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Unresolved Trauma | A Holistic Path o Health And Harmony With Tatiana Szulc!

High Blood Pressure Wellness Lifestyle Podcast, Episode #86

Unresolved trauma can feel like a shadow that never lifts, whispering of past pains and unmet sorrows. It’s a deeply personal battle that tugs at the heartstrings, affecting not only emotions but the wholeness of one’s being. Yet, within this struggle lies the potential for transformation.

By gently nurturing the nervous system and embracing a holistic approach to wellness, you can begin to heal these invisible wounds, turning the echoes of trauma into a symphony of resilience, hope, and newfound peace. You're not alone on this journey, let's walk through the healing together.

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High Blood Pressure Wellness Lifestyle Purpose!

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Welcome to the High Blood Pressure Wellness Lifestyle Podcast, your heart's destination for expert wisdom and inspiring stories that lead to a healthier, more vibrant life. I'm Donna Williams, your passionate host and Certified Holistic Health Coach, dedicated to igniting your health transformation with easy, mindful strategies.

At info-on-high-blood-pressure.com, I warmly welcome women of color and all those eager to unravel the mysteries of chronic disease management. Here, we embark on a journey to conquer high blood pressure together, enriching our lives with knowledge and community. Subscribe to our Overcoming HBP newsletter and be part of this empowering movement.

I am committed to guiding you to reclaim your health with thoughtfully crafted online programs designed to reverse, treat, and prevent high blood pressure. My mission is to reveal the power of mindful eating and whole-food nutrition, a path that can minimize medication dependence while revitalizing your life.

Let’s simplify your journey to health by embracing nourishing foods that balance hormones, energize your metabolism, and help you achieve lasting weight loss. Together, we’ll unlock the secrets to vibrant health, transforming this journey into a joyful, fulfilling adventure. Welcome to an empowering approach to wellness that makes living well feel wonderfully easy!

Today’s topic is on Unresolved Trauma: A Holistic Path to Health and Harmony with my special guest, Tatiana Szulc! Here to help us in our healing.

Introducing Our Special Guest - Tatiana Szulc!

Tatiana. https://www.info-on-high-blood-pressure.com/unresolved-trauma.html

Tatiana Szulc is a distinguished first-generation Latina, specializing as a trauma and somatic therapist and holistic coach. She is adept in the body-centered approach known as Somatic Experiencing, a method that facilitates healing without the necessity of verbalizing or recalling past traumas. Having personally navigated the challenges of complex trauma, Tatiana understands the intricacies of living in survival mode.

Now, having achieved her own healing, she is passionately dedicated to transforming as many nervous systems as possible throughout her career.

Tatiana provides YOU my audience with the following downloadable gifts:

Free Nervous System Guide.

She Is Resilient Podcast!

A warm welcome to High Blood Pressure Wellness Lifestyle podcast Tatiana. We're truly honored to have you join us today. Your journey from surviving complex trauma to becoming a leading therapist and coach is incredibly inspiring. To start, could you share with us what initially led you to explore the field of somatic therapy and how your personal experiences have shaped your approach to helping others heal?

Unresolved Trauma: Healing Through Nervous System Balance and Holistic Wellness!

Unresolved trauma can profoundly impact the nervous system, often leaving individuals in a heightened state of arousal or chronic stress. This occurs because the body retains the physical responses to trauma, even when the conscious mind has processed or attempted to ignore the event. The nervous system, designed to protect us, can inadvertently become stuck in a loop of fight, flight, or freeze responses, leading to ongoing emotional and physical distress.

Somatic experiencing offers a pathway to address these issues by focusing on the physical sensations associated with trauma, allowing individuals to process and release these trapped responses gently. This body-centered approach emphasizes the importance of tuning into physical sensations, helping individuals regain equilibrium and promote healing by restoring the natural flow of the nervous system.

Questions, Answers and Discoveries to Unresolved Trauma Podcast Transcript, Episode #86

We started our conversation with me asking Tatiana to help us in understanding unresolved trauma. Could she explain what unresolved trauma is and how it can manifest in our lives, particularly in relation to our physical health? And, what are some common misconceptions about trauma and its impact on our nervous system?

I also asked Tatiana to share with us what initially led her to explore the field of somatic therapy, and how her personal experiences have shaped her approach to helping others heal.

Tatiana Szulc responded by saying: - her journey into somatic healing really started unexpectedly. She has been a complex trauma survivor and lived in survival mode her entire life. And have experienced numerous things throughout her life that caused her nervous system to be in this high, sympathetic state fight or flight. She had chronic social anxiety along with symptoms of depression. At one point in her life, she wanted to take my own life.

She has experienced:

- Domestic violence.

- Childhood trauma, and so much more.

There have been so many things she has experienced where she wanted to help other people never feel the way that she felt growing up. And that's really what led her to go into the field of mental health. And so she started to study psychology in college. She double, majored in human development and family studies.

Tatiana stated: ‘I absolutely loved learning about the brain and the body, and understanding myself, and once I started to understand psychology and human development, I knew that I wanted to become a therapist.

I became a therapist at the age of 23. I was very young, and you know if we know anything about the brain. The brain isn't even developed until the age of 26, and so I was a 23 year old, trying to navigate this big career and trying to navigate my own personal struggles, because at this point I was still living in survival mode. My anxiety had worsened in graduate school, and my dissociation also worsened, and so I was constantly dissociating in conversations with people. I was dissociating.

When driving I felt really disconnected from myself. And I was doing a million things.

