She Was Molested At Six, But Overcame Her Trauma With THIS with Dr. Shannan Crawford

I was molested at six. At five, I have a clear memory. I know Jesus is real and I'm called to be a missionary. And then someone molested me at six.

Family member stranger.

A family member. So it made it that much more like can't remember this, can't go there, because you're still in that environment.

And then that gave the feeling of I'm worthless.

I hate myself. I had eating disorders, all the self-harm stuff, major depression. I actually thought I was bipolar.

Because maybe people have trauma.

It's called the moral defense that children take in. It must be something about me. Children will naturally default that it's safer to believe it's my badness, there's something bad about me, rather than believing my environment is not safe.

Because that's a survival method.

Absolutely. If we could just do a tiny little adjustment, we release the trapped emotion out of the physical body, and now people's energy comes back, their clarity, their focus.

The body will heal. Your thoughts will heal. You'll heal. Oh boy, on this episode, I am interviewing a licensed psychologist who is shifting the cultural perspective on therapy. You're gonna get blessed by this, Dr. Shannon. Hi. Thank you for being here. Dr. Shannon Crawford, you are a licensed psychology, but you're breaking all the rules, maybe. I don't know. Is that good or bad? I think it's good. No, meaning you have a completely different perspective.

Absolutely.

But you walk people, you teach people, you have a system for getting people to step into that purpose.

Yes.

Because I think all of us have pain. And I say pain to purpose, but that said, you have a system to get you there. So you're gonna learn how to get into your purpose today. And that's important. It's huge. Because some people say, I don't even know my purpose. I'm like, well, look into your pain. But then they say, okay, maybe it's this, maybe it's that, but how do you get there? You actually have a system.

Yeah, it's called restoring self-cohesion.

Yes, restoring self-cohesion. So we're gonna talk about what that is and what that means. And you have people coming from all over the country, maybe the world, yeah, into a clinic that you have in Dallas for this to learn this, but you also train executives this. So this is about even breaking through in maybe an area in your life that you just can't break through. Am I right?

Absolutely.

Okay. All right. But I want to just go back a little bit, right? You know, let's entice our viewers a little bit, you know. Number one, how is this gonna change their life if they're watching this, right? You know, I want to hear how that's gonna, what is this going to do for them? And then how did you get here?

Okay. Well, you have a purpose. You are here for a reason, but just like if your cells are in a state of toxicity, sometimes our soul is trapped with emotion, with trauma, with events that happened a long time ago and it created infrastructure internally, and that's still running like a hard drive of a supercomputer.

Wow. You know, and from we resonated on this, you said, I do it, you do it, the soul. And I'm like, oh my gosh, that is so true about what I know about what you do. There's something called the cellular danger response that when bad things happen to people from a physiological standpoint, they're in a mold exposure, they get this nasty infection. This happened a lot of people coming out of COVID, by the way.

Yeah.

So what you're saying is that people can get that from emotional traumas.

Exactly.

And they get stuck, and then the recordings there. Is that what you're saying?

Absolutely.

Okay. Tell us how to get out.

Yeah. So think of your inner world like there's a theater of characters on the inside. So your soul is your mind, your will, and your emotions. Your soul is wired to help you regulate life on this planet. So you speak the language the people around you speak. So think of your inner world like a theater of characters. And so there's parts of self, and they're playing roles, just like you described at the cellular level, they're doing it at the soul level.

So that's like battleship mode protection. Okay.

So our defense mechanisms are part of the soul. And so it regulates and shuts down our ability to connect with our true self. So that's how people walk around feeling disconnected, foggy, they don't know their purpose, low energy, because your spirit man is your true self. That's where your heart is. And when the heart walls go up.

So it could is it safe to say your spirit mode is who God created you really to be?

Yeah, all of it coexists, just like you have all these systems, but it's the one that's supposed to be in charge.

Okay.

And when it's not in charge, it's defaulting back to the soul and a defensive posture, kind of like you were saying, inflammation. Your body is reacting, this world is not safe. I'm protecting you. The same thing when the soul is saying, This world is not safe, or I'm not safe.

So I I mean I've heard the soul. I'm just trying to think it through, you know, for people listening too. Yeah. It's like the soul is kind of like our our soulishness, our personality, our, you know, like, you know, so I mean, our soul doesn't have to be a bad thing. No, absolutely not. So, but yet we're you're saying that when we get into one of these traumas, we opt into the soul instead of the spirit mold. You know what I'm saying? Because so describe it a different way.

Yeah, exactly. So think of it like the vertebrae. Okay, right? So one level is supposed to be in front of the next, and then the spinal cord properly sends signals. At any point there's a bulging disc, or one of that vertebrae metaphorically, moves out of alignment, then it's gonna cause that signal to be disrupted. Okay. The spinal cord can't be.

We call that subluxation. There you go. The chiropractor in the chiropractic world.

Nice. So our soul is good, it's not supposed to be in charge.

Got it.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, okay. So there's an out of alignment.

Exactly. Yeah. So we call it misalignment.

So, what normal then is you're functioning from the spirit part of us, right? That God created. And then the soul is, you know, responding in and around it. Describe that what normal is, and then we'll look at abnormal.

So in health, my body, my soul, and my spirit are in right alignment.

Body, soul, spirit.

And so they're all connecting, all the systems are communicating, just like the cells and the hormones, all of those things are supposed to connect. They all have a purpose and a role. But at any point when fear takes over and my body goes, Oh, this world isn't safe.

