Wind Down with Janet Kramer and I'm Heart Radio Podcast.
This week's Thursday Therapy, we have Karina Killcoin.
So.
She is a former trial lawyer who specialized in criminal defense, including a complex white collar and civil litigation, but now she passionately shares her own personal story of trauma and healing. She's got a book out called Rise Above, the story Free yourself from past trauma and create the life you want.
Let's get her on.
Hi, Hey, Karna, how are you. I'm good, Thank you, how are you great? We're excited to have you on. We were reading your bio before you came on. I was like, oh, like, man, there's just like heavy, heavy, heavy, and then obviously your book. I love what you're doing now using your past trauma to now create the life that you want. And you know you wrote this book, and so what we'll to start with, can you fill in our audience kind of the cliff notes of your upbringing,
because it's it's a lot. It's heavy, Yeah, it is.
So when I was about twelve, my father got sentenced to the federal penitentiary and he left behind me and my two younger siblings and my mother, who suffered some from some mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, and manic episodes. And she didn't handle the stress and the pressure very well of you know, being left with the kids and responsibility. So she and I shifted roles and I started caring
for her. And we lived in a poverty stricken situation after my father was gone, and I really had to do a lot to survive, and that included, you know, scraunging up change to buy food and asking strangers for money to help buy food and pay bills, and we would go without hot water and electricity. And I was, you know, hell bent on escape, right to get away from where I was. And when I was twenty four, I graduate law school. Also at that same age, my
mother died of cancer. And by then she had had my last brother, and he was only nine at the time, so I adopted him and went on to raise him.
What kind of cancer did your mom have? Cervical?
Were you guys by that time? What was y'all's relationship like?
It wasn't It wasn't healed or repaired in any stretch of the imagination. And I was really the one left to take care of her. So even on you know, her deathbed, it was me caring for her and we had, you know, hospice come in. But she passed away in my childhood bed, and there was a lot of unresolved issues, especially on my end, that she wasn't really willing to talk about even then, and it took me a long time, you know, decades after she left for me to really find forgiveness for her.
Well, you know, we talk a lot on this podcast about our parents and we're all in our forties.
Well almost, sorry, kat, you got one month.
So I'm just gonna say, we're all in our forties, and it's it's one thing where it's we've had challenging times, especially with our moms, where we want them to kind of see us and understand, but it's, I don't know, it's almost like they don't they didn't do the work maybe that or that we've done. So it's hard for us to see and be on the same page. So how do you go? Okay, I didn't get to say these things to my mom, but I'm gonna do differently, Like do you have kids?
You have a fur baby?
I have a fur baby, I have the brother that I raised, and my husband has children. So I've been I've known him a long time and I've been involved in raising them, so I understand that you know the mother component. And I will tell you that I think some of this you know is generational, right. I think you know, at some point, you know my mother, you know, she was in this generation where you didn't process and you didn't talk about and there was a lot of
shame about things. So I don't think that they knew then what we know now, and I don't think that they were as in tune to mental health and healing. So I think that's one that's one thing. And I would also say that my forgiveness for my mother came with age and perspective, but it also came when I
found compassion for her and I understood her story. So you know, I write a lot in the book about this idea of multi generational transfer of trauma, right, And so when I understood my mother's story that my mother was never mothered. My mother's mother abandoned her and she was a baby, she didn't know her mother, and her father was an alcoholic, and she was raised until she was twelve by her grandmother, who spoke no English. So my mother had her own story and she didn't rise
above it. So for me to find forgiveness for her, it took me finding compassion and empathy for her and understanding that she too had a story. And so for me, you know where does it stop? Well, I decided to stop this multi generational transfer trauma because you know, when I understand where I came from and I understand those my people's stories, you know, I choose differently. I choose
self awareness. I choose self compassion. I choose you know, reasoning and judgment and understanding what I had been through. On one hand, rights as these are the facts of what I've been through, but then also giving myself some compassion for how I handled it right and lifting myself up out of the shame of you know, what I did wasn't shameful as a child asking people for money.
For a long time, I thought that was so shameful, right, And now I have this compassion for myself, and that's what really what I tried to teach and be an example of to the children that I've been blessed to mother.
