Episode 136: Unpacking Trauma Responses

Episode 136: Unpacking Trauma Responses with Ryan Hassan of The Centre for Healing

In this deeply resonant episode, I sit down with Ryan Hassan, Co-Founder of The Centre for Healing, for a raw and illuminating conversation on trauma, addiction, emotional resilience, and the intricate layers of mental health. With over a decade of experience running a healing centre in Australia—and as someone who has lived through the painful depths of addiction and mental illness—Ryan brings not only knowledge but an unmistakable compassion and grounded presence to the discussion.

We explore what trauma really looks like—not just the “big” events, but the subtle, everyday emotional wounds that shape how we react, withdraw, people-please, or lash out. Ryan breaks down how trauma loops form, what keeps us stuck, and how to gently unwind them. He explains the nuances of fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses, not just as abstract concepts, but as deeply embedded survival strategies. Together, we look at how unresolved childhood experiences can echo in adulthood through perfectionism, people-pleasing, addiction (yes, even to your phone), and emotional shutdown—and how healing these patterns creates space for true presence, connection, and peace.

You’ll hear insights into trauma bonding, boundaries, and how many people subconsciously recreate chaos in their relationships simply because it feels familiar. Ryan also shares what it means to be trauma-informed, how to hold space for others without enabling, and the importance of resourcing and somatic work when it comes to lasting transformation.

This episode isn’t just for therapists or coaches—it’s for anyone who’s ever asked, Why am I like this? or How do I stop the cycle? It’s a reminder that healing is not linear, but it is possible—and that you don’t have to walk this path alone.

To explore more of Ryan’s work or get started on your own healing journey, visit:

https://www.thecentreforhealing.com

https://www.facebook.com/TheCentreofHealing

https://www.instagram.com/thecentreforhealing

One last thing to cover the show legally. I am a certified life coach giving general advice. So think of this more like 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 my doctor therapist. Or any other qualified expert? If you want personal one-on-one coaching for my certified coach. Go to my website, wellness and every season.com. 

For more wellness tips and exclusive content, join my newsletter! Sign up now at wellness-in-every-season.ck.page and receive a free 5-day guide called "Awaken and Unwind: 5 Days to Mastering Life's Mornings and Evenings."

Transcript

Episode 136: Unpacking Trauma Responses

[00:00:00] Introduction and Guest Welcome

[00:00:00] Autumn Carter: This is episode 1 36.

[00:00:05] 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.

[00:00:24] My goal is to help you thrive, both as an individual and as a parent.

[00:00:28] This is someone that I've reached out to and he said yes for being on. I received my trauma informed certification through Ryan Hassan through the Centre for Healing and he is based out of Australia and I am here in the US so we had to figure out our schedules together.

[00:00:48] And rah, here we are. I am so excited. 

[00:00:52] Discussing Trauma and Mental Health

[00:00:57] Autumn Carter: We are gonna be talking about trauma and mental health. We're gonna dip into somatics he is a therapist who's been [00:01:00] working for 10 years. He has his own history with drug abuse and mental health, and I feel like the people who have walked that type of journey themselves, they can really just have this wealth and this compassion and it shows through in his course.

[00:01:18] And I'm excited for it to show through today. So thank you for being on Ryan. I'm so excited for us to talk today. 

[00:01:22] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Yeah, me too. No, it's a real pleasure coming on, so thanks for having me, and I'm looking forward to, talking about all the good stuff, trauma, addiction, mental illness, all that.

[00:01:30] Autumn Carter: Oh, what's crazy is you get excited when you talk about it during your videos. You would just light up and your co-founder does too. He also comes from a, I guess you could say Checkered Pass using American Lingo. I don't know what you call it there. 

[00:01:43] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Checkered past here as well. And that's, yeah, both of us, come from that background.

[00:01:47] Lived Experience and Practitioner Credibility

[00:01:47] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: And right now a lot of our work now is training practitioners and people all around the world in the methods that we use I would say 95% are those with lived experience. [00:02:00] And maybe that's just 'cause that was our that's where we came from in terms of getting into this industry.

[00:02:06] And so we tend to attract that. But I, I'm a massive advocate for lived experience practitioners because going through the system, myself, when I was going through drug addiction and mental health issues, I spoke to a lot of people who. Have read about it but, they hadn't lived it. They didn't, they didn't fully understand it.

[00:02:24] And whether we know it consciously or unconsciously, I think we pick up on that. And if we know that someone, they mightn't have been through the same thing that we're going through, but they've met themselves kind of at that level and worked through their own stuff, I think we pick up on that.

[00:02:38] And it creates a beautiful, rapport and credibility. 

[00:02:41] Autumn Carter: Yeah. So let's start with my first question. 

[00:02:43] Understanding Trauma Bonding and Transference

[00:02:43] Autumn Carter: How do you, in connecting with those types of people, so looking at this from a coach or a therapist side, or even looking at this from someone seeking help side, how do you get the help that you need without having that trauma bonding?

[00:02:59] [00:03:00] Because I know once trauma bonding happens, it can be very difficult to help someone or receive the help that you need. 

[00:03:08] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: As in trauma bonding with a practitioner or therapist. 

[00:03:11] Autumn Carter: Mm-hmm. 

[00:03:11] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Yes. Yeah. And so that would, you know, we could call that transference, I guess in the industry is another word for it.

[00:03:16] And it's where essentially the person seeking help as they're going through a process of, and normally, you know, when we really want to get to the root of something, we're addressing a lot of childhood imprints. You know, whether that's traumas, emotional baggage. You know, beliefs and narratives that we have about ourself and the world, the roots of that, a lot of the time not always are based in childhood because that's where we pick up the vast majority of our, our programming and our blueprint for being a human being.

[00:03:43] And so what can happen as we start to go through that process, we can make a practitioner mom or dad or whoever it was. One thing that we teach our practitioners is essentially. Bringing that into awareness with the client really early, you know? And they might latch [00:04:00] onto us in more of a, loving and attached way.

[00:04:02] They can also get angry at us 'cause they're angry at mum or dad or whoever we become. We don't try and completely stop that process. We would just gently bring that to the person's attention and say, who am I to you right now? 'cause it sounds like I'm not, your therapist anymore. And then we might work out that I've become their father.

[00:04:20] And then I'm like, let's play that out and I can be your father in this session and we can play that out so you can express yourself. 'cause maybe that child, who was hurt, didn't have their needs met and was hurt and needed to express anger. So we can do that, but we're doing it with awareness.

[00:04:33] Where I've seen trauma bonding and transference become an issue is when the practitioner. Doesn't pick it up or they pick it up, but they feel too awkward to say anything. And then the sessions go on and that bond or that link and transference becomes stronger and stronger to the point then where it really becomes an issue to be brought up.

[00:04:51] So, you know, we're always around sort of teaching that and picking it up early on. Bringing it to awareness. So both the client and the prac? No. So then even if like. You know, in two [00:05:00] sessions time, you know, the client might know, but I'm like, oh, can you feel that? You know, that dynamic starting again.

