How Healing Trauma Heals Your Body & Mind with Tanya Baldwin on The Healers Café with Manon Bolliger

on it more.

 

Manon Bolliger 02:41

For sure. So how did you end up…well, first going into nursing? And when did you…it’s two questions going into nursing, I guess that’s 20 years ago, but how did you get into understanding that that trauma is the thing, like from your experience? Or how did that all come to be?

 

Tanya Baldwin 03:04

So, I jokingly not jokingly, I shouldn’t say I talked about how, when I write my book, I’ll probably call it from trauma to trauma and back again. Because, you know, I knew that I’d experienced a lot of trauma as a child because of the type of traumas that I have experienced. You know, when I was 15, I was kidnapped and held captive, I have no memories of that experience beyond you know, a few on the book ends, the book ends of the experience. So, you know that you experienced trauma, but I really felt that I was managing it really well because according to society standards, you know, I was successful, I had children, I had a partner, so I didn’t really see that I was traumatized. I was very, you know, magic. Like I had a 4.0 in nursing I, you know, won scholarships and awards. And, you know, I was the director of nursing like I was climbing through the nursing ranks as well. So, it wasn’t there wasn’t anything socially that was standing up for me it was later on in life, as you know, I got to a certain level with my nursing career, I was under an enormous amount of stress and my health started to fail. And I ended up getting diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And I struggled with that at work for a while. And in the end, I decided to take a medical leave of absence to deal with that, because, you know, there was talk of me getting into a wheelchair and there was, you know, it was just really, really hard to manage the position when I kept having like, you know, cognitive difficulties or even just making it around the hospital when I when my gait was impaired. So, when I took the time off for that, that’s when my trauma came crashing down around me and the fact that I had not resolved it, I really ran away from it through education and work. So, a lot of us that are workaholics busy-holics people that can’t shut down It’s because you know, maybe you grew up in a home where there was a lot of emphasis put on achievement and you equate your worth with what your title is or what your money is, or what all these other things. And then other. There’s other times where it’s just you know, you’re in high functioning anxiety and high functioning and anxiety is a beautiful thing for the corporate world or for society, because you have a lot of people that just don’t shut off. And it’s just go, go, go, go, go, Yep, I’ll work I’ll work overtime. Sure, and people pleasing on top of that, then you just have the recipe for a beautiful employee who will burn themselves out but could be masking and underlying unresolved trauma. So, when I took the time off to deal with my MS, I was diagnosed then with anxiety, depression, panic disorder, complex PTSD, and functional neurological disorder. So, I did the traditional methods, I went, and I saw a psychiatrist, I saw a psychologist, I saw a neuro psychiatrist because of the MS component. I did Occupational Health Rehab. I did everything I could because I had to get back to work. I had to get back to that. And nothing was really working. I was doing all kinds of medications up, down and out. And the only thing that ended up happening was that I was sedated to the part where I wasn’t allowed, I wasn’t able to really function. I didn’t feel safe driving. And you know, I still wasn’t sleeping I was having a lot of I call them black mare. So, all feeling no, which is probably just repressed memories coming forward. And because they’re repressed even in the nightmares, they are repressed, but I have all the feelings and sensations of fear. So, it I went on that about a year and a half, and I wasn’t getting any better. I was just felt like I was losing my life more and more. So then luckily enough, because of my knowledge in nursing, I also was able to advocate for myself. So, when they wanted to switch some medications around, I said, No, we’re gonna start taking them out. And we’re gonna see how I feel as we decrease them. Because at this point, I’m not functioning. So, I’m not adding more I’m not, I’m not I’m going to take them out. So, I will be eventually weaned off all of my medications. And I also did what actually saved me from my trauma the first time, which was that high functioning portion of I’m going to be a good student, and I’m going to, you know, I’m going to work really hard and I’m going to just, you know, go go go. But I decided to become a master of trauma. I was like, if I if I’ve got this is like if I, if I had Crohn’s, I would learn everything I could about Crohn’s, but I don’t…I have trauma. So, I’m going to learn everything I can about trauma. So that sparked that I’m going to follow Gabor Ma Tei and Peter Levine and Steven Porges in all of the greats, and I started attending webinars and workshops and devouring books and learning and learning and learning. And then I also started on a holistic path. Radically changed my life, I stopped watching TV, I did a negativity talks, I changed my diet, I started exercising more, I started meditating, and I became absolutely obsessed with the now. And through those practices, I actually healed everything. So, years later now I’ve been cleared of MS. The only time I have to have another MRI is if I for some reason start to develop symptoms at some time. I take zero medications I’m followed by no doctors, and I live a happy healthy life and I healed naturally. I still don’t care turn the TV on unless I’m singing, I do a lot of karaoke. That’s my fun stuff. Oh, karaoke, and I, I learn and I, you know, I interact with nature, I try to live more seasonally and, you know, follow the patterns of the moon, I’m a woman, women have a 20-day cycle. So, following the patterns of the moon actually makes sense for us. So, it’s a great opportunity. Every month there’s a new moon to set habits and intentions or goal set and there’s also a full moon to release things that aren’t working for you so yeah, that’s how I got to hear anyway, once I went through all of that experience, and I came out the other side, I was like I have to help every I have to help other people like this is this is what I have to do. And also, on the outside looking back in I realized how toxic My job was how toxic the role was and the workplace and a lot of society really.