Do you feel like you kind of default back into that like survival? I mean, when you're raised with that kind of setting, the resilience level that you have is like astronomical, and so we I would I share some parts of your story a little bit, not nearly to the degree, but I wasn't able to say my dad and I never had the reckoning before he passed away. I don't think that he would ever be able to on this side hear what I have to say, truly.
But I wonder do you find yourself, I know, the hard rewiring, like that deep detangling of how you handle and like at rest, do you still feel that like in survival flight or fight or do you feel like you've kind of gotten that settled into like a piece of Is there a sense of calmness now or do you default back to that.
I definitely feel a sense of calmness now. But it took me a long time. It took me years and years of healing. And I call it a journey of healing because that's exactly what it was. You know, it was like two steps forward and one step back, or one step forward two steps back because of what you're talking about right when you're a child of trauma in
that way. And there's actually a really powerful quote and one of the books that I cite in my book Rise Above the Story, it's a Bruce Perry quote and he says that children who are raised in these situations are quote incubated in terror. Right. So it's like your brain when you're that young doesn't understand what's happening. Your full brain doesn't develop till you're in your twenties, right,
your mid twenties. And I talk a lot about the science of healing in my book, and I distill a lot of this complex brain science into one chapter in the book because it was for me where I shifted into healing is when I understood how my brain worked. So to your question about you know, what do I do and what is my default? My default is now it is not fight or flight forever. For a long time, for my whole life before this healing, it was for
sure the default. I even write about that in the book, and I called it chicken Little mode, where I would go around thinking that everything was bad, something bad was going to happen, this guy was going to fall, everything was not good. And it took me a long time to get out of that mode. And that's all about resetting and understanding and developing this self awareness of what your brain is doing, but also for me, it was
like an entire physical, spiritual mental healing. And that's you know, all the things that I include in the book, which are you know, all the practices I tried, and the meditations I did, and the journaling I did, and the different modalities of therapy I tried. Right, So it has been a long road, but I want people to know this who are listening, Like, it is possible to reset your default setting? It absolutely is.
So have you ever heard of Sarah set?
No?
Okay, So I'm doing it next week. So I've had some past PTSD stuff where it keeps coming up in therapy right where my response goes to the fight or flight. My therapist, you know, we've done the EMDR, we've done all the things, and she's like, I really want you to try Sarah set.
So I'm starting.
It was supposed to be when the whole winter snowstorm thing happened, but I had to reschedule to the following week. So basically what it is is you go there and it's all about resetting your nervous system right in your brain. So it's like your brain can't change unless your brain sees itself. So it's you go there, it's every day for four days and then you go back. I think
it's like two weeks after that. But you listen to these like waves and they put these things on your head essentially, and then your brain sees what the brain kind of needs to change. And it's this whole like science for changing your brain and helping you know, anxiety or depression or those things that where there's a blockage
in your in your brain. It's like you can't change the brain unless your brain sees what's the problem in So interest heard of that, But yeah, I'm like I'm at this moment, I'll do anything.
You know what I mean, and like like block me up in something and.
Me too, and and thank you for telling me, because I do love to go and try all these things.
Sorry.
Uses brain initiated sound to relax the brain and allow it to reset, restore harmony, and free the mind from a freeze or fight or flight state. So yeah, anyways, go ahead.
Well yeah, I mean it's interesting. It's kind of kind of taken like like old school like sound therapy, right and all this stuff, and like applying in a different way, which is what I was, which was what my point was going to be is that I love that there's this evolution right of trauma therapy that comes from some of these old, you know, merited, you know, old school kind of modalities, and then they just kind of keep
adding on and building on and trying them. And that's one of the things that I really talk about in the book and I really believe in, is having the courage to try things. I feel like healing is kind of like a dim sum menu, right, It doesn't have to just traditional therapy. It can be a traditional therapy for sure has value, but it's also other can be other things, and I just think that, you know, having the courage to sometimes try those other modalities can be really helpful.
Well, I was going to ask, so, now that you say that you're essentially in a healed spot, do you still deal with the trauma of you know, in therapy or do you feel like you're kind of past dealing with that trauma, like you've kind of gotten past it? Or is that something that you think that you'll always have to kind of deal with because I know, Danna, like you said, you feel like you can't get past it.