If shame So fear is functioning out of the soul part, right? Right.

Okay, got it. Shame, inadequacy, mistrust. And so it's like the soul steps in front like a bodyguard and it blocks and defends, and many times even shame. I am not good. I am bad. So I have to shut me down. I'm my true self. And then we create the imposter or the false self and operate from that.

I call it a false identity, if you will. We live from them. Oh, and then they get even worse because things happen that we cement them and go, see, I know it's true now. Yeah. Or that we're told even that we're that. Exactly. Because we become that. No, you're just stupid. Well, you know, anyway, so we take that on and we live from that false identity.

Exactly. Yeah. And so in health, all of those systems are communicating. And when they miscommunicate, misalign, now we turn against ourselves. So the equivalent is like an autoimmune condition.

Oh, yeah.

So when I'm turning against self, I can't be at 100%. So that's where a lot of the executives that work with me, they find, you know, I'm just self-sabotaging, self-limiting beliefs, and procrastinating. Why do I do this? I know better. My software knows better, but my hard drive or my operating system is still defaulting to something that I can't connect to.

So give us a real life example of that.

Yeah. So I was working with John. I'll make a pseudo name. Um, so John is a wonderful CEO. He's a founder, he is a go-getter and very driven. But he found that his other colleagues found him a bit narcissistic and difficult to work with. Brilliant in business, but having a hard time leading his team. And so that was affecting the morale and the finances. And so he was like, all right, they said I need to come to you, blah, blah, blah. Right.

So you can't lead in that perspective.

Yeah.

I would argue it's you can't be happy.

Oh gosh.

Yeah.

And then you just need the next shiny thing, the next conquest, the next sexual conquest, whatever you're going to get to try to fill that empty place.

It creates an addiction. It creates all that. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

And that leads to the A lot of my CEOs call it the shiny thing complex that I just need the new Bugatti, I need the new Rolex, I need the new accomplishment. And those things are empty. They will never actually satisfy. You know, you can be CEO and still be miserable and drink yourself to death. So if we don't resolve where our heart walls are actually disconnecting us from ourselves and from others, that's a misalignment.

Right.

And so they just say, well, here's some mindsets, here's some coaching, here's some skills. And those are great. But that would be like taking a bunch of supplements. If your cells can't take it in, that's nice, but it's not going to actually change the root issue. Right. Similar, if we don't get those misalignments addressed, and then we open your heart walls back up. So he did.

He and it happens quickly.

Oh yeah. Yeah. It doesn't have to be hard. It's the motivation, right? Just like if somebody follows your program versus they don't, that's how much you're going to get out of it. Right. But we actually had three sessions and he was unlocking things and it was crazy.

Okay. We want to know how to do this. Yeah, because I mean I think all of us, you know, to some level, you know, you know, do these things from traumas and things of that sort. So we all need to learn to break through. So okay, we identified the problem.

Yep.

And now we can't wait to hear the solution and how to do it, right? So that's great. But I I do want to back up. So we're going to get back to this point, no doubt. Okay. But how did you get here? Right. Like, you know what I'm saying? I mean, you have a story that got you here. Yes. And it's going to bring meaning to this because everything I teach today came out of my pain. God showed it to me for such a time as this.

Yeah.

You know, he allowed me to go through it to bring it. I'm sure that's the case here.

Yes.

Okay. So let's hear that story.

Yes.

And then we'll hear the solution, the how-to.

Okay. So I was a very happy child, great family. And all of a sudden, it was like the lights turned off, and I was just a very depressed kid. Um, I could know as a child that I would be happy for about four days. I'd be like, okay, I'm gonna be happy, I'll probably be sad for another three days. And I would know, like, my mood is not in my control. I was chubby, even though I was on all the sports teams. I'm from California. We're in your bathing sports.

Sound very attractive.

It did not make any sense based on how much my family loves me, the private school I'm in, sports I'm in. My life did not match how many issues.

So you had a very good life. You had um externally. Externally.

But internally, I was miserable and I was depressed.

But your parents were good parents?

Great parents. Yes. The most invested. They did a great job.

All right.

And so my mom So what happened? My mom took me to our pastor and he said, Oh, well, and I was self-harming, I was cutting as a kid.

And so he was because normally, I I'm not the expert here, right? But normally I would think that cutting and things like that, like, oh boy, something, whether abuse, something, sexual, something, something, something bad happened to hate yourself enough that you would do that, and that somehow makes you feel better. Am I right or wrong? I don't know.

I didn't know at that point.

Okay.

All I knew is I have a good family. I'm going to prep school. I'm excelling in sports. I'm smart, and all of these things don't make sense with how much I hate myself. I had eating disorders, all the self-harm stuff, major depression. I actually thought I was bipolar. And so we went to the pastor and he said, Oh, well, I know what's wrong. You're just thinking about yourself too much.

Yeah, I oh, that was, you're right. He did say that without meaning any. Without meaning. Yeah, but he did say that, right? It's like, oh, it's just your fault. Yeah. It's like, oh gosh.

Try harder to not do that.

Yeah, don't think about yourself. Oh gosh, now I'm a narcissist. Yeah. Yeah.

Exactly. Um, so then I went to someone else and she was like, okay, symptoms. Um, if I just open the diagnostic statistical manual, which is a big Bible of all the psychology things, here's all the diagnoses I think you could be based on symptoms, meeting me for 45 minutes one time. So I left crying. I was bawling full of shame, going, Oh my gosh, I called my mom. It's true. I now have a professional that said, I am crazy. I am broken.

