S2E50: Why I Changed My Name

Avery Thatcher is a former ICU nurse who decided to get out of the reactive side of medicine in 2015 and has started helping people heal through emotional trauma and chronic stress to prevent or even reverse the negative health effects of both. Avery has "lived a lot of life" experiencing numerous setbacks and challenges, yet she continues to stand back up, carry this new burden and continue to inspire others to do the same.

Social media and contact information:

Instagram @TheUltimateLifeSurvivalGuide
email: avery@theultimatelifesurvivalguide
Website: https://theultimatelifesurvivalguide.com

Podcast Transcript

[00:00:00] Damaged Parents: Welcome to the Relatively Damaged Podcast by Damaged Parents where beautiful, lost identity types of people come to learn. Maybe just, maybe we're all a little bit damaged. Someone once told me it's safe to assume 50% of the people I meet are struggling and feel wounded in some way. I would venture to say it's closer to 100%.

Every one of us is either currently struggling or has struggled with something that made us feel less than. Like we aren't good enough. We aren't capable. We are relatively damaged. And that's what we're here to talk about. In my ongoing investigation of the damaged self, I want to better understand how others view their own challenges.

Maybe it's not so much about the damage. Maybe it's about our perception and how we deal with that. There is a deep commitment to becoming who we are meant to be. How do you do that? How do you find balance after a damaging experience?

My hero is you the one who faces seemingly insurmountable odds to come out on the other side, whole. You who stares directly into the face of adversity with unyielding persistence to discover your purpose. You are the people who inspire your me to be more fully me. Not in spite of my trials, but because of them. Let's hear from another hero.

Today's topic includes sensitive material, which may not be appropriate for children. This podcast is provided for informational purposes only, and is not intended as advice. The opinions expressed here are strictly those of the person who gave them.

Today, we're going to talk with Avery. She has many roles in her life, sibling wife, sister, cousin, and more. We'll talk about how she ended up with a chronic illness, which impacted her view of herself and her identity. And how she found health and healing let's talk

 Welcome back to Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. Today, we have Avery Thatcher with us. She's a former ICU nurse who decided to get out of the reactive side of medicine in 2015. She started helping people heal through emotional trauma and chronic stress to prevent and even reverse the negative health effects of both.

Avery has lived a lot of life experiencing numerous setbacks and challenges Yet she continues to stand back up, carry this new burden and continue to inspire others to do the same. You can find her on Instagram, @TheUltimateLifeSurvivalGuide or on the website. https://Theultimatelifesurvivalguide.com.

Welcome to the show.

[00:02:43] Avery: Thank you so much, Angela. I am very excited to be here.

[00:02:47] Damaged Parents: Me too. I mean, one of the things we were talking before, I started the intro and the recorded portion of the, podcast. We were talking about a name change and. Please start your journey wherever it starts for you. And if the name change comes later, we'll come back to it.

[00:03:03] Avery: Yeah, absolutely. So I was born Heather Thatcher, Heather Thornton. My married name is Thatcher but I was born Heather and. I went through a lot of emotional trauma growing up in a lot of different spaces. I was just a highly emotional person in a very logical world in a very logical analytical family.

And so that brought its own lessons and its own learn strengths and resilience. And then I moved into my profession as a registered nurse which also. It's very emotional. I worked in the ICU for both adults and children, both very emotional spaces. And I just dug right into like the navigating of those really challenging vulnerable spaces.

And I loved being in that space. And then on Christmas morning, I was coming off the night shift in 2018. And. My charge nurse came up to me and she's like, oh Heather, you do not look well. I'm going to mark you down as sick tonight, feel better. And I went home And I slept for 20 hours the next day and the day after that.

And so overnight my life changed dramatically because my health just boom came out of nowhere. I had a lot of different things happening, all manifested at once. When I look back, I have strong suspicions that it was related to a lot of stress that I was under at the time, but my life changed so significantly and I did lots of work trying to feel.

Like I could accept this new normal, because the idea of going back to bedside nursing was no longer a possibility for me. And so much of my identity was tied up in that. So eventually it came down to, I don't feel like Heather, anymore. Heather is a different person that was capable of different things than what I am right now.

And if I want to be able to continue to move forward with strength and feeling at home in my body, I have to change my name. So I went over a baby name blogs for a couple of days, settled in on Avery. Cause it was the only one that felt good. And once I chose that name, I felt at home in my body. Again, I felt like me and I felt ready to tackle the world with this new illness.

