Episode 85: A powder keg awakening with Lindsay Poelman Part 2

And so, but anyway, my study of a lot of that and, and learning from, you know, different religious scholars really helped me just check in and think like, you know what if I remember, I remember reading this book and these scholars were trying to figure out like was Jesus like 50% man, 50% God.

Like, what was it? And this woman said this, this female scholar and a few other scholars basically said, well, he was 100% bold and that for me was like, oh, oh and from there, I remember thinking, OK, so he’s 100% man, 100% God. What does that mean for me? And I remember thinking like, if we’re here to become gods and goddesses and then you take quantum time, quantum physics and put that into play, does that mean we’re actually all already gods and goddesses?

And, and what if we have that divine God goddess in us? Right now. And what if you know, I mean, so what if we have that right now? What if we have that connection and anytime we connect to ourselves, which is like, what we’re doing when we’re healing from trauma, trauma creates a separation of self. Anytime we can be present in here and the now in the here and now and connected to ourselves.

What if, when we connected to our knowing, we’re not only connected to our divine knowing, but connected to God. And so I kind of just started thinking like, what if we already are? And what if we’re here to express and put our creative power into the physical realm of earth?

I’ve actually had that thought before. What if the seeds, the fairy dust, whatever you wanna call it of divinity, they’re already there within us. Of course they are. But I think, I mean, and how beautiful is that? Yeah, I mean, we’re, we’re the, we’re taught we’re the literal offspring of deity. So, doesn’t that make sense?

Yeah, like can you, could you act like is it even possible to like compartmentalize that and say that we’re not for this like short life term, but then we suddenly back are again.

Yeah. Wow. Fascinating. I love, I love where you’re diving so, so much. And I have read part of the book you’re referring to at your recommendation. I have a lot of books that I’ve started. I get halfway through. I have a pile of books and I love mind broadening, heart expanding, information. It’s so, so needed. So I’m curious to know in your work and, and this could prove to be useful for those that might be listening. What would religious trauma or spiritual trauma look like for

them? How would they be able to recognize it either in themselves, perhaps in their immediate family members, like parents in their kids, or maybe extended family. you know, as I work with LGBT Q plus families, sometimes the parents aren’t necessarily aware that there is actual, you know, a trauma response going on for their kiddo. So I’m just wondering if you can just give some, some descriptors, some, you know, ideas of what that looks like in real life.

Oh, yeah, I mean, it just because of the layer of the culture that, you know, we grew up in Megan, like, it’s, it’s so much more prevalent than we see. And so, you know, religious trauma syndrome occurs when an individual struggles with leaving a religion or a set of beliefs that has led to their indoctrination. And so it often involves the trauma of breaking away from a controlling environment, lifestyle or religious figure.

And in some settings, the symptoms of religious trauma can be similar to that of complex ptsd. So it can be, it can be a lot. And, and I think, you know, when you consider how deep so many of us are in with respect to the church and how deep some of these belief systems go. It’s just the thought, you know, we’re such a relational species as humans.

We are biologically, you know, we’re created to be like on a biological level, not having connection to a community can feel like the end, end all, be all. And so for a lot of people, just the thought of having a different thought than what you were told to think. It’s, it can just be so scary because it’s like I could, if that, then I could be completely ostracized.

And so just that stuff can be, it can be really triggering for a lot of people. But, but I would say with trauma, you know, if you’re like, does my kid does he, you know, who knows? I think a lot of one thing you can do is kind of ask yourself like if they’re exhibiting certain behavior, like if you can put two in front of the behavior, like too, that can sometimes help you see if there’s just trauma or something to look at.

because, you know, maybe your kids like four m you know, maybe your kids four minutes late to church and we blow up at him like it’s gonna be the end of the world, right? That would be more us maybe carrying something. But like, you know, a lot of people exhibit fight flight freeze and fond responses at church. So a fight response to me would maybe be like, it could be kind of like a, like an aggressive, like I would, what comes to my mind initially is like a parent that’s like really

aggressive and forceful about kids going to church and doing things. Right. And then we can just use the excuse that we can be rude to our kids and, and disrespectful in the name of God, right, In the name of what’s right. And so a fight response can be kind of like overly like aggressive, maybe even aggressively, kind of managing or trying to control something.

And again, you kind of put that too in front of it. I see a lot of fawning responses in the church. So super people pleasing, think of women or just what we’re taught yes to every calling. all of that stuff. So when we, when we’re saying yes at the expense of ourselves, and we’re afraid to say no because why? Right. We’re afraid to speak up because we don’t want to be that person who thinks differently and so so much spawning all over left and right.

