#E41 Tapping into Transformation: EFT for Trauma & Shame– with Ifalase McGowan

In this episode, our hosts Louise Bryant, a trauma-informed domestic abuse specialist and Ifalase McGowan, an advanced EFT practitioner, explore the profound impact of trauma and shame on our lives.

Ifalase shares her inspiring journey to becoming an EFT practitioner and coach, unfolding the crucial role of self-compassion in healing from past traumas.

They discuss the pervasive feeling of guilt turning into shame, how societal norms shape our sense of self-worth and the importance of addressing destructive patterns.

This is part one of a two-part series, setting the stage for a deeper exploration of these themes in the next episode.

Get ready to be carried on a transformative journey towards healing and self-compassion.

Released March 12th 2025

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Our Guest 🫶🏻

Ifalase McGowan has always been fascinated by people—how we think, how we connect and how our experiences shape who we are.

She first explored this curiosity through neuroscience, but over time, she realised her true passion wasn’t just in studying the brain—it was in understanding the human heart.

Now, she spends her time helping others find moments of calm, self-reflection and healing.

With her warm and supportive approach, Ifalase creates spaces where people can slow down, breathe and truly listen to themselves.

Whether she’s guiding a session, sharing her insights, or simply holding space for someone’s journey, she encourages deep self-connection in a way that feels safe, gentle and accessible.

Ifalase believes in the power of pausing, in allowing yourself to rest and in finding comfort in the present moment.

Her work isn’t just about healing—it’s about rediscovering your own inner wisdom, at your own pace, in your own way.

Links

www.ifalasemcgowan.com 

https://www.ifalasemcgowan.com/enhanceyourjoy - 5 Day programme Prep questions

Louise Bryant

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Blog 🚨

Embracing Healing: A Journey Through Trauma, Shame, and Empowerment

Discover the Power of EFT and Self-Compassion in Overcoming Emotional Barriers

Introduction: Unveiling the Power of Conversations on Trauma

In today's world, people often carry the weight of trauma and shame without ever addressing it. This silence can hinder personal growth and impede emotional healing. In a recent episode of the "Secrets in the Powder Room" podcast, hosts Ifalase McGowan and Louise Bryant opened up a dialogue about these emotional burdens and discussed potential paths to healing through Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

The Catalyst for Change: A Personal Journey into Psychology

Ifalase McGowan's journey into EFT and coaching began with a curiosity spurred by reality television. A chance conversation about a peculiar tapping technique piqued her interest, leading her to explore EFT further. Through her background in psychology and neuroscience, Ifalase delved into understanding how our developmental years shape our minds and impact our mental health. Her story underscores the importance of being open to new methods of healing, as her exploration of EFT became a central pillar in her coaching practice.

Understanding Trauma: Realizations and Psychological Patterns

Trauma often manifests in complex ways that individuals may not consciously recognise. Ifalase explores the connection between past traumas and current behaviours, shedding light on how our bodies and minds hold onto such experiences. When people experience trauma, it often results in specific patterns and habits aimed at alleviating emotional distress. These can range from substance abuse to seemingly innocuous habits like overeating.

Ifalase highlighted the significance of being aware of one's habits and understanding that they're not inherent flaws but rather coping mechanisms developed over time. Acknowledging these patterns is a vital step towards healing, allowing for a re-evaluation of self-perception and a re-direction of energy towards positive growth.

Shame and Guilt: The Emotional Twins

The dialogue between Ifalase and Louise dives into understanding the subtle yet significant differences between shame and guilt. Brene Brown's insights help clarify these concepts: guilt is recognising a mistake, while shame is internalising that mistake as a reflection of one's identity. Ifalase shares how early traumas can embed these feelings deeply within, influencing one's self-esteem and actions in adulthood.

Addressing and understanding these emotions can liberate individuals from the prison of negative self-perception. It involves rewriting the narrative from one of shame to empowerment, allowing individuals to reclaim their stories and reshape their futures.

EFT: A Pathway to Healing and Self-Compassion

Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), often known as tapping, offers a unique approach to addressing emotional distress. This practice combines the physical act of tapping on acupressure points with the psychological process of affirming one's emotions. By focusing on feelings of anxiety or shame while tapping, individuals can release pent-up energy and emotions associated with traumatic memories.

