How To Move Forward After Trauma
with Cathleen Elle on The Healers Café with Dr. Manon Bolliger, ND

 

I was in a board meeting, and just it was the second I heard the news I didn’t even have to hear I knew it, you know, like what I saw on the person’s face, I knew something happened to my son. And that’s when my life really changed. You know, the A life was no longer in the B life either began with this experience, so I could have chosen to die and live it live my death here on Earth. Or I could choose to honor my son and myself and do the best I could to help others. So that’s what I chose.

 

Dr. Manon  04:02

So at that stage, there are so many decisions, I think running your mind at the time. I mean, the path is clear, but how did you be that person that sees life positively in the sense of honoring your son around that. Where did that come from?

 

Cathleen Elle  04:32

Well, it came from me lying on his grave wishing and begging and pleading, ‘Please, whoever, whatever took my son, please take me to.’ I was also very much feeling like I didn’t want to live on this earth any longer either. But what I didn’t share here on the podcast yet was that when my son died, he was angry at me and actually wrote a note saying he didn’t want me at his service. And I found that out about a month after his service. So I found myself completely shattered laying on his grave just wishing that. I…I  was alone, my daughter was in college about 1200 miles away, and I just wanted to die. And as I’m laying there screaming, begging, just wishing, like nothing was clear. I felt like the world was on my back, I couldn’t breathe, because my heart felt like it was just getting tighter and tighter and tighter. And it just…it just became still. And I’d stopped crying. And like a calmness came over my body. And I heard these clear words, “If this happened in your life, then you meant to do something with it. So do it.” And that was my message. You know, I had received messages that Logan, Logan’s my son, was there with me throughout most of the time prior to that, but that message was very clear. So I had the voice, I had the context as a form of business owner, and being politically involved, I had the media outlets. I knew the media outlets would pick up the story. But I had to be willing to stand up and share the story. So I started to speak out. So that was that the beginning of my healing journey was then.

 

Dr. Manon  06:20

Yeah, and I mean, maybe this was your case or not, but often, we reframe our stories. Like we have one story, with certain emotions and a certain understanding, and then another story comes to replace how we saw things. And with media attention, it’s like, your story is out of there, whichever one was heard. And how was that for you? Because I’m sure that this is not like a quick, all together kind of situation.  I couldn’t imagine what you must have gone through.

 

Cathleen Elle  06:59

That’s just a really, really good point because not many people catch that. It was a back and forth. Every time I spoke out in the media, it took me sometimes days, sometimes weeks to get back up and do it again. There were times when I spoke up, I was in so much pain because it just created so much shame. I believed I was shameful because I couldn’t save my son, as a successful businesswoman, and single mom, and all the things that we label ourselves with. I just created so much shame I should have saved my son, I should have known differently. And so that shame never really went away because most people didn’t know there was a note for like eight years after his transition. And so I was hiding behind that shame so that every step I took forward to help someone else and save another person’s life, I fell backwards. And then I’d step forward and then fall backwards, and then step forward and fall backwards. So I finally decided to invest in a cognitive thought therapist, which really helped me continue to move gradually, over a five or six-year period, forward. And eventually, I invested in post-traumatic stress therapy, because the stories that we create, are not just the stories we create with events that we remember, like the immediate events, it’s a story I created around. I’m just going to use the one story about my dad shooting at us. When he was shooting at us, the post-traumatic stress therapy was not to deal with Logan’s suicide, because I was working through that. In the cognitive thought therapy, it was to deal with all the other traumas that I had hidden behind and pushed aside and continued to read self-help books and think that I was doing better than repeating the same patterns over and over and over again. It was really to deal with that because the story I’d framed around the shooting is that my mom put me behind the toilet when she and my sister got in the bathtub. And at that moment at three or four years old, it was like, ‘What about me? I’m unlovable to be in the bathtub?’. The reality of it, there wasn’t enough room in the bathtub. And so the stories that we create are not real. They’re not complete is what they are. So there’s a healing modality that I have become a master and called RIM, it’s regenerating images and memory. Using your imagination to go back into your body, feeling your body going back to its original, I’ll call it the original sin of the pattern, and you recreate the memory based on the new awareness. You have a dialogue with the individual or individuals you need to have a dialogue with. So where you create more compassion, you create forgiveness. And you have such a new awareness about life in general that you’re more cognitive and consciously living through life by moving through different healing modalities that are energetically based.