[00:05:04] They'll go, oh, that's right. That happened a couple of weeks ago and it's just a little bit lighter, so we can stop that. There in some situations where it becomes really, really overt, you know, we might bring it up and choose to refer them on to another practitioner that we have. And you know, I've had it in the past where.

[00:05:21] Not too often. It can happen vice versa. But let's say I'm working with a female client and there's a lot of wounding from males, then they might consciously trust me and go, I like Ryan. He's a nice guy. I want him to be my, my practitioner. But as we dig into the subconscious in these wounds, it's like subconsciously there's a bit of lack of trust there because you know, when we create a belief or a narrative about the world that can limit us, we generalize.

[00:05:45] So we say instead of that person or those three. Males are bad. We go all males bad in the subconscious, you know? And so in that instance, if we can't work through that, then once again we, we make it conscious. And in that instance, switching to a female practitioner is [00:06:00] something that we would do. And that's why it's so important to have these referral networks of great practitioners of all different, not just genders, but backgrounds and, and all of that kind of thing.

[00:06:09] And obviously it could happen vice versa as well in that instance. 

[00:06:12] Exploring Trauma Loops

[00:06:12] Autumn Carter: So this brings my other question from the resources that I had in your course, is how do we help them heal that loop and what is a trauma loop? 

[00:06:24] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Yeah. We use the word trauma a lot in the work that we do because for the last decade, trauma's kind of been our jam.

[00:06:29] Myself and my partner Melissa, we opened up a clinic here in Melbourne, Australia, and, we were at the time seen as very alternative, talking about trauma and all of these kind of things. It's become a lot more mainstream, especially the last probably five years whether you want to use the word trauma or just emotional baggage imprints, whatever you want to use, we all have them to varying degrees as human beings.

[00:06:51] You know, it's part of the human experience is we pick up these experiences that have hurt us and we aren't able to properly process them. We don't have the internal resources [00:07:00] or the external resources at the time, so we store it within us and it creates an imprint, which then starts to loop.

[00:07:06] A lot of people classically, when you bring up the word trauma, would go well. That's, a veteran being away at war, someone in a car accident, sexual abuse and all that stuff definitely is trauma. But there's also many other things sort of on that spectrum as well. The feeling of rejection from a caregiver.

[00:07:22] Through developmental years, maybe the ages of, five to 10 bullying throughout primary school or high school. This ongoing being in a heightened state of arousal and looking out for threat all the time, all of this can leave, scarring and wounds on our psyche and our emotional body. And it can be so subtle.

[00:07:39] An example that we use in a lot of our courses is, and this kind of thing won't be an imprint for a lot of people, but it is for some, and I've seen it in session. I can be, let's say I'm in grade two at school, so what does that make me about eight. I'm in class. The class is all there, and the teacher's asking a question.

[00:07:54] And maybe I'm a little bit more of a shy kid and I don't normally put my hand up and, and answer the question, but [00:08:00] for whatever reason, in this instance, I'm really confident that I know the answer to this question. I put my hand up and I answer, and the whole class just starts laughing at me. You know, I've said the wrong answer, or I've misspoke, or whatever happens.

[00:08:11] And so as I look around. I oversee everybody looking at me and everybody laughing. And so in that moment, my body, my nervous system goes into a stress response 'cause I'm perceiving threat. It mightn't be physical threat, but it's emotional and psychic threat, psychological threat, which you know, is also a threat that we face more in today's society than we used to.

[00:08:31] And in that moment, what I do, I normally go into some sort of freeze state, which means I freeze with my body and I'm looking around for a resource, AKA, somebody who can be on my side. Somebody who can help me. And so I might go, okay, well, my closest friends who are sitting next to me, that that'll be my resource.

[00:08:46] So I look at them, but they're laughing the hardest, you know, and pointing at me, right? So they're not a resource. I look at the only adult in the room, the teacher, they've turned their back, or they don't really care to help me at all in that situation. So my body's stuck in this kind of free state, and I might feel [00:09:00] fear, I'll feel embarrassment.

[00:09:01] I'll have a lot of emotional energy happening in my body, and that essentially opens a loop. Peter Levine talks about this a lot about healing. Trauma is closing a lot of these loops. So when a loop is opened, if I don't have the resources to process it, it will remain open. So maybe I leave that classroom and there's nobody at the school that I can talk to to help me process this energy in my body.

[00:09:22] Then I go home that night, and the home also is in a. Safe place. For me, look, I have very, very loving parents. They're awesome. They're great. But just based on, on the generation, everything, we never spoke about emotions in the household. It was always achievement stuff. So, you know, I never knew how to speak about emotions personally because, you know, it was never spoken about.

[00:09:42] I go home then, and there's nobody, mom, I can't talk to Mom, express what happened, cry, let all the shame out, have her. Hold me and soothe me until that loop completes, so the loop stays open. What can happen then is I start to make narratives or beliefs about myself and the world.

[00:09:58] In that instance, I might decide that it's not [00:10:00] safe for me to speak up. As soon as I create that really strong narrative, and the reason why we create a belief like that is to try and prevent that same emotional hurt happening in the future, right? This becomes part of my identity and it doesn't heal unless we address it.

[00:10:14] That's why the same time heals or wounds is completely ridiculous when it comes to trauma and imprints. It does not. Fast forward 20 years, I might be in a relationship and my needs aren't being met, and I need to speak up and express myself with what's happening in the relationship. As soon as I go to walk into that room to speak, I get this, that freeze energy comes back and if it could speak, it'd say, not safe.

[00:10:35] Not safe. And so I back off, maybe I'm at work five years later, I need to speak to my boss 'cause I need a raise or something's happening that I need. Once again, my needs addressed and as soon as I go to knock on my boss's door. It's what we call an orphaned part.

[00:10:49] It says, not safe, don't speak up, don't express your needs. Don't express yourself. And so that becomes then part of our identity as a human being. And we have not just one of these, you know, programs and loops [00:11:00] running. We've got heaps. The people who've come into work for me have dozens and dozens of them.

[00:11:04] It's. Not safe to speak up. I don't deserve to be happy. I'm not worthy of love. I'm unlovable. I'm not good enough. I don't trust men. I don't trust women. I don't trust myself. Like there's a whole litany of things there. And so the way that we address that is we normally would look at a client with what's happening in their life and you know, so normally we,

[00:11:25] take that process that's happened and we backdate it. So they might come to me and go, yeah, I'm having this issue in my relationship where I want to go to speak up and I just completely freeze and I have all these, emotions coming up and I can't express myself. And then we will do work.

[00:11:40] Like a lot of the stuff we teach somatic therapies where we can take people back to their past. And we might find out, oh, okay, this feeling of fear and embarrassment in my body in this freeze. Like when else in your life does that remind you of? Who else does that remind you of?