Ifalase emphasizes the importance of working with a trained practitioner to ensure a safe and effective healing journey. Trust and safety are paramount, as they provide the foundation necessary for deep emotional work. EFT, when practiced under the guidance of a skilled coach, can significantly reduce stress, alleviate anxiety, and foster self-compassion.

Women and Healing: Overcoming Societal Barriers

In the podcast episode, Ifalase and Louise also touch upon how societal constructs impact women's healing journeys. Growing up with male-centric narratives in media and culture can cause women to perceive themselves as secondary characters in their own lives. This societal bias contributes to feelings of inadequacy and the pressure to overcompensate by taking on extra responsibilities.

Recognising these societal influences is the first step in dismantling the barriers women face in their healing journeys. By embracing self-compassion and prioritising self-care, women can break free from these constraints and step into their power.

Conclusion: The Path Forward

Healing from trauma is not a linear process but a multifaceted journey requiring patience, compassion, and support. Ifalase and Louise's conversation invites listeners to acknowledge their traumas, understand their coping mechanisms, and find pathways like EFT to facilitate healing. By embracing these practices, individuals can transform their narratives and cultivate a deeper sense of self-awareness and empowerment. As the journey towards holistic healing continues, the importance of creating open dialogues around these topics cannot be overstated.

Journaling prompting questions ✍🏻

Here are some journaling questions to help reflect on the themes discussed in this episode of the podcast "Secrets in the Powder Room":

1. How did your own journey with trauma and healing begin, and what has been the most pivotal moment in that journey so far?

2. Have you experienced feelings of shame related to past events or trauma? How have these feelings influenced your behaviour and self-perception?

3. Reflect on a time when you practiced self-compassion. How did it impact your emotional well-being and overall mindset?

4. Are there any healing practices or modalities you are curious about but haven't tried yet? What has drawn you to them?

5. What barriers do you think are most prevalent in your healing journey? How can you begin to break them down?

6. Who in your life provides you with a sense of safety and support? How can they play a role in your healing process?

7. How do you see your journey evolving in the next year? What steps can you take to ensure continued growth and healing?

These questions aim to encourage reflection and self-discovery, drawing directly from the themes of trauma, shame, healing, and self-compassion discussed by Ifalase McGowan and Louise Bryant in the podcast episode.

Transcript 📝

NOTE: This podcast was transcribed by editing tool, Please forgive any typos or errors

Hey. In today's episode, I'm sharing the hugely inspiring conversation that I had with my amazing friend and colleague, Ifalase McGowan, about trauma, shame, and healing. The thing that so many of us carry but don't always talk about. Ifalase is an advanced EFT practitioner who shares her own journey and powerful insights on how we can free ourselves of the weight of shame and anxiety. This is just part one of a two part series. In part two, you'll get to experience EFT in action action with a live session led by Ifalase designed to help you release shame. So stay tuned, and let's begin this journey of healing and self compassion together.

Welcome to the Secrets in the Powder Room, where we share stories and open up conversations about all the secrets women are forced to keep out of fear and shame. I'm Louise Bryant, professional certified coach, intuitive eating counselor, and trauma informed domestic abuse specialist and survivor. We're here to support you on your healing journey and help you feel like you're not alone. This is not to be replacement of your own professional, medical, or legal advice. This podcast contains adult language and content. Listener discretion is advised.

