Creative Paths to Healing Childhood Trauma with Jonathan Moon - Ep 167

Welcome to this episode of Unraveling Adoption, an intentional space to delve into adoption's complexities together. I'm Beth Syverson. I'm an adoptive mom of a creative and empathetic 20-year-old son, Joey, who is trying to figure out adulthood. Aren't we all? I'm walking beside him while working on my own personal growth and healing. If you're a seeker who's wanting to move forward in your life, contact me to work with you as a

coach. This podcast helps anyone impacted by adoption and the general public will understand adoption's complexities better after listening to. In today's episode, you will hear how an adopted person has struggled from relinquishment trauma and adoption trauma, but who has also found some powerful healing. Jonathan Moon was adopted to the U.S. from Korea at age 9 after spending two years on the streets in Korea. He reunited through a Korean TV show with his grandmother who raised him until

age seven. He is making an artistic film about his life called Voice of Waters, which will be amazing. You have never heard a story quite like Jonathan's. So thank you for sharing your life with us, Jonathan.

Yeah. And I should say, I met you at Untangling Our Roots in Denver last April, and it was great hanging out with you and getting to know you a bit. So I love those in-person Yeah, it was definitely a long time coming. It's my first time. It was my first adoption conference. Pretty late stage in my life, decided to attend Untangling Your Roots this year. And then I finally went to also my first Korean American adoption conference, KHAN, as

well, this year as well. Nice. Yeah. So I'm just going Oh, there's so much healing to be found when you find others that share your same similar similar story. No one has the same story, but just you don't have to explain a whole bunch of stuff. You just dive right in and people are nodding their heads going, yes, yes, yes, yes. Is Yes, there's definitely a community that really felt like they immediately understood you, unlike others who are not adopted, who just don't know even how to

Yeah. And you just have to be in the role of educator or raising awareness or defending yourself or whatever. So all that can get dropped when you're in a room with a bunch of adoptees. I'm sure that is very helpful for adopted people for sure. It's extremely helpful for me as an adoptive parent to kind of witness that and to observe and to learn from you all. So thank you. And thank you for being here and sharing more

of your story here. Why don't we start with just telling us whatever parts of your adoption story you'd like to share, kind of the bones of

So I can give you a very high level chronological view. So, yeah, I was born at a wedlock. My mother was, I think, like 21. My father was like 44. He actually cheated on his wife and his family with my mother at the time. Come to find out later, he actually spoke pretty good English. He was selling dictionaries with a friend of his and got to my mom's parents doorstep. But my mom was only in her early 20s and saw my mom and I guess he just couldn't resist and he went after her. And I think maybe

less than a year later, they had me. And that kind of uprooted not just my mom's life and not just my dad's He had three other kids. So my three older half brother is And this relationship with your birth mom was secret and In the beginning. Oh, OK. So, yeah. You know, after the reunion and the subsequent decade, I would say, over a decade, I found out more information on my dad eventually leaving his wife at the time and his family at the moment and I guess trying to make things work

with my mom. Okay. They apparently got married close to the DMZ was what I was told in Korea and they got married I think when I was three years old. Okay. I don't have any memories of that. And then, yeah, eventually I ended up living with my brothers and him, but I'll get to that later. So my dad meets my mom, they have me. And the first memory that I ever have was, I think a lot of people can relate, is a traumatic memory. I

had to be no more than three or four. I was sitting in my grandma's lap in the kitchen of my parents' apartment. My grandma and I were both watching kind of a argument that was going on with my birth father and my mother in the other room. We could look straight ahead and could see the commotion. I remember him actually packing up his clothes in a suitcase. I don't know what

they were discussing, but it was pretty intense. And I remember my mom either yelling, but it was some kind of like a light scuffle, What I remember is my dad slapping her across the face and her falling back onto the bed. And then what ensued after that was my grandmother, who's my maternal grandmother, that's my mom's mom, put me down pretty hastily and ran after my mom, got on top of my mom and was actually screaming at my mom and pulling her hair. I panicked

as I think any kid would. I got on top of my grandmother's back, crying, trying to pull my grandma's hair and trying to pull my grandma off my mom. Okay. That's my So after that, that was my first and my only