[00:05:13] Damaged Parents: By changing the name. It sounds like it gave you permission to be someone different that you no longer had to fulfill. Maybe those analytical, it's because of the way you told your story and how you grew up. I'm thinking that it gave you permission to now just be different periods.

[00:05:30] Avery: Yes, so well said. So yes, it helped me really connect and be unapologetic about how emotional I am. It's okay. And I cry at fireworks because they're so beautiful or. The beauty of a sunrise could stop me in my tracks. When I'm on my walk with my dog, little birds chirping in the trees, it's niggling together to stay warm.

All of those things can make me cry. I'm okay with it. And so it's now just helping me step forward into that strength. And then also part of the thing was that I was experiencing a lot of PTSD symptoms, triggers, really awful dreams, especially with the pandemic, bringing up a lot of feelings of, I am leaving my colleagues in the ICU out to dry.

I should be helping. I wish I could be helping my body's not letting me help

in the way that I'm used to doing this kind of thing, because for other, for SARS, for H one N one, I was in the ICU, we were in the trenches together.

[00:06:31] Damaged Parents: Yeah, let's talk, about that real quick. Just that feeling of I no longer can and I've want to, and How did you even navigate that feeling? And here you are finding well, Or relearning, maybe that you're this highly emotional being that, you know so how do you navigate that with all these emotions?

[00:06:53] Avery: a lot of compassion. Truly, it comes down to compassion in these spaces because if you fight it, that's where the resistance is going to keep you stuck. But the idea of letting go and trusting that everything is going to work out, that is not something that I am able to do naturally because of my background in trauma, the idea of trusting and letting things just be is not safe.

And it brings up a lot of internal protective mechanisms within me. And I recognize that, but. Yes, navigating through this required some help. I definitely was working with someone to help me identify these different pieces, but really a ton of compassion. And I teach these things. So I've used it a number of times, especially in this health journey, but self-compassion scripts can be really helpful because when we've been deep conditioned out of our own, self-compassion like me, we hold the door open for somebody else, but we would never do that for ourselves

truly. So learning how to bring compassion back into your life. It's really important to this self compassion script can do that when it's been really trained out of us. And so that has three components. Number one, you validate how you're feeling first because don't dismiss it because that just keeps it buried and trapped in your body.

And so you want to validate that and then you want to comfort yourself. Like you would a friend, you wouldn't tell a friend going through something challenging. Oh, just get over it. They'll be fine. You could like give him a hug, right? Exactly.

[00:08:19] Damaged Parents: I know some people who would say that.

[00:08:21] Avery: Yeah. Absolutely. There are always people in our lives that would do that.

[00:08:26] Damaged Parents: but what's funny is like you were saying, it's super easy to be compassionate towards other people, but when it comes to us, sometimes what's happening is. We're actually literally saying that to ourselves, and you're saying it, you were saying it to yourself, get over it.

You're going to be fine. Like the internal dialogue is so different.

[00:08:47] Avery: Yeah, absolutely. when we're growing up.

in emotional trauma, we're taught to put our needs last because for our safety, if we're making sure that everybody else is okay, then we're able to. B. Okay. But to be safe, but what that does is it creates this feeling of numbness. And so when we experience difficult emotions as adults, we want to get back to that place of numb as fast as possible.

But the only way through these challenging situations, these difficult emotions is through. And that's where the compassion piece can really come into it as well. But then also looking at our experiences, our emotions as information. They're neither good or bad. They're just information. And they can either be serving or sabotaging.

So people pleasing is often labeled as this sabotaging thing, this self-sabotaging component. But the truth is, it's got some serving components to it as well. It allows you to be empathetic. It allows you to notice what other people are feeling and what they're needing. So it's all about balance between those things.

[00:09:48] Damaged Parents: . I love that. You said that because it was only this morning. Somebody said to me, the early bird gets the worm and I said, the early worm gets eaten.

[00:09:57] Avery: yesssss

[00:09:59] Damaged Parents: So it probably depends on what perspective we're looking at it from

[00:10:05] Avery: exactly.

[00:10:06] Damaged Parents: because in

some, That caring, that deep caring for people that wanting to the people who are maybe upset or angry to be happy. that can be a good thing. It also can be a very bad thing too, because it can lead into some really negative behaviors.

Maybe are not negative, not helpful.

[00:10:26] Avery: Absolutely cause you could be helping perpetuate a state. That's keeping them stuck. Cause we're not here to stay the same or here to grow and learn more about who we are by learning about who we're not. And so if we are people pleasing to the point that we're not allowing somebody to grow. That's tough, but again, it's our inner protector.

