Adult Responses to Adverse Childhood Experiences

Some of the behaviors you hate most about yourself might be proof that your brain did its job. Lauren Starnes joins me for a role-reversal conversation where she asks the questions and we go deep on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), childhood trauma, and the nervous system patterns that can follow us into adulthood.

We break down what an ACE score actually measures, why trauma is individual, and why the point is never comparison, it’s clarity. We connect the dots between early attachment wounds and the adult “protectors” so many of us live with: perfectionism, people pleasing, overgiving, control, and even self-sabotage. If you’ve ever felt ashamed of how you cope, I want you to hear this: those patterns often started as survival strategies designed to keep you connected and safe.

We also talk about burnout and the window of tolerance, plus what it looks like to “grow” your nervous system instead of white-knuckling your way through life. Lauren shares why healing happens best in safe connection, not in isolation, and why practicing small, intentional imperfection can expand capacity over time. I also share why deeper memories can surface as we remove old survival blocks, and why you should never go to those places alone.

If this conversation hits close to home, share it with someone you trust, subscribe so you don’t miss the next one, and leave a review to help more people find support and hope. What protector do you recognize most in yourself right now?

What are ACEs and how do I know my score? Click here for quiz

Lauren Contact:

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are potentially traumatic events that occur before age 18, including abuse, neglect, and household challenges. These experiences are strongly linked to long-term health, mental health, and relational outcomes. 

The 10 ACE Categories

Abuse

1.  Emotional abuse 
2.  Physical abuse 
3.  Sexual abuse 

Neglect
4. Emotional neglect
5. Physical neglect

Household Challenges
6. Mother treated violently (domestic violence)
7. Household substance abuse
8. Household mental illness or suicide attempt
9. Parental separation or divorce
10. Incarcerated household member 

“This quiz isn’t about labeling yourself—it’s about understanding your story with more clarity and compassion.”

You ARE:
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Transcript

You’re Going To Be Okay

SPEAKER_01 0:02

You're gonna be okay. You're gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_04 0:20

Hey everybody, and welcome back to the Wednesdays with Watson podcast. I am so excited to be with you today. My name is Dr. Amy Watson, and we are still getting used to saying that. But we are in April of 2025, and April uh highlights the mistreatment of children. And you will hear myself and my guest figure out different ways to say that today because the algorithms will damper anything that uh is related to the abuse of children. And that might be the only time you hear us say that word. But I am back. You guys have responded well to my friend Lauren Starnes, who has been on the podcast twice now. And today I invite her back for a little bit of a different episode where Lauren is going to ask me some questions. And so welcome, Lauren Starns, the nervous system translator, I think is what we are calling you these days. How are you? I am doing well.

SPEAKER_05 1:12

And yeah, I'm, you know, I'm getting used to nervous system translator. That's interesting. But uh yeah, it's gonna be great to have a conversation with Dr. Amy and get to really ask you some questions. I think that's like been long overdue.

Defining Adverse Childhood Experiences

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Yeah, I think so too. And we are so excited about the work that we're getting to do together as it's very much coming into some focuses. Like, you know, I I you're one of these people Lauren when I have a conversation with, I want to record all the time. And so, because you just have such wisdom. And so thank you for being here today as we look into as we we're in April, and uh this the statistics out there, I don't have to tell you, are so high for the mistreatment of children. And as some listeners know, because they've been with me for a minute, they know this is part of my story. But I also know, Lauren, that uh there are plenty of new listeners that don't know anything about why I care about this and anything that I might have to add from an academic standpoint. I I think it's funny that people call me Dr. Amy instead of Dr. Watson. And uh I love I love the Shakespeare, Dr. Watson, I presume. Uh and Watson is my ex-husband's name, not even my name. And so it's like people are just we're not calling you Dr. Watson. You're Amy and Dr. Amy. So um, so I'm still very much getting used to it. So um, yeah, so we just wanted to have some conversations about uh this psychological terms out there called adverse childhood experiences. And I will try, Lauren, not to be super academic and refer to those as aces all through this episode, but you know, great, that's what I'm used to. So, anyway, let's let's talk about that and what questions you might have as you and I are continuing to get to know each other.

SPEAKER_05 2:55

I think it's great for us to just dive in at the beginning, laying the foundation, and you tell us what it is from your academic standpoint as Dr. Amy that you want us to just know as a general audience about adverse childhood experiences and like really break that down and open it up for people that may not be as familiar.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

Thank you. This is fun. I didn't I wasn't sure how I'd like this. This is fun. So I know from me that, and and there are plenty of people out there like me, and some people not like me, but once I understood scientifically why I was experiencing some of the things related to how I was raised and the things that happened as a child, once I understood, like my counselor, Dr. Pettit, has two words that are so my favorite, he'll say, Of course, right? And so as soon as I understood that some of these things, these maladaptive coping, if you will, things that I as a child connected that that I I did, I learned things to stay connected to caregivers. And those things don't always serve us well later in life. And so, but I do want to break down what do we mean when we say an adverse childhood experience? And I will put the link in the show notes. There's a quiz that you can take. There are 10 adverse childhood experiences, and they are essentially broken into abuse and neglect, whether that is any form of in all of its forms, so child mistreatment in all forms. So, so physical, sexual, emotional, all of that, abuse and neglect, disconnection with caregivers. And so uh children who grow up in environments where they don't where they're not safe because they didn't properly connect or attach to their caregivers because they were maybe being neglected, leaving a baby to cry for you know seven hours or something like that. It can be that simple, or it can be actual physical mistreatment of a child. And so adverse childhood experiences is 10 questions uh related to abuse and neglect, and and then also a stability of the home. So did was somebody in your home suffering from a mental illness, and did somebody in your life go to prison? So those are the 10 things that we're probing for when we ask for adverse childhood experiences. My score is a nine. So I have nine out of 10 of those is my story. And and so my hope with this highlight in the month of April is for people to hear a story like mine and understand what adverse childhood experiences is. And you and I will talk about some of the ways it manifests itself, but I want them to understand. Oh, I have a I remember when I learned Lauren that mine was a nine. I mean it didn't land. I I wish I could explain to you how it landed for me. It was like, oh, so I'm not just broken. Like this is what led me to go get the doctorate degrees. I wanted to understand what these things had done to my brain.