[00:11:55] And they might go, oh, well it happened, you know, this time when I was a teenager. And we go and explore [00:12:00] that and work through. It happens here. And then we'll eventually, ideally get back to this grade tour who put his hand up in class and we have to go back and process all of that emotional energy there.

[00:12:09] Meet the needs of that younger version of them that weren't met at the time. And we also resource the adult before we do all that. And not until we go through that whole process can we actually close the loop and sort of let go of the idea that it's not safe to speak up and I have to freeze and be fearful of all these different situations in their life.

[00:12:28] So much of society is hypervigilant and we're kind of got this hum of anxiety in the background. That never goes away. You know, it might spike up in certain situations to eight, nine, or 10 outta 10, but then it comes back down to a three or four. It never truly goes away.

[00:12:43] 'cause there's different parts of us looking around every corner for these potentially similar situations that happened in our childhood happening again. 

[00:12:52] Impact of Unresolved Trauma in Later Life

[00:12:52] Autumn Carter: And what I thought of when you were first answering my question is I've done some volunteer work in nursing homes. I don't know what you call 'em there.

[00:12:59] Maybe they're called the same thing. Same, 

[00:12:59] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: yeah. Retirement homes. [00:13:00] Nursing homes, yeah. 

[00:13:00] Autumn Carter: And I had some people, I guess they were called patients who were, one was from Germany and she was World War II survivor, and she was starting to have Alzheimer's. 

[00:13:17] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Regressing.

[00:13:18] Autumn Carter: And she was starting to remember and speak German out of nowhere and she would lock up with the trauma. And I wasn't there super often. Once a week for a couple hours. And seeing it there and talking to the other workers, and yeah, this was common and it was happening more and more, and she was going to be soon moved over to the memory care area.

[00:13:41] But just seeing that, who knows how much of this she had worked through in her lifetime and it was coming back up. And I was thinking about that while you were talking and especially while going through your course, how important it is to not just stuff it down, stuff it down, stuff it down, because that [00:14:00] stuff comes up when we get triggered and I really don't wanna be an old person or have my clients be in.

[00:14:09] Her shoes in a nursing home where she is having all of this trauma be relived in her body and she does not have the mental capability of telling herself that was then, this is now, and starting to look around for the resources and reground herself 

[00:14:28] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: yeah. It's really sad and you know that's a really overt example of Alzheimer's that the brain will generally regress.

[00:14:34] And all these, we will kind of age backwards mentally and go through these different stages of life. And even, um, as you're talking, like, we have a lot of people as well who, you know, when they retire from work or when the kids have left home and they're a mom, it creates all this space because as we move through life and we have all these imprints and traumas.

[00:14:52] Within our body and our mind we can distract ourselves with things. We can distract [00:15:00] ourselves with staying busy and work with drugs, with alcohol, with shopping, with relationships, with all of this stuff, you know, and nowadays phone, you know, it's always one little reach away and you can open up a whole world of distraction there.

[00:15:14] And a lot of people who, when they get to retirement or the kids who've left home, all of a sudden there's all this empty space. And then what happens? It's like all of that stuff that they've unconsciously been running away from for decades normally starts arising to the surface. 'cause part of it, it wants to process and wants to complete, but we're just not taught how to, you know, we don't get that little booklet when we're born or our parents do.

[00:15:36] I remember coming home with my son from the hospital and I do this for, for a job. You know, he's six now. Coming home from the hospital, it's like I didn't get a manual or anything. Like what do we do here? You know? So a lot of the work we do now is obviously we're helping people and training people to help adults go back and address their past so they can show up in a better way for themselves and other people and be a real positive [00:16:00] impact on the planet.

[00:16:01] But it's so important as well that we're educating. Especially in schools and educating parents and all of this kind of thing, because if we want to make real sustainable, long lasting change, I mean, that's where the education has to happen. 

[00:16:13] Autumn Carter: Oh, absolutely. 

[00:16:14] Parenting and Emotional Education

[00:16:14] Autumn Carter: I have one child who, he's the reason why I became a parenting coach.

[00:16:19] Has such strong emotions that come out of nowhere. We're really trying to dive into, okay, what's, what's triggering him? What's going on? Because then it triggers me. He's the reason why I went back to therapy. It's been a journey for him. The other kids, I. Super easy. I'll pick up parenting books.

[00:16:36] It works well for the other three kids, but this one, he has his own puzzle. 

[00:16:41] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Your little teacher? 

[00:16:43] Autumn Carter: Yes. And they do teach you a lot about all the areas that you need to work on. What I really like is that he's not only learning about his emotions and how to handle them, what they are, another thing that he has, he has really hard boundaries.

[00:16:59] He'll go and [00:17:00] hug us outta nowhere and I'll be doing something and elbow him in the face because I didn't expect him to come out there. He'd try and kiss us wherever he could kiss us and it's like, okay, hold on. You need to ask for it and up here please. What I really like is that the schools are already teaching this, where I did not grow up with this stuff.

[00:17:19] It is amazing that the schools are doing this, that it's coming from home, hopefully. And it's also coming from the school system. And when we go to the library, they're teaching, story time with books that talk about emotions and safe space. Your safe bubble. What, how to say no and how to talk to an adult that's safe.

[00:17:42] I really like all this stuff and it's a good reminder that our children are getting these things, but let's go back and work on those times when we couldn't speak up, when we were touched inappropriately, when we could not process our emotions properly. [00:18:00] All of these things. And where I, decided to pick up your course.

[00:18:05] Addiction and Coping Mechanisms

[00:18:05] Autumn Carter: I am, I understand trauma from my own, sorting through it growing up, but it gave me such a language and understanding, especially with addictions. I understand it from my family members having addictions, but you talk about the phone, I on purpose have it upstairs. It is. I can tell you exactly where it is 'cause it's enough of an addiction.

[00:18:26] But when you were talking about the addiction section, it was like, oh yeah, I do have my own addictions, don't I, my phone. Um, what else would be one? The biggest one was the phone. Like, there's other little ones, but they still have to do with my phone. So it was really helpful to remember that and remind myself, put it in a different room and just having that connection with other people.

[00:18:48] I really like how you are teaching other coaches and therapists how to connect with other people who have been through [00:19:00] Helen back and how to help people. Heal the trauma loop so they don't continue. I know different people in my personal life, let alone coaching who they end up in.

[00:19:13] Something triggers them and they end up in that loop and they can be in there for months before they get themselves out, and they can easily be triggered again while they're. Walking further away from that trauma loop, I guess would be the best way to say it. 

[00:19:28] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:28] Autumn Carter: And it can destroy relationships, it can destroy your own self worth your own self trust.

[00:19:35] It is such a big deal, and I feel like it's something that's still not talked about and I've had different. Therapist on to talk about trauma, but I feel like I still can't quite get under it enough to help people understand how this really impacts your day to day and saying that I've already made it this far in life.

[00:19:41] Why do I need to heal these things? Just really bringing home why you do want to heal these things. It's such a big deal. 