Is it something you ever get past?
Or are you always kind of dealing with that trauma, even if you feel like you've gotten to a healed spot.
Does that make sense?
Oh?
Absolutely, And I wouldn't say that I feel that I'm in a healed spot. I feel like I'm in a healing spot. And I and I recognize that because there are there are always always You can look at them as setbacks or you could look at them as opportunities to learn more about yourself and uncover another layer. And so I would say that for me, there is this sense of, you know, most days I feel really good,
and yes, do I think about those past memories. Of course they still pop up, but I find what happens for me is is that they don't have the emotional charge that they used to. But then I do find that there are triggers, right, and also this idea of again the self awareness of being aware of typically what my triggers are. You know, I still have triggers around the sense of like abandonment, right. That was a huge story for me in my youth right and all the
way up until like my early twenties. So you know, like when you have these triggers, being aware of what they are and backing out of a situation for me is kind of what works and processing the feeling and understanding where it's coming from, and that yes, I still I still go to therapy, and when I do, I have a log of what's been bothering me. Right, I'm a big proponent of therapy, and I'm a big proponent of working your therapy. Right, there's none of this like
I mean, I'm sure your experience experiences too. Like you don't just go in and like then they tell you and then you go, oh, yeah, okay, that makes sense. I feel good. It's like you are actually healing yourself and they are guiding you or offering you something. So I'm a big proponent of going into therapy and being very honest about what has been going on with me and talking through that and then you know, waiting for maybe.
Like some insight.
But I go in prepared and I leave knowing that I still have work to do when I leave that office.
What are some of your biggest tips in the book, maybe around abandonment or past trauma that people that are listening can go, oh, I really want to you know, know more about that and dig it more into that tip that you give.
So the book is really a guidebook, right. I wrote it because I wrote it in the way I wrote it because I felt so overwhelmed at the thought of healing, and I didn't know where to start. And I was a grown adult with a successful career, and I didn't know what to do or where to go or how to start. So what I wanted to do in this book was create a guidebook. And I broke down really what I think these tips are talking about into like a three step formula, and that is really like understanding.
The first one is acknowledging your trauma and the story that you've written about yourself because of it. And two is the second step is releasing releasing your story. And this was like so deep for me, this level of healing, because it involved so much. It was like all of my old childhood stuff, all that inner child angst I had in rage and resentment and anger that I was never allowed to express as a child. So it was
a lot of that. And it was the forgiveness component, right, this idea of like forgiving others, which is really really hard, but also forgiving myself because if you're a trauma survivor, I mean kind of the default of that is, we
somehow blame ourselves for things that happen. I did that, I know for sure, and so I really get into some really good ways of how to do that and finding you know, connection back with that inner child and like really understanding We talked about this earlier, this compassion idea too, about like who you're trying to forgive. And
then the last step is releasing the story. And that's all about flipping the script on your story, you know, finding some kind of gratitude or a silver lining in what happened, which then dovetailed so perfectly for me into finding real self love. I mean, if you come from a childhood of trauma like I did, and like a lot of people out there listening, you're not You're not incubated and unconditional love. You don't know what that is.
You're not you're not nurtured in self esteem or self confidence. So figuring out how to get on that path of really understanding how to love yourself and what that means is you know, a big, a big, a big part of healing.
Can I ask, and I don't know if you talk about this in the book or not, but do you touch on your relationship with your dad in the book.
Yes, well, I talk a lot about my reason.
Is he still with us?
He is?
Is he still in jail?
No? Okay, have you guys been able to talk or is there a relationship there?
There? We had a moment after my mother died where we had some conversation about the past, and I've explained how I felt and I saw him. It was interesting, I had it was easier for me to find compassion and forgiveness for my father than it was for my mother. But there I would say that there is a lot about him, and a lot about a relationship, and a lot about who he is and who I am, and the toxicity of it all that I choose not to have a relationship with him.
There's something about that incarcerated piece, because I had a former abuser that was in jail for eight plus years, and there was that weird like, you know, he's there, but you can't have a relationship. It was a very strange thing. I remember writing him a letter and then going like I have to stop this because now this is going to be a weird trauma bonding with him now in like prison or something.