That helps.

That was really good when you already have all these issues. I went to someone else and she said, Oh, you have an eating disorder. I'm fat. So are you judging me?

Another label, false identity. Come on, just keep bringing it. You're getting healthy now.

This is all helping. And these are all trained programs.

But unfortunately, though, what you're describing is what like most people would go through, right? I mean, they had this process of here's another label, here's another thing, it's your fault. Okay. So you're going along the normal route. Right. Not the good route, but the normal route.

Yeah. And so then my mom took me to someone else. And because again, I have a supportive family. And so my mom was trying everything she could to help me. And so the lady said, Well, let's pray and ask the Holy Spirit if there's a reason that you have all these issues that you don't remember your childhood, et cetera. And so at six, trauma memories came back. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I now have a root, something that would make sense.

So here's the out of alignment happening.

Exactly.

So that is a protective mechanism that says, Don't worry. Yeah. Because the body, I always say innate intelligence, meaning that intelligence that's inborn, all of us that God put there has survival mechanism. The number one priority is survival.

Yes.

So therefore, this is a survival mode to say, don't worry, we're going to keep you functioning and surviving.

Exactly.

We got this. So soul steps in front.

Yes.

Whether it's fear, whether it's whatever all these things were. So that's where you're at now.

Yeah, exactly. And whenever the soul is leading, it doesn't have an energy source. It's not connected. You know, the Bible says, guard your heart above all else. It's the wellspring of life. So even energetically, the heart is the center of where all energy starts and then moves throughout the body. And I love that it moves in the shape of a cross, if you think about it. So when I disconnect from my true self and I believe a lie of shame, I am bad. Didn't even know I did.

Because of this trauma that happened, which we're getting to, right? Okay. And because of that, I am bad. Yes. I am whatever can come out, right? Worthless. I am meaningless. I am, I am, I am. Okay. And so that's leading out front.

So that's hiding. That's a bad me. And so then my soul steps in front. Disconnected from an energy source. And that's where most people are in addiction and they don't know how to get out of it.

When you say disconnect, I'm so sorry. I'm literally trying to understand the best I can. When you say disconnected from an energy source, right? You said the heart's the energy source, right? But but what does that mean for us? Like what when what does that feel like? What does that mean, disconnected from an energy source?

Yeah. So like when my heart is leading, or when their heart is leading, you have like a sense that is well with my soul.

Okay, so that's the energy, like meaning that it's you feel normal, you feel well, you feel healthy.

And I would say that you're to connect in the spirit realm. Like you're plugged in, like a battery. Just feel plugged in. Yeah.

That's the connection to the energy, right? Just with it's mental, it's physical, it's all of it. Yeah. Okay. But when this happens, now you don't. Right. Okay. So now this is. So how do what does that feel like?

Yeah. So the soul, a lot of our clients will describe it as disassociating or feeling numb, um, feeling foggy, distracted. I think personally, I think some ADHD symptoms could be an element of this, not that that's the only cause. But it's like I can't focus, I'm not clear, I'm not organized, you need lots of caffeine, lots of carts.

And what and what do people say to themselves when they're in this state?

What's wrong with me?

Uh huh.

It's a number one.

Okay.

What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? I am so broken.

I have everything going for me. What is wrong?

Yeah. And so it's things like this internal mystery.

Okay.

Because somewhere inside you know you're not operating the way you're intended to.

Yeah.

And so these symptoms, people are chasing after their symptoms.

So these are therefore these people probably try a lot of biohacks. They try a lot of medications, pills, powders, potions, lotions, next thing. They're on Instagram finding every next thing, right? You know, to use a modern day thing. Yeah. Okay. All right. So they're trying a lot of things, but nothing's working. They're probably told a lot of things too. Ah, it's just your gut. Ah, it's just this. Yes. It's just that. You just need rest.

Exactly.

Yeah. And they told a lot of things. It's just the stress.

Yeah.

Right?

Mm-hmm.

Okay. And they go like this.

Right. Because we're not told another narrative.

If we don't know it's our cellular health, if we don't know it's our unconscious mind, then we just just You know the only reason I know this is because, again, you helped me with this because I'm drawing the exact thing with the physical thing. It causes the same thing.

Exactly.

Right. So it's like, I know. It's like, but this is so many people are stuck, can't get well because of this. So I am so excited for this conversation.

Absolutely.

We're excited for the answer.

Yeah.

No, because I know you really have figured something amazing out. So, you know, I feel like I'm talking to myself from the soul perspective.

Exactly. Yeah.

It's like, I can't wait to hear. Okay, so people are stuck here going, what the heck do you do? That's why I asked, what do people say? Right? Because that's what people go, that's what I say. That's what I do. Yeah. So, okay, so now here they are trying everything. Go ahead.

So another common symptom is I just don't feel anything. I don't feel love for my spouse. I just don't feel alive. So anhedonia is the common symptom of depression.

Anhedonia.

Is that the Anhedonia is the word for lack of pleasure, like the inability to experience.

I learned that. How can I remember that? Anhedonia. It sounds I it's like I should know that, right? Anhedonia.

Anhedonia. It's a random word that just means you can't experience joy and pleasure. That would be a common sign. So again, back to that addiction cycle of like, I need something.

So you're trying to find it.

I need something to find it.

Anhedonia is causing you to reach, reach, reach. I just want to feel that. And maybe it gives you the blip for whatever.