SPEAKER_05 5:52

Yeah, I think that's a great thing to bring up too. Like, I I know you, so I know how much like getting this doctorate degree was a part of your journey with yourself, not just your journey for others. Um, is there like more you want to say about that? Like the journey to become Dr. Amy Watson was absolutely healing.

Why Trauma Creates Coping Behaviors

SPEAKER_04 6:12

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and ironically, I think I've shared before that when I finished defending the dissertation, my uh dissertation chair, who was also brought up in the foster care system and had her own adverse childhood experience score, she said, Welcome to the 0.8% of foster kids that make it to a doctorate degree. And that was a big deal for me because Lauren is such a good question. Because I wish I could tell you that I started the pursuit of the doctorate degree for 100% healthy reasons. But honestly, it was just an opportunity to play out some of the tendencies that I formed as a child to protect myself. And the the degree is behind me, and you can't see the whole thing. But there's a there's three, there's four words on there that drove me, and and we'll talk about how it drove me to burnout. But it says, graduate with high distinction. And that mattered to me to have that on this thing behind me. And so I started the journey. Yeah, I wanted to understand academically trauma and all of its friends and what it does to us. And I certainly got that understanding, and I'm sharing it with people all the time. But also, it highlighted for me that unless God Himself says you are 100% healed from these things that have happened in your childhood, I'm going to be walking this road all of my life. And you know what? I get to do that. There are lots of people out there with a with a high adverse childhood experiences score that aren't at this at this place on their journey in healing, and no one's telling them that you can be better, but you have to work. And this is where you come in for me because being called to do the hard things promotes healing. And and so I think that getting that doctor degree helped me understand though, from an academic standpoint that, and I want people to hear me say this, that what I'm about to say is really important, is that when you experience adverse childhood experiences of trauma, your brain has one job, and that's to protect you. And it will adapt maladaptively, that means badly, not good, not normal. It your brain will adapt and then your behaviors follow. Somebody needs to hear that. That some of the behaviors that frustrate you, that you shame yourself about when you're in the shower, you put your head down at night. It's just what you learn to protect yourself.

SPEAKER_05 8:54

And also, it's like there's a position where we can look at it and be like, what a gift. What a gift that my brain was able to create that maladaptive behavior to take care of me in that moment. A thousand percent. Right. It's not that it's a gift now. Now it's, you know, we kind of talked about this before. Like now it's creating disconnection. Those behaviors are actually not serving you well, but once upon a time, it was incredible that your brain could do that to keep you safe.

SPEAKER_04 9:26

And even using the words like I learned from you, we did some one-on-one work, and we'll put Lauren's information in the show notes because that was life-changing for me. One of the things I learned from you is that, right? Like, say to little Amy all over my social media right now, well, not all over, but I've posted uh two or the three pictures of little Amy that I have. Yeah, but one of the things I think I learned from you, so not the very expensive doctor degree you see behind me, is to be kind to that little girl. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank your brain. And all the behaviors that came after it because you didn't know better. Thank you. Like one of the one of the Lauren Starnes one hit drop mic drop moments is you'll say to two people, and you said to me, At one point your body said, I'll hold on to this for you. I'm going to protect you. I.e. the adaptation that I'm talking about. But one day it'll be my turn. And so if you're listening to me and you have behaviors that you don't understand, and Lauren and I could spend a year talking about maladaptive protective behaviors, there's hope. But it ain't easy. No, it is not. It ain't worth it. But it's worth it. A thousand percent it's worth it. Because I don't, I refuse to let those people that hurt me in childhood, whether it was my mom or serial killers that that babysat us or any number of people that hurt me, I refuse to let them continue to write my story. And so if that means doing hard work in adulthood in a counselor's office and and and processing the trauma, whether it's you and I are we're basically connected in this right where I tell people all the time that come to me, I need you to go to Lauren first because I can't help you work through the trauma if your body still thinks that it's a five-alarm fire. Right. And so for those people out there listening to me, if you've if you've taken the time, and I and I'll put I'll I'll put the link to the adverse childhood experiences, but also put what they are in the show notes. And if you're looking at that as you're listening to us and you're like, well crap, I've got an X score. And by the way, you're not comparing your score to anybody else. Trauma is individual. After you, after you sit with that, that this can be worked through Lauren, the freedom on the other side of choosing healing, I can't even I got chills, actually. I I can't I can't describe it. And so the mistreatment of children is is is unfathomable to me. And and go ahead. Okay, go ahead.