So just to introduce Ifalase McGowan, Ifalase helps people break free from the debilitating PTSD symptoms that keep them stuck in anxiety, hypervigilance, and emotional pain. As an advanced EFT practitioner and certified coach, she combines evidence based approaches from psychology, neuroscience, and NLP with gentle movement and mindfulness practices. Through her transformative in person retreats and personalized coaching, clients learn practical tools to find lasting relief from both the mental and physical impacts of trauma. Hello, Everly. How are you? Hi. I'm well. Thank you. Thanks for having me, Louise. Oh, it's my absolute pleasure. I've been asking you for a while to come on the podcast, and we are finally here. So this is a very, very, very exciting topic. Would you like to start maybe by telling us a little bit about your journey and what led you to become an EFT practitioner and a coach? Great question. Okay. So my journey actually began with Big Brother. So it it was, I don't know what year it was, to be honest, but it was a while ago. It was definitely one of the first seasons. And I finished the very last episode, and I was standing up at the end of my bed just like like, what am I gonna do now? Like, what what I can't watch anybody. I can't observe anybody. And that led me to choose psychology as my degree. And so I was studying the mind and how people interact. And, specifically, what I found fascinating was human development and how we develop impacts our brains. And that's when I first started off with neuroscience. And then slowly, slowly in my career, as you do, you start off in one place, and then you start to figure out in your twenties like, oh, okay. Don't like this. Or, you know, actually, I quite like this. But everything I did was always around people. I was very natural at getting to know people really well, and I I really enjoyed it. And so, eventually, I came across a lady who said to me that her sis it was a mother-in-law, does this weird tapping thing on your face. And, literally, that alone was enough for me to just go, yeah. That's weird. I need to know more about it. So I looked it up, and then I came across someone else who'd studied it, and then that was it. I just went all in. I was like, I wanna know what the weird tapping on your face thing is. Mhmm. Interesting. And what about becoming a coach? I remember one of the reasons why I wanted to become a coach was that I felt quite helpless when someone would come to me and say what what was happening, what was troubling them. And I always had this inkling that I could learn this. I wanted to be that person that someone could come to for support. And then during the pandemic, I started to notice while I was doing one to one leadership coaching that so many people's well-being just started to plummet. And again, I would just meet with them, I'd talk to them, but I started to notice patterns. I think when you've worked with psychology, when you work with people for so long, one of the things that my mind loves to do is to make sense of what I'm seeing. And so I started to notice that there was a correlation between people who were suffering from trauma in the past and their physical health in the present, their mannerisms even, their, habits. And I don't wanna say bad habits, but I kind of wanna talk about it as something that comes up in the present day that is getting in their way of being happy. So destructive habits, maybe. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Like, would that be things like, you know, the alcohol use? Or Absolutely. So alcohol absolutely alcohol use. I think one of the things that we don't realize is that if you just peel back a little bit more, it's alcohol, it's drug use, it's even prescription drugs, but it's even sugar. Like, in our day to day, like, how many times do you reach for something to eat because you're trying to make yourself feel better? That's what a smoker's doing. That's what someone who's taking drugs is doing. Like, we're all doing the same thing. We're trying to quell something that's coming up for us. And I think there's so many things that we don't get taught when we're younger, which would have been really useful. Like, okay. Here's this emotion. Should we work on how to deal with it? Whereas we're always kind of told, don't cry. Be a big girl or, you know, just, like, let's get on with it. Let's keep going. Just keep working hard, and you'll get there. And so many things are brushed over in our normal day to day, let alone when something traumatic happens. Like, how do you get support for that? Absolutely. Especially when you've got parents sorry. Just step in. Especially when you've got parents who are able to they're not they're not their own needs met. So how on earth can they support their children Yeah. When they haven't been able to, you know, deal with their own emotions, and they're doing that, and they're drinking to to to suppress all them feelings that they're getting, and all that trauma that happened when they were younger that they weren't allowed to talk about or That no one did talk about. No one talks about it. Like, what happens in the family stays in the families or, you know, let's pretend that didn't happen, and then that way it didn't happen. It will go away. And, you know, sometimes we blame our parents. So we go, why didn't you why wasn't you better? But, actually, they're just doing what they've learned. And Yeah. And so much is about perspective. Right? Because I genuinely remember growing up believing my parents were the only ones that argued and that everyone else to houses were just these perfect happy places. If you even wind back if we wind back to when Big Brother was on, one of the things that fascinated me about it was because there were psychologists explaining what was happening. And I think that was really one of the first times I'd ever seen any TV show explain human behavior. Forgive me. I was probably only watching channel four. But I hadn't seen it, and