The School of Greatness with Lewis Howes

>> Hi, I'm Lewis Howes, New York Times best-selling author and entrepreneur.

And welcome to "The School of Greatness," where we interview the most influential minds in the world to inspire you to live your best life today.

In this episode, Dr.

Mariel Buqu, a psychologist and intergenerational trauma expert, takes us on a profound journey towards healing.

Dr.

Buqu's holistic, clinical approach, which blends ancient healing practices with modern therapy, empowers you to break the cycle of intergenerational trauma.

I'm so glad you're here today.

Now let's dive in and let the class begin.

You really break down these different types of strategies on healing trauma without medicine or medication.

Can you share a few of these key ways to do this?

If people are just getting started and they feel a sense of overwhelm, stress and trauma in their body.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

You know, whenever we're talking about trauma, it's going to be critical for us to first start with the body.

So the very first place where we need to go to is our nervous system, because that's where trauma is primarily situated.

So when we do any of the practices that are going to help settle our nervous system and help us feel more grounded, that's already going to be the best start that we have toward healing trauma.

Then we can actually get into the digging work.

What happened to you?

What happened before you?

What happened around you?

What happened that actually left an imprint in your soul that made it so that you experienced this tenderness that we call trauma?

>> Really?

>> Yeah.

>> So we should be thinking about body and the nervous system first, not what happened to you at seven years old, you know?

What did your parents say to you that hurt you?

We shouldn't be asking those questions first.

>> That's correct.

You know, whenever we're actually approaching a therapy session, typically you sit down and the therapist asks you, "Well, what happened?

Tell me why you're here."

>> Right, right.

>> And so you start spewing, like, your entire story.

But very often people actually feel traumatized or retraumatized or triggered by their own stories and their own trauma narrative.

>> It causes a heightened nervous system response when you tell this story.

>> Yes, because it feels like you're going back there again, because you're telling all the little details of everything that happened and trying to get this person, this therapist or a friend or whomever you're recounting to, trying to get them to understand what happened.

But your body's also remembering in that moment.

And very often what tends to happen is that people then engage in avoidance strategies, like they no longer want to touch the trauma narrative or their own story, or they drop out of therapy because they no longer want to actually engage in the conversation that felt so incredibly dysregulating.

>> Wow.

They're retraumatizing themselves when they talk about the experience in the first time, I guess, right?

>> Yeah because most people don't know that when they approach their own trauma narrative that it can actually spur up those emotions in them and cause their nervous system to go into that fight, flight, freeze, or fawn.

>> Wow.

>> Most people are not aware of the fact that just by telling my story, this can happen to me.

But if we're actually training folks to engage in their body in a way that helps them to feel more safe, then it allows them to then be able to tell their trauma narrative in a way that actually -- in a way where they don't actually need to run away from themselves.

>> So when we're thinking about a way to heal initially and we know that we've had some stress, or maybe we're reactive in certain situations, or maybe we feel tightness or just not our fullest, highest self and we know that there's been some trauma, but we're not sure how to talk about it or how to heal it, what is something we should be thinking about with our bodies to start this process?

>> Well, the first thing is that we have to befriend our bodies.

We have to actually engage in a relationship with our bodies and really tune in.

Most of us don't actually take the moments throughout the day to say, "How's my body feeling right now?

Where do I feel the tension?

Where am I experiencing in my body this external situation?"

Right?

And if we can actually train ourselves to just do body scans for starters, right?

There's so many things that we can do.

But for starters, just scanning how we feel in our bodies from head to toe and just getting a sense of how our body is taking in our environments, that's already a really good setup for understanding ourselves better and understanding ourselves when we're juxtaposing ourselves with what's happening outside of ourselves.

>> So if someone has experienced a level of trauma, but they have no clue if they've actually got a lot of trauma, a little trauma, or somewhere in between, how can they do a trauma assessment within their body scan to know, oh, this is actually a big thing that I need to address right away, or this is more minor, but I still need to address it?

How can they scan?

>> Well, you know, it's actually much simpler than what one might imagine because people can actually just remember, right?

Remember what they actually do remember and then simultaneously try and gauge what's happening in their bodies as they're remembering.

>> As they're thinking of the story and the scenario?

>> Exactly.