Pandemic Triggers Control And Burnout

SPEAKER_05 12:22

Um is there is there anything in particular like about your story that you want to share? I know you've been very generous with all of the listeners over the years about sharing your story. Is there anything you feel like you have not highlighted or something where you feel like new people that are just now starting to listen might need to know more about your story, more about your ace score?

SPEAKER_04 12:43

Yeah, it's a good question. You know, when I first started this journey, when this podcast journey, and actually in about six days, this podcast will be six years old. Well, I know it's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 12:54

What a gift.

SPEAKER_04 12:55

What a gift, what a gift. It has given me a lot. When I started the podcast, though, it was during, it was right after COVID.

SPEAKER_05 13:03

And I just want to say real fast, Amy and I knew each other then too. Amy and I have known each other very long. For a minute. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 13:10

For a minute, Lauren was the my physician's assistant at my psychiatrist's office. So yeah, this is not a relationship forged on a podcast for an hour. This is my co-host right now, is somebody that I know very well and love and adore, by the way. But when I started the podcast, because of my own adverse childhood experiences, you could imagine what the pandemic did to me. I some of the behaviors after the world shut down, even though we live in Florida and we were only closed for two weeks, my business was nationwide and heavily affected. And so the pandemic happened and it triggered all of those adverse childhood experiences. Because part of what we probe for in adverse childhood experiences is did you have your basic needs met? Could you eat? Could you drink? Did you have a roof over your head? And for me, those the answers to those questions aren't yes. And so when the pandemic happened, and I thought, my God, my livelihood just went away. I'll tell this is kind of an embarrassing story, but one of the first things I did, Lauren, was jumped on the phone and filed for unemployment because I needed to know that something was coming in, right? Yeah. And so I was definitely desperately seeking something that I could control, which is one of the maladaptive coping uh mechanisms for the mistreatment of children. And so I thought, you know what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna start a podcast and I'm gonna get on there. And I did this very early in the very early episodes. A lot of, especially the serial killer story is there. I've written it a million times. I thought, you know what? I'm gonna help people know that they can get better. And as I told that story, that didn't sit okay with me. And I stopped telling the details of my story. If you want to know those, you're gonna need to go back and find it somewhere else. Because at some point, Lauren, I understood the importance of respecting my pain, yeah, and not just telling it to somebody like I was giving them directions to a bank. And so, what I want people to know from my story is honestly, if I sat here and told told you everything from a serial killer to my mom leaving me for the man that abused me, you most people can't comprehend that amount of trauma in one conversation. I no longer wish to be that person. I will tell you that I have an adverse childhood experience score of nine. I don't, it's nine out of ten, right? We it we even even my dog knows that that's high. And so what I want people to know from my story is I'm coming to you on this podcast, not only from a wealth of information and knowledge from having received a doctorate degree, but from dark moments when I'm in the shower, put my head down at night, when I have to come to the realization that those things happen to me, but they don't define me, and nor are they to be talked about so that I could save the world. Because that doesn't that doesn't protect Amy.

SPEAKER_05 16:03

Yeah, and it it doesn't actually save the world either.

SPEAKER_04 16:07

Right.

SPEAKER_05 16:08

Right. It's not it, those moments where we feel like we're giving something to others, like you said, it's not protecting us. So then we are not in an abundant place to take care of ourselves, but it's also not a spot to be like rescuing and saving. And like I think that's always a big part of growing up from one of these places, too. It's like we're we're always just giving, giving, giving, trying so much, giving of ourselves, giving our story, giving our pain in the name of helping others. And like there's a moment where it's like, no, I have to start focusing on me.

SPEAKER_04 16:43

Yeah, and you know, some of the work that you're doing right now, two things caught my eye on things that I know you're kind of navigating into doing some stuff. And again, we'll put your information in the show notes, but overgiving is one of them. As a you know, when you look up protective factors psychologically, this isn't gonna come up. This would be a maladaptive protective factor, this overgiving, which is something that people with adverse childhood experiences learned in childhood. And so overgiving is one of them that led to the beginning of this podcast. Was like, I'm gonna give everybody everything I've got. I've burned out twice in my life that I at least could identify. One was August of 2020.

SPEAKER_05 17:26

Yeah, and that's the word that I I'm glad to hear you say that word. I definitely burn out. That's we gotta get there. We gotta right.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

So, so two things I think lead to my burnout. I've burned myself out with this podcast, Lauren. When I you're gonna laugh, but when I first started this podcast, and you just actually recently went through something very similar to this. Somebody told me, You gotta be consistent on social media, and you, and this was before everybody was an influencer, and everybody had a podcast, and everybody it's so loud out there. But I thought, you know what, I'm gonna give, give, give. And so I stressed myself out about posting on Instagram and Facebook and TikTok and to the point where we were on vacation in August of 2020, and I gave my phone to my friend. I was like, don't let me touch this because I'm trying to be too perfect. I'm trying to give too much to people, and I am absolutely exhausted. Because we were also, by the way, still in a pandemic. And so, yeah, so it led to burnout for me. The other thing that led the burnout for me is it needs to be everything needs to be perfect. Right. Because right now, as I'm talking to you on April 14th of 2026, I'm still on family medical leave from work, from absolute burnout that I can tie to adverse childhood experiences. And even and I was so frustrated, Lauren, when this recently happened to me in the beginning of February, this happened to me where my I didn't have a doctor that who cares for me that said I could go back to work. And I I was I was like, I'm a podcaster, I have a doctorate degree, my PTSD is cool, we're all good here. Let me tell you, it dropped like a yeah, I understand for sure.