[00:19:48] Building Emotional Capacity and Resilience

[00:19:48] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: I think it is, you know, and one great way that you can track, somebody's growth is that they may. Get triggered into these sort of responses. And it might, like you said, it can last a month, two months, [00:20:00] something like that.

[00:20:01] And then as you do this kind of work, you can help them recognize that that's happening in the first place. So they bring an awareness to it. They can start to understand exactly what's triggering them and why. Because the things that. Trigger us, you know, there's a great saying of life will show us where we're stuck.

[00:20:16] It's like, our life will show us, whether it be in relationships or with money or with work and business or family or socially, physical health wise. We'll find out that, some areas have a certain ease and flow to them, and some areas really don't. And they're kind of our, they're our teachers.

[00:20:33] Those things, those areas, so someone might come in and. Physically they're great and they're healthy and they look after themselves, but they're an absolute mess with money and in relationships. So we can then start to explore that and kind of track that back. And it's like, where did we pick up those beliefs and all these emotions and everything around it, or it can be vice versa.

[00:20:49] And, um, I. One of the great signs of growth is that once we bring that to awareness and work on it doesn't mean that, life doesn't stimulate stuff inside us anymore. 

[00:20:58] Handling Criticism and Perfectionism

[00:20:58] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: But maybe, you know, maybe it's like I have this with a lot of clients, you know, let's say a boss or something critiques their work and it plays into this perfectionist part, which is a trauma response is a perfectionist part.

[00:21:08] I have to do everything perfect. So criticism is like. You know, really, hard for them that can send them into a loop of overthinking and anxiety for a couple of months. 

[00:21:17] Autumn Carter: That's me. 

[00:21:18] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: And so when we can see the signs of growth is like, you know, I had a, I had this with a client recently.

[00:21:24] I had this conversation with my boss where they really, in a big meeting, brought up my work and, and pointed out a few things that were incorrect. And they said, I got so pissed off and so angry. But she goes, it lasted for about an hour. And that was really weird because normally it would keep me awake at night for weeks and weeks and months at a time.

[00:21:42] And so that's a great sign. You know, there's not no emotional disturbance there, but we've, we are collapsing the, the time of these responses because that perfectionism is an identity. You know, I have to be perfect at everything that I do, or I'm a failure, which is, I think a [00:22:00] Ashanti, the spiritual teacher, has a great saying that perfectionism is a form of cruelty to the self.

[00:22:04] 'cause you're setting yourself a goal that's inherently unattainable and beating ourselves up for not achieving it. And so it's like that identity structure gets rocked when we receive criticism and nothing stimulates the ego and makes it feel more outta control than having its own identity challenged.

[00:22:22] And so, you know, one of the big things that I do with clients and we teach as well, is I. We want to build people's capacity to be with these really uncomfortable sensations. So can I sit here and have the capacity to be with feeling outta control and not perfect? Right? And early on, that's so hard. Like you should see clients squirm in their chair that's like, no, I cannot deal with being imperfect and getting something wrong.

[00:22:44] But over time, we help build their capacity to that so all of a sudden they can, they can hold that experience for someone else, it might be grief that just can't handle feeling grief. And so as soon as it comes up. Bang, they go and drink or they go and work, or they try and do something, and we're trying to [00:23:00] grow that capacity.

[00:23:00] So yes, we're addressing the childhood wounds and processing that, but at the same time, our own capacity as a human to hold our experience because that's the one thing that we, we struggle with the most. You know, there's another old saying that says, man and woman's main issue in this world is that we can't sit in a room alone for an hour with no stimulation and be okay, you know, we will drive ourselves crazy.

[00:23:21] Because we've got all this stuff, you know, coming up these sensations. So it is very interesting work, but it's worth it. The journey is. Uncomfortable. We're going to places that we don't want to go to. 'cause you imagine, I spoke about these orphan parts. And so what they're doing is they're trying to protect a hurt part of us, a tender wound that we hold.

[00:23:41] And anything that comes close to touching that wound, that part will go, you're not, not, we're not getting near that. We're not going into that situation. We're pushing that person away, whatever it is. And so we have to go into those places if we want to heal 'em. So it's challenging. It's scary, it's uncomfortable.

[00:23:56] But it's worth it because as we go through it, we come out the end [00:24:00] not as. An enlightened perfect being, because once again, that's unattainable and that's why I have a bit of issue with like the, the guru kind of mentality. That's why myself and Matt and everyone who teaches with us, you know, we don't sound that enlightened or overly professional.

[00:24:16] It's just like. We're very real. You know, we're human beings. Don't put us on a pedestal and make something special out of us because that's not the goal. 'cause once again, we'll be, we'll fall short of that goal. 

[00:24:26] The Importance of Presence and Authenticity

[00:24:26] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: We're just getting better at handling our experience of being a human being without running away from it and by running away from it.

[00:24:33] That's like I spoke about, keeping busy alcohol, dissociation, all of that kind of thing. Which means that we're more present. More present for what? More present for ourselves, more present for our family, our friends, our work. And we're just like that. That creates a positive ripple effect. When we're, we're present.

[00:24:49] We're attuned, we're dealing with the situation in front of us, not with our whole stuff happening in here. So look, if I sat here and spoke to you 15 years ago. And I knew I was doing like an interview [00:25:00] for a podcast. The main thing I would be concentrating on is how I look and I sound and you know, all of that kind of thing.

[00:25:07] The byproduct of doing this work is I couldn't care about, you know, how I sound or come across or look as long as the message is getting out there appropriately. So we kind of, we get ourselves out of the way to an extent, which is a good thing.

[00:25:21] Autumn Carter: Oh, that helps me when I have given workshops or even doing this, I still get a little bit of nervousness, but where I lean into is messaging for sure. And then I also have it set up. So I see you and I'm looking at you, not myself.

[00:25:35] That always helps. 

[00:25:37] Dealing with Hurtful Behavior in Relationships

[00:26:00] Autumn Carter: I'm reading a book and this book has a classic character who feels so awful about herself that she is pushing other people away by saying just very like knife wound, the things that she's saying. What do you have to say to people like that? Because I've even had people in like that in my life where I'm, they are just such an energy vampire with just their bitterness and they're not willing to work on themselves yet that it's not going to be impactful for either of us.

[00:26:11] So what do you say to people? That are on either side of that, the ones that are struggling and pushing people away with hurtful language, hurtful actions, and then the ones who are suffering from people doing that to them. 

[00:26:24] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Yeah. I think the saying hurt people, hurt people, you know, is, is, is very, very true.

[00:26:28] And so I think first and foremost, you're making me think a lot about. We did a lot of work early on and still do, you know, courses and everything about people who have a loved one in addiction. And so one of the key things that we would teach there is 'cause normally, you know, the addict can kind of come across that way, selfish, harsh looking out for themselves and at, at the detriment of everybody else.