>> Are you feeling tightness in your chest or your throat, or are you clenching up or are you sweating?

Right?

It's like, what are these symptoms?

>> Yeah, and typically some of those symptoms correlate with how the nervous system is actually internalizing the story.

>> Mm.

>> We typically get a knot in our stomach, for example, right?

But that's really our nervous system actually shutting down specific functions of the gastrointestinal tract.

>> Really?

>> Because we actually don't need that for survival in a moment where we're in survival mode.

And so -- >> So if we feel a knot in our stomach, it's almost like we're in fight or flight mode.

>> Exactly.

>> Just thinking about a re-- you know, thinking about a story for 30 seconds or a couple of minutes from something that happened 10, 20, 30 years ago.

>> Mm-hmm.

>> That's fascinating.

So something that happened that long ago can continue to harm and hurt you decades in the future until we learn to heal it.

>> Exactly.

It continues to live in the body.

It can metabolize in the body then as chronic illness when it goes on unaddressed.

And of course, one of the biggest risks and repercussions of it going on unaddressed many times because we just don't know that it's there or that it's something that needs to be addressed but what can happen is also the possibility of transmission into the next generation.

So there's a lot of consequence.

>> Yes, and that transmission is really you leaving a legacy, you know.

Do you want to leave a legacy of peaceful, harmonious emotional well-being you know, humans as children or kids that carry your stress responses?

>> Right.

>> And kind of your nervous system responses, right?

>> Yeah.

Yeah.

I always ask parents like, "Look at your little one and look into their eyes and think for a moment, 'Do I want them to hurt the way that I have hurt?'"

And that usually is enough for a parent to say, "You know what?

Actually, I want to break this cycle because I don't want their little heart to then absorb the kinds of traumas that I've absorbed" and for them to then be the adult that has to then be in search of their emotions or in search of healing because they now have an inner child wound as an adult.

>> What's the greatest gift a parent can give their child?

>> Ah.

The gift of understanding their emotions and understanding how to self-affirm because when we can actually know how -- what our emotions even are -- and what I mean by that is that we have emotions and that they're body-centered, right?

Like that we have a really concrete understanding of the full spectrum of our emotions and how they can manifest in our bodies, and then how we can actually do something to validate ourselves through the emotional process.

I think that's a beautiful gift that parents can give their children.

And when parents do that for themselves and their children, it's a beautiful generational gift.

>> Yeah.

It's beautiful.

So the first thing I'm hearing you say as kind of the ways to start healing is to first do an assessment of the stories and the memories that hurt you and see how the body reacts or responds.

>> Right.

>> What would be the next step after that?

We notice a tightness in our stomach, a clenching in our throat, a pain in our chest.

What would be the next step to starting that healing process?

>> Step two is relaxation.

Step two is actually going into any kind of practice you choose, right?

But it can be breathwork.

It can be meditation, it can be tai chi, it can be yoga.

It can be so many that can actually help your body to release some of that tension.

>> Interesting.

>> And so what we're doing in that very moment is that we're, of course, recognizing that there's a pain that has been there, that has been emotional, that has now a physical manifestation, and that we're also integrating a relaxation, a body relaxation practice to help release that tension, help absolve that tension from the body.

>> If we never release it, what happens?

>> It becomes disease.

>> Wow.

So emotional memories turn into physical pain and eventually disease in some way.

>> Many of the metabolic conditions that we know about -- diabetes, for example, cardiac conditions -- a lot of those can be mapped back to stressors in life.

And there's a lot of studies that have been done around even autoimmune conditions being very deeply connected to stressors and to trauma.

And more recently, there's some studies that also have some correlates to certain cancers.

So when we start thinking about what the body is telling us, the body, when it's in that state of disease, it's telling us, "I don't feel well because I'm not being taken care of emotionally."

And that, you know, is usually like the clue for us to say, "Oh, I need to slow down" when we needed to slow down probably 15, 20 years ago.

>> Right, right, right.

So once we, you know, recall the memories and I guess really reflect on where we're feeling this pain or reaction in our bodies, the third thing I'm hearing you say is to relax through some type of therapeutic process -- breathwork, meditation, yoga, some type of relaxation process to release it, right?

>> Mm-hmm.