I was fascinated by anything that came out that had a psychologist point of view on how people were behaving. I remember the millennium children show that they used to have on, and, it was fascinating. But if you went back, like, twenty, thirty years, the amount of information about trauma, about how people react to it just wasn't there. And even today, with all the information, I think one of the things the biggest thing that gets me is that so many people in the industry of psychology and that so many of us know practically what's going on, but don't know how to actually fix it. We don't know how to actually do anything about it. So I was starting to my career in this world of organizational psychology, and they would understand so much about human behavior, but actually trying to change it was relatively much further behind. So I was on an absolute mission to be like, no. I'm going to I I guess I was trying to say I'm gonna fix this, which is not the right mindset that you need to go into when you're trying to work on your own well-being. You're not trying to fix anything. You're not broken. However, I did want to take my mindset and my life and make it a happier one. And that's been like a twenty year journey of finding all of these different healing modalities and trying out different types of therapy. And then I found EFT, and I really do feel like the premise of it, the structure of it, the idea that there is something like, there's an echo of the past that kind of stays with you from that time when you were traumatized for whatever reason. This can be big trauma. It could be a little trauma. In that moment, if something happened to you and you feel those I don't wanna say negative because they're not negative emotions, but if we feel our feelings and then we don't understand what's going on and they're quite overwhelming, that's when trauma happens. Or in my view, within the U of T, that's when trauma does or can occur. So, therefore, our mind says, okay. This has happened to me. I'm now not safe, so I'm gonna use this strategy to help me out. And then that strategy as an eight year old is probably something like, I'm not gonna speak up anymore, or I'm gonna, eat this sweet because it makes me feel better. We'll we'll have survival strategies that will come to us. Unfortunately, they stick with us. Those moments are really intense. That's when our memories just love to, like, hold on to information, and so we just take that on. And so it's just not something that we need to blame ourselves for, but that awareness of it, that awareness of being able to manage your emotions and understand how you're feeling and be able to act on it has that learning for me has completely changed my life. And being able to share that with my clients, I absolutely adore that because it's like you've got this secret key to life, and you're like, oh my god. Look. I feel like I found it. I'm like, I need to tell everyone. Okay. So yeah. And do you believe just sort of like going back to something you said before, like, you wanted to change people, you wanted to fix everything. Do you think there's people who might say, oh, EFT doesn't work? But do you think it's kind of more of a mindset from the person you kind of go into this? And if they're kind of stuck in that kind of story, if you like, of I'm so broken, nothing's gonna fix me. Just I'm just curious around that. Yeah. That's a really great question. I can answer it, like, 50 different ways, but let's try let's try and keep it down. The one area I would say is that with anything that you feel heals you, and it doesn't necessarily need to be, you know, traditional healing like therapy. I've recently joined a musical dance theater class, and, like, I generally think it's the best thing in the world. That's so healing for my inner child. Like, that's healing for me. And so healing comes in all different forms, but trust in the person who you're working with, I think, is the most paramount feeling that you can feel. So I would say that is that would trump anything else, and the belief that you feel that you're working with the right person, that you're safe, that you can be vulnerable, that you can share all you need to share. Like, that is huge. Because if I go and see my coach therapist person and I can't actually say what's going on for me. It's not gonna work. It's just it's not gonna work. I need to be able to feel safe to share what I need to share. Yeah. And that's the key, isn't it? It's that safety. I would say that that is a belief. So I can say I'm an EFT practitioner and do some tapping. It's very common to have tapping added on to, like, a yoga class. However, if you're not trained in EFT and when you belong to a certification body, that means that you have to get mentoring every year for a certain amount of hours. You have to do continual development. It's not something that you just learn off the cuff. So as much as EFT is great, you don't need, like, that much guidance to get you going or to get you started. I can understand when people say to me, oh, EFT doesn't work if they're coming from a place of I tried it with this person and and it didn't work for me. The other thing, the other layer that I would just add in is just that there are parts of us that form beliefs about things. And so if you have this really strong belief that something won't work, that's the thing that you need to focus on first. So with my clients or within a group, I'll often start with, even though we're tapping on our faces and it feels really ridiculous, I'm willing to just accept that this might do something for me. And if it doesn't, that's okay. So you're starting off with that belief. Like, if you believe I'm broken, I'm I can't be fixed, we have to work on the fact that you believe that first before we can get into the other part. Because a part of us will form this protective shield. So if our trauma has been really intense, it's easier for us to say, no. I don't wanna deal with it, which is totally