 

Manon Bolliger 09:36

Yeah. When do you start looking back it’s quite shocking. And also, as we’re going through it, it’s you don’t notice it as much because you accept it as a kind of normal. Which it’s interesting now or you know, when some people want to go back to normal. It’s like Whoa, no, no time to explode what’s actually underneath and holding us all back, whether we know it or we don’t. Yeah, very interesting. Well, that’s quite, quite a path to because when you’re, you know, 20 years as a nurse, you are helping people. So, the…at least has the intention. You know, maybe the things given may not have been that helpful, probably in many cases, but, but there’s still a lot of love. Except for I would say, in the later years of nursing, where so many nurses, they felt like they were just administrators, they, they were so busy filing, you know, everything that the patient was like the last one to get any care. You know,

 

Tanya Baldwin 10:52

I struggled with that with my nurses, too. So, working in management, you’re trying to you understand what they’re, what the complexities of the role are, and the ever growing, ever growing responsibilities, but yet, there’s no more. There’s no more nurses brought in. But it’s, you know, what, we’re going to delineate these things, and we’re going to say housekeeping Can’t you have to strip the entire room of everything, and then housekeeping will come in and clean? And I always…I’m like, why are you putting that on the nurse? Who is the more expensive person in the field? Why are you putting that on her responsibilities when her job should be patient care, but they would do that. Or they would say, you know, now we’re gonna, we’re gonna bring a tray of food down with all the cards with all the trays on it. And you have to distribute them to the rooms, we’re not taking them in the rooms, and you have to clean them all up and put them back on the tray. Why are we doing that? The nurse should be nursing and why are you making the nurse do foodstuff? Why are you making the nurse do feeding stuff like if and so they add that onto their plate. And then you change things like I did accreditation at the hospital. I was the lead creditor before I left. And you know, when you’re going through accreditation, and it’s like parent, patient and family centered care. So, there’s extra requirements along that to making sure that we’re honoring the patient and the family, we’re involving the family and in with the patient care. And then the families have more demands, because it’s very much this is my one person. And I expect to be doing everything for this one person and you’re like, but I have 14 others that are just as important to their 14 families. So, it was challenging. And the same thing in management, right. So, when our, when our one nurse left, we were trying to replace her with, you know, with another staff member. And we opened it up, obviously, internally first, and one of our senior nurses came and said, There’s no way I’m going to leave the salary that I’m making, to work in management for like, a few bucks more an hour, but I don’t get any overtime. But I’m expected to work like lots of overtime. Because now like, What sense does this make like you don’t get, I’m gonna lose, we’re gonna lose pay to do this job and more responsibility. And you look at it. And it’s like, I’m not just managing the nurses. I’m on the Occupational Health and Safety Team, part of, you know, the wellness program, I’m part of this and this and so you, you, you have so many things that you’re responsible for that you’re just you’re overburdened. And, yeah, it’s a very toxic system. And, yeah, I don’t know, the changes, I know, the changes that could be made.

 

Manon Bolliger 13:31

Ya I know, I mean, it’s an interesting position to be in too, because when you go through your own healing crisis, when finally there is time, you know, to do to do the work that’s necessary, you know, that, as opposed to following this prescription, and that one, and this and that. And, to me, that’s, it’s really, it’s very pharma led, rather than really led by, by the heart and what the human person needs, you know, I don’t know how your healing was, but I know, I was also provided a few diseases, MS was one of them, to get through to be able to deeply understand what the process is, you know, and how you heal and amazing how trauma will surface for real because it must be healed. You know, like, I don’t know that we can even separate who we are, like, from the manifestation of the diseases, if we haven’t looked at that aspect of it.