>> What would be the next thing?

Because a lot of times most people just numb or disassociate the pain, right?

We don't truly feel the pain because it's too painful.

And so we'll find ways to numb, distract, disassociate, block the memories to not feel that pain.

And that can be just as harmful, right, just to to numb, block or disassociate?

>> It can.

You know, there are protective factors or there are ways that we protect ourselves from the pain that we truly feel and especially the depths of our pain.

Some of us just don't want to understand how deeply hurt we have been.

>> How wrong we've been.

>> How wronged we've been.

>> How unfair, unjust, you know, hurtful these things are.

>> Yeah.

And, you know, like in -- in order to self-preserve, in order to make it through another day, the mind and the body, they're just brilliant, brilliant, like, machines.

They have mechanized a way to actually protect us from ourselves.

>> Wow.

>> And so they basically, like, structured all these coping mechanisms that, albeit harmful or maladaptive or not helpful or not connecting when we're talking about relationships, right, they can, you know, still help keep you safe for another day.

But the alternative to that is to then learn coping skills that actually can be adaptive, connecting, and that can actually be the better recipe for not only your ability to stay within healthy relationships with other people, but also for you to experience the type of sustainable and long-term mental and physical wellness.

>> Mm.

What's the next step after that once we start applying some of these self-therapeutic experiences?

You know, it might be 10 minutes of breathwork or some type of release.

How do we get to a place of truly healing that wound or that memory?

You know, how long does it take of us doing this over and over again?

Do we eventually need to process in other ways through talk therapy or more intensified therapies?

What's the solution to absolute healing, and is that even a thing?

>> Well, there isn't really a 100%, you know, type of healing that truly exists.

I mean, I think that anything that leans in the direction of perfectionism is a myth, including healing, right?

However, there are ways in which we can live a life that is filled with ease and peace more often than not, and a life in which if triggers were ever to present themselves, that they would be just subtle and tolerable, and that we can have the actual tools, the sense of empowerment and agency over our own bodies and minds to actually release that process and move into the next thing that life has for us, rather than being stuck and frozen, which is what tends to happen with trauma.

>> Sure.

>> But the next step really is, you know, the way that I work is that I integrate a lot of these nervous system restoration practices for a long period of time with folks, but this actually is the lengthier part of the work, the actual grounding.

>> This could take months or years, right?

>> It can take months.

It can, it can, and, you know, sometimes I actually like to give it a bit of context, like for people who feel like, well, let's say, you know, that I want to do this work, but how much am I going to have to do in order to really... >> Might be a lot.

It might be a lot.

>> Yeah, and that's okay.

>> And it might feel exhausting and it might feel overwhelming and it might feel emotional and it might feel, you know, like it's all-consuming at times.

>> Yeah.

All of the above.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's actually -- I would even go as far as saying maybe not might but it will, right?

>> Yeah.

For a period of time.

>> Yeah.

For a period of time.

And it is survivable.

And if you have the tools to actually help you to settle once things feel like they're getting really heavy, then it's going to make the experience more tolerable.

>> Right.

>> You're not going to feel like you're thrown into the abyss of your deepest, darkest emotions and have no way out.

You're like in a black hole.

>> Yeah, and there's this -- I don't know who originally said this type of quote or this kind of phrase, but you'll hear people say, you know, "what happened to you is not your fault," but it is your responsibility to overcome it, to heal it, to process it, to, you know, realize what it was and not let it consume your life.

>> Yes.

>> And I think what you mentioned about like higher self, like learning about our nervous systems so we can work with it to become our best, highest self as most often as possible, right?

>> Mm-hmm.

>> Which means having peace and harmony inside of us as frequent as possible, because that is our true nature, peace and harmony.

And I think that's what it comes down to.

What are you willing to do to create peace and harmony to actualize your highest self as frequently as you can?

It's not about perfection.

You're not going to be this Zen person all the time.

But that's a beautiful life, living in peace and harmony.

Living in suffering and pain and agony and numbing yourself is not a beautiful life.

It's a survival mechanism which is useful for a period of time but not for all of time.

And so we just got to be aware of that.

And it's going to take doing some intense, painful work for a period of time for hopefully a lifetime of freedom afterwards.

>> Exactly.

Yeah.