fine. Like, maybe it's not the right time. So so many answers to that question. Yeah. No. And I just I I hear these things a lot. You know? The certain therapies don't work, but I just wonder how you know, is it the right therapist? Is it the the right amount you've put into it? Is it you know? Because like you say, you can do EFT on, TikTok. You know? So it it oh, no. I've done a few tats, and it that didn't work. I've done it twice. I just felt silly, and I never done it again. So we're actually working with the therapist for a period of time. Yeah. And it's just so I know it's like jumping thing, but it is also with the coaching. You know? It's we we are, obviously, you and I, coaches the same. We have our certifications. We have to do mentoring. We have to do training, but there's lots of people out there who just call themselves a coach, which is fine, and they've done a small course. And they help people by doing a coach approach, but it is finding that person you could say, well, coaching doesn't work or it's about finding that right therapist that's actually and doing your research, I suppose, as well, and into that therapist, talking to them, see if you have that connection, seeing if you trust them, seeing what credentials they've got, what experience they've got, what reviews they've got. I think that's really important as well, isn't it? Yeah. And it reminds me of that. Someone told me once, never take advice. This is probably not the best advice, but never take advice from someone who's not where you wanna be. I find it a little bit easier to take. I wouldn't take all of it. Of course, any feedback's good feedback. You can always learn. Blah blah. However, I would also say, have they done their work? Because I think one of the most paramount things is that if I haven't been to where I've been to and done all of my healing, my clients can only get to as far as I've got. And so it was fascinating along my journey of being a coach, of being an EFT practitioner, of doing all of these different modalities, I found that my clients could only ever get as far as I could. And then on the off cuff, some of them would, like, just, like, zoom off. I'll be like, wow. That was amazing. However, in general, we we tend to resonate with the person that we're working with. So I think it is really important for the person that is supporting you that they're getting support, that they have had support themselves. That's just a personal view. Yeah. They don't have to give you advice, but I think it makes a difference if I've done my work because I can hold more space. Absolutely. And I think there's a thing that I sort of saw when I'm doing some business kind of work was you your your ideal client is you five years ago. So it's kind of knowing that you've done your journey and you're still we're all growing, aren't we? We're all still there's always the work. There's always someone else that's gonna come up and go, remember all the way. I mean yeah. Well, you you forgot about me, didn't you? You thought you put me in a box, and here I am. Time time to come back now. But, also, it's I I think, you know, for me, trauma came up for me when I was safe. I've moved into a new house. Mhmm. You know, good marriage, supportive husband, work was steady. You know, everything was good in my life, and then a trauma just went, hello. We're safe now. Let's let's do this. And I and, you know, my therapist gave me that option. We can keep that in the wardrobe. We can keep it locked up in the cupboard. It will stay there, or we can lay it out and face it. And I'm like, yeah. Let's lay it out. Face it. And it ran away for now. Who knows? It'll never come back. But, yeah, I think trauma is a very complex thing, isn't it? Absolutely. So let's go back to the question about shame. Yeah. So it's such a powerful emotion, especially for women. And how does trauma influence feelings of shame, and why is it so important to address it, do you think? I'll do it in the context of myself because it's difficult to give an answer that's generic and and for everyone else. So, hopefully, people will be able to take from my own story. So for me, just a couple of weeks ago, I released a trauma that I did remember had happened to me when I was about eight years old. I did remember, and I could if someone really asked me and spent a long time with me, they could have probably got to it. However, I do feel that I've spoken to a lot of therapists. I I've spoken to loads of people, it just didn't come up. And I think there's something so true in what you're saying. You need to feel safe enough for it to even come up. And I was with someone who was supporting me that felt holy and completely safe. And so it came up. And the way that I'd recalled it, I took the guilt with me. So I'd forgotten what had actually happened to me. And I took the guilt of what I was doing, my behaviors as a result. And and really, I've spent years taking the guilt of how I was reacting. So like you said, when you go into that safe place, when you move in with your partner, you've got your flat, this is for me. That's when everything came up. Because up until then, I was probably always focusing on something, just keeping busy enough not to actually address it. Same like you, as soon as you calm down, it can be that moment where that panic starts to rise. And so well, for me, it shows up as panic. And had I not been in that safe, vulnerable space, I don't think it would have come up, first of all. And I took that guilt, but that guilt was in a form of shame. What do you think the difference is? Guilt and shame. So it's just something that come up when I was listening to Brenna Brown, and she said that guilt is a feeling of I am sorry. I did something, and I'm sorry for that. Whereas shame is more of I did something, and I'm bad for that. Does that make sense? It's like it's it's more of an internal thing of I'm the bad person as opposed to I'm sorry I did that. Yeah. That's a really good point. I would say that