[00:26:53] And so from our point of view, we have can have a real lack of compassion. For that person. We don't understand that [00:27:00] they're going through something, they're going through a pain internally, that they're trying to numb through this behavior. And so the whole dynamic then is very adversarial. 'cause there's a person in pain trying to deal with it as best they can, hurting other people, even though deep down they don't want to.

[00:27:11] And then the other person here has no compassion and sees them as morally wrong and makes them bad. And you know, we would have so many parents just basically say, you know, fix my son. He's broken and that kind of thing, which is a terrible. Uncompassionate, you know, mentality to have. So the first thing we would educate on is the only reason somebody is like that is 'cause they don't know how to be any other way to deal with the pain.

[00:27:22] That could be someone who is so hurt, they can't let anyone get close. And so they say these really hurtful things to keep them at arm's length. It could be a reenactment of trauma. They could have been spoken to that way growing up. They haven't been able to process that. 

[00:27:34] Understanding Unconscious Pain and Compassion

[00:27:34] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: So they're trying to pass on the pain oftentimes, unconsciously.

[00:27:38] And then at some point in their life, it will become conscious to them. And that's a bit of a slap in the face when they realize, holy shit, I'm speaking to people the way that mom or dad spoke to me growing up, which I swore I would never do. That's also having compassion for this person whilst also respecting our own boundaries and the fact that we're in charge of our experience as a human being.

[00:27:56] And so, you know, in that instance, I always tell people like, have [00:28:00] compassion, if you feel like you can help in some way, if they're wanting help. Then you can do it if you choose. Otherwise, set a boundary. 

[00:28:06] Setting Boundaries with Loved Ones

[00:28:06] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: You know, if you're around someone that makes your energy feel absolutely off, you are under no obligation to keep hanging around that person.

[00:28:12] And they might go, well, it's, it's my mom, or it's, you know, my brother. I'm like, still, you are under no obligation to spend time around that person if they're sort of not willing to change and treat you poorly. So there's kind of two aspects to it, I guess. Can we have compassion for that person? 'cause that softens everything that can actually soften the dynamic just by doing that.

[00:28:31] But also having our own strong sense of self and boundaries and understanding what we are and aren't willing to tolerate in this, life as a human. 

[00:28:38] Autumn Carter: I have several family members that are not in involved in our lives because for that very reason, and it did not become clear to me until I went back to school and my oldest was seven months old, and I learned about the stages of change.

[00:28:53] Really understanding that the person needs to be ready. If they're not ready, you're wasting [00:29:00] your energy and your chances are really high. You're hurting them. And you're making their, when they're going to be ready, you're moving that further away from them. 

[00:29:12] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Yeah. 

[00:29:13] Autumn Carter: So here's, I, 

[00:29:14] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: I, I, go ahead.

[00:29:14] Sorry. 

[00:29:14] Personal Experience with Boundaries

[00:29:15] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Just to jump in, I had this experience when I had not long been clean. From drugs, before opening the Centre and everything. And I had this person very, very close to me. And you know, we were kind of in it together a lot and they were kind of still doing it. And they would contact me when they were kind of at their wit's end.

[00:29:32] And I would always be the like, come around, I'll feed you, you know. Give you a place of sleep and all that kind of thing. And I thought, I'm like, you know, I'm the good guy. You know, I'm, I'm helping them and I'm the good guy. And then I had a therapist say to me all the way back then, they said, what if you are preventing them from actually getting better by, by continually.

[00:29:51] 'cause as soon as they would stay for a night or two and get fed, they'd go back to that life. And knowing that they could just come back to me. And as soon as they said that, I'm like, holy shit, maybe [00:30:00] you're right. And I compassionately set a boundary and let that go. And you know, it's hard, you know, because a, part of us goes, you can't do that.

[00:30:09] You know, you're meant to be there for them. And there's all these excuses that come up, but sometimes we have to be strong in our conviction. It was rough for them for a bit after that. But then they ended up getting their life together and getting better I think that was a great example of what we're talking about.

[00:30:23] Sometimes we can enable a little bit under the guise of being a great person and a rescuer. 

[00:30:28] Autumn Carter: Yeah, and I've had people, give me that guilt trip of, you know, you should be helping them and it's all the shoulds. As soon as shoulds come out, you should, 

[00:30:35] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: that's, that's a swear word. So with my clients, they can say, I won't swear.

[00:30:37] I dunno. If you let us read your podcast, say whatever swear words you want, you say, should or shouldn't, we're, we're gonna have a problem. 

[00:30:43] Autumn Carter: Yep. And it's that whole, the guilt trip mentality of you should be helping them out, the should thing. And realizing that people need to hit rock bottom. And you can be ready to help [00:31:00] them when they're ready.

[00:31:01] But sometimes you think they fit the rock bottom and they haven't. And if you're right there to swoop them, swoop in, it takes 'em decades longer, sometimes more. 

[00:31:13] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:14] Autumn Carter: So here's something that has been on my mind since going through your course that I really want to talk with other people about and help them about, and I'm looking to make sure we still have time for this.

[00:31:25] Fight, Flight, Freeze, and Fawn Responses

[00:31:25] Autumn Carter: It's the fight, flight, or fawn response. And where I've noticed, I've been getting stuck in myself, so I'll be really vulnerable. Here is actually in the freeze and it takes me a little bit to snap out of it. If my children are involved, I can snap out of it faster, but I notice that I get stuck there longer than I want to.

[00:31:45] So can you talk about what they are, especially the fun. I know that can be a lot newer for people, and then what work I can do and listeners who are relating to me can do to help repro that response. 

[00:31:59] The Autonomic Nervous System and Survival Strategies

[00:31:59] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Yeah, [00:32:00] so these nervous system states are different branches, I guess, of the autonomic nervous system. The chief function of the autonomic nervous system is to detect threat or the absence of threat in our environment, and so it is constantly scanning.

[00:32:14] It's called neuroception. It's happens without our conscious awareness. It's scanning our environment constantly if it perceives a threat. Um, and that can be physical threat, psychological threat, emotional threat, all of that. Um, sometimes a, an imagined threat of the future. If it senses threat, then it will go into the nervous system state that it deems the best survival strategy for us as a human, the core.

[00:32:36] Um. Overarching program as a human being is to keep us alive. It's survival. It's not for us to be healthy healthy, happy, and free. It's for us to survive and just get through this damn thing. So it will choose which one is best. It is called a survival strategy. Now, each survival strategy tends, we find we tend to have a dominant one.

[00:32:52] So fight and flight is the sympathetic part of the, or branch of the nervous system. It's a lot of energy. It's called mobilization. [00:33:00] It means that whenever there's a perception of threat, we are gonna have all this energy coming to the body, the limbs and everything, to either fight back at whatever the threat is or to run away.

[00:33:09] And flee. A lot of clients I've worked with have very strong flight response. A lot of the work we have to do is actually processing a flight response. So there was a lot of instances in their past where they wanted to run but couldn't. So that flight response was stifled. And so like as soon as we're going through it in a session and we're back in a memory.