And, you know, I like to always, like, help people understand that if you're -- let's say that the work needs to take a period of two years.

Let's just say that.

You need to focus.

You need to do nervous system restoration practices each and every day for a period of two years.

You need to do journaling and some of the digging work and do talk therapy and you need to, you know, engage in, you know, connections with people that help you feel at home.

All of that needs to be a part of your process.

Those two years, when you take into consideration the 40 that you've already lived that have felt awful, those two years feel like they're really worth it if you want to live the next 40 feeling more abundant, more peaceful, more grounded, more like you know yourself, your true core self, and more like that core self that is now burgeoning from within you is a reflection of your higher self.

>> Yes.

And I'm just a big believer that flow and abundance does not come to those who are constantly in suffering or holding on to pain.

>> Yes.

>> It comes to those that have peace, who have clarity, who are relaxed, in a more relaxed state.

And that may seem like a nice thing to say, but if you're in your 30s and 40s and you've got three kids and you've got, you know, responsibilities and job and you're overstressed and you're thinking, "I don't have two years of my life, let alone 30 minutes a day to go to the gym.

How can I do this work when I have so much responsibilities, when I've got, you know, a partner that I'm in a relationship with, I've got kids, I've got bills, I've got all these different weights on top of me?

Doing this type of work seems like impossible."

What do you say to someone like that?

>> It isn't.

It actually is really doable because the work requires for you to bake it into your life.

It's not work that is a task apart from the rest of your life.

>> It is your life.

>> It is your life.

>> Yeah.

>> And, you know, the work can actually -- The way that I like to structure the work is to make it very accessible.

And the reason why I like to make it accessible to anyone is because I want people to do the work, and I want to make it as easy as possible.

I've gotten that statement so many times.

"Well, you know, I'm a mother of three and, you know, they're all really young.

And how am I going to find the time?"

I always tell people, "Listen, you have 1,440 minutes in the day.

If you take five of those minutes and do a breathwork practice, you're already ahead of the game."

>> Wow.

>> And if you do that for an entire year, 365 days, what we know what neuroscience is telling us is that it takes an approximate 3 to 400 repetitions of a nervous system restoration practice for our body memory to start shifting.

>> Really?

>> So if you take those 365 days that year of those five minutes, you're already doing work that is going to be monumentally effective in you feeling more settled and like your nervous system is actually experiencing a lot of ease and calm that it wasn't experiencing before you did the year.

>> And how much is our partners in an intimate relationship picking up on our nervous system wounds, and also our kids picking up just by watching and observing us and being around us?

How much do others pick up our pain?

>> It's almost instantaneous, and especially the people that are closest to us, but especially children, because children are very, very keen on picking up on non-verbal cues.

We actually -- When we're like infants, that's the way that we understand whether or not the world is safe or not.

That can breed a lot of lack of health, whether it's physical or mental.

You know, it just -- it really can blossom from there.

What we start seeing kids do is actually exhibiting behavior that is actually destructive in some ways, either self-destructive or other-destructive.

And it's a representation of them just wanting to get out of the spaces that feel unwell or psychologically damaging.

>> Wow.

>> Yeah.

And so, you know, I think that's a cue for any parent that's out there that perhaps might think, you know, the kids are -- they're not absorbing this.

They are.

>> They are.

>> They are.

>> Kids watch everything, right?

They're consuming everything.

They hear everything.

>> They're sponges.

>> And they're feeling it.

>> Yeah.

>> I remember my parents, like, screaming at each other in the kitchen and I'd be in the living room, and I would just be, like, in terror, you know, like trying to watch TV to, like, block it.

But it's like, what's happening?

Am I safe?

>> Yeah.

>> Just psychologically, you just don't know.

>> See, we all want safety.

We all seek it.

We all deserve it.

And it is why I believe that, you know, anybody who is willing to do the work with their kids even or anybody who is willing to even teach, you know, skills that are holistic in schools, like, is -- is helping the next generation to have, you know, maybe even better shock absorbers.

Maybe their home environment isn't changing as quickly as it needs to for their own well-being, but they can actually hold their emotions in a different way so as to not then develop trauma symptoms as a result.

>> Right, right.