Wow. My only memory. Next thing I remember is my grandma was the one who actually raised me. I don't know what happened between then, but I just remember my maternal grandmother. Okay. raising me north of Seoul until I was probably six or seven. Between that time when I was growing up at my grandma's place, I had the ideal childhood. I had friends in the neighborhood. It's very much a typical Asian culture where everybody is

together taking care of each other. And that was the case when I was with my grandmother. My grandma would wake up in the morning and go to work at an army base. So I would wake up and she would already have breakfast made for me. And then I would just have full independence going outside playing. And it was just pretty much almost everyday occurrence where, you know, I go outside and play with my friends and the neighborhood would watch out for

And that was just kind of the way things were then? Yeah. That Exactly. It takes a village to raise a kid, right? And that's what everybody did in that town. And it was just that small neighborhood within that town. Right next to my grandma's house was a supermarket and I would go there to have lunch. I would always call her the supermarket ajumma. Ajumma is like an older lady. It's

an endearing term, I guess. Yeah, I would go to the supermarket on most days and have lunch there and then wait till my grandma came home, you know, later that afternoon. And then we would have dinner and that was just my typical childhood. I had a really memorable childhood with my grandmother. My birth mother really was never in my life. She showed up, you know, apparently once in a while. I was told later on that she came and visited me all the time. And I don't

remember that. I only have maybe one or two memories of her visiting me. And I actually asked my current therapist, why don't I remember anything like this? You know, like, why don't I remember my mom visiting? And she said, well, maybe for a young kid like you, maybe it was just too hard to take. Maybe it was so unstable that you didn't know when you're going to see your mom. It was just your coping mechanism to not be so disappointed in your mother or whatever. So

that was the case with my mom. I don't really have many memories of her. And then fast forward, I was about six, seven. And

I remember my birth father coming to my grandma's house and us having a conversation for me to go live with him. I can't see why I wanted to, or maybe I wanted to. I really don't know. But from my memory, I don't see why I would You sounded like you were doing well. Yeah. Whose idea was it for you to go So it wasn't really anybody's idea from what I gathered because I was at the age where I had to start going to school. And I was in Korea back

in the days. And it's still this way, but it's a little bit different. But back in the days, you were under the man's registry, the father's registry. So that's like a social security number for every kid, whatever. It's just a way for them to be able to Yes. So for me to be able to go to school, I had to go live At that moment, you know, so he was living in a one bedroom housing apartment with me, my three older half brothers and him. It was a pretty normal lower class

where everybody kind of slept on the floor. Okay. So when I started to go live with him and started school, that's when pretty much all the problems started. Okay. So, I

immediately did not want to stay there. My older half-brothers were not very nice to me, except the middle one. Okay. The middle one, I got along with extremely well. Okay. And he actually left the house a little earlier than the other two. My two other older half-brothers were not the nicest to me. From their perspective, if I was seeing it here, comes a Yeah, that's my guess. You know, I have no facts to back that up. So problems started once I started living with my birth father.

He was definitely an alcoholic. He was quite abusive. I eventually started running away. I would run away to my grandma's house in the beginning with no money. So my dad lived about a 30-minute car ride. With no money, I would actually go on the bus. Back then, then this was probably 1985, 1986. I was probably around seven years old. I would get on the bus. And back then, you don't have these little coin machines that you just put your money in. Now, Korea was a

developing country still at the time. They would have bus services. Walking down the aisle, collecting money. Tickets, tickets. When she was starting to approach to collect money, I would pretend Oh, OK. And you're just a kid. Maybe they thought you were with somebody else. Well, generally, you know, somebody I was sitting next to, they'll say, I don't know who this kid, whatever. But the bus stewardess would try to wake me up. But there was no way that she was going to wake me up because

And yeah, it's pretty amazing thinking back then. I'm like, wow, kids are Yeah, at that age to be able to feel the bus and then you had to go from the bus to your grandma's house, right? Yeah. You must have really good spatial intelligence and courage. My goodness. So, yeah, so the final bus stop was actually in Donggukcheon bus station. So bus stop Donggukcheon, I would walk to my grandma's house and then I would maybe spend a couple of days with her.

And she said, you have to go to school. So my grandma would actually help me She would take you back. Oh, did you argue and say, no, I And I don't remember. I'm pretty sure I would because I didn't want to go back. But there were a good handful of times when she would take me back, or when I eventually went back by myself, my dad's place would be empty. So I would get back to his place, everything would be moved

out. My grandma would have to find a way to find my dad, or I would have to find a way to call my grandma to have her come and get me and try to figure out a way to get me back to my dad's new So eventually after being turned away from my grandmother saying that I would have to go back to my dad, I couldn't necessarily rely on my grandma to necessarily keep me safe from my dad. And that's when I started to have It was fun for you. Like, are you serious fun or sarcastic fun?