 

Dr. Manon  10:36

So I’m very interested in that because a big part of my work is trauma as well. And part of the way I reach it is through touch actually, which brings up body memory. Sort of that pool of the autonomic nervous system response to the stress, even with no understanding of what happened. Plus, all the layered visuals and tastes, and everything that happened at that time. And if it’s unconscious, that’s all we get. But if it becomes conscious, or what has already come out, then there are the stories that we make it mean. So there are layers to this. So how does the work that really helped you and then you become an expert in, how does that break apart? So I’m just going to the bathtub. You’re not in it, your mom shoves you behind the toilet, how do you break it? And that was traumatic to you at the time, and I understand that, how trauma adds on to trauma, you don’t even know it.

 

Cathleen Elle  11:48

I had no idea I was holding the resentment. I was holding it toward my mom, and I just treated her like, I was snappy with her. I was angry with her and I didn’t even know why I was angry with her. I couldn’t understand why she would stay with an abusive man as long as she did. And so by going back and recreating this memory, through this process that you go in, you have a virtual resource that you’re comfortable with, you know their safety, and you’re able to see it from a different perspective. So you move your awareness into your mom and looking back at you. Like for her, she was able to say it’s the safest place for you. It wasn’t about loving you, it is about loving you the best way I could, and keeping all of us safe in such a confined area with bullets coming through the bathroom door. And so then she also chose in that same situation, she also chose not to let the police take him away because he was passed out. And she said afterward, I had some hope at that point that we’re going to be safe. And she didn’t let him go. So long story, but I was able through this process to go in and see from a different awareness, be in it without being in the trauma, and I got to do that. The facilitator, the master at the time, was facilitating me like it was my process, not theirs there. They were just guidance, guiding force, which was beautiful. And so I was able to see, she chose, so this is the key, she chose to be beaten on a regular basis for as long as she did. So she could keep her children because, in her mind, she believed that she wouldn’t be able to keep her kids. And this was a lot. This was back in the 60s so they didn’t have the services that we have today. So I was able to just hold more compassion. So instead of holding resentment and anger, I was able to hold more compassion and love. Just pure compassion and love for her, for her to give up what she gave up and to be abused. Like she was abused just so we could have a home. You know, it’s a very different story. There’s a very different feeling. It’s a very different feeling.

 

Dr. Manon  13:05

But I think the process in which we can understand all sides is the process that really moves our planet forward. You know, it’s the compassion to understand, in that sense that everyone is hurt. To whatever degree it’s true, and not everyone knows what to do or can even find the way out of it.

 

Cathleen Elle  14:45

It’s funny as you say that I have actually shared with people at this time, our public figures haven’t always behaved in the best way. And when there are people complaining about it and really degrading and angry about it, I just say, maybe it’s best, maybe it would be helpful to see them as wounded children. Maybe one has gone through additional healing more than the other so they act a little differently. But maybe if we’re able to just see our public figures as wounded children, we could hold more compassion. That doesn’t mean we agree with them. We just hold more compassion for who they are. Who they have become.

 

Dr. Manon  15:37

Yeah, I know. One of my healing experiences I remember. Do you know the Work of Byron, Katie?

 

Cathleen Elle  15:47

Oh, definitely. Yeah, I just was reading her book again.

 

Dr. Manon  15:52

With her, but I also had this in another circle of healing and to be confronted, and I don’t mean…maybe an English confronted sounds like a war. It’s not right. it’s just faced within that sense. The perpetrator of acts that make no sense, and that are hurtful, that are wrong, that ruin people’s lives, etc. but to actually hear their stories. When they want to heal,  it changes everything. Because, you know, that on some deep level that we’re all humans, and we’re all wounded children. In that sense, we’re doing our best. And I think, if more of that was happening on all levels in politics, especially, but everywhere. Instead of judging people continually. I’m just looking at this mask story. If there’s anger, so much anger, both sides, so much judgment, all of this. And it’s like if we could just accept that people come where they come from, and there’s different information we have access to, or we don’t, there are many layers of all of this. But if you look at people with honoring them, and with love and compassion, it’s a lot easier to take that. We’re not going to all see eye to eye because we haven’t even been presented the same realities.