 

Tanya Baldwin 13:37

Well trauma is an underlying cause of so many, so many illnesses, and, you know, I think even of just my digestive tract, and you know, like prior to, you know, having everything come apart, you get the IBS diagnosis and irritable bowel syndrome. Awesome. But then when you’re looking at it from the other side, you’re like, No, it wasn’t it was because I had anxiety and depression. And when I was in a highly anxious state, my body is in fight or flight and what are we not concerned with when we’re in fight or flight? Digestion, any part of it. So, you’re stuck in constipation while you’re in fight or flight, and then we would go into depression. And a lot of times what would happen is, then your body’s just doing a dump. It’s just letting it go. It’s just releasing. So, I don’t have IBS, just trauma that I need to heal. And when I heal through my trauma, well, wow, now that’s all healed, too. I lost, you know, 80 pounds in the process, I have no problem keeping the weight off because my mind is different, right? And there’s just so much of it out there. Whether you know, just so much of it, so much of it, you step back at it, and you look and you’re like, when I went to the doctor, and you know, here’s anxiety, here’s depression, here’s your pills, here’s your pills, here’s your pills. It wasn’t, you know, what is your diet like? Are you eating a lot of processed foods? You know, are you getting a wide variety of nutrients within your diet? You know, and how much are you eating too much? Or eating too little? Like, what is your diet like? What is your sleep like? Right? Are you getting good quality sleep and different ways that you can do that? Do you shut off your phone about an hour before you go to bed? So, you can listen to blue screen? What are you doing right before bed? Nobody asked those questions. And what’s the part of nursing that bothers me is that we’re not in there. Being proponents of health, we’re in there be, you know, like, we’re going to try to, we’re going to try to like I don’t know, do something about the disease, but it’s not, let’s do something about your health.

 

Commercial Break 16:42

Manon Bolliger here, and I want to thank you for taking actionable steps towards engaging your healing journey, and helping others discover their path by watching, sharing, subscribing, and reviewing these podcasts. Every review and share helps spread the word these different perspectives and choices and options for healing. And to thank you, I’d like to invite you to sign up to my free seven sequence email tips on health and healing for everyday life. You can go to drmanonbolliger.com/tips, thanks so much.

 

Manon Bolliger 17:25

Exactly. Well, I think it’s become so evident nowadays, you know, it’s like, it’s screaming, if people haven’t figured this out yet, you know. Well, one, the entire, you know, pandemic not being about health to begin with. But that’s a side point. It’s, it’s also, you know, chasing symptoms and naming things, you know, and now we have, like, you know, the government wanting to throw all this money to our broken health care system. It’s like, no, if you give money, in the same systems with the same mindset, you’re gonna recreate exactly the same thing. And we’re not going to get any further right, we have to really look at what was our experience of all this? How did we, you know, some of us escape the indoctrination and understand really what is going on between this division of a system that is it like, sickness management, or really, health and healing, and they have nothing to do with each other? Yeah, it’s not the right environment for it.

 

Tanya Baldwin 18:52

I actually, you know, I do manifestations and affirmations and stuff like that. And the one that I write down is that hospitals are just for traumas. Right? Like, like literally physical trauma. Can you get your Yeah, I understandable. Right. We can’t do anything if you’ve got a big gash in your arm. I’m not going to do Reiki on you know, your gatekeeping right. I’m not going to do that. But you know, I it’s, it’s yeah, it’s incredible. And you know, bringing up the pandemic, right and looking at that, and that was one of the things that I was like, if they really cared, they’d be talking about hey, are you eating right? Are you taking vitamins? Are you taking zinc? Are you getting fresh air? Are you walking? What’s your mental health like? How toxic Are you in your mindset? Yeah, none of that was then the first thing they did was closed down the gyms which…but have you been to a gym because I’m going to a gym, and I know what I’m doing. I’m spraying down every piece of equipment before I sit on it. Like there’s a lot of hygiene that goes on within a gym facility as it is right. But they took away the things that actually help our health.

 

Manon Bolliger 19:59

Right Yeah, and stop, you know, some places you couldn’t go to the beach, you could walk down certain, you know, forest paths, like, you know, it’s and the liquor stores were open all the time they were, I guess was that what was the word that they used in Canada, it was essential services.

 

Tanya Baldwin 20:21

Only one reason why I can actually support that. And that’s because if we hadn’t taken alcohol, if we had to close the alcohol down, we would have had a lot of alcoholics, all of a sudden, and DTS or worse, right, caused a lot of water cause a lot of health concerns having just immediately stopped out there. But I do agree with you like that, you know, having those things available, but not other services like that’s just, it shows more, the hypocrisy of the whole entire thing.