And then freeze response for sure. A lot of people shut down, right? Like why is everyone passing out? Not everyone but like shutting down. Yeah, like why do I, why do I need a three hour nap after church? This isn’t the same for everybody but like I went through a phase where I was, like, wait, why am I over tired after church? Like, that was two hours long.

But then I need like a three hour nap. What’s happening here? Right. And so, yeah, like, there’s a, there’s a lot of stuff happening that it’s just seems so normal because everyone’s just swimming in the same fish pool. But when you really scale back you, it’s, it’s really easy and clear to see.

So, because my audience comes from varied conservative faith backgrounds, I just want to make sure and point out that these things that Lindsay is sharing with us and talking about it’s really applicable to whatever your faith background is. I’ve learned enough. I know enough about other faiths that some of the expectations and the deeply held beliefs and patterns and communities and the culture. I mean, it’s very similar across the board.

I would say that the correlation is very similar with how demanding your religion is. So the high demand religions, the higher demand religions, you’re going to see like just kind of very similar flavors of the same thing, you know, kind of across the board.

Perhaps a, a more animated trauma response for the, from the higher demand, the higher demand, the higher the trauma maybe not necessarily, it could just depend on the individual.

Yeah, it’s, it’s pretty unique but I, I see in the Mormon spheres just because that’s my experience. just so much stuff like people who come out of religion, Megan to my, to me are just some of the most unders supportive humans that have grown up in these quote unquote like privileged white Christian communities, right? And so the more we can understand privilege and oppression and different intersectionality points and be open to that, we can really choose to see where we’re

all privileged and where we’re all potentially oppressed so that we can really just take care of each other and receive each other regardless of where we stand based on this line of inner religion or out of a religion that was made up by humans.

So I know I’ve, I’ve kept you for a while, but there’s just two more questions I would really like to, to bring up. And one is you talked about parents, you know, when I was asking you about the trauma, what it looks like, you know, parents sometimes aren’t able or don’t see that it’s occurring with their own Children. So you talked about these deeply ingrained beliefs and I think because they are deeply ingrained, sometimes the awareness isn’t there.

So what advice would you offer for parents and how they can support their kiddos? Even if they don’t necessarily see what their child is describing to them or saying to them is going on or happening or even if they don’t understand it, right? What, what words of advice and caution would you offer to these parents and how to support their kiddos, even if they don’t agree or don’t understand or don’t see what their kiddo is saying.

That’s such a great question. Because the thing is, is a lot of times like, especially as kids because if we don’t have the contextual layer of understanding around trauma, how do we explain injustices that we’re experiencing or witnessing at church? If we haven’t even been taught that there’s potential for that, right? So a lot of times kids might come home angry or pissed off at church and they don’t even know why.

Right? And so I think I would say something like a big thing is just to like, let our kids know and, and let ourselves know that, you know, our emotions are real and valid and it’s ok to feel like there’s a reason we’re feeling what we’re feeling and that’s ok and you, we can teach our kids how to feel and express emotions while being respectful, right?

And again, like if your kid needs to vent about something that they saw about church or something, they learned about church because it affects their friend at school and they care about that friend if venting that with you, and if you think that’s disrespectful or if you, if you don’t know how to hold space for a kid just like barreling that out, like you can help them find a place to, to vent or let things out, right?

Because we have these feelings, we need to learn how to express and share and, and there’s a way to do that appropriately. There’s a way to have these healthy sympathetic responses. There’s a way to help, you know, express and transmute our anger, right? And, and our anger is there for a reason. And so if we could start seeing these emotions as something to, to listen to and to honor and to learn from and, and to validate and appreciate it would be so different.

And if you, if you’re like, I have no idea how to do that for my kid, then you can just find a place for your kid to be able to share and express because they’re feeling something they’re feeling for a reason and it’s not just going to go away. Yeah. No, it’s, it’s just like, it’s just like food. Like if, if our, you know, if we’re putting a bunch of diet coke in our body, like our body doesn’t know what to do with the and, but I’m not, I’m not trying to villainize diet Coke fy.

I, but like, I’m just giving an example of like something that’s like, not, not something that’s manmade, like our body doesn’t know what to do with it. It’s like, oh, well, we’ll just kind of like stick it here, right? I’ll just stick it here. Stick that there. Someone told me gum stays in your stomach lining. For seven years. I don’t know if that’s true, but maybe it stays in there a little bit longer. Right. like longer than regular food.

And so with emotions, it’s the same. If we don’t know how to metabolize our emotions, they get stuck, they get stored, they affect us physically. People with a lot of trauma, like, you know, mental health boards, they walk differently. They’re, they’re oddly uncoordinated. So this stuff learning how to thought process and feel emotions. It benefits our physical health. It is our physical health.