That's seeing all the warning signs and they're like, let's make this all come down for our own safety. But the truth is as adults in a lot of cases, we do have more control over our safety than we think.

[00:10:57] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And now you were, in the middle. When I interrupted on the statement, the self-compassion statement, I think we were on number two.

[00:11:03] Avery: That's right. So you validate you comfort and then you give yourself permission to take it one breath at a time, one moment at a time, one minute at a time, whatever it is to kind of work your way through that. So a really clear example of this. I with my big health thing, all kinds of piling on me at once.

I also discovered that I had a thyroid mass and it was quite large. It like stuck out the side of my neck. People could see it from across the room and it just kept growing. And so they wanted to test it to see if it was cancer, whatever, how fast it was growing, all those things. And so I had to get it biopsied, which means that there's a very large needle that they're like jabbing around in your neck and pulling stuff out.

And so.

[00:11:45] Damaged Parents: Huh? Oh, okay.

[00:11:47] Avery: Yep, exactly. And so in the moment it was very painful, but because I had already started practicing the self-compassion scripts beforehand, I just was saying to myself, yes, this is painful. This is scary because you don't know what it's going to be. You don't know what these results are going to say.

It's okay to be scared. It's okay to wish that you were at anywhere else, but you can breathe through this moment. And you can breathe through the next. It's not going to last forever. Everything is temporary. And so is this. And I just kept saying that to myself over and over. And then before I knew it, the procedure was over and I was getting up and dabbing off my neck and off we went.

[00:12:26] Damaged Parents: Oh, I mean, were you, do you think you were better able to stay in peace during that moment or relaxed because you were saying that to yourself.

[00:12:35] Avery: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so there's other techniques that I use to help me maintain control of my nervous system. But whenever those fail states don't work anymore, the self-compassion script always works for me.

[00:12:48] Damaged Parents: Okay. So it sounds like you've had some experience where things work for a while and then for some reason they're just not working. And so you come back to the self-compassion.

[00:12:58] Avery: Yeah. So we, experienced different levels of stressful stimuli every day. And in every moment it kind of fluctuates. And so certain techniques will be able to work for a certain amount of stimuli. And then when that gets higher and higher and it keeps building up, then we're going to need to use some more tools in our toolbox.

So another example of this was back when it early 2020, I was doing some grocery shopping, right? When, the virus was coming over to north America and everybody was getting all stressed out and panicked buying all the toilet paper. So I went there with my little basket and I was like, okay, I'm just going to get the couple things that I need.

And so I was there in the grocery store and like, people were, were walking quickly. There was a lot of like stress, you could feel it. And so I was like, okay, that's fine. So I was doing my breath work techniques by other grounding techniques to help me manage my stress and then partway through the frozen food aisle, which was pretty much empty.

I was like, oh, you know what? I need, I need something more. And so then again, Brought on a self-compassion script. Sure. You don't know what this is going to look like, but you got a bag of beans and a bag of rice. You've got some veggies, which you can freeze later. It's going to be okay. You're going to figure this out.

It'll be all right. Keep going. And then I just repeated over and over just like all of these things that it's okay to be scared. People are acting real weird right now. We don't know what's coming down the tube. It's going to be okay. And so that again, because of the stimuli, the amount of people that were super stressed out around me, it just helped when things got too much for those other techniques, this one could then flip that switch off.

[00:14:26] Damaged Parents: Well, and you could see their And I'm thinking. And then, so you were literally having to make a conscious decision to not panic almost. It sounds like.

Gosh, that's, that's an interesting thought. How often do we recognize that we're in panic or we're in a group, or like you said, the energy was, different at the grocery store than it usually is because of the whole.

Pandemic thing. And I'm wondering, gosh, before you had this experience, how conscious were you of when you would panic or when you would have those disregulating emotions?

[00:15:05] Avery: Great question. So I think this is really important to say, because. It's not like this health experience was my only chance to learn and strengthen these skills. It's truly been happening all of my life. When we grow up in Uh, Household and in a society that makes emotionally people feel unsafe, then you're learning to downregulate all your life.

You're learning how to take control of that stress switch. So it was a lot of those little things over time, but then also working in the ICU. There's a lot of moments where things get very high stress and you have to learn to how to shut that stress switch off. So that way you can do what you need to do in that moment.