And if someone has been through, you know, a breakup in a relationship and they have not yet healed from that breakup or from their entire childhood, what will happen if they don't heal going into a new relationship intimately?

>> Well, the biggest risk is that they'll repeat the very same patterns that they're used to.

I mean, there's this thing called repetition compulsion, which I know you're fairly familiar with, and it is when we, in essence, repeat the patterns that just feel familiar and that are already pre-programmed inside of our minds.

We go into every single relationship, and the relationships start looking the same with the same patterns, the same beginning.

And then we go into the next relationship with the same beginning, middle, end.

And so it just becomes this cyclical process where we're not actually, like, doing anything different.

We just have different players in our lives, right?

And so whenever we can actually identify, "Oh, look, that's when I start getting into those codependent qualities, that's the in.

That's my thing."

Right?

Like, you know, I start -- Let's say -- >> I feel like I need this attention or whatever it might be, yeah.

>> Right, like what if whatever your brand of it might be, right, you know?

We all have a brand, right?

And that's true.

Then people, you know, can actually start noticing their own patterns and then start cutting those patterns.

We start cutting at the root when we're aware.

We cannot heal what we cannot see.

>> Yeah.

>> If we have something that we can actually identify as not being aligned with how we want to live a life, then we can identify it, call it out, and then when we see that it's about to creep up, say, "Not anymore."

>> "Not this time."

>> Not going in that direction.

>> As a, you know, as a trauma expert and psychologist, what is the biggest challenge you face today?

What's the biggest pain or problem that you face personally from your, you know, years of work and experience and... education that you've learned, but also teach?

>> I still struggle personally with... personally with the experience of patience.

>> Having patience?

>> Yeah.

>> What?

With family, with intimacy, with friends like in life?

>> More so with family.

>> Okay.

>> I am someone who's like typically really fast in my thinking, fast in my acting.

And, you know, I'm just, like, very... I tend to operate on autopilot a lot, but it's actually something that I've been working on for a number of years, and I'm still working on really intently.

And even next year, I want to work on -- in a way that I hope can really, really make an impact because I want to slow my life down, like, really slow it down and really, like, do things that can actually help me to build the patience rather than, you know, just, like, tone it down, which is what I've been doing.

And I think that that's also going to help me build greater compassion, be more self-loving and other-loving, and have an opportunity to also be more mindful and attuned in the spaces that I occupy, including my space with my family.

So all of that, I think, is going to burgeon out of me growing that sense of patience around my life, which is -- it's been so hard.

It's been so hard.

>> It has been to be patient.

>> To just be patient.

>> With family.

>> With family, with my goals.

>> Ah.

>> Yeah.

With, um... If I'm in an intimate relationship with -- an intimate relationship and where things are going and where they're not going, like patience is just not -- And my family will tell you.

They'll say wonderful things about me.

They're so kind.

And then they'll say, "But she's not very patient."

They'll always say that.

So they know me well, right?

And I know myself.

>> Martha, my fiance, is like, "Yeah, you don't really have that much patience."

I'm like, "But I told you when we started dating that I don't.

And so I've told you everything good, bad, in between about me."

And I said, "Hey, do you want to accept this?"

[ Both laugh ] >> And it's all about an evolution, right?

Like, I'm much more patient than I was 10 years ago.

>> Yeah.

Of course.

>> And I desire for myself.

I really desire this to be better.

>> Yeah.

It's like you suffer or be patient.

>> Yeah.

Suffering is temporary, though.

>> Exactly.

It is.

Yeah.

This is the work we should be doing to better everything else in our life.

We hope you enjoyed this episode and found it valuable.

Stay tuned for more from "The School of Greatness" coming soon on public television.

Again, I'm Lewis Howes, and if no one has told you lately, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter.

Now it's time to go out there and do something great.

If you'd like to continue on the journey of greatness with me, please check out my website, lewishowes.com, where you'll find over 1,000 episodes of "The School of Greatness" show, as well as tools and resources to support you in living your best life.

>> The online course Find Your Greatness is available for $19.

Drawn from the lessons Lewis Howes shares in "The School of Greatness," this interactive course will guide you through a step-by-step process to discover your strengths, connect to your passion and purpose, and help create your own blueprint for greatness.

To order, go to lewishowes.com/tv.