[00:33:25] Even though we're on Zoom these days, I can still see it. I see them start to shake, you know, like the restless leg. And I'm like, so we, in session with the work we do, you know, we allow that, we encourage a lot of these bodily movements to happen. Then we have the, freeze and the foreign response.

[00:33:40] So the parasympathetic branch of our nervous system. Was traditionally thought of as our rest and digest phase. It was a very beneficial state to be in that we found through the work of, Stephen Porges and Polyvagal theory, that there's different branches to this parasympathetic nervous system. So yes, there's a rest and digest phase.

[00:33:58] There's also something called a ventral [00:34:00] vagal. So the vagus nerve has different parts to it. There's a vagal section and a dorsal section. The vagal section is that complete absence of any perceived threat that is social connection. I feel safe. I feel great. I'm happy to just engage with myself here.

[00:34:13] I'm happy to go off and engage with human beings and nature. I feel perfectly safe. Pretty much everybody that I've worked with over the years has. Not been in a full, ventral vagal state for decades, and through the use of alcohol, drugs, shopping, you know, relationships, food. We're, we're unconsciously trying to get back there.

[00:34:32] Essentially we're trying to solve that problem. And the dorsal vagal branch is our shutdown down branch. So this is immobilization, this is where the nervous system deems for us to, shut down is the best way of survival. The foreign response is where people pleasing and that kind of thing comes in.

[00:34:48] It's better for me to shut my own expression down and my own needs to meet the needs of others 'cause that's a better survival strategy. The shutdown response is one, which is on a [00:35:00] spectrum. It can go from mild dissociation all the way to fainting death, not fainting. And you'll see this in the animal kingdom.

[00:35:07] If your listeners type in, like go to YouTube, type in Impala cheetah shut down response, it'll pop right up. There's a great example of it where a cheetah catches an Impala in the wild and it's got it in its mouth and it was carrying it along when you could swear the Impala is dead.

[00:35:22] It's completely floppy. There's like no, nothing going on. And so the cheetah on the way back to wherever it's gonna consume the animal, it sees over leave another cheetah in the distance. So it drops the Impala so now this Impala that's in a complete and utter shutdown state in the nervous system, the cheetah goes into a free state to scan its environment for what it perceives as might be a a threat.

[00:35:43] And so it sees this other cheater and it goes off to inspect. Whilst it goes off, you see the Impala breathe incredibly heavily. You know, stomach going in and out and it comes out of a shutdown response, looks around and goes into a flight response and runs off, and it, it's free. So survival strategy worked, you know, for the Impala in that moment.

[00:35:57] So us human beings have the same kind of wiring, you know, going [00:36:00] on and dissociation has been a big one with clients. They don't understand that that's a survival strategy. 

[00:36:05] Processing Trauma and Dissociation

[00:36:05] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: It was easier normally in their formative years to dissociate than be completely attuned and present with their environment.

[00:36:12] Why? Because the environment was too, emotionally disturbing. It was too threatening for them to be with. This kind of education as well is incredibly helpful, especially for people who've been through sexual trauma in that it removes a lot of shame because so many people who've been through sexual trauma, who went into their nervous system, went into a shutdown response because complete dissociation and shutting down was their best survival strategy.

[00:36:35] They then look back on it and go, why didn't I fight back? Why didn't I run? And they create all this shame within themselves when they can understand our nervous system and how it works. It can really help, you know, remove a lot of that shame and go, oh, I was my nervous system deemed that was best survival and maybe it was.

[00:36:51] So, you know, I can now let that go. There's probably a lot more to work with there and get through, but at least the shame is gone and that negative view of self based on what happened. And so with all these states, you know, we kind of get conditioned, you know, so [00:37:00] growing up, if my environment was chaotic and whatnot, maybe escaping and running away was a great strategy for me.

[00:37:05] Maybe fighting back was fights one we see less and less of because fight normally isn't a great strategy you know, if my, hypothetically, my dad's an alcoholic and sometimes he comes home angry and whatnot a fight response point isn't best for my survival because my dad is way stronger than me and he's drunk, you know, so that's not good.

[00:37:23] So maybe it's better for me to run, it's better for me to completely dissociate. It's better for me to just do whatever he says and fawn and 'cause that's gonna get me through. And so we grow up and we're these adults and we have all these nervous system sort of programs running in the background.

[00:37:37] And so. You know, someone who's dominant in a flight response. We do a lot of movement work and completing that response freeze is an interesting one because there's freezes in like. I'm actually frozen, scanning my environment, but there's also what's called functional freeze. And so functional freeze is where I can be in a free state in my nervous system, but I've developed the resources to actually function as [00:38:00] a human being while still being in freeze most of the time.

[00:38:03] So like from the outside looking in, we might be like, wow, look, they can look after the kids and they can do their job and they're off doing, you know, other stuff. Internally, they're always on this sort of freeze, high alert kind of state. And so, you know, like all of the stuff that we do, we recognize that.

[00:38:11] We get to know the felt sense of that state. You know, what does it feel like in here, emotionally? What's happening? We can communicate with a freeze state. We can ask it, you know, what's it trying to protect us from? What will happen if we let the free state down? And normally people will go, well, I'll get attacked.

[00:38:27] Right. And then by doing that where we can work out, when did we feel under threat and under attack in our life that the free state started to become our dominant survival strategy? They might be like, well, I was in the school yard. I was bullied pretty much all through primary school and every day I had to be in that free state, you know, functionally to get through.

[00:38:43] Then we would go back and process and work through that in whatever time it talks. So just by doing that and your listeners, hopefully by understanding those states a bit now. The first step is awareness and we can start to recognize in our day-to-day life, 'cause it'll always fluctuate. You know, I can be in one situation [00:39:00] or around one person, and I feel like so safe and open and connected.

[00:39:04] Then I'll literally go to the next thing and all of a sudden I can feel this kind of freeze or dissociation or like I want to run and get out of there. So by understanding and having an awareness around this, we can then start to maybe in our own life, do a bit of inquiry and introspection and work out, you know, when did this strategy start?

[00:39:19] Who was I trying to run away from? Or what was I trying to run away from? And that becomes a whole area of exploration that, you know, we can explore a bit ourselves. But oftentimes having a guide and a practitioner helps a lot with working through that. 

[00:39:31] Autumn Carter: Yeah, and I've noticed with one person in particular who's close to me that for her it's, she hasn't been triggered for a while, so then she triggers herself.

[00:39:42] So there's that. The shoe hasn't dropped, it's going to drop, so I'm just gonna make it drop type of a situation. And I find it very fascinating. I'm not in a position to help her because it's a family member. But it's been very interesting and it's helped [00:40:00] me to see it while coaching with other people.

[00:40:03] Like, okay, what's going on? And I think it was remind me his name that's in the video. I just had a moment. 

[00:40:04] I think it's Matt that talked how you can slowly bring yourself into those feelings or those situations and then you bring yourself back to just remind yourself what it feels like.