[00:15:45] Damaged Parents: Well, and when you say turn the stress switch off, it's almost like what I'm hearing you say, would, I'm interpreting that as I should say is kind of literally just cutting off that part of you that wants to feel

[00:15:58] Avery: So a little bit, a little bit, But also it's So our stress response is really a switch we're either in the sympathetic side, the fight flight freeze or fawn, or we're in parasympathetic, the rest and digest side of things. It's really one or the other. The freezer fond response is a little bit less.

Comment. And that's actually, when the switch gets stuck in the middle, you're not in either, but when our stress response is turned on, we're in that fight flight response side of things, our heart is beating fast. Our pupils are wide open to be conceived the environment around us. And we're breathing very quickly to make sure that we can get all the oxygen that we need because our stress response was designed to get us away from a bear.

So we need to get away.

[00:16:39] Damaged Parents: I'm going to ask a question here real quick before you go on with that, with the breathing that it's quick, but it's not deep.

[00:16:46] Avery: True. Yes, exactly. But we're trying to bring in as much. And from a physiology perspective, we can get a little bit nerdy here, but when you breathe quicker, you actually breathe out more carbon dioxide, which increases your ability, your body to hold onto a little bit more oxygen.

[00:17:02] Damaged Parents: Hmm. Because carbon dioxide is actually needed in the body.

[00:17:05] Avery: It is needed in the body. Absolutely. It's for the balance for the acidic balance, for the.

Ability of oxygen to move as it goes. And it's just part of the natural cell process. It's a waste product as well, but breathing quickly allows us to breathe out more of the CO2, the carbon dioxide, and then breathe in a little bit more oxygen.

So we change our balance a bit by doing.

[00:17:28] Damaged Parents: Okay. So. You're in the ICU. Everything's going crazy. And you're talking about switching off that thing or the stress kind of smell. Yeah. Switching off the stress response and then trying to stay in the relaxed, more relaxed state. Is that what you're going for here?

[00:17:49] Avery: Exactly because, so again, like on that stress side, everything's fast, Right, It's all ramped up. but then on the rest and digest side, the parasympathetic side, our breathing is slow and it's deep. And so one of the easiest way with that we can use to turn off the stress response is to slow down our breathing and be very intentional with it.

And there's actually a lot of science to show what the perfect amount of. Time is to breathe in and out and that. And so the ICU staff learn how to do this emergency room staff learn how to do this. Pilots learn how to do this. CEO's can learn how to do this high power, like fortune 50 CEOs work on this because it's such a great way to do it because what we're in the stress response.

We lose connection to our prefrontal cortex or high-level critical thinking brain, because if you're running away from a bear, contemplating the meaning of life, not a priority. so you dumped that part of your brain. And then when you're in the like calm side and the parasympathetic nervous system is running the show, you're able to have those deeper thoughts.

You're able to be more objective and more bigger picture. So that's why when we turn off that stress response, We can access that part of us together.

[00:18:58] Damaged Parents: Right,

but so can people get stuck in that stress response? Like subconsciously.

[00:19:06] Avery: And so a lot of us are living in that constant chronic stress state. And there's actually three stages of stress that we can move through. The first is the stage of alarm. That's the like, oh goodness, there's a bear kind of thought. And then. That's what our body was designed to handle that and then turn off.

But our body can't tell the difference between a bear running at us and work stress, financial stress, family stress stress about our children, stress about a pandemic. Our body can't tell the difference between that. So. it doesn't know how to turn that off when it continues to be there. So then we move from The stage of alarm into the stage of resistance, So this is where a lot of us are living on a day-to-day basis. And this is where our body's like adapting a little bit,

[00:19:50] Damaged Parents: The stage of resistance, you said from alarm to resistance. And when I think of resistance, I think of kind of struggling against, but what does that mean in that as in how you're using the word to describe this?

[00:20:05] Avery: So, our body is struggling against the ramp up stress response. so it's. working with it, but it cannot maintain it forever. So our body's working with itself.

[00:20:17] Damaged Parents: So it's almost like maybe subconsciously we're still highly stressed, but we're trying not to be. And, or we haven't fully come down to that last level, maybe where we can breathe.

[00:20:30] Avery: So, Unfortunately the last level is for that the stage of exhaustion, it's really where burnout hits. So the only way to go out of this is to climb back up.

[00:20:40] Damaged Parents: Okay.

[00:20:41] Avery: Because the resistance is where we are. Our body is, I guess, resisting the negative health effects of stress. Our body's able to prevent long-term damage from happening.