SPEAKER_05 19:13

And and I love how you like tied those things in, you know, like because I think when we give a word to it, like overgiving perfection, right? It's like the overgiver in us, the perfectionist in us. It allows us to like kind of identify parts of that maledactive behavior, but also like kind of humanize it, just like when we're saying, oh, we need to be kind to little inner Amy. We also need to be kind to the perfectionist and the overgiver in us because they they root into little Amy. But it's like ultimately that's what led to your burnout. Because as an adult, those things are not protective, they're not keeping you safe, they're burning you out. And so it's like this full circle spot of just seeing again how that can take place.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Yeah. You know, and it's so funny because I was uh you I was you invited me to be part of a workshop that you did on perfectionism a couple weeks ago, and you said something that I want the listeners, I want to highlight for the listeners, you said something there. So, so these maladaptive protective factors again are our brains adaptation, right? This is not a failure on you as a human being when when you're when you have, I even hate the word maladaptive, but I don't I can't think of a different word. When you have coping mechanisms to include overgiving, to include perfectionism, to include people pleasing, to include sabotaging yourself, when you have those, and I can hear you say this, Lauren. Say, thank you, brain, thank you, body, for creating ways to protect me. But now it's time to grow again. And you said in that in the perfectionism uh webinar that you had, you said those things that we that our brain adapted for us to connect to caregivers, right? And so clearly my caregiver was negligent and abusive, but I created these maladaptive ways. My brain said, you know what, that ain't gonna work. So let's create a way to connect you to your mom, Amy. And it did that. Lauren, if I got all A's, I made her happy. If I got a if I got a B or a C, she was not happy. And behind me says, graduate with high distinction. She was in my head on October the 29th, 2026, when I defended that dissertation. And so, but my brain did those things. And if I can arrive at a posture that is grateful for the way it protected me and not judgmental, like, God, Amy, why are you why? Why why are you such a perfectionist? In that some that webinar, though, you said those things that we created to connect us now serves to disconnect us. Right. That laid very heavy on. Me, I wonder if I know you're asking me the questions, but I wonder if you can expound on that a little bit more for the listeners because I was so critical of myself for these behavior modifications, brain modifications that are coming out in adulthood to protect me. What did you mean by that?

SPEAKER_05 22:16

Yeah, and yeah, I I think it is kind of like tying into some of these themes that we have going through this cult, which is really just like you need to have moments where you can connect to all the parts of yourself, right? Like we're like carrying around a little village inside of us, right? There's like two-year-old Amy and six-year-old, right, and Lauren, right? And like there's 10-year-old Lauren and 20-year-old Lauren, and they're all in here. And all that happens throughout life is we continue to have a bigger and bigger village inside of ourselves. Parts of us never disappear. And so we have to sit with the who's leading, who's in charge right now, and what choices are they making. And we keep coming back to like ultimately your power is in your choice, and you get to choose what's going on with all the parts inside of you. And you get to choose if the maladaptive part, like the overgiver that was formed at the age of six to get connection from a caregiver, is leading. And so it's about just saying, oh, you served a purpose. Like, I love you. And it's not just that you served a purpose, right? But it's like you were intelligent, you were smart. Look what you came up with to be able to survive and stay connected. And like, look how wise you were, little one. And it is no longer serving us, right? It does not serve us well in the leadership that we need to be in as adults. It doesn't serve us well in having mature, emotionally intelligent relationships with other adults. It does not serve us well in leadership positions and roles that we take on it, right? It it stops being what serves us well and it creates disconnect in those places. Romantic relationships, relationships with family members, right? It starts to create disconnection when we're trying to overgive or be perfectionistic, but it's not because it did not come from a wise, loving place in the beginning. And so, like those phrases to me are just about like acknowledging all the little, it's like those Russian dolls, you know, like the little wooden dolls where you like open them and there's smaller ones.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 24:22

It's like you gotta take all of them in.

unknown 24:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

And you get to this point, you get to this point where if you if you do the hard work, and that's what this podcast is about, is about doing the hard work. That you get to the point where you can say to little six-year-old Amy, eight-year-old Amy, 10-year-old Lauren, 15-year-old Amy, you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. You know, like I love you. These things, by the way, uh, fellow uh adverse childhood experience survivor out there, we are some of the most resilient human beings on the planet. Because here's the thing I want to talk about, Lauren. You're gonna do you're you're you're shifting to doing some some work with people like me, burnout from from being a healthcare provider. I think that there is this understanding that those things serve us in ways that this world says, right? So my perfectionist tendencies has always served me well. So here's my question. I'm asking Amy, who's leading this? Because by the way, let me just put this as a side note the disconnection also comes when you hold other people to the same ridiculous standard you hold yourself to as a perfectionist, or as an overgiver. Like I look at people all the time, side-eyed, and I don't even realize it is like, wow, you don't you're selfish, you don't give at all, or wow, I can't believe you made that mistake. And it's like they're just being a human being, I'm the one over here trying to be all superhuman. Correct. I that's a so what does it look like in our nervous system when we are letting the younger versions of ourselves lead and tell the story and the older version? So you just think of it as as you know, you're walking along the street with little Amy, little Lauren, little insert your name. And the behaviors that helped us survive come to the top. What is what does the adult say to the child besides thank you?