[00:40:17] And where I've actually been doing it, I find it hysterical that it's here, but in pickleball. So it's when I feel I'm very new to pickleball and it's when I'm feel the adrenaline coming in. I don't like the feeling of adrenaline and my. Body shaking 'cause it reminds me of past trauma and how I had to freeze in order to survive, especially as a child.

[00:40:37] It's been working through that, especially being in a league where I am meant to be there supporting my teammate, you know, being in the thick of it and just really breathing through it and whenever the ball is not coming to me, I just, and I make sure I'm moving around and stuff like that. And it's been really helpful for me, but I know that it isn't going to be a, and I'm done.

[00:40:50] It's going to continue being a process and a journey and that is kind of what's good. And also what sucks. About recovering from trauma [00:41:00] is it's absolutely a journey, and it's like when working out, it's not flat. It goes up and down, and it is definitely not linear. Some days it's uphill, and some days it's downhill and it's all over the place.

[00:41:14] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: It's a rewiring, you know, that kind of instance is, um, we, through our formative years, our nervous system adapted to its environment. We come into this world like, oh, what the hell is this? How do I survive? And so we create these beliefs for this nervous system wiring as well. And so a lot of the processes, the unwinding of that wiring and help us create, there's a distance between me and the past and me now.

[00:41:35] 'cause what happens. Our nervous systems adapted in this environment. All of a sudden, 20 years later, we're in this environment and they're very different. This one, very safe and good for our, you know, we've created a good space. It's, we're happy to thrive in here, but we've still got the old wiring from over here, so we're still like, you know, looking out.

[00:41:51] Navigating Relationships and Trauma Responses

[00:41:51] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: And so in that instance that that person talking about it's self-sabotage. It's like, I don't trust that things are gonna be okay. I don't trust, maybe [00:42:00] that I deserve to be happy or that life's meant to be somewhat easy or is meant to have ease in my life. And so, because we don't have that trust, we'll cause the issue, you know, so if no one causes an issue in our life, then we get that, that nervous system starts to get shaky.

[00:42:16] Like this isn't normal. And then so we'll create our own drama. Just to fulfill the needs of the nervous system and all these trauma imprints. And when you hear it, you're like, that's so stupid. Why do we do that? But that's just, that's part of being a human. It's what most people are doing.

[00:42:28] You know, if someone's got a belief, maybe they had, you know, this is a pattern we see a lot. Maybe one of the parents was bipolar, so it was a very, very unpredictable environment. And so the nervous system gets used, comes familiar with chaos, and so then years later, all the relationships that person gets into are extremely chaotic and not healthy at all.

[00:42:47] And they finally get with a new partner who is really calm and Centreed and they just treat them well. They're like, oh, finally found the right person. This is fantastic. I can't believe how good everyone's happy. Few weeks into that relationship and everything starts to get shaky. 'cause like, [00:43:00] this isn't normal, this isn't familiar, this is not how it's meant to be.

[00:43:03] And then they'll normally cause drama in the relationship. The relationship falls apart and they go back to the pattern. You know, this is why we have a lot of similar themes in different areas of our life. 

[00:43:13] Autumn Carter: I haven't married, it'll be 16 years this year and still adore him. He's my best friend and what's really great about him being my best friend is there's times where I am pissed off at him as my husband, but I can't go without talking to him 'cause I miss my best friend.

[00:43:28] So there are times where I'm like, I need to talk to my best friend right now. So like, shut off the husband fire, but I need to complain about you. And in the beginning of our marriage it was, we almost divorced. It was tough because I was reliving my trauma and he grew up in a calm household. Mm. I mean, he's large family, but calm.

[00:43:49] So however that works. And then mine, smaller family, tons of chaos, generational trauma, drug abuse, like. It was all there, all the colors, [00:44:00] and it was really hard to spend that time unwinding all of that. And I still am, but our marriage is so calm. It's so nice and it's something that I wish that everybody felt and experienced because it allows me this space to unwind myself, to cut off those parts, to kind of, I'm thinking of my husband, um, that rewiring and soldering and.

[00:44:23] That type of stuff. My husband's very, nerdy electrical engineer. And it allows me to, when my children trigger me to have that pause and, okay, if I can't respond right, 'cause I'm gonna respond how my parents did, how would my husband respond if he was here? I can kind of just, instead of what would Jesus do, what would Drew do?

[00:44:43] Yeah, and it's really helpful. What would Drew start? Because he just has that reservoir of calm when it's needed and it's catapulted to his career because of that. He is an amazing father and EV people come to him because of that, and I can just kind of embrace that when he's not [00:45:00] around.

[00:45:01] And it really helps a lot and it's helped me to, okay, now seeing how he would do it. How do I repro that part in myself? I highly recommend being around someone like that who just brings you that peace and that calm and just, if you can't do it yourself, pretend like you're them for a moment because it just helps.

[00:45:23] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Oh, for sure. And you know, you described that sort of what we're talking about, the coming together and this turbulence and disturbance and he had to come and was able to hold space for that. But you also had the awareness of, you know, no, I want to change my wiring. I want to do things differently.

[00:45:38] I want to make this work and be different and create something new. You know, because that's where it is. It's new, it's not the same familiar past, it's something new. And that's so scary. We're so scared of the unknown. We'll tend to clinging onto the familiar even if the familiar is painful and we complain about it all the time.

[00:45:53] So one of the things that I think in what we've been teaching the last decade, and we've spoken to a lot of people obviously we've worked with, but also [00:46:00] practitioners, is that sort of we're giving people back choice. Because we run on these unconscious programs so much that we're just, you know, we're, we're at a whim to them, but by having back choice, we can go, okay.

[00:46:11] Yes, my, I'm being really triggered or stimulated in this particular situation, let's say with my boss, but I know what that's about. I know where that comes from. I'm not that kid in grade two putting their hand up in class anymore. So despite feeling the fear, I'm gonna knock on the door and go in anyway.

[00:46:26] And so now we're giving our subconscious mind and our somatic experience in our body contrary evidence to what it previously believes and what is familiar. And so that combined with really good therapy is I think a winning combination. 

[00:46:38] Autumn Carter: Yeah. And you're reminding me of a book that I'm slowly working my way through because there's so much work to do within this book.

[00:46:45] It's called The Success Principles. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. He's the co-author for Chicken Soup for the Soul. I'm sure you heard of that from the nineties. 

[00:46:52] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Jack Canfield. 

[00:46:53] Autumn Carter: Yes. And he talks about in the book, I can't even tell you what chapter off the top of my head, [00:47:00] but when you are complaining.

[00:47:02] It's because you know there is a better way and that he has a workbook that's associated with this book, but he gives you homework on how to undo that, how to reframe, how to stop complaining. And it is powerful and it is that great reminder that if you're complaining, you know it's better.

[00:47:21] So what changes are you going to make or shut up. 