So I.
Never well, I actually I did, but I never saw him after he got out, but I did talk to him on the phone very briefly. But I just remember that being just like awful as well. So I just wondered, like how that conversation went.
Yeah, it's so, it's so interesting you talk about that, that kind of thick, emotional, you know, realm of around the around incarceration. Because I was so ashamed of that, right, I would go through my you know, from you know, twelve on and I wouldn't tell anybody, right, it was so embarrassing to me. And you know, it wasn't until years later that I found out that like one in five people has had a parent incarcerated.
But at the real life.
Yeah, yeah, So at the time though, I didn't understand that, right, it's child brain stuff and what you're going through. But this idea around what like incarceration, what that means. And I remember so many different moments of you know, him trying to to call the house, and you know, after a while, my mom didn't want to hear it, so she'd take the phone off the hook, right, and I would think, oh my gosh, like, who's he going to call?
If he can't call us? It was like even though I understood that he did something wrong right, something wrong to the effect of like he broke a lawn and he had to go to prison, there were still parts of me, at even at a young age, that felt so much compassion for him, Like I and my dad was like, you know, like this strong, physically strong man, and and he was, you know, a hard working businessman, and he did you know, he checked some boxes that were that were you know, that had value and that
had character and integrity, and then then there were other things he did that were so so outrageously wrong. But this idea of him being in prison, I remember most physically though, when he got out, and I share this in the book, that he showed up at our house and we hadn't seen him, you know, in a while, and my mother was so cold to him, and he needed money, like he just needed money, so you know, I have nothing, like I just got I have nothing, right,
and she she didn't even really offer him anything. And I remember looking at him and feeling so sad and like I wish I had money to give him, because to see my father in this position or like he had nothing, was so striking to me because I had always known my father as somebody who you know, would go out in the world, and he was very good at making money. He was very shrewd and conniving, and I sometimes even called him a hustler. But to see him in this, like this state of weakness was just
so overwhelming to me. And I carried that around with me for a long time and it really affected, like, as you can imagine my story about money, right, Like, when you're raised in a house like that, it's kind of interesting about your perspective on money and poverty and you know what money gets, and so it's just really interesting what his incarceration did to me, you know, mentally and emotionally.
I think it's interesting too how you said you have a little bit more forgiveness for your for your dad over your mom, and that's just and I sit here and I'm like, even though your dad was I know, even though your dad had his issues, and you know, you have you have a great this is what I know.
You have a great dad, right, And so at first and then I look at mine and I'm kind of sitting here like all right, yeah, I at first I was very angry, but as I got older and my resentment goes towards my mom, and it you know, same with you, where I think maybe it started it with your dad but then shifted to your mom, and then I know you have your resentments, and so it's interesting how we're I don't I don't know why, but what
is that piece? Is it because we're angry that they're not the mother that we wanted or expected or or should have had or deserved.
Or another perspective on that is I always blamed my mom growing.
Up because she was obviously.
As I've gotten older, even though my dad is a great man and he's whatever, I can now see where he also went wrong. So I don't know if maybe it's we just get older and we start to see and understand more to where I don't just blame her anymore.
Well, I wondered that I was like my switch with my dad. Yeah, I actually don't blame you.
I think they did the obvious.
Yeah, you know, and so it was just so easy to just blame me, yeah, and then blame and then like.
But he was perfect or she was perfect, blah blah blah.
But then you start seeing, like when you get to be an adult, you're like, wait a minute, Like there were things.
There's other things. It's not just them.
Well that was gonna be.
My question is is there any insight in this healing journey that you can share for specifically? I know, like Janna and I feel that like we're very I I found my dad once. I can identify that my dad was a broken kid that just didn't get loved and heard and seen. And for some reason, I he is forever like eight years old in my mind now and that's where he lives. And I was able to move forward, not easily, but like with a lot less heaviness.
You know, Can we just go back to real fast?
Remember when my dad came to the wind Down, I was like, he will come back in the backstage and he will start playing guitar. But he is the eight year old little boy that didn't get the love from his dad that said, oh, you sound so great on the guitar. He literally he will come in after.
He won't say we.