I was filled with, yeah, actually, I was probably filled with shame versus guilt if those are the terminologies. I was labeling it as guilt. But I think guilt that lasts a long time and that you're attributing to to your own identity becomes shame. So, yeah, that makes sense. So, yeah, I would agree. Thanks, Brene. We love a bit of Brene Brown. Definitely. Okay. So when you came to me and said you wanted to work on your shame, I was like, oh god. This is really relevant to now because I'd taken all of those behaviors, like, all of those times where I wasn't able to step up and do something or as I would expect the perfect version of myself to do, or I wouldn't act like the girlfriend I wanted to be, or I wouldn't act like the family member I wanted to be. I guilted myself, and I shamed myself, which at the time, you know, I was doing things, and I wasn't proud of them. So it makes sense that I would have felt guilty or shameful. However, I think what's difficult is that sometimes the trauma hides itself, and then you've got all these behaviors, and you've not remembered, actually, this happened. And so it's kind of hiding under the surface, and then it's, like, pushing up every so often. And then it's pushing up in a way that you can't control. So I think it's those elements of feeling like, oh, I did this, but that's not who I am. Like, one of my friends said to me once, it's your so the first thing that you do okay. So I I said to her, there was someone who was on the street, and they didn't have a home. And I said, I walked past, and then afterwards, I felt really guilty that I just walked past. And she said to me, it's your initial reaction that's your trained response, and then it's the afterwards, the time when you actually stop and allow yourself to be or think properly that you kick in. So I guess what I'm saying is is that when we're in under a lot of stress, so let's say that that stress from the past goes underneath the surface and that's counting towards the daily stress, then we're under more stress in our day to day. It's like a jack in the box. It could just come out, and then we're like, oh god. Who is that? Who's I'm not Jack. Why why why are my arms flailing? Like, why am I why am I spilling? Or could we label it as that was Jack? That's not me. That was Jack. Get back in your box, Jack. Absolutely. Out. Do the work if you leave. Jack in the box came out. And then all thinking, what have I done? You get back in, and you're like, oh, what have I done? And then and it's not it's really not about blaming the past. Like, it's really not about that, but it's just accepting that this is what human beings do. We we remember things that have high intensity, and we keep them because it keeps us alive. And so we create the story around it. And I think when you said earlier, people can get stuck in their story, that's so true. There was so much that we can do that hurts ourselves when we keep going over the story. Our brain doesn't know the difference if something's happening or if it's not happening. So if you keep telling that story, you are absolutely retraumatizing yourself. And if you're constantly feeling that guilt, feeling that shame, you're just, like, filling that bucket up. You're just making Jack bigger and bigger and bigger every time. So Retraumatizing yourself. Yeah. It just brings me to that self compassion and how important that is for people to be able to even take that first step towards healing. The self compassion, self awareness of, like, this has happened to me and to acknowledge it. Just to acknowledge it, I think, is really important. But just being really careful about that story of this is who I am because this happened to me. I just that's the bit that I just would love to give to people and to encourage people to not feel like the past equals the future. Because quite often, I think that all those maladaptive behaviors, as one of my clients calls it, and all those jack in the boxes, I think they're pillars of strength that are coming out, and they're just coming out in weird ways. So if you can work on healing those things about you, that energy gets to channel into good things and all the things that you want in your life. Fantastic. And I've kind of seen my stories. I I I just wanna own my stories. There is obviously some shame around that, and I know you're gonna help me with some of that today. Yeah. But that's it, isn't it? Just kind of dealing dealing with all these these smaller things and then that lizard brain that comes out, that primal brain, that stuff that's always getting us to survive. Something bad happened to us in the past. So this is our primal brain keeping us safe because it thinks it's happening again, isn't it? I suppose that's what our brains are designed to do, and that's why we're trying to be in the moment and be present because we learn things from the past, and then we project them onto the future. And then sometimes, you know, it's that whole kind of worrying about this could happen to me, this could happen, then our primal brains go, let's stay safe and not do the work. And if that if we actually open this jack in the box and let this jack out, that's gonna be really dangerous for me, isn't it? But being safe to do that. So what do you think some of the biggest barriers are that women face in their healing journey? For me, I think if we look at society and what is deemed as normal, there is no normal. However, if the world shows you that the man is the superhero, the man is the superstar, and you grow up watching that, I think it would be unethical to not acknowledge the fact that you've seen a portrayal of a, in brackets, normal person and that your brain can't be affected by that to say, oh, I'm not that. I'm something else. And so many of us are something else. So many of us don't look like the, the Brad Pitts or the Leonardo DiCaprio's in the world. Like, so many of us aren't that. And yet I think just being women alone and for all the different diversities that do