I think both. I think I had that sense of freedom where I Nobody's telling me what to do. I still wonder to this day, but there were a couple instances where I would try to persuade a Just disengaged from everything. Yeah, I was disengaged with everything. No mandated reporters or nobody helping

Shoot. Yeah, like there's one instance when I fell asleep, a street vendor threw a tent. Okay. If anybody watches K-drama. Okay. you've probably seen it. Those are some of the places that I would sleep because it would be emptied out. Me and my friend would try to look for food there. Most of the time we couldn't find anything, but we at least had some kind of shelter to fall asleep. And there was one instance where I got caught stealing

food out of a small family market. They made me give them my dad's phone number somehow. And my dad picked me I was going to say that sounds really dangerous. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But there are different creative ways where you could find sleep. I would sometimes go back to my dad's place and there was a storage room right next to where my dad and brothers were living. And I was just crawling in

a storage room. It was a different room. And there was a small window and I could see them having dinner, talking about me and things like that. So yeah, that was kind of like my life with my birth father. But at the age of eight, I'll never forget this either. It's clear as day. And the funny thing is, I spoke fluent Korean. I didn't speak a lick of English, right? Sure. And my memory, when I go back to that moment, is the dialogues and the conversations we had were all in English. It's kind of

weird how our memory works. But yeah, he was doing the dishes. I remember him looking up at me because I was by the doorway. And he said, Hoon, which is my Korean name, Hoon. Do you want to go to America? Well, at the time, I've seen some American stuff on TV, you know, how amazing America is. This was during the time of Ronald Reagan's era. You know, it was a very prosperous time, right? Economically. And the US was on TV all the time. I remember when the Challenger exploded

on TV, that made it over to the Korean news, obviously. And I saw that as a kid, big rocket just exploding. But everybody had positive views on America, but I had no idea where America was. I literally thought America was next door, just a town away. How would you know? Yeah. Yeah, right, right, right. So when he said, do you want to go to America? I thought, yeah. And I assumed that it

Yeah, with them. He just said, do you want to go to America? I'm like, yeah, yeah, that'd be great. And next thing I know, I'm in the director's office at the orphanage, not too far away from where we were living. Got pictures Yeah, that's the first picture that they took of me. And that was my second to last time I saw my father that day. And I was put into the orphanage. I recently found out because I was looking at my paperwork. It was back in August

of 1987, was when I was placed in the orphanage. Wow. I do. Nothing traumatic or nothing bad. There were a lot of kids. There were a lot of kids. I was definitely one of the older kids, for sure. And there were a lot of babies there. There were a lot of foster mothers that took care of the babies. And we played a lot outside. And there were a couple of rooms in the orphanage, and we all

slept on the floor. And I'll never forget how crowded it was. It was just all kids just crowded in one or two rooms, just sleeping on the floor. And that was a normal thing back then, or sleeping on the floor, right? But everybody had their space to sleep. And I don't have bad memories necessarily, but I don't have a whole lot of memories. I was surprised that I was actually there for seven or eight months because of the number of memories I have, which isn't

a whole lot. So maybe it was something that I Okay. Do you know why your dad relinquished you to the orphanage? Was it just because he kept running away? He just didn't know So after the reunion, I found out from a family friend that rumor was that my dad was trying to get back with the mother of his other boys, that he had to get rid of me because I would never be part of the deal. That's what I was told from

Oh, that's painful. And it hurts because on many levels, but you think orphanage and you think orphan is someone with no parents, but you really had at least two, your grandmother and your dad who were there alive, maybe not perfect or ideal, but you were not an I mean, I guess not. I mean, my birth father is the one who actually Yeah, I guess he just undid it. That must just hurt at such a deep core level. I can't even imagine what that must be

Oh, I still struggle with it. I'm sure. I still struggle with it. You know, and that's, you know, that's part of my healing process, right? Yeah, it's, Well, let's keep going with your story. So you got adopted to the US So I knew hello. So I remember like when I was living in the streets, I would see American soldiers. Oh, I would try to be like, hello, some little Korean kid trying to spark up a conversation with with an American, you

know, and they would just respond back high or whatever. You know, that was that. OK, but I knew hamburger and I knew hot Yeah. Yeah. So hot dogs were corn dogs in Korea, but we call them hot dogs or something like that. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. What do you remember from those first days and weeks of