SPEAKER_05 26:24

Well, and yeah, and I mean, I think there's a few things happening there, which is like, what does it look like when we're letting the child inside of us lead? It looks like a lot of fear. And so, like, the first thing we have to acknowledge is you cannot live a thriving life if your little one is leading, because you are you're still existing through survival. Your nervous system is not in a mature, grounded, highly functional place. It's like if the little one has to come back in and be in charge, then we're we're in survival and we need to pull way back and we need to work on like our awareness skills and start to take in, okay, where am I? And this kind of ties into like the burnout piece of like noticing, oh, I didn't see this, I missed this. But like now I can see I'm letting my little one be in charge. And so, yes, it's great for the mature version of us to come in and say, Whoa, you're scared. I feel you freaking out. Thank you for all the things that you've done. Thank you for letting me know I've got you, I've got this. You don't need to be in charge anymore. And so, like, there's a phase in the journey of healing where we need to have a lot of those conversations with parts of ourselves. That does not mean we always stay there having to have those conversations with ourselves.

SPEAKER_04 27:35

And do you think that it's always good to have somebody alongside? Like, you know, you know, you and I worked together on one-on-one for about a year, and it made a huge difference because it was a safe place. And this is everybody on the that list this podcast knows that one of the C's that we talk about, community, counseling, and church, everybody knows that I'm a huge proponent of counseling. One of the things, Lauren, that was helpful to me as you and I worked together that year, and we weren't even dealing with adverse stuff, right? You saw me, you saw me actually I probably burned out three times because we told the story about when I was in your office before. What does that like one of the things I learned in the webinar that we you did because one of my maladaptive coping um issues from childhood is perfectionism. And you talked about how we grow our nervous system. And before we got on this call, and you asked me to make sure I I entered this and so it's a good place for it. You're all about let's grow the nervous system, let's let's regulate it, let's get it safe, and let's push it right. So, for those of you, especially listeners, Generation X, maybe a little Xennials, which I think Lauren's a Xennial. Um, you remember the game Tetris and the whole game, whole idea with Tetris is not letting the the little, I don't even know what they're called, the little slide-in blocky thingies. Yeah, you don't let it get to the top where it bursts. So think of your capacity, your window of tolerance as that Tetris game. And your job as a human being is to remove some of the blocks so that you don't burst your window of tolerance. And so one of the things I learned in that, in the in the the webinar you did on perfectionism, and by the way, I think you should do a whole series on these protective factors to include overgiving people, pleasing, sabotaging, because that would, I mean, we were on that call for two hours and we couldn't even scratch the surface. But one of the things you see you encouraged us to do is like if perfectionism is one of yours, one of your protective factors from uh surviving adverse childhood experiences, you gotta sit in imperfection for a minute. Tell me more.

SPEAKER_05 29:44

Oh my goodness, I love this. Um yeah, you know, when when we're trying to open up our nervous system, one of the ways I like to talk about it is like that there's a pendulum, right? And there's extremes. And we're trying to like find our way to the middle, right? The middle way, which is talked about in many different uh wise or religious spiritual texts, right? Like we we talk about, like trying to find this middle way. And so, like part of trying to find the middle way is if you find that you live in an extreme like perfectionism, part of what heals that is for you to be willing to go experience messiness. And the other reason this one in particular is really important is because being human is really messy. And so it is very hard to have a human experience, to be in a human body with a human mind and all the messy human emotions and bodily functions if we are demonizing messiness. And there's there's some tolerance that it creates, just like what you're talking about with the Tetris, right? Like it creates a window of tolerance, but it also creates a greater understanding of where the middle is, right? Because saying I don't want to be a perfectionist is not the same as saying I do want to be this. Finding that healthy, balanced value, finding a north-facing compass is not the same as saying, I'm not going that way. And it's like, cool, you're not going that way, but where are you going? Right. Does that make sense? A thousand percent. And so it's like calibrating the system by letting in more imperfection and letting in more messiness so that you start to understand what's actually there for you to select from because we are making choices, right? We are choosing what's on the buffet. If you're hanging out at the salad bar and you never experience the main dishes, the sides, and the desserts, you don't know what you want on your plate. Your your choices are very limited.

unknown 31:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:36

And I think that so, so, so we um somebody on that in that webinar, I can't remember, uh, it wasn't me, but somebody brought up something as simple as I can't leave dishes in the sink. And I'm like, oh, I have never felt so seen and known and heard as I do right now. And you encourage all of us to leave dishes in the sink. I've managed to do that one night.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:58

But because you have to, and that seems like a very, very benign example. I've definitely got perfectionism that shows up in my life, and I I've been so focused since I learned in that in that meeting that I also hold other people to this standard. And that's not fair to the people that love me and who I love. And somebody said, I find myself being judgy because if I think that I always should look perfect or be perfect or a act perfect, because that is the way my brain adapted to connect to my mom. Okay, let's go back to the origin story here where I was my adverse childhood experience score is tied to a bunch of people, but it's definitely connected to my mom. And there is all kinds of research out there about attachment and your mom for hormonal reasons, pheromone reasons, brain reasons, your brain is doing important stuff. This is the doctor coming out at me as a child. And for the parents out there, when you pick them up, I was watching something the other day, and this kid fell, and the parent took a minute to get to the kid. I'm like, what are you doing? You should have been there yesterday to pick them up and let him know everything is okay. But because those things don't often happen for some of us, we have these behaviors later in life. And Lauren, I could be like, I am so sick of dealing with this body of trauma, I'm done. But then I will stop living. Is that why this is important to you? Because you don't want people to stop living because they have hidden these spots.