 

Manon Bolliger 20:48

Yeah. And also, how they the boards, you know, whether it was the naturopathic board, or it was the medical board, that, you know, no other treatments, including common sense, you know, are you exercising? What’s your mental state? What’s your vitamin D levels, you know, basic stuff like that, we’re actually punished. And we were forbidden to do that, because you’re supposed to follow the narrative. Right. And you know that I mean, so I think it’s, it’s kind of, anyway, we’re getting off trauma a little bit here. But so, we’ll go back to trauma. But I mean, talk about trauma. I think one of the reasons trauma is discussed so much now is because this stepping away from broken systems, has allowed trauma to surface on so many levels, and people are triggered on, you know, on, on so many levels now, which you could say, oh, well, it’s, you know, it’s bad, it’s too much, but most people going through trauma and associated named diseases, see the light at the end of the tunnel, and understand how it helped them and serve them, you know, so maybe you could speak to that a little bit. Your kind of waking up to realize that this is not happening to you, but for you.

 

Tanya Baldwin 22:17

Oh, yes. Like I’ve looked back through, and I think that’s a huge part of what allowed me to reenact, like, integrate all of my trauma is that I actually look at it like, the more trauma that I experienced growing up just means that I can speak to a broader group of people. I know what it’s like to be homeless. I know what it’s like to have my life threatened. I know what it’s like to be kidnapped. I know what it’s like to have every form of abuse. The…you know, I look back at my dad abandoning you know, my parents being divorced by the time I was three as one of the best things that could have happened to me because my dad was a very bad man. And I can’t imagine how my life would have changed had I you know, stuck had he been part of my life longer. And you know, in the end, you’re I’m here I’m who I am because of that, no matter what like and it doesn’t don’t just hang on I gotta hang this up. It is my son calling. He’s like, it’s your five o’clock personal time not today, son. He calls me all the time; he can hang on. But yeah, you know, waking up and seeing like how complex that all is. But the only moment that matters is right now. And in this moment, I’m that stuff’s not even alive anymore. I’m the only one that kept it alive for all those years. One of the people that perpetrated me is already dead. So, I was torturing myself. I was, I was protecting my own struggling and that was a hard thing for me to learn. And there was actually one moment in my healing journey when I when I was, you know, I got kind of sad, because I was healing at that point. And I was like, I don’t have a crutch anymore. Mindset popped up momentarily when I don’t have a crutch anymore. Like if I want a day off work, like I have to lie. Or I had to actually be sick. Like, I don’t have mental health to like, I can’t sit there and say, I don’t want to go to work because I’m depressed today. Like I can’t even I can’t say that anymore. It’s one of those weird moments where I was like, That was a weird, like, that’s a real victim mindset to think that you need to have a crutch.

 

Manon Bolliger 24:29

Yeah. Well, how accepted today is as well, right? It’s the norm.

 

Tanya Baldwin 24:35

People don’t like there’s so much toxicity in society that people don’t recognize as being toxic, right from our relationships, but we don’t realize how the world outside is a reflection of how we feel inside and that, you know, so long as I don’t think I’m good enough. I’m going to just keep going and finding experiences to prove to me just how I don’t I’m good enough I was gonna magnetize that stuff to me. So, waking up to that was a huge thing and saying, like, I was fully participating in my own struggling. I saw a lag back in the relationship, probably one and a half years in it, I waited till eight to decide to leave it and it stopped appearing out like it kept coming up. But it took me that long to say. So, I look back and I say I literally participated in that I saw that flag, yeah, we’ll wait for the next one. And I waited eight years to find enough of them. Do that we have, I think it’s, you know, taking ownership for the fact that, you know, you’re the one that’s creating it for yourself, and you have any moment you can make the choices to change that and go a different route.

 

Manon Bolliger 25:43

I think, you know, you really hit on the idea of choice that you can make the choice. And I think that that’s just not one of the programs we’ve had. You know, what do you mean, you could actually choose, you know, and that doesn’t make you a bad person or not care about others. And, you know, which is quite remarkable. I remember I was seeing Byron, Katie. And she said, Well, you can either go in the dog cage with these rabid hounds, or you can close the door and look at them from the outside if you want to or do something else with your life. I was like, really, I can do that?

 

Tanya Baldwin 26:31

Oh, yeah, I tell them my mom’s a 66-year-old, my mom has been working on her trauma. That’s probably one of my favorite things about this whole experience, the ripple effects that it’s had in my own life and watching my mom, at her age, taking on healing her traumas and working on it. And it is what allows us to have a relationship because if she chose not to change, I would look at her for with the toxicity that she has, and it would be limited. But you know, she’s left her husband, her abusive husband of all these years. And she’s you know; this time is the last I’m not helping him anymore after this. And I’m like, Mom, I don’t want any more. I’m like, because at this point in time, you’ve told me repeatedly you are not that at this point, you’re making the honest choice to just participate in that. You are making the choice. And if she’s honest, if you leave, if he comes in, he natters at you. And you say no, no, no. And then he keeps nattering and you go, Okay, fine. He knows he won. Because he knows his nattering will win you over said, you have to be firm and say no, and just keep saying no. And just keep saying no. And if you’re not willing to then you’re actually choosing.