[00:20:52] Damaged Parents: okay. So we really want to be in this resistance so that we're not exhausted and we're not stressed.

[00:21:01] Avery: Absolutely. But then we want to bring ourselves out at the stage of resistance as well and into a place where we're experiencing the positive stress. It's called eustress, E U S T R E S S. And that's the positive motivation that we feel to get out and do stuff. Distress is what moves us through the stage of alarm stage of resistance, stage of exhaust.

[00:21:22] Damaged Parents: So how does one do that? How did you do it?

[00:21:25] Avery: So many things.

[00:21:27] Damaged Parents: How did you do it?

[00:21:28] Avery: Yes, absolutely. So first starting off with those breathing techniques to learn How to turn your stress response on, off on the regular. And so I call it five, five, five breathing, because it's the easiest way to remember it. So you take five deep breaths for five seconds on the inhale five seconds on the exhale, and you do that five times a day.

And so the science shows us that between four and a half to five and a half seconds seems to be the sweet spot to trigger. The rest and digest the parasympathetic nervous system response. So by doing that for five breaths, we're turning off our stress switch on a regular basis. Doing that five times a day allows you to continue to keep those stress hormones from ramping up and getting really high.

And I know that five times a day sounds like a lot, but if you do it?

when you first get up before each meal, before you go to bed, that's five.

[00:22:17] Damaged Parents: Right. I mean, think you're saying do it for a long time. It's five breaths. Five times a day.

[00:22:23] Avery: Five breaths. It takes

about 30 seconds,

[00:22:26] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Like if we're counting. Yeah. It's not.

[00:22:30] Avery: 45. They're stuck. It's depending on how fast you count.

[00:22:32] Damaged Parents: Yeah, right, right.

[00:22:34] Avery: Yeah.

[00:22:35] Damaged Parents: Sometimes, you know, maybe I might be a slow breather,

[00:22:40] Avery: Exactly. It all depends on how well your other stress switches up and going throughout the day. Cause sometimes if we're pretty ramped up and those breaths will go a little bit faster, but being able to start training our body to listen, to be like, Hey, when I slowed down my breathing, it means that I need control of my brain.

[00:22:58] Damaged Parents: Right. Well, and isn't that helping was vegal tone too.

[00:23:02] Avery: Absolutely.

[00:23:03] Damaged Parents: And vagal tone just means that we're able to handle more things in some ways, right?

[00:23:09] Avery: And it's also because of our access to that part of our brain, because we're not like instinctual jumping and trying to figure things out in the moment. We're able to do a little bit more pre-planning from a bigger perspective. And that allows us to manage more at once.

[00:23:23] Damaged Parents: now you said you had an illness that came on. I mean, did you know this, that night or were you still running full bore when your boss is like, you don't look good and then you go home and go.

[00:23:36] Avery: No. So I pushed through that shift because in an ICU things don't really stop that much. So yeah, I kept, I kept going, but when I came home, I was like, whoa, the dark circles were like down to my cheekbones. I looked grey. I was like, oh dear. Yeah, no, I definitely need the day off. But then it just became this very stressful.

Year before I got a diagnosis because that's how long sometimes diagnosis can take because of how overlapping some symptoms can be with other conditions. So it just, yeah, it was a very interesting process. And so interesting to me about how grief played into this. And I could see myself as I was going through it.

I was just like, oh, here's bargaining welcome bargaining to the party. I'm in this phase. And then noticing too that because of my background, because of my emotional trauma. Anger got skipped. I had to make space for it at the end of my grief process over this illness in order to fully heal and anger was the key for me to be able to start looking for ways to feel at home in my body.

And That's what brought on the names.

[00:24:49] Damaged Parents: That's interesting. So like, are you one of those people that thought I'm never angry?

[00:24:55] Avery: Absolutely. I told people that all the time, I never get angry. If you want to offend me, you're going to have to tell me, cause I'll never notice. And it's because what our emotions are weaponized against us, but we're told you're too sensitive. You're making other people uncomfortable. We learn to numb and that numbs everything.

[00:25:12] Damaged Parents: Mm.

[00:25:12] Avery: So then people can use you and you don't recognize it as being bad because you're numb to those feelings too. So it sets us up for a lot.

[00:25:22] Damaged Parents: Gosh, how did you get comfortable with those feelings again?

[00:25:25] Avery: by seeing them as information.