But it's like it uses your dopamine so you temporarily feel better. And so all the top five on Instagram do this, hack, change this thing in your life, spice up your sex life, do all these things. But nothing actually makes it well with your sex.

So the next video I do, I'm gonna say, I'm doing this for the anedonia. I'll Anadonians out there, they're being led by. I'm not gonna do that, but you know, but those are the people who are responding going, oh good, this is the next thing. Oh, good, I'm gonna try this, I'm gonna try that. Hey, that worked. Off next thing.

Yeah, exactly. So the people that are just walking around feeling disconnected from themselves, their loved ones, that they're like, Yeah, it's a nice life, but I just can't enjoy it. The inability to enjoy your life is a common sign that you're not living from your heart, you're living from your soul.

Wow. If if all we did is this right there, it's like, wow. Because I think a lot of people watching this right now have a realization of, oh my gosh, that's me.

Yeah.

Like I know it, right? Because this is I this has become probably more problematic for different reasons, right? So here we are. Now, you still, before we get to the answer, you still what happened? Are you are you okay? You're I I know you're I mean, I've shared it a million times. Yeah, of course.

Yeah, so I was molested at six.

Okay.

At five, I have a clear memory. I know Jesus is real, and I'm called to be a missionary, and then someone molested me at six, and at six Family Member Stranger. Um, a family member. Oh yeah.

That's typical.

So it made it that much more like can't remember this, can't go there, because you're still in that environment. Yeah.

And then that gave the fee the feeling of I'm worthless.

Right. So it's called the moral defense.

I don't matter, maybe all that, right?

Yeah, that children take in, I it must be something about me.

Cause it's more By the way, two guests in a row.

Yeah.

That's exactly what happened. Yeah. That was what happened to her. And she wrote a book, I matter.

Good.

Yeah, anyway.

So yeah. So children will naturally default that it's safer to believe it's my badness. There's something bad about me rather than believing my environment is not safe. Does that make sense?

Yes.

So children will always take, like if you had an alcoholic parent.

Because that's a survival mechanism.

Absolutely.

Because if you go in my environment, then you become unfunctional.

Right. So to function, I have to believe that people are good and I must be bad. So that's why most children have shame. Um, the statistic is 70% of people have trauma, but I mean the underreporting is pretty high. So I would say it was much higher. And then we have low case trauma as much as the big case trauma.

And when trauma, because maybe people have trauma and don't know they had trauma. What like what classifies as trauma to cause this? What would obviously there's sexual, there's physical, there's trauma, but maybe some other things people aren't going, oh, that is trauma.

Can I tell you the most common?

Yeah.

It's depressed mothers. Oh. Yes, that's the most common. So children that were not emotionally engaged. So, like the research on failure to thrive, kids that grow up in an orphanage where they're healthy, viable, good children in Romania, and there's nothing wrong with them physically getting all their needs met, diapers are changed, food, warm blankets, but they're not being attached and attuned, they become either mentally retarded or die just from the lack of attachment. That's how vital.

I wonder how many people just broke through just because you just taught them that. So thank you for that. I mean, I didn't know that. I would have never um thought that that was a trauma. That's what you know. I intuitively maybe I asked the question, you know, because I guess the number, like even 70%, you're saying it's more than that, have trauma. I'm like, really? You know, you know, I I know like sexual abuse is way more than people think, right?

So in the 1980s, there was a psychologist that was telling parents to let the infant self-soothe, put them on your schedule. That's the same thing.

Oh, yes. Um, mm-hmm, um, um, the baby-wise. Am I right? Yeah. Okay. Intuitively, so someone gave us the book, uh-huh. Right? Intuitively, my wife and I were like, mm-mm, something's wrong. Yes. Nope, we bailed, right? And oddly, my wife's cousin didn't bail. And, you know, yeah, it was not, yeah, it's I don't like any of that.

It's literally some of the hardest traumas I've ever worked with because it's called learned helplessness. And that's the majority.

Give people an understanding, because here we're just through this word out. But baby-wise, what was the main point of it? The whole point.

So the main point is allow the baby to cry it out. Yeah. Now, if they're a five-year-old, if they need to learn to self-regulate, but you're talking infants, that's the worst thing you can do. Babies can't self-soothe if you haven't taught them how to self-soothe.

So if they're a little older, a little different. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. When they're older and they need to, you know, have a little moment, you know, we're not talking about a kid.

Yeah. We're talking about infants. Yes.

And that was very trendy in the 1980s. So now we have a crop of adults at this generation who are depressed and they don't know why, who have a hard time getting a job or a driver's license or being motivated to do something. The basis, one of the biggest ingredients of depression or the lack of driving toward a goal is called learned helplessness. So if we go back to the research when they put dogs in a kennel and they would electrocute them anytime they would try to move.

Attachment. What if a child was raised with zero attachment? Like, what happens to the child? Like, you know, let's say hypothetically, we put them in a scenario in a room and we we teach them, we talk to them, we coach them, dah, dah, dah, but there's never attachment. They never say, like, what would happen to that human? Um I like to go with extremes. I and the reason why is because we learn in extremes, right? You know, because we get concepts in extremes. Yeah.

So I think it, I mean, there's a multitude of ways because goodness of fit, right? Each personality in each environment is an absolutely new petri dish, a different experience. Um, many of my clients have had that experience where they had people around them, you know, they had school, they had food, they had education, they weren't in a third world country. They may have even been in from an affluent, successful, predominant family. But if I don't have somebody go, hey, who are you?