Did good, but he'll come in and he'll pick up the guitar and he'll start about the guitar will be about him because he needs that eight year old little boy needs my grandpa Martin's love.
You know what I mean?
You literally like she she mapped it out and then and then it was like a scene and he entered stage right, and I was like, and there he is, okay.
And now he's playing a song. Yeah, you know what I mean.
Do you think that have you found anything that like maybe would be helpful for people that are in all of our situations where it's like, why do you think we can can we can find the compassion? Maybe for the men, say, just because the three of us seem to have that in common and not for our mothers. Is it that we are the same gender, we know the walk, we're doing the work. We feel like, I don't know what it is, but I am I'm in
that right now. I'm in that season of like trying to find this deep compassion and like coming up a little empty sometimes. If I'm really honest with.
You, Yeah, well, I will say from my perspective that it was more challenging because to me, I felt that my mother was supposed to be my protector and I put a lot of that on her. And I don't know necessarily that that's their overall. I mean, I just feel like in my situation in my childhood, it was that it was very traditional in that my mother stayed home and my father went to work, right, So I
felt like, oh, my mother's supposed to be there. So in my mind as it evolved, I felt like, oh, she's supposed to be from what I understand or what I know, she's my mom. She's supposed to be protecting me, right, And then this I had this massive role reversal with her where I was taking care of her at a young age and not being cared for or mothered. So I think that I feel like for me, what happened
was I felt so betrayed. Is if I had her on this pedestal of what I expected of her and she didn't fulfill what I needed of her, And then it just evolved into more and more resentment because then it was, you know, oh, now she's now she's sick, and now she's dying, and now she's going to leave me with all this, you know, with more responsibility, and I just couldn't find it. I couldn't find any softness
towards her. And so for me, I think that it was just I was so caught up in being so angry at her because I really wanted her to protect me. I wanted her to do more right. I felt like she could have done more, and so I held her to a different standard than I held my father.
Yeah, the care teaming piece I gain I too too.
For sure, to kind of wrap up someone that's listening that obviously we all have traumas, and but what's one hopeful thing that you want someone to get from this book.
I would say that number one thing I want people to know is that they're not alone in their pain or they're suffering. I feel like so many of us kind of take it on the chin and we suppress the trauma and our story. We don't talk about it, we don't want to talk about it. Then we go through life distracted, you know, family, this, this, this jobs, you know, zoom calls. I feel like I want people
to know that they're not alone. You know, it's like seventy percent of us are going to experience trauma in our lifetime. That's a National Council for Mental Well Being statistic. I bet it's hired, right. So I want people to know they're not alone in that. And two, I want them to know that it is never too late to do the work right. Like I think a lot of people too feel like, well, yeah, I've been carrying this around for so long. I really don't know what else
to do about it. Well, the truth is is that you know, nobody really does. It's overwhelming. So again, what I really want to do is create take away that overwhelm and create a safe space where people feel seen and heard and a place where they can express what's happened to them. You know, there's a lot of places in this book with journal prompts and places to write, and I feel like that beginning of kind of like
unearthing that is so important and valuable. And I will say that a big, a big thing I've heard a lot too from people, you know who have already read the book, is that they do all this stuff and I think, wow, you know, now I know what I want to talk to my therapist about. You know, therapy is expensive and it's hard to get into and then you get in there and you're like, I don't know if I trust this person. I don't know if I
want to get into it. You dance around it, you talk about your relationships, you talk about your job, but
you don't really get into the you know, the deep wounds. Yeah, I think it's so beautiful that you know, when you can go into a therapist and say, wow, okay, it was really these two things that happened to me, you know, when I was twelve and twenty that kind of had put me in this situation where you know, I'm dating the same person over and over again, where I'm you know, afraid to ask for a raise or you follow my dream, or you know, there's all kinds of limiting stories we
tell ourselves. So it's like understanding what they are. I think is so hopeful right to have this self awareness of what happened and that there's a space for you to heal it.
Yep, I love that well.
Karina, thank you so much for coming on everyone, please please please go get her. Book is called a Rise Above the Story for yourself from past trauma and create the life you want because you do not deserve to be stuck there.
You deserve to be free from it and heal and have a beautiful life. And Karina, thank you so much for sharing your story with us.
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.