So it was an adventure. I mean, I think as a kid, you're just excited with all the new things, even though you don't know how to really talk to anybody. I'll never forget coming out of the O'Hare Airport. So it was me. and a brother and sister. Our family still kept in contact. We only lived less than an hour away from each other. The brother and sister got adopted together. I think they were about a year younger than me. Once we got out of the main

gate, there were families obviously waiting for arrival. And it was very clear who the adoptive family was because they had signs, they had balloons, and they were just waiting for the arrival. And I was trying to play it cool. Like, oh, this is going to be fun. And I didn't understand that this was a trip or this was a temporary thing, maybe

I'd eventually go back. I didn't realize that this is going to be a serious thing when I was actually in the Korean airport leaving for America that day, when Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Gosh. Yeah, she was being held back by her two sisters. Yeah, I'll never forget that. It's And is it that patrilineal situation? Why couldn't you just have gone back to grandma's? Was it that legalistic kind

I think that was part of it for sure. I think that was the main driver. The other part of it was it was very hard for my grandma to take care of me. Sure. It wasn't her job. She took care of me until age six or seven. She took care But it wasn't because she didn't love you or care for you. She deeply cared for So you're here in America and you're like, oh shit, this Yes. And how was your adoptive family at the beginning? At

Oh, they tried to accommodate me, obviously. And as any parent would, right? A kid who has no idea what he's doing. I entered third grade in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, and I was just inserted right into class. And I had an ESL teacher who actually taught me English. Her name was Kathy Kenneman. She was an amazing lady. She was instrumental in helping me learn English, you know, first couple, two, three years of my life until I went to junior

high. Great. It took me about a year and a half for me to be I'm sure. And then the writing, everything's so different from Korean. That must have been really hard. Yeah. When you're little, like an infant or a three-year-old, you don't read or write anyway, so you just sort of get the hang of it. But you already read and wrote in a different language. That must have been tough. Were you an only child in No, I have an older brother. He's seven months older than

Biological to my adoptive parents. And then I had two younger sisters who were also adopted from Korea. None of us are related, but they were adopted when Well, it's hard for me to even grasp how much pain you've gone through, and I don't even know what else happened in your childhood, but just so far in your story, it's just like the number of relinquishments and unsettling and just insecure, you know, those basic needs of a human being were not met at so many different times

in your life. I just can't even imagine how painful that must be. And I'm so sorry. And if I saw you walking down the street, I would not even think that you had had trauma. You seemed super So. Oh, so. So yeah, on the surface, I think many of us look like we're pulled And how did that pain though, how has it manifested in your life? Did you find self-destructive behavior? Did you Well, I definitely had my teenage years. I wasn't, I guess, atypical from other typical teenagers. I

was more within myself than outwardly. I would say. I got in a decent amount of trouble and that's something that is reserved for the film, but nothing Just like a typical teenage testing boundaries Yeah, typical. And I think for me too, as a kid growing up and as a young adult, for me to be able to just kind of move forward with the world, I had my own coping mechanism. and I didn't realize it until

You know, I was in the military for four years. It was this machismo, this you got to be a man kind of thing, testosterone. I think that's the best way I can describe how I try to carry myself. Okay. Where I didn't complain about things, kind of the cookie cutter societal expectation of what Okay. So you were strong. You just took it and you didn't whine about it or anything. You just, I

I certainly tried. Yeah, I certainly tried. I'm sure, you know, I've had moments, multiple moments, but I certainly tried, but I didn't really realize the trauma that I had been shoving deep into my soul and just cramming everything and just keeping it stored somewhere where I How did you start digging through that? Was that the TV show in

It certainly was a spark, I would say, but it wasn't anything that just kind of blew everything out of the water. So I can go into the reunion, you know, this was in my late 20s, you know, I was doing well. I had just gotten out of the military. I was going to university trying to finish up my degree. And during this whole time in the US, I have been trying to get back to finding my grandma, trying to reconnect with her. My adoptive mom had been very supportive at the time of trying to help

me. She's a nurse. She actually got connected to a Korean woman through one of the patients My mom ended up telling this Korean woman my story and she says, Oh, I'd be happy to try to help your son look for his grandmother. We all ended up having lunch. And she said, Jonathan, can you send me all the information that you have, a picture of yourself and things like that. And I can see what I can do. I would say no more than two days later, I get