And as far as an infant, right, not having that a conversation, but an infant knows that someone's like engaging with them, yeah, caring for them.

Absolutely. Right.

So if there's a lot of disconnect there, okay. So meaning the mother who's depressed will still take care, perhaps, of their young. Yes. But there's still a a bit of a little bit of a disconnect that the child picks up on, right? Yeah. Okay.

So a great research study, there's a YouTube video on it of the still face experiment, where the mommy and the baby, they call Harvard Research calls it serve and return, where it's like they're engaging and she's going, Oh, you looking left? Oh, it's over there. Oh, that's good. Oh, look sad. What are you sad about? Come here. Oh, okay. And so it's like they're dancing. Baby can't speak yet, but there's a sense that self that they're engaging. And so then they ask the mom to just be still.

Right.

I'll stop crying because nobody's gonna come. Why bother?

And that's why the baby-wise thing was so damaging, right? Because no one's coming.

Exactly. And so that forms a core belief.

Right.

So then it's like I'm an orphan. And so back to your question, what does that look like in adulthood? One, sometimes people become very driven. They're very successful. Okay. Many CEOs, founders, very, very successful, high achievers, but have emotional skills that are very low, you know, like relationships that are pretty damaged, a lot of affairs, a lot of addictions, because I am protecting me and I've got my own back. Nobody else is gonna do it. I will make sure.

It could be identified as a narcissist. It could be identified, meaning all these behaviors that people go, oh my God, you're a narcissist. Well, because you're only taking care of yourself.

Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah, right.

Which is all of us, right? Like there's an element of all of us that are like orphans on the inside.

Yeah.

And we're so hurting and wounded, but we defend. I like the Shakespeare quote where he says, the lady doth protest too much. Any area in my life or in my client's life that they go, nope, that's not an issue. I don't have to talk about that. That's not, I've never experienced that. And it's like how much they defend against even the curiosity to explore something usually tells me that is an issue.

Yeah.

Worth exploring, right? Otherwise, the system wouldn't create such a defense around something. And then we deny it from our ego, even knowing that it's down there.

You talk about this, or you teach about the what do you call it, the internal glass ceiling. Is that kind of this describe that how this absolutely.

So if I believe I'm unworthy, I'm going to naturally limit and protect myself from failure. So then I always get to have an excuse. Well, the economy was bad. Well, I was married to the wrong person. I mean, you know, business is rough. I had a bad colleague. There's something else to glass sealing to limit me, to protect from me actually fully putting myself out there and failing.

Well, let's um let's use me. This is fun. Um, I mean it though, but yeah, because I'm very open the fact that I always say my dyslexia as a child. Because I grew up in a very good family, right? I grew up with loving parents and cousins, answered. I mean, I, you know, I couldn't have had a better life growing up. I always say my my biggest trauma, which created all my bad behavior as an adult, was my dyslexia. Right? I I false identities.

Yeah. Help.

No.

So the irony is it's not actually the event or the diagnosis or the whatever. Okay. It's the internal infrastructure as a result of it. So that means how does my inner world make meaning out of the event? So that's the difference. So some child could be um, there's research that children of extreme poverty do better than children of extreme wealth.

Because it would do better, what do you mean?

Do better psychologically.

Okay.

So if Johnny believes mommy is working three jobs and all she can do is kiss me at the good, you know, good kiss me goodnight at the end of the night, then I know my mom has done everything for me. She sacrificed, she loves me. If I know my mommy is at the club and she's, you know, doing volunteer and I'm with a nanny, and you know, and then she kisses me goodnight, the internal resentment of I'm not a priority versus, man, I'm such a priority, my mom would do anything for me.

You know, I I this is a true story. I just told it before, but um, so brother and sister twins. I asked the brother, um, yeah, man, what do you attribute your success to? Right? You know, he's really driven, right? Impressed by him. And he said, My father, Argentina, he's from Argentina, immigrant, lost his parents, young, you know, amazing. You know, he really just, you know, really did so much for us kids, yeah.

Yeah, so the theater of the inner world, there's parts of self. So just like when you say, Oh, where are my car keys or why did I do that? We have parts of us that are each fulfilling a role. Kind of like how you have 78 organs, you know, 11 to 12 systems within your physical body. You also have parts of self and they will never merge, they will always be separate. Genesis 1.26, the Lord said, Let us make man in our image. We're supposed to have different parts of us, right?

Yeah, he decided to believe that.

And his wife theater kept conscious parts. And so the me that is like dad, I can regulate. I can work on temper, work ethic, or whatever thing that I might have gone, I wouldn't pick that up. But the moment people make a judgment, an inner vow, and a like a I'm unforgiving toward this, it's like you've put parts of you in jail. And so that cancer grows and your inner world now has to defend and block and deny that.

Yeah, I always took that scripture, Romans eight or nine, seven, eight or nine. So, anyways, anyways, and is like Paul really recognized his sinful nature. And he was beating himself up a little bit, but he ended in 10-1 with thank God there's no condemnation, those in Christ Jesus. Exactly. Meaning, I'm a bloody sinner. I should know better than anybody, but look, I struggle with this, right? You know, yeah, there's freedom in that for all of us, isn't it? Absolutely. Yeah.

And I would say restoring self-cohesion helps find out why do I still do that. We start with kindness and curiosity to bring those parts conscious. And that's our process with restoring self-cohesion.