[00:47:26] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: That's brilliant. That's really good advice. That clap 

[00:47:27] Autumn Carter: like. If you're not gonna do anything about it, just shut up. And it was one of those, whew. Okay. And then I caught myself complaining like an hour later and it was, oh, okay, I see this now. It was a very big aha moment and it's one that I've given to clients as well.

[00:47:43] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Yeah, and so this is the reason why as well, sometimes when people first come into this work. Initially they feel like they're getting worse instead of better because they're becoming, so let's say you use that example of the complaining.

[00:47:55] So all of a sudden now, after that session, everyone's gonna become aware, hopefully of every time they're [00:48:00] complaining and they realize, they complain way more than they thought they did.

[00:48:04] Then they notice all the times they display narcissism. They're like, holy shit, I'm narcissistic so much, or whatever it is, you know? And so we become aware of all these things that we were doing before, unconsciously. And so we essentially become aware of our own bullshit to a degree. And that can feel like, oh, I think I'm getting worse.

[00:48:21] But that's the, that's the initial part of the process, unfortunately. 

[00:48:24] Autumn Carter: That's the hard thing with the work that you do on yourself is, okay, I healed this, but then your body just kind of wants to throw up like, here's all this other stuff that you need to now work on, and it can be very overwhelming. This is why at the end of this and the whole point of this whole conversation.

[00:48:42] The Journey of Healing and Seeking Help

[00:48:42] Autumn Carter: Seek help. You don't have to do this alone because if you are, chances are pretty high, you're gonna give up at some point. Find somebody who's done this journey, if you can, a friend. cool cool. But I highly recommend somebody who's a professional in this. Seek a therapist, seek a [00:49:00] coach, get the real help that you need because it can be so overwhelming to where you just wanna give up because there's so much work.

[00:49:09] Finding the resources, and this is where it's so helpful to come to someone like us. We're here. Let us give you the tools, let us give you that cheerleading, the encouragement and everything else that you can put into it. Even more so somebody that is going to hold you accountable to really putting in the work.

[00:49:29] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Yeah. I could not agree more. 

[00:49:31] Autumn Carter: What is the one thing that you wanna leave us with as we close out 

[00:49:35] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: one thing that I could leave people with, I think we've left people with, with quite a lot. Yeah, I, I just think if, if someone listening to this is probably at some stage on their journey, I would just say, just keep going.

[00:49:43] If it feels like it's might be getting worse, or you've hit a plateau or you feel like things can't get better, just please keep going. I've seen not only in my own life, but now just hundreds of people over the years who felt like there was no light at the end of the tunnel, and light change was possible for other people, but not them.[00:50:00] 

[00:50:00] I've seen them turn their lives around in actually pretty short time. Remember you thought that you were stuck this way forever? And they're like, ah, that's right. So if you're in that place now, just please keep going. Normally it's, darkest before the sun rises, so just keep on going, keep on doing the right things and you'll get there.

[00:50:16] Resources and Courses for Healing

[00:50:16] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: And for us, I mean, we're all these days about, doing our courses and practitioner trainings and all of that kind of thing, so we're constantly creating. Myself and Matt, the main training we have where we have the free course, which you took, Autumn, but also in body processing and modality that we teach for working somatically in the body.

[00:50:34] So we, have now hundreds of practitioners all around the world. Many in the us, UK obviously down here in Australia and New Zealand. We've. Got the level one and level two. We're about to start recording level three to make that sort of a master's program.

[00:50:47] So we're in the sort of education and putting that together. We've got a whole bunch of my books up here and everything, so we're always trading. We have a breath work course coming out next month, a tapping course. We've gone from, myself and Melissa, my partner ran the, a physical [00:51:00] Centre down here in Melbourne for years, and now we're online education platform,

[00:51:03] showcasing what we do, but we're sort of starting to showcase a lot of other really, passionate and skilled people around the world all to do with healing and getting to the root cause of what's happening. 

[00:51:13] Autumn Carter: That's helpful because I've done talk therapy, very surface level, but getting to the root cause, working with a somatics coach has made such a huge difference for me personally, and I love using myself before I ever use a client because.

[00:51:28] I am the biggest example for me at the end of the day, if that makes sense. And I'm the biggest believer in knowing that I have actually changed these parts of myself where I can, I don't know, I, I just like starting with myself first. I feel like it's more personal. Yeah. But it has made a huge difference in places where I don't feel safe.

[00:51:42] I was at a doctor's appointment and I wasn't sure what I was going to be given as my results and was very nervous. And I worked with my somatics coach about she called it marking, and I always think of it like an animal peeing on things and she always laughs at me, but it's really. Go. I [00:52:00] know, but she calls it, it marking and you're doing it visually and sometimes you're touching the plate, like the walls in the room.

[00:52:07] And like really making it feel like your safe space. So then for me, when the doctor came in the room and chatted with me, thankfully it was nothing, but it was so empowering to know that this was my protected space, especially because it was a 20 minute wave when I was within that room. And by the time the doctor could have come in, I could have been at my highest trauma, like trigger wise.

[00:52:30] And instead I was nice and calm and Centreed, and collected and I wasn't on my phone. I was just very present and grounded, and that is such an empowering and amazing feeling and something that I wish upon everybody. So I love that you have these courses that allow for that.

[00:52:46] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Yeah. No, that we call that orienting. It's just, I've never heard it's a different word forward, I guess. But it's just, yeah, just orienting to our surroundings, be it with sight and touch and I mean, that's one way that we can develop a resource and there's plenty, but it's so good. 'cause when, when we do [00:53:00] that and it works for us and we have a really positive experience like that, then once again, it gives such rich information to our internal capacities knowing that we can do that again.

[00:53:09] It's like I didn't need to reach for the phone, I didn't have to use some other form of distraction. I simply became present to my surroundings and everything was okay. 

[00:53:17] Autumn Carter: Yeah, makes a big difference. If any of you are interested in the things that he talks about there or talked about, there are links in the show notes, so please head there and if not, tell us your website in case people don't even wanna look at the show notes.

[00:53:30] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: Yeah. So we're the Centre for Healing everywhere. I need to make a note that down here in Australia we use the mother language from England. So Centre is TRE. If you do, TER, you'll be taken, somewhere else. So the Centre for Healing, TRE, the Centre for healing.com, we the Centre for Healing on Instagram, on Facebook TikTok, all of that.

[00:53:50] So yeah, follow along and if you go to the website, you'll see all the different sort of categories and courses and there's a lot to have a look at there. 

[00:53:57] Autumn Carter: Thank you so much for being on. 

[00:53:59] Ryan Hassan- Centre for Healing: No, [00:54:00] thank you. Enjoyed the discussion. 

[00:54:01] Autumn Carter: 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.

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[00:55:33] 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.

[00:55:53] If you want personal one-on-one coaching from a certified life and parenting coach, go to my website, wellness and [00:56:00] every season.com. That's where you can get personalized coaching from me for you. See you in next week's episode.