I am a child of immigrants, and so all I know is how to work hard and hustle, and you know just keep your eye on the prize, and so that really served a purpose.

At that point in my life, and it also contributed to that state of survival fight or flight. And so my 1st job as a therapist was an outpatient therapist at a community mental health agency, and I absolutely loved working there. But again, because my nervous system was in survival mode. I was always hustling. I was always wanting to get more work. I wanted to work with the highest risk clients.

At the same time I had this chronic social anxiety where I would really go into panic mode in meetings, and even if somebody just looked at me or said, Hi! To me like, Hey, Tatiana! Walking by the hallway. I would go into a panic, and so I would freeze inside. My throat, would close up and it was really a constant struggle, and I had tried a bunch of different healing modalities.

couple wearing masks. https://www.info-on-high-blood-pressure.com/unresolved-trauma.html

So I tried cognitive behavioral therapy as a client. I tried internal family systems. I tried all of these different things, and nothing seemed to work, nothing seemed to help me get that relief that I was looking for. It helped me gain insight and a better understanding of myself. But I still had this chronic anxiety. I still had these physical symptoms in my body.

And so 2020 comes. And we have no choice but to slow down.

My body didn't know how to slow down. At that point my nervous system really fell into this state of freeze and burnout, and I started to feel completely unfulfilled with my life, and I debated on whether I wanted to continue to be a therapist. At this point I wasn't feeling fulfilled with being a therapist.

The work of community mental health. If anybody out there listening knows about community mental health, you know that you're not just one role. You are wearing so many different hats.

It is very overwhelming, and it definitely takes a toll on your mental health and your body. At that point I was like I don't know if this is the path for me, and I told my supervisor at the time that I was feeling really unfulfilled, and she said, Well, you know what, maybe you just need some inspiration. Maybe you just need some motivation.

And I said, okay, sure, let me go find some inspiration. She suggested that I get trained in something. And I said, okay, let me go find a training. I didn't think too much about it.

I started to Google, mind body trainings. I knew I wanted to do something with the body because I had shortly before this I had gotten trained to become a meditation instructor, and so I knew that I wanted to do something related to the body, but I just didn't know what.

I came across somatic experiencing, and I had no idea what somatic experiencing was. I had never heard about somatic experiencing, and again, because I was living in survival mode. I was very reactive, very impulsive, not really looking into things. I didn't do much research I just signed up for the program. I applied. I was accepted, and I didn't realize that this program was for three years.

As soon as I went into my very first training, my mind was absolutely blown. I finally started to understand my body, my nervous system. I started to really understand why, even after all of these years of therapy, even though I've been doing all of the work. I had all of the coping skills. Why I was still feeling the way that I was feeling.

And part of the somatic, experiencing training requires you to do your own personal, somatic experiencing sessions. And that's when I finally started to find relief in my body. That's when I started to shift from this chronic social anxiety to feeling more calm and at ease in my body. Where I could have a normal conversation like me and you are having right now Donna. I could do that without so much panic and anxiety.

And I always say this to people like, I wouldn't be able to have this conversation with you, Donna, if it wasn't for somatic experiencing, because of my social anxiety my nervous system just couldn't handle it. And so now, living on the other side, I just want the entire world to know about the life-changing method of somatic experiencing.

What Is Somatic Experiencing?

And so I asked Tatiana what is somatic experiencing and other questions:

Somatic Experiencing:
- What is Somatic Experiencing, and how does it differ from other trauma healing approaches?
- How can Somatic Experiencing be beneficial for someone experiencing both trauma and high blood pressure?
- Can you describe a basic Somatic Experiencing exercise that listeners might try at home?

HBPHeadache. https://www.info-on-high-blood-pressure.com/unresolved-trauma.html

High Blood Pressure and Nervous System Dysregulation:
- How is high blood pressure linked to nervous system dysregulation?
- Can unresolved trauma contribute to persistent high blood pressure, and if so, how?
- What are some signs that high blood pressure might be related to nervous system issues?

Healing Trauma and the Nervous System Holistically:
- What is your approach to healing trauma for stabilizing the nervous system that also affects blood pressure regulation?
- How do you integrate holistic practices with conventional treatments for managing blood pressure?

Practical Somatic Techniques:
- Could you share some practical somatic techniques that listeners can use to reduce stress?
- How do these somatic techniques support the regulation of the nervous system?
- How often should one practice these techniques for optimal results?

Long-term Benefits and Implementation:
- How can somatic and holistic practices be integrated into daily life to ensure lasting benefits?
- For someone beginning their journey with somatic techniques, what would you recommend as the first steps?

Who are the ideal candidates for somatic experiences? And what benefits can they expect from this approach.

Do you think people understand that they are living through trauma, or they're in a traumatic state, because sometimes you just don't know. You think that is your norm. Or that is the norm you see around you. So how do you? How you can differentiate that this is trauma.

What practices are conventional treatments and how can we incorporate them?

Concluding Our Journey: Insights on Healing Unresolved Trauma with Tatiana

As we at High Blood Pressure Wellness Lifestyle Podcast wrap up today's discussion on unresolved trauma and its profound effects on our nervous systems, it's crucial to remember the power of addressing these hidden wounds through approaches like somatic experiencing. By tuning into our bodies and allowing the physical release of trapped sensations, we open the door to healing and reclaiming our peace of mind.

A heartfelt thank you to Tatiana for sharing her invaluable insights with us today. We hope her expertise has provided you with a deeper understanding of how to navigate the journey toward recovery and wholeness.

Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to having you with us again on our next episode.

Return from Unresolved Trauma to Having A Family Medical History