 

Cathleen Elle  17:35

Yes, it’s so true. I found that really, it’s about holding compassion and releasing judgment of self, which creates the ability to release judgment of others. That’s been really I think it’s a life lesson for me that the old program of unworthiness, and lovable…the old program, they’re just old programs. And there’s so much judgment of self around that we pass that on to others because when people come into our world, there really are mirrors. So if there’s something that bothers you about someone else, what about that? What about you do you not like about you, within those particular situations? And I have found that the more I forgive myself, the more open I am to others, it’s just fascinating. How much we judge ourselves, and how much it’s projected out to others. Another healing modality that I’ve used is Ayahuasca. I’ve participated in eight ceremonies that I’m participating in for more in December. You obviously know what it is, but it’s a Shamanic, indigenous process. A plant medicine that goes in and really helps you identify and remove from your spirit and your soul. All the baggage that we’re carrying, that’s really not even ours, that we don’t even know that we have. It’s a very powerful process. And I think it’s well facilitated because sometimes the plant is used, not the way it was intended, and not with the reverence towards its power that healing, but with great facilitation. It’s absolutely a sacred circle. It’s a sacred process. I go to Costa Rica, where it’s truly in a Healing Center and it’s well administered and I needed to be in this. I needed to feel safe in order for me to participate in something like that.

 

Dr. Manon  20:00

So, if we can go back because what you help people with now is, if I’m correct, is helping people with that. Do you call it the grieving process? Or what is it exactly that you do?

 

Cathleen Elle  20:19

I call it a healing journey. Because what I try, what I do for others is to create a safe space for them to feel like they can move through it. I hold that space for them to allow them to feel through the feelings that they’re feeling, whether it is anger, grief, shame, self-blame, whatever it is. They’re what we have taught people in society is if you feel anger, especially women, if you feel anger, you need to hold that back. And you need to be proper. You know the societal pressures of that. And I have found as we move through, identify, allow, feel through it, it no longer keeps us chained and shackled in that cell that we’ve closed ourselves up in. And so I assist people on moving through the healing journey because it truly is a journey. We can create a lot of stories of pain, we can live a story of pain, or we can create it as a healing journey and see it as that no matter what it is. It doesn’t have to be as traumatic as losing a child to suicide, it can be losing a job, a divorce, a change in income, diagnosis of some sort. There are different…trauma is trauma, which is trauma, however, it affects you; it doesn’t have to be as dramatic as mine.

 

Dr. Manon  21:56

But in your case, when you had that note that you discovered a month later from your son. Sorry to go there, but I just find that to have the attitude you have is such a gift. And it also means it’s possible, and I think it’s the right word. It’s really great that you’re speaking about it because I think so many people would just die of shame because they haven’t been through the recognition of all the stages of self-love as well. That it’s necessary to not just blame yourself. So how did you get to saying, or how were you able to finally see that he has his journey and that it wasn’t yours? Like maybe it wasn’t your doing or, how did you get past this?

 

Cathleen Elle  23:12

So it’s always about through it, and not over it or beyond it or past it. It’s really about changing our belief process one hour at a time. There’s one thing that I share with people who are in their immediate trauma, whatever that may be, is the three B’s. It’s a grief prescription, the fear prescription, whatever it is, you can do it, use it right now during the election. Is, BE, BREATHE, and BELIEVE. So be in the moment, because if you look too far out into the future, you’re only creating stories out of fear, out of anxiety, out of depression. So you’re creating stories that aren’t true because it can be very different. So be in the moment, even if it’s an hour or a day, just be in the moment. Breathe, do the four squared breathing process.  Close your eyes, breathe deeply into your body to the count of four, hold it to the count of four, release it to the count of four, and hold it to the count of four. Do that four times in a row, four times a day, or as often as you need. And what that does, is it keeps your energy flowing. So it’s your emotions. It’s your energy flowing in, keeps oxygen flowing into your body so you can actually continue to stay healthy. It also keeps you grounded. It brings you back into the center of your being and not into the fear of what might be and believe. Believe, this too is a moment in time. That creates a piece of your story. It is not all of your story. And believe you’re not alone, believe you can move through this. Just Believe. So those are the three things that I look back on now, and I’m like, those are the three key things that could have been helpful for me in the very beginning. And then there are different steps along the way. There’s gratitude journals, there’s what I call it, the purging journal. I’ve got a purging journal that I’m coming out with, it’s just where you have just a notebook and a pad of paper, it doesn’t matter what it is just go by a pad of paper and a pen. And write out whatever you don’t want to tell anybody else. Just write it out. Don’t look at it. Don’t worry about how your sentences are, how your spelling is. Swear in it, blame people, do whatever you need to do, just write it out of your body. And when you’re done, take it out of the notepad, rip it up, put it in a burnable bowl that you can burn in, take it to a safe space, outside preferably, and burn it. And just say, “I release you to the universe with love. I just release you to the universe with love.” And it releases all those toxins from your body, drink a lot of water. You know, like, it seems so simple. And yet when we’re in the middle of grief, you don’t eat well, you drink a lot of coffee, you don’t take care of yourself. And the most important things that are critical for you to sustain moving through your process is to drink a lot of water, eat vegetables, to eat healthy things. And if you don’t eat often, it’s okay. Just keep drinking water.