exist as well, I think that that means we're growing up with one version of, in brackets again, normal, and then we're feeling like an other or not fully accepted for who we are. So I think that in itself starts off as a okay. I'm not the main character because that's not how movies show women. They're not the main character. They're very rarely the main character. And in the world, like, now, hopefully, that's starting to change, but that wasn't the case when we were all growing up. So if we're always seeing ourselves as that secondary character, I just don't see how that can not impact ourselves in our own in our own minds, unless you haven't watched a lot of TV, which I think is fair. Yeah. It seemed like I was like, something like the other day. It's like the Smurfs. I don't even remember the Smurfs. And then there was all the Smurfs, and there was, like, genius Smurf and papa Smurf and angry Smurf, and then there was Smurfette. She didn't have a superpower. She didn't have a super thing. She was just I mean, we made up an assumption that she was a girl. Yeah. I love the analogies there, and I I think what I noticed with my partner, I think you just pick up weird, like, ways of behaving that you wouldn't do. Like, I ask him for me permission to join courses. Like, why am I doing that? I don't need permission. My money. Okay. Maybe there's a lot of time involved, but I do these weird things. And I'm like, why are they doing that? Like and I'm literally, like, I'm I'm not that kind of person. I'm obviously very independent. Like, I'm fully capable, fully well, and and great. If you're not, that's fine too. But, yeah, it's funny. You just get these behaviors, and I do think that that could mean that you're not presenting in that way of I'm important too or I'm important, full stop, period. So I think that can mean that you're busy doing other things, that you're taking on with with taking on more roles in the household. Like, there's just so many things that if you're as a result of being a woman, it just puts you in that category of a lot. However, we do also have the benefit of being women, of course. So we're more likely to be talking to our friends about things that are actually happening to us, which is amazing. We know that men suffer with their mental health far more than women do as well. However, things like burnout, stress, like taking a lot on, women are more likely to suffer from that on that side. So I think the things that I've seen, the commonalities between the women that I've seen have been just this view of I'm not good enough, and therefore, I need to work really hard. I need to go the extra mile. And I think I took that as well. I would always think that there's something wrong with me. I can't just fix the problem I've got. I've I need to fix myself. And then, eventually, that ended up me being in a very good place. However, the rhetoric that I'm broken is not helpful in in the slightest because that doesn't help anybody. No. It doesn't. And what advice might you give someone who's listening today who's maybe stuck in their trauma? First thing that comes to me is self compassion, and it's proven. The more self compassion you have, the less likely you are to suffer from depression and anxiety. So depression being feeling regrets from the past and anxiety being stress in the future. So if I'm solely focused or if I have a lens of focus on, I need to look after myself, I'm more likely to put boundaries up. I'm more likely to say, make time to put things in my diary that I want to do, or I'm more likely to, you know, make sure I get to the gym in the morning or, you know, there's all these different habits that get created all from prioritizing yourself. And I think we have such a horrible word, selfish, for prioritizing yourself. Why is there no word for me? And I think, obviously, it makes sense. We're human beings. We're born in communities. Like, we thrive in community. We have our families. We have a lot of support. Like, it it makes sense that we wouldn't have thought of this idea of looking after yourself all by yourself. But I think we are in a world that's sped up so far, so it's so much more digital, so much more online. There's so many things that are happening in our day to day that is causing more stress and probably making things more likely to be triggered. So, yeah, self care, self compassion, I would say, is the third thing. Work out what that means for you. Like, work out make a list. Like, write down. If I was being self compassionate, what are the things that I would be doing? And I would start there. Yeah. Absolutely. And that's it. It's putting, you know, your own skin mask on first. You can't look after the the army of people. You can't look after your children. You can't show up and be the best person at work. You can't be the best wife, best girlfriend, best friend if you're not okay. And I will say, you know, everything that I do, whether it be career coaching, domestic abuse, intuitive eating, everything is self care, self compassion. It starts there. So Yeah. Shall we do some tapping on shame and do this now? Or is there anything else you wanted to cover before we moved on to that? Oh, let's do it.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Secrets in the Powder Room podcast with me and Ifalase. I hope this conversation has given you some powerful insights into healing from trauma and releasing shame, but we're not stopping here. In part two, Everlaser will guide me and you through a live EFT session, where you can follow along and experience the power of tapping for yourself. Plus, I'll be sharing some reflective journaling questions to help you go even deeper into your healing journey. So be sure to tune in to part two. You won't want to miss it. And if today's episode resonates with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Send me a message, share it with a friend who needs to hear it, and don't forget to subscribe so you don't ever miss an episode. See you in part two.