Okay, yeah. So let's let's let's talk about that. Restoring self-cohesion, that's your um RSC. My dyslexia. See, I had to be like, anyway, so that's three-letter words or three-letter things. I can't even I do this to them. But um, anyway, so okay, let's talk about that. So what step one, step two, give it to us.

Yeah, so you sit kind of identifying it, maybe, or so we start with kindness and curiosity, because our human nature is to defend, block, control, self-critical, self-judgmental, and nobody does well in that, right? But if we're just kind and curious and we bring it conscious, so we do an internal board meeting. So because I work with a lot of executives, that was the allegory I created. Of like if you had a boardroom, then you part all of those parts.

Yeah.

But my immune condition, Hashimoto's, no longer is an issue when I healed my relationship with myself. When my soul was no longer critical, judgmental, bad me, my body started to reflect that hard.

Because your immune system represents you as a force field protecting you and this. But it's it's attacking you, you know, and it's like because you're attacking yourself, exactly. And your immune system is doing it what it does. Wow.

Yeah. Because your body, I believe, doesn't know the difference between psychological threat and physiological threat.

I say it all the time. The body doesn't know the difference between physical, chemical, and emotional stress.

Exactly.

It responds the same way. Yes. I I say that because when I'm looking for people's perfect storm, it could be physical, chemical, emotional. It doesn't matter. Typically, it's a combination. Bam, the bottom falls out. You know, you stop adapting and then, you know, bad things happen, right? Exactly. But it doesn't know the difference. It does. It reacts the same at the level, physiological and the psychological. Psychological. That was a made-up word. English. Yeah, psych. See what dyslexics do.

Exactly. So it turns on the same inflammatory response. It does. Whether it's me that's bad or there's a toxin that's bad.

Yeah.

Your body's doing the exact same because it's getting that same.

I'm going to save your life.

I'm helping you.

Yeah, exactly. I'm going to save you.

For another client, she's an executive and finally got the life of her dreams. Right. So she's the CFO. She loves her life. She's married. She now has two little babies. And all of a sudden, she started having anxiety and panic attacks. And she's like, Dr. Crawford, I don't have these issues. This is not part of my life. Make this go away. And so I'm like, okay, well, let's get in the weeds because I don't think things are random.

Absolutely. No doubt.

So at the unconscious level, usually anxiety is something is trying to surface, but my defense mechanisms are getting very anxious about that badness surfacing, right? Like I've got a quarantine virus, let's say, or a quarantine bad part of me, that's starting to surface, whether it's in a memory or an emotion or something's getting triggered and your natural system is trying to detox. It's trying to surface things and not leave sickness on the inside. Does that make sense?

Totally.

So like if I have a belief that there's a bad part of me, eventually when you're not in that environment anymore, that's why when kids go to college and they're young adults, a lot of their issues surface because they're not in that family of origin environment. And so it's like the system goes, okay, we got to get this out.

You know, it's like when such an I keep bringing these examples into the physical world, but when people leave a moldy home, all of a sudden it's like, oh, I feel better. And then they don't. Yes. And it's bad things happen, right? It's like, and then when people get these amalgam fillings out that contain 50% mercury, there's this honeymoon period. And then all of a sudden, yeah, crash.

Same thing. Yeah.

Yeah.

I actually believe it's because God repeats how he does creation so that it helps us because the intangible of the unconscious mind is hard to understand. And so we can borrow of like in the natural realm, this kind of like when God's like, hey, your relationship with Jesus is kind of like a husband and a wife. So he'll give us allegory in the natural realm to help us understand a metaphysical or not physical realm.

Right.

And so that's how I've learned to conceptualize it because a lot of my symptoms started physical. I had health conditions. And so the more that I worked on my emotions with myself, the more my thyroid started to heal itself. I didn't have the hypothyroid anymore. The Hashimoto started to remit. You know, the ADHD symptoms started to clear. Because if you think of it, I have all these browser windows or parts of self that have been minimized, but they're still running in the background.

Yeah, the more of those windows my kids will grab my phone. Dad, like, look how many things you have going. That's why your battery's going dead.

Yeah, exactly.

I didn't know they were there. They clear them. It's like, oh yeah, my battery does last longer.

Exactly. Same with us, with unconscious trauma, parts of self that are holding things for us. So back to my female client, we'll call her Jane. And so Jane started having these panic attacks. It didn't make sense to her. And we went back and she said, Oh, when I was about 19, I got radically saved. And at that point, I was like, okay, I have no problems. I've now received Jesus. And so that's not an issue for me anymore.

She started getting anxiety.

Exactly. Because your system does a scan and it knows I have a virus or a bad me that's still inside, metaphorically. And so when you see things, you're around things, smell, memory, sound, all kinds of things can be triggering your inner world. And it's like, okay, our life is good now. Then let's get this, let's detox, let's get this stuff out. But her inner world defense mechanisms are going, no, no, no, no. I don't, I don't want to ever make a bad choice and then ruin all of this.

Wow. On the physical side of things, you know, I had mercury in my brain, you know, got that out, but I was also living in a mold low-grade moldy home, you know, had realized I was very sensitive to that. Once I started getting out of that, I was left in this cellular danger response where my body was like more sensitive than ever. Walk into a mold. You know, I always say I still have that fear of going into a moldy building or being in mold to it's very unhealthy. Yes. Right.

Yeah.