 

Manon Bolliger 27:36

Yes, exactly. Yeah, it’s a hard reality. But it’s the truth. Yeah, so we have very little time left, there’s two things I still wanted to cover with you. One is that you, you have five-day free events called divine healing event. And your next one is going to be March 20, to 24th. But you also hold these monthly, so people can also look you up, they’ll have we’ll have all the links so people can join. And maybe you want to say a couple of things about what you do during these five days events. And my second question, because it might just tie in is. So, it’s a very interesting, I’ll use the word interesting, because the only word that’s coming to mind, but cosmic trauma priestess. How did you put that together? And maybe that helps explain the five days? I don’t know.

 

Tanya Baldwin 28:42

I’ll start with the first question on the five days. Well, the five-day event is it’s about igniting the inner healer and you using holistic or natural practice. And so, each day has a different theme. Day one is talking about food because one of the first things that we can do to change our overall health and well-being is the food that we put in our mouth. To the second day is breathing because there’s so much power with our breath and what we can do for our bodies. Day three, I talk about like connecting to the earth, grounding, earthing meditation and more just becoming more aware of, you know, being in the present moment. On Thursdays I talk about trauma and the different trauma modalities to give an example of that plus what I used within my own healing. And then on the final day I talked about seasonal living and being more in line with the earth and working in those types of patterns throughout this five-day event, so it’s really all the stuff that I use to heal myself and to keep myself healthy and what I also use with my clients to work with them. And somebody in each one of the events I give away one three-month package with myself for somebody that attends all five sessions and participates they have an opportunity to win a three-month package with me. The cosmic trauma priestess that came because I actually pulled my followers and asked them what they think that I should be called. So, I had an experience where I had somebody channel past lives and I apparently been a healer forever and ever and ever. So, the cosmic part, I came from that. Traumas because I just, that’s what I what I deal with. And then the priestess part is because a priestess is somebody that ignites you. I’m not I don’t, I’m not a doctor, I don’t use my nursing like title anymore. I consider myself to be retired from that. So, the Priestess is because I’m igniting the healer in you, and everybody has that healer in them. So, I do a podcast, which is getting revamped. And starting back up March 6, that’s called divine healing. And that’s what it is talking about is natural healing methods and how to, you know, heal yourself, really. And I have a very special guests that’s joining me the first the on the march 6, so I’m looking forward to that. He has an amazing healing story. So, I look forward to showcasing what he’s talking about. So yeah, that’s where it came from, as they determined that that was the most suitable title for what I actually do with people.

 

Manon Bolliger 31:17

Interesting. Yeah. Because it’s a funny combination of three words. That mean, I guess there’s a lot of associations with all three of them. But I mean, you know, titles, it’s like a diagnosis in a sense, if it fits, it works, you know, on some level, right. So. But I was wondering how you came up with that one. But anyway, very interesting. So, I think we’re kind of our time is up, maybe last statement or something that, that I didn’t cover that you wish I had asked you.

 

Tanya Baldwin 31:58

I really like I try to work with people in three-month packages. So, I do multiple things. I have the Divine Feminine healing collective and the divine masculine healing tribe, where I do five sessions a month, they’re $9 per session. So, for $45, which is less than what you would pay for even one therapy session, you get five healing sessions with me, in the female one, we follow the patterns of the moon and then I add an additional session and with the men, I just call it nights at the round table. And it’s just a time for them to talk about male like just it’s purely male run, its trauma, mental health, stress, or just health related topics, from a male perspective, and it’s just guided, and I also do work with adolescents. I do I offer their stuff at half the rate of what I do with adults. So same prices, but I extend it to six months and I do empowerment, self-esteem resiliency, help them just deal with like bullying and anything that they’re struggling with. So, I have about like three adolescent clients at this time, but it’s great.

 

Manon Bolliger 33:04

Okay. Well, thank you so much, Tanya, for sharing your path and your experience. Thank you.

 

Tanya Baldwin 33:14

It was a pleasure being on the show.

 

ENDING: 41:33

Thank you for joining us at the Healers Café with Manon Bolliger. Continue your healing journey by visiting TheHealersCafe.com and her website and discover how to listen to your body and reboot optimal health or DrManonBolliger.com/tips.