can read and we want to make sure, because you shouldn't be functioning like you shouldn't even be able to talk and whatnot. Yet I kept going and they just kept saying I had the flu and so on.

Speaker 2: 33:09

The fifth time then somebody finally listened to me and it was an MRI. And then all of a sudden, oh, brain lesions and your prognosis probably going to die in six months and trying to do a battery of tests. Yeah, so I've had that experience of trying and when you're not, when you're ill and you're going through chronic pain, you barely can advocate for yourself when you're trying to go up to a machine. That's like invalidating you and judging you and making it seem like it's not there. It's like judging you and making it seem like it's not there. It's like, oh my gosh, it's so exhausting.

Speaker 3: 33:42

It is. It's such a such a terrible experience and and most people end up feeling really helpless and hopeless.

Speaker 2: 33:51

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's significant. Yet I'm thankful for it because I have the experience to hold space for somebody else that, yeah, these things do happen, because if you don't experience it, you think, oh no, you're just making it up or you over exaggerated it. And those things don't happen because you know, people take oaths and it's like doctors are human beings also and in these hospitals there's too much quantity so they're depleted and they don't even have like they're emotionally disconnected also you know ER doctors have it rough.

Speaker 3: 34:27

It is a difficult field if there's just so much you're faced with trauma every single second that you're there, pretty much, and and they're disconnected emotionally. You have to disconnect to function in that environment. Obviously, I had to do a rotation in ER and I quickly figured out that that was not a place where I wanted to be and I ended up in internal medicine just a lot calmer in internal medicine than ER, but it is difficult. Yeah, it takes a special person to be able to be there.

Speaker 2: 35:05

Yeah, it does. And I know my doctor, you know profusely, because I go to the ER. Then I go back to her and she's like I cannot treat you, I don't know what I'm treating and I cannot give you pain medicines because I don't know what I'm treating. So why are they sending you back to me when it's them that? And so it was a ping pong. And then when I, you know, was admitted and I was there for almost 40 days, when I came out and you know explain the whole thing, she's like I'm so sorry I put you in there, like you had to go through that Because it's the hospital in itself.

Speaker 2: 35:35

In the ER it can be very traumatic of you know, it's a teaching medicine, a teaching hospital also. So you're dealing with interns and residents that are trying to figure it out on their own, being judged. And even I had one intern. I was crying because she's telling me about my prognosis and not being able to find information, and so I started crying because I'm a solo parent, my twins were four at the time and my oldest was 18. And then I started crying because I'm a solo parent, my twins were four at the time and my oldest was 18. And then she was like I can't handle you crying, I'm going to give you Ativan.

Speaker 2: 36:07

I was like you're not giving me Ativan, you're going to have to deal with my tears and if they're making you uncomfortable, you got to figure that out because you're not yeah, You're not going to drug me up because you're uncomfortable with I have to make some choices about a family setting that I'm in charge of, that you're telling me I may not be in that position anymore, but it's stunning what you can go through when people think that these things don't happen in the medical field. And it's not chastising and she was a woman. It's not chastising this woman because she couldn't deal with my emotions. It's really understanding the humanity in it and understanding that you do have to advocate for yourself. It feels threatening because it's a doctor.

Speaker 3: 36:51

Yet I had to go through a lot of that terrain yeah, yeah, there's something about many physicians or people in healthcare that they don't want anybody to have any kind of feelings at all and if there's any kind of anxiety it has to be medicated. It's like we're not human or something, but it's clearly. It know the projecting and it's their issue. If you're as you know, it'd be different if you said, oh my god, I'm so anxious and now can you give me something to? You know, get the. You know, help me with the anxiety. That's a different thing. But for somebody to project onto you and say you need this because you're making me feel bad, that is a big no-no uh, and you know it makes like.

Speaker 2: 37:45

In the time I understood like it was her stuff, yet it still ruminated and played in me like, oh, is there something? Am I being too sensitive? Am I crying too much? Am I supposed to be something other? Now I know that, but when you're in the real time and you don't have somebody supporting you properly because this is a professional, that's like learning but also understanding it's like you. You feel like you gaslight yourself because you don't understand, like the full trust and the doubt yeah, the gaslighting is with a self gaslighting or any gaslighting from yourself or from other people.

Speaker 3: 38:21

It it's, it's. It's challenging. It takes a while, right to go through a really challenging experience and figure out what's what. Whose feelings got thrown around, what was yours, what was somebody else's? It just takes time to figure that out. Just takes time to figure that out. Yeah, it does.

Speaker 2: 38:39

Now I know the listeners are like where can I find this wonderful lady and find out more information? So can you let the listeners know where they?

Speaker 3: 38:49

can find you. Yes, so I'm at Omni Wellness NYC, which is in Manhattan, in the Flatiron District. You can find me at OmniWellnessNYCcom.

Speaker 2: 39:04

Okay, is there. Do you do courses or do you offer? And you said you're an author, so where can they find your books?

Speaker 3: 39:08

so that's momokowritescom, and I have written two books. I have another one coming, hopefully soon. My second one's specifically about overcoming sexual trauma. So that's. I got into that more because I drew the connection between fertility problems and sexual abuse. Apparently you're twice as likely to have fertility issues if you've been sexually assaulted. So that was another thing I kind of connected the dots with over time. So I wrote a book about that and overcoming and resilience and overcoming that trauma. So that's my little side gig as a writer.

Speaker 2: 39:51

Yeah, well, you're taking the information that you have and allowing people to be validated and better understand. You know, and it makes total sense, like you were sexually violated. So the nervous system recognize, oh, we don't want to feel this. So then whenever your libido or sexual senses come in, it's like, no, let's shut it down. Don't want to feel that. But you know you want to open up, but your body doesn't feel the safety in that. So it makes total sense, because how many people after sexual assault you get helped with psychologically? Yet it's like what about the sexual part of the body, so that you can open yourself up for that intimacy with other people again and let your body know that it's safe, even though it you're going into an incident that's going to re-traumatize it with that feelings and sensations. So you go through a lot of psychological and emotional entanglement.

Speaker 3: 40:44

Absolutely. You know, I think with time we will learn more about how trauma and emotional blockages affects the physical body. I think it's just a matter of time, but we'll eventually get there. I think we're just at the beginning stages of understanding that. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:03

And people like you. You're speeding it up, so I thank you for that. Is there anything on your heart that you would like to share with the listeners?

Speaker 3: 41:13

I think that to understand that there is no such thing as a bad emotion you know all your feelings are okay and to continue to validate them, and also to, I think, practice self-appreciation and acceptance, because I think that when we're able to accept our feelings and accept our thoughts, I think that's when we're able to grow the most.

Speaker 2: 41:45

I want to thank you so much, Monaco, for being here and giving me and the listeners the most valuable thing you have in life, which is your time, your time and your presence. So thank you so much for sharing such invaluable information and a new way so that people can see that there's other modalities and that they'll be validated and they'll have somebody that will be curious enough and confident enough to say that you know what? I'm not sure I can find a solution, yet I'll try, and so I thank you for holding that safe space for so many to be validated and start a journey of healing. So thank you so much.

Speaker 2: 42:27

Please remember to be kind to yourself hey you made it all the way here.

Speaker 1: 42:32

I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation, so please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, instagram and TikTok under Lift Oneself, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery call liftoneselfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.