Wow, that’s such a great way to explain it. I love that visual. I, I lied. I could ask you more questions, but I will just, I will just ask you one more and it’s the question I like to kind of wrap up with what does it mean to you to live beyond the shadow of doubt?

Hm. Beyond the shadow of a doubt.

I mean, drop the a just beyond the shadow of doubt.

I doubt what, what comes to my mind.

Megan is just being open to the human experience of uncertainty and being open to live a full, complete alive human experience, willing, you know, we’re just talking about emotions, willing, willing and capable, developing out the capacity to feel the breadth of the human experience that we’re meant to feel here. And, and to let ourselves be human in it too.

Yeah, that’s beautiful. I really like that. Allow yourself to move beyond the uncomfortable, lean into it. Live it. Well, I have so loved this time with you. your, your sharing of your experience and your expertise. I have a few more questions that just require one word answers that I throw out to get to know you a little bit better. Of course. and our listeners to get to know you a little better. Tell us your favorite book.

Oh, gosh, I read a lot of like drama books but, you know, one book that I love, it’s fiction. It’s called Midnight Libraries. And the reason that I love it is because I can tell the author gets mental illness.

So it’s a fictional book, but it’s so beautifully written about human experience and, oh, I’ll have to jot that down.

Goodnight libraries. I think the author’s last name is Haig something. Matthew Haigh. I’m not sure. But it’s, it’s a really good one.

Ok. Would you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?

I mean, I’ve heard we’re all actually ambivert, but I’m definitely spectrum wiser.

Definitely more on the side of that’s what I would say.

Ambivert. Is that what you said? I love it.

Do you have a favorite artist like music or you pick?

I mean, oh, gosh. I like Taylor Swift. I’m going to her concert next and next year I haven’t even told my kids that we got tickets for family. So, yeah, she’s a pretty powerful, like female genius. I think she’s a genius.

And, anyway, so that’s exciting.

I’m jealous of that. That’ll be a fun night. are you a night owl or a morning mark?

A naturally night owl?

But now my kids school schedules on, so I’m working on switching that around.

Yeah, I feel that, do you have a celebrity crush crush?

Hm. Do I just adore celebrity. I like Meg Ryan. I like, I’m trying to think. I don’t know if pressure is the right word, but I love movies with Meg Ryan. I love, I love Steve Carell in movies. I like Ryan gosling in movies. Matthew Cona. sweet. I love, I don’t know. Yeah.

Ok. Do you do still or carbonated water or are you a diet soda fan?

I do still still water for sure. Even though carbonated is a very European thing. I haven’t jumped on that yet.

It is very, and the furthest place that you have traveled, you’ve probably been everywhere.

probably Asia, Southeast Asia the summer I met my husband. Thailand. Yeah, Thailand.

Sweet. Well, so wonderful. please share with our listeners where they can connect with you and any offers that you have fun.

Yeah. So if, I have a few offers, I have some kind of more online course problem co course programs for people and you know, look like I have a safe awakenings program. That’s a little bit more of a course for people just learning how to kind of process and feel stuff that’s happening with respect to their awakening. So it’s called safe awakenings.

I have another course like that for women healing from betrayal trauma. And then, my more live offerings, I do a live, trauma informed coach certification for people who want to switch careers and start, you know, this all this stuff and all these problems that I’ve talked about. basically learning how to hold space and, and, and have contextual understanding of those problems while helping humans feel and process the emotions there.

So if that, I, yeah, so I have a trauma certification for that and then for people who are already coaches, who want to layer in a lot of this stuff, you know, the contextual understanding of the stuff that we’ve talked about by having an advanced relationship trauma certification as flaw.

And that’s the one I’m doing.

Yes. The one that you’re in

it, it will change your world. You’ll never be the same.

Well, and the people in there are just, you can tell they just love humans and they, they just, they care enough and they take this healing work seriously enough that they, you know, want to learn this stuff so that they can really do everything they can to create coaching environments, healing environments that are most conducive to safety, the foundation for healing. So it’s, it’s really beautiful.

Yeah, it’s changed my world. I’m so grateful to learn that, you know, contrary to what that therapist told you many years ago, you know, trauma isn’t a permanent thing. I mean, you may always have it there and have to be aware of it, but it doesn’t need to rule your life. You can move on and enjoy life more, fully live life, more slowly, more big, you know, just bigger.

Of course. Absolutely. Yes. And if your partner is coping with porn, it’s, it’s not the scarlet letter for your life. Like you can have an amazing life and, and you can heal from that and, and we, my husband and I are a testament to that.

Yeah, for sure. Well, Lindsay, I love you. You’re a beautiful person. Amazing coach, dear friend. Thank you so much for being here today.

Of course. Thank you for having me.