a call from KBS. It's a Korean broadcasting station. It's one of the major broadcasting organizations in Korea. Called me and said, Hey, we can look for your grandmother if you do a TV show with us. I'm like, okay, okay. And at the time before I went to America as a kid, my grandma actually wrote her address on the back of one of the photos. So that's an address I provided. The weird thing is, is that previous to all this, when I was a teenager, There was a family friend

who was Korean who was going to visit Korea at the time. We were asking him, hey, can you go visit my grandma and see if my grandma's there, tell her at least we're doing okay, and I want to reconnect with her. He said yes, but once he came back, he said, oh, your grandma doesn't live there anymore. Well, fast forward, I give this address to KBS. I'm like, I don't know. This is the last known address of my grandma. KBS calls back and say, hey, we found your

grandma. Oh my gosh. She lives at the same place. And I was like, what? Well, he definitely lied. Yeah, or he never went. Dang it. So she was living at the same place the whole time. It's the same place that I grew up as a kid. Wow. So they flew me out a week later. It was just so fast. They started rolling the film the minute I got out of the airport and I met them. I got reunited on the TV show with my grandmother. This was

in 2005. I reunited with my birth mother that night off camera because of the shame that So was it a positive reunion or has it continued to It was a positive reunion. Yeah, it was a very positive reunion. It was a lot. It was a lot. It was a lot for me to process. I eventually uprooted my whole life in the U.S. and ended up living in Korea for a couple of years as an adult. Pretty much after that, It was a lot. I'm just curious. Did you still remember how to speak Korean fluently?

Oh, shoot. But it probably didn't take you as long as somebody that had to start And that's the funny thing. And I'm still learning. Really? Yeah. God, the way the brain works. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Did you ever reconnect with your birth father? That seems

Yeah. Yeah. So during the filming of the show, they released a preview that they were going to release the show that I was on. They showed a preview on TV that was going to be released three, four days later or whatever. Well, my birth father saw that and he called KBS and he goes, Hey, that's my son. I want to get reunited with him. And back then we were filming still at the time. I said no. And my immediate reaction was no because of the anger and internal bitterness that I had towards

a man who discarded me to an orphanage. So yeah, I said no immediately without even thinking about it, without even a second of thought. I said no, absolutely not. Because a part of me was I wasn't sure what I would do at Yeah, I don't blame you for having very strong feelings about that. I have strong feelings and I barely know you. How could you do something like that? Oh my gosh. Well, let's get

into how you have found some healing. I assume that you have found some healing because you're able to talk about this publicly. You go to these conferences with other adoptees. What things have helped you to deal with these

So I didn't really come face to face with my trauma and started this healing process until very late in my life. Because like I said before, I shoved everything internally. Even after the reunion, I shoved everything internally. I'm still learning how to deal openly with my struggles. So this thing didn't start until probably COVID. Oh,

So right before COVID, I started an acting class. I had always been a photographer, hobbyist, more or less, more traveling photography and things like that. I fell in love with photography and that kind of easily transitioned into, I want to do cinematography. That would be so cool. And then that transitioned to, oh, that would be so cool to direct a film.

Well, I was taking a filmmaking class. And the teacher said, hey, if you're really serious about this, you should try acting because you'll know how to at least get into the heads and learn how to talk to actors. You'll understand the process that they have to go through. So I was like, all right. So I ended up taking an acting class, got on a waiting list with a great teacher here in Austin, Texas, and got into an acting class pretty much a couple months before COVID started.

And obviously it was a lot harder than I thought it was going to be, because I think for people who don't do these things, they don't realize how To make it look authentic. It's not easy. I thought it was easy. Oh my God, was I so wrong? And one of the big things about being an actor is being vulnerable. You have to show, because you have to show true emotions. People who go to movie theaters, they know if somebody who's a bad actor, they just are acting, or

they're actually being in the moment and showing that true emotion, right? Yeah. As you have to have a certain level of vulnerability, a great level of vulnerability to show that. And when I was learning how to do that, that's when things started to kind of come up. Okay. And I was like, Okay, what is this? What is Yeah, so it took an acting class for me to realize I've been shoving problems down and just