Practice Imperfection To Build Capacity

SPEAKER_05 33:40

Yeah, I mean, uh, it's important to me for a lot of reasons. Um, and and yeah, absolutely. Like, I want people to choose to live 100%. Um, the main thing for me is I want people to choose to live as like who they were created to be, right? At the end of the day, I I talk a lot about really broken down basic topics, like you, and you and I really jam out over like make it simple, make it like easy to understand and digestible. Meet people where they're at. And that's part of like that example you gave about the dirty dishes in the sink. That example is about meeting people where they're at, right? If we cannot go into a hard level of imperfection, start with somewhere where you can, right? And so, like starting with dirty dishes in the sink actually is just a good place to meet yourself where you're at and be like, I can work on imperfection here without it being too much for me, without it like blowing my system out. Like that, that is an edge, because like I'm always working with people on expansion. And so it's like that takes me to an edge where it's not too much, but where I can sit with it. And so, like, we always want to be meeting people where they're at, and I like to do basic things, but at the end of the day, like I want people to be able to come out of survival, to get landed in their own bodies, to get landed in themselves, to connect more deeply, and to just have their soul living through their body. Almost like that's that's the thing for me. Um, and stretching people to realize what is possible. Like, I'm a very optimistic person by nature, and I hold a lot of possibilities for people. I joke that like I'm like Mary Poppins, like I show up with a bag of possibilities. You don't understand what kind of fun is in there. And so when we talk about a lot of these kind of things, like you and I are today, um, I also like to just bring in the full spectrum of work that I do with people around joy, higher possibility, thriving, realizing that yes, this is always a part of you. Yes, it is one of those little dolls inside of you that we've popped open, but it does not have to lead. And every time you work on this stuff, and I want to make sure because we've talked about the hard stuff so much, every time you work on this stuff, it gets easier to not have it ignite on its own, right? The automations slow down. I speaking as myself, I rarely have a childhood automation fully kick off. Doesn't mean I don't have some things in here that I have to work on. And you and I talked a little bit about like the food journey I'm on, right? Is that rooted? Is that rooted in childhood stuff? Of course, but it's not the same thing, and I don't even have like my abusive marriage stuff from my 20s kick off, right? There is a spot where you start to clear so many things out that they do not rule your life in the same way anymore.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

That's that is part of the choice, it's so huge, and that's the hope of this episode, right, guys. And before we got on this meeting, Lauren said, Are you sure you don't have that tenth one? Because I kind of think you might have the tenth one too, the adverse childhood experience. And so while we don't compare traumas, it's high. And I am on the healing journey when I will be until I take my last breath. But we talk about and you I uh one of the things I love about you is that you are not afraid to call somebody out. And one of the things that sticks in my brain is, Amy, we get to do this work. And so getting to do this work and increasing that capacity, removing the Tetris things, means that if if you at least, look you listener, at least acknowledge, hey, I've got some things in childhood that I need to I need to be curious about. Curiosity is one of the best medications on the planet. I have some things in life, I want to be curious about how it has affected me. But here's the thing, guys if you become curious and you become to a point where you're asking questions and something like perfectionism, over giving, people pleasing pops up. Oh, this is the way I walk through life. And that is because I learned those things to connect to caregivers as an infant, guys. As an infant, when you pick up an infant and you put him on your shoulder and you pat him on the back, there are important things happening. Now you can't see me, but on YouTube, there are important things happening in neuroplasticity and brain development. But here's the thing I know one of us are big on is now you have the responsibility to heal.

SPEAKER_05 38:19

Yeah. And this also ties back to one of the questions that you brought up earlier that I don't think we fully got to because we were having such a good time. Which is like we rewire these things in connection. You know, you were talking about like community counseling, all those things. Like, let's kind of tie back to that, which is absolutely you need to rewire in connection. And this has to do with some of the early development things too, right? Like having mirror neurons and like having that be a way that we develop and that we also heal, right? Because we still have that. And so it is good for us to mirror off of other people's nervous systems. Part of why it's so important to heal in connection is because you can't just go in there by yourself with all your maladaptive behaviors and all your protectors and just be like, okay, I think I'm just gonna clean this up if you don't have somewhat of a north-facing compass, which is one of the other things we talked about, right? And part of finding a north-facing compass is finding another human being to work with that embodies what it is that you know you need to develop as a skill. And it's okay to just say, I do not have these skills, but I see that you have them. And I want to come work with you because that's how our nervous system is created to heal and develop and learn, is we sit with other people that have the skill, and that is part of how we develop it. And so, like when you get a counselor or a coach or a guide or someone like that, yes, they're giving you direct, because like you said, I love to give people direct truths and be like, hey, listen to this. But you're also getting to feel what their body and their system has done, which is a felt sense that is very powerful at healing you.