 

Dr. Manon  26:40

And what have you…breathing, okay, that’s a habit you can get into that. I forgot what the first B was, but not being in the future like being present, right?

 

Cathleen Elle  26:54

Yes, yes, exactly.

 

Dr. Manon  26:55

But believing, how do you work with people who believe it’s just like…I’m just thinking, patients that I’ve helped that they’re just saying, “Well, how can I believe in anything now that this is not addressed?”

 

Cathleen Elle  27:17

Well, I usually use me as an example of I’ve been through some pretty traumatic things in my life. And I could have chosen to stay stuck in that trauma and repeat those patterns, or I’ve made the choice. It’s really about choice. We can choose to be stuck in the pattern. Or we can really choose to start to shift our patterns just a little at a time. It’s about dipping your toe in the water, it’s not about jumping all in and thinking it’s one and done. It’s really being willing to move through the work. It is not easy work. But it’s a lot easier than it is to be stuck in that pain. I can remember that pain, I can go back just like that if I want to if I’m talking about it, just as we talked about the note. And when I found out about it, I could feel the moment I felt that I can relive that. And I choose not to relive that. So it’s about reframing your brain. So that’s what I should say that it’s like, do you want to feel the way you’re feeling right now? Or would you rather feel lighter, more connected? Which would you rather feel because honestly, I don’t know that I really felt what love felt like? I didn’t know what love really was, except for my love for my children clearly, but I didn’t know what love felt like until I actually moved through the layers that it’s about protecting ourselves. So the way we respond to the world is how we protect ourselves. And usually, that’s by closing ourselves off, which continues to victimize ourselves. That’s not about blame, it’s just educational. So as you start to remove those layers, you start to feel the light that’s really shining from the divine into us, into me, into you. You start to realize we’re all connected on an energy energetic level. And I know with all my heart and soul that while Logan’s body is no longer here, his physical body…his energy, his gregariousness, his playfulness is still here. Like he is all around me. And so it’s just believing, and I say jazz, but it’s about belief. Look at me and look at other people who have been through similar things of view and see how they’re doing it because honestly, I’m no different than anyone else.

 

Dr. Manon  29:57

Another thing is that it is hard not to look at that as I have also seen, parents who have lost their children, and I just find that the hardest of the beliefs. But I can imagine, personally, that it’s a trigger point for me. So it’s definitely a big thing, but knowing what you know now, are you able to see, not with who you were then but what you know now, things that were signs or things that might have helped or could help other people that people don’t realize?

 

Cathleen Elle  30:47

What I share with people now, today I look back and say our…I have a very global perspective today. A very spiritual perspective of like…I even believe that we signed contracts before we come down to serve on this earth. And I believe we all have a purpose. And we’re here to serve. And as I look back now that my experience throughout all of my life, all the traumas that I had experienced up until Logan’s transition, assisted me to stay on this earth. Because had I not created the strength of what I’d gone through and been able to sustain the traumas that I had sustained, I don’t believe I’d have been able to still be living today and make it through Logan stuff. So I see the traumas that I’ve had as gifts. And I certainly don’t want those gifts again, and wouldn’t ask anybody else to go through those skills. I do see them as gifts. Like they created the strength. Everything that I’ve gone through to this point today has created the being that I am, and I wouldn’t be able to share the way I share with others and be able to relate and connect and hold space for others had I not experienced the depth of trauma that I’ve experienced. And so I see it from a very different perspective of…I saw all I could see when we were in that moment, and I did the best that I could with what I had, and so did his dad, so did his grandparents, so did his friends. Like we did the best we could and our journeys are our journeys. And I would give my life today, being tortured, so my son could grow old with his sister like I would do that. And that’s not an option. We can go back, and we can say I missed this, I missed that, oh, if I had only done this if I had only done that…that is just torturing ourselves. And that is not being of service with the experience that we’ve experienced. It’s a horrible thing, and I would never want anybody to have to go through that, and this experience that I’ve gone through, and yet it is part of my world, and it is part of my life. And I had to find something that I could pull out of that to make other people’s lives better. In order for me to create meaning around it. And now I look at it as Logan and I are serving people through my book ‘Shattered Together’. Truly the book cover was channeled, I woke up with that book cover and like it was there, it was clear with the book cover. I woke up with a book name, I woke up with the subtitle. There are things in the book that just came to me. And so if you look at the book cover, this is not about selling the book, it’s just about the depths of if we’re open. If we’re open to what is here for us, there’s energy, there are messages, it is all there for us. Again, I’m no different than anyone else other than I’ve done the work to start to remove the layers. But the layers on Shattered Together, the book cover itself is amazing. Every time I look at it, there’s something new that comes out of there. And even in the heart, there’s a, it looks like a lightning bolt down the center of the heart. That’s actually a side profile of my son’s face. So there’s that deep blue meaning. So here, there that’s it. Logan’s face. And over here, there’s an angel. And then there are little hearts in here that we didn’t even see. There’s just so much and there’s like little glitter here too. I’m like, this is just amazing. It’s amazing. Every time I look at it, there’s something new that I find from there. It’s just, and there’s like a hand underneath the heart, like holding up, holding him up. Like, the divine they worked with…this was, this is the universes’ book.