Yeah. So with a combination of acting and then when COVID happened, I saw the movie Honey Boy with Shia LaBeouf. He's a very complex person, right? It was about Shia's life. It's this complex relationship with him and his dad. And he wrote it and he actually acted as his father. And there was one scene where Shia's character gets in the face of a therapist because he has court-mandated therapy. And the therapist just kind of looks at him and goes, you see that forest out

there and points out the window. You see the forest out there. I want you to just go out there just by yourself and just scream. And he's like, what? He goes, I just want you to go out to the forest and just scream it out. And then next cut, you see him by himself trying to just scream, but he just can't do it. Wow. And when I saw that scene, that was like, oh my God, that My whole life, so. Yeah, that's intense, that's intense. So Right. Okay. So you saw that movie and that feeling

of releasing that pent up emotion. It hit you like a ton of bricks and you're like, Oh, I might have a It hit me. Yeah. Yeah. And that was during COVID, you know, this was what, 15 years after my reunion. It took that long for me to realize that I just been going on Yeah, yeah. Okay, so that hit you. What So I started talk therapy with an adoption specialist. She's been a great therapist. Her first name is Pam. So Pam, if And then after that, I started exploring other

avenues. My wife first introduced me to Myofascia. Okay, myofascia. I've barely heard of that. Can you

So I've been to massage before. I went to Swedish Thai massage. Those are great. They work on your muscle and they try to loosen it. Well, the way she was telling me was, hey, I have a friend and I've gone to her too, where she just barely touches you. She just places her hand and just moves with your body Okay. And fascia is the layer under your skin between your muscles Yeah. It's like a web. That's what I understand. And it's very important and

Yeah. So there's a book and I think most adoptees and people who are kind of in this space knows because it's a very famous book called The Yeah. I personally have not read the book, so I cannot speak to Yeah, I've read it. It's really good if you can get through it. And this is one of the things that he suggests in that book to dig through some of the trauma that it's not in your frontal lobe of your brain. That's why talk therapy doesn't really hit

it. Yeah. So something like that primal scream that would get it or massage things that are physical or things like music or art acting. Actually, acting I'm not surprised because it has a very therapeutic effect where you have to deal with and work with your emotions. Like I said, that was a gateway that introduced me to the healing process that I went through or that I'm still going through. Her name is JJ Morales. She's amazing. I just laid on the table and she just touches you and just moves

and separates. And it's not like a hard, tough massage therapy where they just get into your muscle and try to loosen that tight muscle up. It's not that. It's more of just placing the calm hand and just slowly just moving it. More energetically, maybe. Yeah, it's so weird. And what kind

Well, the first time I went, I didn't see any vision. So, what I was told before I went was a lot of her patients see visions. They end up actually sitting up on the table crying. I'm like, yeah, whatever. I didn't believe that, right? I didn't believe it. I really didn't believe it. But I went in there with an open mind. And yeah, again, here, boy, was I wrong. Yeah, so she did her myofascia thing on me. And my first session, I saw colors. I didn't see any, necessarily any

visions. But after the hour session, I literally sat in my car for 10, 15 minutes, like a Oh my God. It was like, I literally sat there just staring off into space. And I'm like, I can't drive because that was the most relaxed I have ever been. So I was like, okay, there's definitely something here. So I went back to her. I've been back to her, you know, multiple times. And during those sessions, there were definitely visions. There was one moment where I

I met my younger self. And that was weird. And that's when I started to realize talking to other people when I was talking about, hey, I met my younger self. This is weird. And they're like, yeah, that happens. This is part of the healing process. It's not an uncommon thing to eventually meet your younger self, to be able to, I don't want to say disassociate, but be able to take Yeah, kind of re-parent yourself and understand what happened. Fascinating. Then

that's when I started, okay, there's something here. I want more. Give me more. And then I was I had no idea ketamine was actually legal in a therapeutic way. Yeah. So I don't go to clinical settings, which I kind of do wish, and maybe I will maybe in the future, but Okay. Right. They send you the lozenge or something. Yeah. Okay. How's ketamine Man, the first four or five sessions were almost

Wow. So it gave you some realizations or Without getting too much into it, I genuinely felt like I crossed over. That was my third session and my only session where I felt like So you're saying you accessed the beyond or you died? What

It felt like I crossed over. I actually met my birth mother, my birth father. And I was a kid. It was like I genuinely had something I longed for. I think all these years was to have a family, an actual So that brought that to you. And then the nice thing about ketamine is it's pretty short acting and then you're a little woozy for a little bit, but then you're back. So it didn't like leave you there. It brought