SPEAKER_04 39:56

It's a thing, right? Like part of my dissertation was social learning theory and social constructivism. And what both of those theories do, really fancy, smart people in the early 1900s said, Hey, there is important learning that happens from interaction and connection with others. And so, Lauren, one of the things, and this very much played out in my one-on-one work with you, because we will then begin to mimic, we'll observe, we'll mimic, and we'll put our own twist on behaviors that we understand are successful. And so when I saw that you said part of one of your your your kind of your foundational principles is you gotta feel whatever it is you're trying to avoid so that you know it's not the end of the world, right? I I was just telling Chrissy this story yesterday. One of the my favorite things that you told me, because I I've said to you oftentimes, oh my god, Lauren, I'm gonna be homeless. I can't pay my bills, I'm gonna be homeless. And you shared this story. Actually, you share the story that you shared with me.

SPEAKER_05 40:59

Yeah, you're gonna share it just fine, right?

SPEAKER_04 41:01

It's like because you might share something that's even like yeah, it was it was so you were like, Okay, Amy, let's go there. I'm like, no, that's the whole point, Lauren. I don't want to go there. And without saying it, you're like, but dude, you're spending all this emotional energy and you could just go there, like Amy. What would happen if you lived in your car?

SPEAKER_06 41:23

Great.

SPEAKER_04 41:24

You said to me, I actually bought a car so that I could live out of love. And I was like, Yeah, and that's a perfect example of social learning and social constructive. Because I was like, Okay, I'm not the only one.

SPEAKER_05 41:34

Oh, absolutely. Because like once I had a car that was like a big enough SUV that I could have lived out of it with my two cats, because keep in mind, the version of me that was making that choice in 2020, when, like you said, a lot of survival stuff was getting kind of kicked up. She had two animals to take care of, and I was like, okay, done. We have this car, we can all three live out of it. We're it's just on the shelf, it's just handled.

SPEAKER_04 41:58

And so if you have those things in your life, one of the reasons why the the encouragement from this podcast is to go there, but do not go there alone.

SPEAKER_05 42:09

Right.

SPEAKER_04 42:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:10

Because we can get lost.

SPEAKER_04 42:12

You're gonna get lost, and it's gonna get dark, and it's gonna get lonely, and it's gonna get sad, and and you're going to have this thing fester up in you as like and I have to fight this. I'm not gonna lie to you, I'm gonna be very transparent here. You have to fight these moments where you're like, those people are still affecting my life today. And even saying that makes something inside of me just go, ugh. But going again, Amy, remember that your brain did what it needed to do, your body did what it needed to do to survive. And so you actually are at this place in your healing journey, if it's on a continuum where you get to continue to work on these these behaviors, perfectionism, overgiving, people pleasing, just three of mine. You get to sit with other people in the context of a relationship and remove some of the Tetris pieces. Because Lauren, this world is traumatic enough for those of us living on the edge, living with the Tetris pieces always almost at the top. And so I have two choices. I can choose to say that stuff is unhealable, being babysat by a serial killer and abused by a serial killer is unhealable. Or I can wake up every day and say, okay, thank you, brain, thank you, body. But unless I take my last breath today, we're not done here. And that's the hope I want. If you ask me, what do you want from this episode or the first episode in April, or second episode in April that gives people hope of of Surviving adverse childhood experiences is like if you're willing to work, there are all kind of tools and and in the context of this podcast, two people that walk people through these things all the time, will you choose to get better? Or will you be like that man that I think I told the story on the last podcast where we were together in the Bible, sitting by the healing pool, and Jesus said, Why aren't you getting in the water? And he had all kinds of excuses, and they were valid excuses. People pushed me down, they they knock me out, I can't get there fast enough. And so those of us living with experiences that are adverse childhood experiences have all kinds of good reasons why we can't, as I air quote, but I don't choose that. I don't I don't keep people in my life, you included, that allows me to choose that. And so that's why I care about it. That's why I care about the mistreatment of children. That's why it appears as though that's gonna be one of the things after you get a postdoc that you kind of specialize in something. And this is becoming the the the fire and the passion of my heart.

SPEAKER_02 45:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:16

You know what I'm saying? I do.

SPEAKER_05 45:20

So but is there anything else that you want to share, like in that vein of like wrapping up your doctorate and where you are as the trauma doc and how this month like is kind of impacting that part of your journey? Is there anything in there?

SPEAKER_04 45:38

Yeah, for sure. Uh, you know, I want people um to be encouraged when they think of my story and that I'm part of the 0.8% that uh of of emancipated foster children that that receive a doctorate degree. I don't want you to be impressed with the the letters behind my name. I don't want you to be impressed with me at all. But what I do want you to know is that if you're anything like me and you're living with adverse childhood experiences, when you put your head down at night or when you get in the shower, sometimes you're gonna be tempted to say, why can't I be like Lauren, who doesn't have, doesn't struggle with perfectionism? Why can't I be like Sally, who doesn't struggle with overgiving? Why can't I be like, you know, Johnny, who doesn't care about people pleasing? Because you gotta do some things. Then you can be like Sally and Johnny and Amy and Lauren, and but you gotta go to the hard parts. And in doing that, you can't do that alone. And whether that's because you reach out to Lauren or to me or a counselor, I tell people all the time when they come to me, I got I need I need you to go over to Lauren first. Because I can't do anything to help you process your trauma narrative and all the education I have to get neuroplasticity going on so that you're not led by the the results of childhood abandonment, neglect, and abuse. Find somebody to be in this community with, whether it's a group, whether it's a individual work, like you could work with either one of us one-on-one, but know that it's going to be hard. But here's the thing I have never been part of a more worthy endeavor than investing and choosing to heal.