 

Dr. Manon  35:33

 it’s really powerful to hear you also. It’s like giving meaning to his life within your life, too. Because so many times when people are, I mean, there’s contradictions or conflict. They shouldn’t have or, you know, if they hurt other people, or, you know, if they’re not your ideal, perfect child in that sense. In that moment, you’re thinking like, Oh, my God, what we’ve done is unified his journey into a joint journey. Like it’s quite, it’s quite beautiful to see that. Because there are choices there, too. But this, it really came through you that this was the joint journey.

 

Cathleen Elle  36:29

Yeah, absolutely he sent messages every chance he could. And you know, with friends, people would be there. They’d be like, Oh, my gosh, it’s crazy. His basketball jersey number was 33. And so whenever, whenever I, you know, feel like Logan, can you just give me a sign here? Like, what? What direction? Am I heading here? And a 33 will pop up. I’m like, Okay, thank you. Just wanted to be sure that yeah, it’s really mean, no, anyways, what Logan has done for the gift for me, what he’s given me, and what is given his sister is that we know within our bodies, what feels right for us our soul or not, what we’ve been done, what’s been done when you’ve been traumatized as a young child is there’s been a program that’s been set, right, that’s separate from your intuitive knowing. And so we’ve been taught not to trust that intuitive knowing. And so it’s really about retraining, and retraining our body retraining our brain retraining our subconscious to live consciously. Now, let me just say that my life is not perfect. And there’s plenty of stuff in my life that I get to move through. But I move through it very differently today than when I ever did.

 

Dr. Manon  38:06

Well, I mean, healing is a journey, right? There’s no…One thing done, it’s over. It’s a process. I have a statement, I say ‘How you live is how you heal’. Because to me, they’re completely intertwined. And it’s the consciousness with which you live your life that really allows for that healing to take place. It’s seeing all the opportunities, the possibilities, and listening to the messages, and it becomes very aware. So I find your story really beautiful. So I appreciate you sharing it because I know it’s difficult. But it’s an example of what people do, and can do. So is there any last statement? Or is your book still available?  What would you like to leave everyone with?

 

Cathleen Elle  39:06

My book is available on amazon.com or amazon.uk or .ca or wherever is on Amazon. It’s also on my website. So you can order an autographed copy on my website. And that’s cathleenelle.com. My book is available. I am creating programs right now for the holidays and after the holidays because suicide is actually a higher rate after the holidays than during the holidays. So there’s a couple of programs I have ‘Sacred Healing Circles’ that are virtual. So I would love for anybody to join me in any of those. Have a private Facebook group. If nothing else, please just go to the private Facebook group. It’s from ‘Grief to Believe Stepping Stones’ and just ask to be entered, and that is a place where I do daily guidance, Oracle guidance. And weekly, I’ll come in and do special things depending on what and where we are and what’s happening. And so I would love to have any of you to join me. And in closing, I just believe, truly believe that you too can make it through this. It’s about just stepping into your journey one hour at a time. Looking too far into the future just creates too much stress and anxiety. Just one hour at a time.

Thank you for joining us. For more information, go to DrManonBolliger.com.