So it brought me back. So it's a crazy thing. I had a conversation with the apologize profusely, like Yeah. So I met my younger self, that's how it started. And then I kind of warped into his body. And then it was kind of back into the scene of I have a family, like my parents were right there waiting for me at the beach. Oh, wow. They were together. I knew that they weren't together, but they were together for Okay. Wow. That's beautiful. I bet it was amazing Yeah. I

have to say, I literally felt like I was there. I literally felt like I was there. After that interaction, I actually went to, I don't know if it was heaven. I don't know if it was a version of where all your ancestors I was in this space where I was surrounded by all the ancestors, all the people that I knew that passed. And the ancestors that I didn't know, their It was a known feeling. Okay. Right. Like you just knew that it was,

it was your family. This was your whole family and they surrounded me and all I could feel at that moment was just a lot of Yeah. That was the only time I've actually had that moment. I haven't had a repeated moment since I came out of that thing just crying I've had other sessions where I met my younger self or I met my birth mother, I met my birth father. That third session where it was just so different from the other sessions that I cannot describe how real it

Wow. That's incredible. I totally believe that you had that profound experience and psychedelics are kind of amazing. It sounds like you've gotten lots of support around it too with your therapist and you know, you're not just doing it for fun. It's not exactly fun, but it can be transformative. And it sounds like you're taking care of yourself before and after. And it sounds like your heart is really opening and you're getting a lot of healing through

Yeah. It's opened up a gateway of me trying other things. I've always heard of Reiki and I thought that was just snake oil too. But there's also something there. If you go to the right person. I always try to do my homework and get referrals and to go to the right person. And I went to a Reiki session with Andrea here in Austin, Texas. And there's something there. There's just something there if

the energy work kind of stuff. I know it's a little woo woo. I don't understand any of it really, but geez, whatever, whatever helps, right? You know, if you find something that doesn't hurt you or anyone else and that it helps open things up, go for it. I think that's amazing. There's so many different ways that people can help and there's different modes of finding help. I admire you for being open and I know creating your film is

probably also very helpful. That process of creating, kind of rewriting your story or going through your story in a

It is, it is. And kind of revisiting this topic of conversation of healing, I want the listeners who are skeptical about this, take it from a skeptic like myself. Okay. I Well, you know, I mean, that's what I try to carry myself as, but I, you know, I'm not You're not that anymore, right? No, I'm not. But take it from a total skeptic that just believed that this was all complete BS. And it wasn't necessarily my machismo behind it. It was more of, where's the science behind

it? I don't believe in this stuff. And I'm sure there's science. I don't know because I never did my own research on this, but I didn't believe in this stuff. And then all I'm telling all the skeptics who may be listening, just go in there with an open mind because you're not going to lose anything. You have so much more to gain than you're not going to lose anything. You might lose a little money here and there, but

at least try it with an open mind. And I would say a good majority If people wanted to get a hold of you and ask questions or get on your mailing list for your film when it comes out, how can they find you?

They can go on voiceofwatersfilm.com and they can enter their email and it's just a landing page for right now. We're still in early production. We've done a lot of interviews for the documentary portion of it, but it is going to be mostly Yeah, I've seen just a few clips of the not for public consumption part of your film, and it was really

incredible. And I definitely want to hear immediately as soon as it comes out when it's available to the public and support Well, your family's situation is one of the more complicated ones I've ever heard. It's got a lot of trauma. There's a lot of love in there too. And a lot of just people doing their best, you know, from all the different angles. I try as a life philosophy to believe that everyone is

doing the very best they can at any moment in time. And it sounds like a lot of people were doing their best and it still, it still made it really hard on you. So. I'm acknowledging all of that, all those complexities for you. Thank you So listeners, after you check out Jonathan's website, go find Unraveling Adoption at unravelingadoption.com. If you go to the page called Events on our website, you

will find some upcoming events. And if you're listening to this episode right when it came out, you will hear this in time to find out about Sunday's Medicine Circle with Miyoke Igaro. She is a plant medicine specialist and a transracial adoptee herself. And if you, like Jonathan, have explored ketamine or ayahuasca or psilocybin or LSD or DMT and are interested in integrating what you've learned into your

regular life, Miyok is an amazing guide and coach. And we are offering these approximately monthly for adoptees only. So it's a medicine circle for adoptees. It's this Sunday, October 20th. And check out our website unravelingadoption.com slash events to find out more and to register. Thank you all for listening. Jonathan and I want you all to stay safe.