SPEAKER_05 47:21

Oh my goodness, yes. Investing in ourselves is is absolutely core to living life.

When Memories Surface During Healing

SPEAKER_04 47:30

So I was sharing with Lauren before we got on this call, and I've written about this um in a blog somewhere, but how I remembered something that is a significant piece in my story, and that was having been babysat by two prominent serial killers. And my brain couldn't remember what actually happened inside the confines of those people's houses for a really long time. I just knew that they babysat us, and I had this separate memory of abuse. And because I had done some work, and I'm not trying to discourage y'all, but because I had taken Tetris pieces out, it allowed me to get to that deep-seated, problematic, traumatic memory of what happened inside the confines of their house, and then I could get healed, or I could go towards healing. So don't be surprised, don't be blindsided when new memories, as you're removing those Tetris pieces, don't be surprised that you begin to remember other things. And again, back to what Lauren's gonna say here in a minute when I ask her to close the podcast, don't do it alone. There is hope, it is not easy, but my Tetris pieces continue to drop with no threat of my window of capacity being blown out to smithereens, because there has been a choice to do the hard work from adverse childhood experiences and a refusal to let it define me, and an adapt and an understanding that trauma is often an adaptation, and some of these behaviors that interfere with relationships are because I had issues with my caregiver. But to Lauren's point, we don't let that lead. We recognize it, we identify it, we go, okay. We have this version of Amy, we have this version of Amy, this one knows better. So you do better. If you're living with the effects of an adverse childhood experience and you are looking for help, I want to say the obvious things first. If you're in crisis, always 911-988. But if you're looking for long-term work, Lauren and I would love to either help you or refer to you to somebody that can. And so both of our contact information is in the show notes. And as Lauren, we close this episode on highlighting the hope that comes from those of us who have survived our adverse childhood experiences. What would you like to leave the listeners with?

SPEAKER_05 50:00

Yeah, I mean, I'd I would like to leave the listeners with kind of the threads that we have continued to come back to in here, which is uh you're not alone, right? Amy and I both have stories and like Amy's been so generous again today to share her story. I hope you feel the different stages that like can take place on this journey. Like maybe you're in a spot where it's really consuming a lot of you. Maybe you connect to something Amy shared, maybe you connect to something I've shared. I just hope you understand that it is a spectrum and you are not stuck in one place. Like you said, there is always hope. And most importantly, you are not alone in this spot. There is hope where you can go connect to someone and you can feel that healing take place.

SPEAKER_04 50:46

And you will survive it, listener. I know what you're thinking for some of you. Like I can't go there. I want to read some lyrics to a song, and this is very spontaneous, but this is kind of like how I move through life. There's a song that was I don't even know, it was old. I'm gonna read it as as we exit out of the podcast, unless you have more questions, because this is this is kind of this is where I wanna this is where I want to leave it. This is the hardest work I've ever done. But these lyrics, I'm gonna and I'm gonna read, I'm gonna read both verses. But this is a song called The Warrior as a Child by Twila Paris. Lately, I've been winning battles left and right, but even winners can get wounded in the fight. People say that I'm amazing, strong beyond my years, but they don't see inside of me I'm hiding all the tears. They don't know that I go running home when I fall down. They don't know who picks me up when no one is around. I drop my sword and cry for just a while. Because deep inside this armor, the warrior is a child. Unafraid because his armor is the best. Here you go, guys. But even soldiers need a quiet place to rest. People say that I'm amazing, never face retreat, but they don't see the enemies that lay me at his feet. They don't know that I go running home when I fall down. They don't know who picks me up when no one is around. I drop my sword and cry for just a while, cause deep inside this armor, the warrior is a child. I drop my sword and look up for a smile, because deep inside this armor, the warrior is a child. The child will win the battles for you guys.

SPEAKER_01 52:46

I know it's all you gotta just be strong.

SPEAKER_04 52:50

Thank you, Lauren, for being here. We are nowhere near done. Again, I want to say to people, please reach out to Lauren if any of this feels like work that you would like to do, because Lauren is a huge reason why I've been able to do it along with other things. And so thank you, Lauren, for being here.

SPEAKER_05 53:06

Thank you for having me. And thank you for you know taking a little bit of the other side of hope is never.

Poem Closing And Next Steps

SPEAKER_04 53:13

It's actually kind of been fun. Might have been fun. It might be something too, this Amy and Lauren keep talking thing. So alright, well, thank you for being here. Thank you so much for listening to this episode with my friend Lauren Starns as we are in the month of April and want to provide hope and help for those of you who, like me, may have experienced adverse childhood experiences that manifest itself in behaviors like perfectionism, people pleasing, overgiving, sabotaging, and we could go on and on about that. I will be writing some things about that. Do you want to be following us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok? I will put all of that in the show notes. We'll be back here in two weeks, likely with Lauren again to uh talk about uh the highlight that we want to give hope and help for those of experienced adverse childhood experiences uh inside the month of April when we highlight the hope and help that is available for those of us living with those things. As always, I hope that you will remember that you are seen, that you are known, that you are heard, that you are loved, and that you are so so valued. We will see you back here in two weeks.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

You're gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_00 56:02

With the night, it's good in it, don't give up, don't give it, this won't let it, it's not the end, you're gonna be okay.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

You're gonna be okay. You're not alone. You're gonna be okay.