Right? It's like, but like, okay, so the person that has certain fears, just like I do, of like getting a mold exposure, because it this dying never scared me. It was living my life like it was. Yeah. You know, it's like, so how do you get rid of those fears?

Yeah. So for her, we started to work on what's your internal board meeting, what are your low stakes? And then I kind of fast-forwarded how we found the parts itself. And so then we find what is your protector, the jailer that's holding everything inside. And then what's the you that you have so much shame around that I cannot see that in myself? And as a kid, she had made a judgment against one of her parents who had had an affair. And so she was then petrified. What if I'm capable of that?

And she probably thought, because I look at things and go, you know, maybe lust or this. So therefore I'm capable when it's really, you know, normal. But so she was convincing herself that she could, and she maybe not.

If there's a part of me that I already judged as capable of that, then that's where that red flag, check engine light, inflammatory response of like, oh my gosh, I'm not okay. So think of anxiety as the parallel to inflammation. When your body's inflamed, it's like your soul is anxious. That's the metaphor of being similar.

Okay.

So it's like something is trying to surface, it's trying to alert you, heal you, protect you, do something that's good, but it can't stay in that state for very long. It's taxing to the body and the soul. And so then we go down and we imagine her unconditionally loving the part of her that was promiscuous and loving the part of her that is similar to the parent that could have an affair. Not that she's not.

So, how do you how do you get her to love that part?

Yeah. So part of it is psychoeducation. So that's the therapy work. And then I lead people through closing their eyes, using their imagination. It's not new age, it's not hypnosis. It's just going back and actually engaging with eyes to see and ears to hear, kind of going into that imaginary realm, but I believe is actually very real. And so you're connecting and going, okay, there is a part of me that I believe is bad.

Yeah.

She had made a judgment about a person in her childhood, and she was like, Well, I will never be like that. Right. And so then I will construct the perfect pleasing um doormatge me, criticize me, not like me, not want me. Because she was not liking and not wanting herself. And the hard thing is when you shut down any part of yourself, that's a vital part. It would be like shutting down your kidney and your health is not going to function.

Because they shut apart.

Because they shut down their discernment.

Yeah.

Most people shut down their anger because anger as a child is perceived as rebellion, dishonored. You can't do that. So instead of stewarding and teaching children how to work on their anger, anger's okay. This is what we do with anger.

Jesus got angry. Anger's okay. It's an emotion.

It's a normal, healthy range of emotion. It's also a stage of grief.

Uh-huh.

So when you stop someone from grieving, that's why my work with men is so powerful. I work with males and females, but most men have never had someone sit across from them and say, that is valid. And I am so sorry that that happened to you. You have the right to be angry. That is an injustice. And I am so sorry. And underneath that is the vulnerability of how it made you feel inadequate, not enough, overwhelmed, shut down.

And when we're typically opposites like that. Exactly.

So when we restore right alignment, and he now knows I do have what it takes internally, and I believe that now your sense of self is open and gracious and kind, and you can do conflict and anger in a healthy, appropriate way and not have to bulk up and become the Hulk and protect and defend or shut down, which is what a lot of my clients do, is they're good guys, right? They're not abusive, they're not hurting anybody.

You know, I always say, gosh, you know, how many people are neurotoxic, you know, and if I could just get to them and you know, remove that, how much better their life. Like you're the you're on the other side of this. How many people are dealing with this that need this, right? It's like you put the two of us together, oh my gosh, it's like, you know, we we would change the world.

Yeah. Well, it's been a 20-year journey of studying clinical psychology, psychoanalysis, quantum physics, all the health nutrition side. So trying to put all that together, it happens very fast now, but I would say it took a lot of experience, trial and error, of working with people for two decades to now be able to do it pretty quickly.

Meanwhile, he created the exact life that he desired. Now he hates it.

Yes, exactly. But he's a good guy, he's a Christian, he's a nice guy. Nobody knows all this. He's just finally having the courage to say it confidentially to somebody. And so I have it as an honor that people trust me in that space. And so we do an internal board meeting and realize oh, you have a belief that I have to give this inheritance to my kids. And so your soul stepped in front with that inner vow and judgment. I need to make sure that I do this for them. But he shut off his own heart.

He was autoimmune. Exactly. He was attacking his own life. I mean, but that's that's what people are doing, right? It's like, man, you know, why do you think that, like, you know, in the last 50 years, I can tell you physically what changed to lead to more autoimmune, more cancer, more uh thyroid conditions? You know, we had a massive influx of a lot of different types of toxins. You know, oils changed, you know, to the I mean, there's all these things I can identify, right? But what about this?

I think it's twofold. I think the breakdown of the family unit when it became less honorable for a woman to stay home with children. Now, the irony is I am a female executive, I'm a CEO founder. So I sometimes have girls come to me and be like, you're anti-feminist. And I'm like, no, actually, I'm literally the CEO. I'm the female epitome of everything you say you want. So I'm not anti-feminist by any means. Really happy about women being educated and paid properly.

And particularly mom, right? That connection, right? I mean, that's the more natural connection. You know, I think that there's been even a societal shift of a man's role, right? Like, you know, a man is like my father, man. He he woke up early in the morning, as I said, 4 30 in the morning, shuffling in the driveway, right? It's like then he's off to work, he'd come home, he'd be beat, go to bed. It was like, you know, I mean, but that communicated love to me, right?