And so again, it's really just coming to a more stoic look of life and we're a philosophical look of length and just noticing like, okay, so I'm feeling the emotion of anger, but emotions and feelings are different. So recognizing those differences there and then distancing myself from that anger to be like, okay, so like what actually is driving that emotion that starts to create curiosity.

[00:25:53] Damaged Parents: Yeah. Can you do me a favor and explain the difference between emotion and feelings? I don't think I've ever heard anyone say it quite like that. And so now I'm like, Hm, I wonder what you mean.

[00:26:04] Avery: absolutely. So emotions for me are the pre-wired and reactions to things. That's the like quick thing this happened, I have this emotion that follows, but our feelings are something that we can generate. So when I think back to my walk with my dog the other day, and I think of how uh, the wind stopped for a little bit and the sun came out, tore my face and the little birds were making all kinds of noises and the trees.

There was so much noise coming from that tree. I generated the feeling of wonder and awe in that moment. And thinking back to that, I can regenerate that feeling. I can bring that feeling back. I can also experience the emotion of anger and be like, Hey, so anger is the umbrella emotion. What am I feeling actually?

And so the clearest way to explain that is that uh, if I were to tell a good friend a secret that I didn't mean.

for anybody else to know, and that I hear that she's shared that with somebody else, I would be angry. That's my emotion. But when I dig into that, I realized that I'm actually embarrassed.

That's the feeling that I have, because I did not want that piece to be shared with other people. And I'm embarrassed that somebody knows that. So I had the emotion of anger, but I'm feeling embarrassed.

[00:27:17] Damaged Parents: That's really a great way to explain it. Like the emotion can come on it's information, but then what's really going on underneath. It is what the feeling is.

[00:27:29] Avery: Absolutely. And that's where we can gain control of it.

[00:27:32] Damaged Parents: It's just a pointer, a data point that can point me back to, okay. Maybe there's something I need to investigate.

How long did it take you to get comfortable with that?

[00:27:42] Avery: Oh, great question. So I feel like, again, because of the work that I've done over the years when it started. Clunk into my brain, that this is how I wanted to see the world of emotions and feelings, but it came quite quickly because of how freeing it was, because I be able to say, like, I, instead of feeling like I was caught up on that emotional freight train that was like zipping away from me.

And I was just hanging onto the outside for dear life screaming in the wind. I now was left on the platform to be like, okay, So anchor is taken off. What does that mean for me? And so recognizing that created the change very quickly, because it gave me the power back.

[00:28:21] Damaged Parents: So almost like you weren't, you were no longer the feeling or the emotion. It wasn't. I am angry. It's I feel angry or I'm having this emotion of anger

[00:28:35] Avery: Exactly.

[00:28:36] Damaged Parents: saying that's not you, that's not Avery. That's just the feeling or the emotion that's coming up right now. I get to decide what I want to do with that,

[00:28:47] Avery: Absolutely. Yeah,

[00:28:49] Damaged Parents: which is so hard during a struggle.

[00:28:51] Avery: it can be, but this is how we can. We can learn to slowly rewire our ability to connect with, I call them our objective observer. It's that person, that being that true essence of you inside of you, that you can learn how to access. And so over time, we've lost connection to that. And so it's like the, a path around a corner house.

So usually you would want to walk on the sidewalk around the house. And that's the proper way that we want our brain to go. That's the part that can like easily connect to. The rational logical part of us that can notice our experience without getting swept up in it. But over time, there's things that trigger us and we cut across the grass.

And so sometimes we walk across the sidewalk. Other times we cut across the grass and then over time, those patterns become deeper and deeper and we keep walking across the grass until it becomes this really deep dirt path. So what we're learning to do when we're trying to reconnect to this objective side of us and learn how to see our emotions without getting swept up in them, we're basically building a big brick wall in the middle of that field.

So then we get starting down that little garden path, that dirt path that we've made, but then we hit the brick wall and we're like, right, I want to do this differently. And we walked back up to the sidewalk and continue around. And the more times we do that, eventually our brain will just realize, right. this is a sidewalk.

So. it will continue

Bringing us on the sidewalk.

[00:30:15] Damaged Parents: Yeah, so it's, so it would be hard at first and then get easier is what I'm, I'm thinking because of the way you described it, the reminder, and then of the wall and then the automatic later. I mean, I think sometimes it would be easy, I think. Well, Hmm. Let me, let me think about this for a second.

So I think that unless there are reminders that the wall is there because we're talking about a figurative wall that then it would still be easy to, use those old behaviors.

[00:30:50] Avery: Absolutely.

[00:30:52] Damaged Parents: And so how long would you say, does it take someone to shift. If they really want to, maybe not, if they're half doing it,

like it would be a great idea if I did that. And that's a lot of work. No.

[00:31:09] Avery: Exactly. Exactly. So that voice that's saying like, Ooh, but it's a lot of work. That's our inner protector. Because our inner protectors goal is to keep us safe. Some people call it an inner critic, imposter syndrome, that negative self-talk piece. That's what I'm mentioning here. And so that part of us wants to keep us safe and what we're doing right now, even though it may be unhelpful, even though it may be not what we want.

It's keeping us safe. So when we start to do something different, it like runs around putting all the alarm bells on our brain and says anything it can think of to make us go back to the way things were. So when we're starting to create these changes, we have to recognize that the part of us that's trying to protect us is going to be fired up.

So showing compassion to that part of you can actually be a big help on a journey like this. But then I also have strategies to have. Make it so that we remember that brick wall and make sure that we go back onto the sidewalks and we can dig into those two.

[00:32:02] Damaged Parents: Yeah. I mean, I was just thinking we're getting pretty close, but yeah. Get dig into those. Let's do it.

[00:32:09] Avery: Yeah, I'll be quick. I'll be quick.

[00:32:11] Damaged Parents: Yeah, no worries.

[00:32:12] Avery: Okay. So, There's two ways that we can do it. One is in a more conscious level, once more on a subconscious level. So the conscious level, what we can do is use what's really commonly known in cognitive behavioral therapy, CBT, which is the gold standard of modern psychology.

And so in this, they have an ABCD technique. When we are in the moment when we haven't built that brick wall fully yet, when we don't recognize that it's there, this is where it becomes a bit of a reflective practice. So we sit down after something that triggered us, it brought up something and had us react in a way that we'd want to work on.

And then we look at case. So what was the, a activating event? What was our B behavior? What's the C consequences. What happened? What did I experience? What was the emotional freight train that took off without me? Like what what's going on in that situation, then we have a chance to dispute our behavior and that's what the D part is.

And that's what. Effective change. E so again, that's, you're noticing the activating event. You're recognizing what happened in your mind, also how you acted in your behavior. Then you're going to look at the consequences of that. What was created because of that, and then you're can have a chance to dispute it and then make a plan for effective change when you experienced that kind of triggered again.

What do you want to do differently? So that's something that we can work on it on the conscious mind on a subconscious mind doing guided self hypnosis or visualization or meditation, depending on whatever works for you. You can do this with prayer as well. If you're a prayerful person. And basically you just look at yourself going through a situation that, triggers you.

And then when you see yourself going down your normal path out loud, or in your mind, if you prefer, you say the word change and it's best, if you say it out loud, because then now you're the loudest voice in your head. And then you'll be able to visualize yourself, handling that situation differently, responding to that situation rather than reacting and working on that subconscious level is also going to help you become more aware of that brick wall.

[00:34:13] Damaged Parents: yeah, and I'm thinking at the beginning, it's probably a little tiring.

[00:34:17] Avery: It is a lot of work. Absolutely. But No one would ever think about doing personal development. If they knew actually how much work it is, we only talk about the beautiful and not because otherwise, if everyone was like, Ooh, personal development, you're going to have to feel a little bit, run down all the time, exhausted feeling like you're always working on something.

And like you're always being the bigger person. Have a great time.

[00:34:40] Damaged Parents: Yeah, that's actually a really great point. I just, I, gosh, I like to remember it and I love like Bernay brown. She says awkward, brave, and I think it's true. I don't remember her, her tagline, but I think in any, change at the beginning, thinking back to one, we learned any of riding a bike, whatever.

Awkward rollerskating. Totally awkward. You know, So if I don't feel awkward and weird, maybe that's a sign for me. If I want to make a change that I'm not doing something.

So if I am feeling awkward, then maybe it's a sign. Okay. That's okay. This is exactly what I want to feel. And then maybe I could have that self-compassion oh, look at that.

There's that awkwardness. Isn't that great.

[00:35:24] Avery: Absolutely. Yes, exactly. It's all about perspective and it's tricky because we, as adults are used to being pretty accomplished at everything that we do. And so going back and being a beginner at something is really tough. And every time I do this, whenever I learn a new skill or like try and learn a different language, I'm trying to learn Mandarin right now.