Yeah, yeah. Tough. I would say I would borrow from the work of John Eldridge. His is profound. He and Stacey Eldridge talk a lot about that need of a mom to give nurturance, communication, connection. And so, in essence, that's now modeling for me how I'm supposed to relate with myself. And then on the other side, dad is supposed to be the one that gives identity, that you're tough. You are challenging, you can do this, you've got what it takes. This is who you are.

See, but that's not being talked about. Yeah. It's like, you know, dad should be doing this, dad should be, you know, you know, being at this game or that game. And it's like, you know, no, what about that? What you just said.

Exactly.

Giving the blessing, serving in the identity. Right.

Telling kids. In a session, when I'm doing an internal board meeting and we're closing our eyes and we're going back, I believe the quantum physics element is that we're actually stepping back because that part of self got frozen in a different time realm dimension, metaphorically. And so now I'm speaking to the you that is 10 years old that needed to hear dad to say, you do have what it takes. I am proud. I'm so glad you're my son. Welcome to manhood. Wow.

Yeah.

And most men never got to hear that. Most little girls didn't get to hear that.

Yeah, it's like, you know, dad didn't have to sit down and play games with you, but if he told you that, yeah, that's transformative.

Yes. And it's hard because now there's so many single mothers. So the sexual revolution broke down the family unit.

Yeah.

And so if we look decades out, we see the breakdown of the family unit that dads are sperm donors and just give money, you know, as an aggregate, not that that's all men. Yeah. We're saying as a society, and then moms are having to play all the roles and be working because that's the boss base. Yeah.

So that's not normal.

So it's really hard to have enough bandwidth for yourself to catch your own breath, much less say, How are your emotions? How's your heart today?

Right.

What happened that made you feel less than or excited? Yeah. How did you come alive today? Yeah.

If those moments Because it's survival mode, not that mode.

Right. That feels like a luxury to most people. And they could even hear that and be like, oh, please, who has time for that? And I would say that's the ingredients of what make healthy, secure attached children. And when you're securely attached to another, now I know how to be securely attached within myself. And that creates a secure attachment in adulthood. So if we don't have it in childhood, we don't know how to have it in adulthood.

Huge. Didn't you write a book, friction tree, tri uh triology? No. Okay. Maybe it was something that you had wrote about that I read, but uh, you know, I just um I, you know, this I I almost feel like we need to leave them with hope, right? We kind of like disrupted it, right? I think the hope here is you're quickly being able to give people things like this is how you can get this all back in alignment.

Oh, absolutely. Right.

It's like so there, there's, you know, first of all, t tell them how they find you, right? Because people are like, okay, I just need this woman, help me. How do they find you?

Yeah, yeah. So we have a whole team, it's CrawfordClinics.com. And then we're creating a certification for therapists and coaches to be trained.

That's what I'm doing too, because we need an army of people bringing this, right? Yeah.

Yeah. We cannot do it as a one-off. Right. Um, absolutely. So it's quick, it's easy, it's not hard. The hardest part is actually learning how to think symbolically as the unconscious mind thinks. But once you learn how to do that, what does that mean? So, like um, what my external symptoms are telling me actually are mirroring something internal.

Okay.

And so when you think symbolically, you can go, oh, um, I have distress in my heart because maybe I have distress in my emotions. And so there's something that needs to be explored. Do I have disappointment? Do I have heartache? Is there something, you know, from womb forward? It could even be in utero. And so now you just locate where it is in the body, and then what part of me is holding that for me. And then we do somatic work.

So for people to find out more about this, I mean, have Have you written any books? Have you? I mean, I'm sure there's stuff on your website too, right?

Yeah, absolutely. So I'm working on the training book first. And then I have an espionage romance version of this for feature films and fiction films, like books and movies. Um, so that kind of like C.S. Lewis, where you're stepping into a story and you'll see the espionage stories.

People learn in the stories, you know. That's great.

Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. People need this. You know, it's like I I just, you know, I'm I'm so excited even to learn more, right? It's like, you know, from my perspective, just because I always say, I'm look, I understand how the emotions in the soul lead to disease, but I always say I'm not the expert here. And I lead people to resources, and that's that's why you're here. You know, because I get it.

Exactly.

You know, and and I like you said, I mean, I don't know the percentage of people that are dealing with it, but it's way bigger than we think.

Absolutely, way bigger, and it can be so much better. So, yes, positivity is in my top five on strength finders. I have tons of hope.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, we start talking about the, you know, the time we live in. You know, the I'm talking about the amount of toxins running it. You're we're talking about how the family's disrupted and social media and all, oh my gosh, like we can't leave people on that note. No. So give them like one thing. Start right here, right? I'm the person out there hearing you right now, hearing this conversation, going, that is me. Like I'm saying all those things.

Yeah.

What do you say to that person? What do we do? What do I do?

So, probably an easy thing to do would be to journal and start with kindness and curiosity. Those are always the key ingredients to go, hey me, that's feeling like that. So, like, for instance, before I speak for conferences, you know, a lot of people will feel fluttery. In that moment, I'll go, hey me, that's feeling anxious. What are you feeling anxious about? It's okay to feel that. Almost like I'm bringing that member to the committee instead of trying to ignore it and speak positive.

Wow. That's awesome. Well, as always, another episode of the Dr. Pompa podcast from pain to purpose. Dr. Crawford just helped you step into your purpose. And there is no doubt she also made it clear what's keeping us from our purpose. You know, but our purpose is, in fact, in our pain. If we can just rethink all of it, right? Ah man, it's like what a what an incredible, incredible episode. Like, share it, because how many people needed to hear that, right?