It is humbling me immensely. But every time I go into this space, I always think back to. When I went through university, I taught piano to pay for my university. And this one man started working with me at 83. He decided he wanted to learn how to play the piano at 83. And he was just such a beautiful spirit cause he just embraced the learning experience, like nothing else.

And so that when I think about struggle and learning new things and working through reprogramming new habits, new layers, as I uncover them, I remember this beautiful 80 three-year-old spirit that just embraced it.

[00:36:22] Damaged Parents: it's almost like we have a choice. We can go through it fighting and struggling, or we can go with it, go at it with a playful mindset.

[00:36:30] Avery: Exactly curiosity is your friend, because if something you're working on goes sideways, you can be like, huh. Interesting. Why that happened. then that helps you.

[00:36:40] Damaged Parents: I think it's Adam Grant that says something to the effect of, basically like do an experiment and, see what happens because something about a good experiment with a bad outcome is better than just going at it without any insiders.

I can't remember, but if I can look at my life as an experiment,

[00:37:01] Avery: Absolutely.

[00:37:04] Damaged Parents: Maybe there is no finish line.

[00:37:05] Avery: Yeah. And so I always talk about like our, the way that I see our purpose is to learn about who we are by learning about who are not. So when something doesn't go well, it'd be like, Hey, so that's a not category. Cool. Let's keep figuring it out because we will learn by figuring out what doesn't fit.

[00:37:26] Damaged Parents: Yeah.

[00:37:27] Avery: the way we figure it out.

[00:37:28] Damaged Parents: Yeah, who are we? Can't we can't really figure out who we are until we figure out who we're not.

[00:37:33] Avery: Exactly.

[00:37:34] Damaged Parents: That's really interesting. Okay. What would be if someone is. In your position that you were back in when the whole thing with nursing was happening and your life is just starting to, maybe it's starting to feel like it's crumble, or maybe you just felt like maybe someone out there might just feel like they need to change.

What would you've already given us some tips and tools, but what are your top three? Like, Hey, if you're here now, maybe try this.

[00:37:58] Avery: So my top suggestion is to find a community of people that understand a little bit of what you're going through and can help just listen. And the reason why I say this. Hopefully we've got enough time for this. It's another little bit of research that talks about stress. But there was this research study done. With a group of women that were mothers of special needs children.

And so they looked at everybody's DNA before they started the study and our DNA is wound up next to tightly and these little spirals. And it's got this little cap on top of it. It's called telomere. And so this little cap on top when we're under a prolonged stress, Such as like what I was going through, what other people are going through with these really difficult times that we're living in, that cap starts to wear away.

And then the DNA starts to unravel and that's what leads to stress-related illnesses like cancer or other kinds of growths and tumors and things like which what I had on my thyroid. And so, they looked at all of their DNA at the beginning. A lot of the women had these unraveled bits of DNA with no telomeres.

But then these women just sat in a group and they just talked about stuff. They shared their stresses. They shared their frustrations, shared their emotions in the safe space. There was no facilitation, there was no program. It was just talking, listening and being understood. And at the end of the eight weeks, they looked at their DNA.

Again, their DNA had wound back up and the telomeres had reformed. So they actually be able to heal their body from some of the damage from that chronic stress. Just by connecting with other people. So even though you feel like you were alone, that this.

is really challenging, you feel so vulnerable. Look for a safe space where you can talk, be heard and be understood because that'll have a profound impact on you, your health and your body.

[00:39:45] Damaged Parents: yeah, like that. That's beautiful.

[00:39:48] Avery: I thought so too, our bodies are amazing. There are some design flaws to be honest, but that one is really cool that we can do that just with connection.

[00:39:55] Damaged Parents: And then, so that was your first one. Did you have two more? I think that was the first one. Right. Did you have two more that you just absolutely. I'm thinking I know what one of them is, but

[00:40:05] Avery: Ooh. Now I'm curious. So what you're thinking,

[00:40:07] Damaged Parents: I know.

[00:40:08] Avery: Okay. So aside from getting connection with other people, also learning how to release the emotion and stored stress in your body. So we are the only animal on the planet that doesn't know. Shake after a stressful event, if you look at an antelope on the Serengeti in Africa, that narrowly avoids getting eaten by line, it stands there and it shakes after and it's called somatic release and it's a way to let that stress out.

And so on a regular basis. I actually do it once a week in one of the yoga classes that I teach. And we literally just stand there and bounce and shake our arms and dance around and on the move because it releases starts stress from your body. So that's another thing that you can do in that space. When you're really going through a lot is to be able to release some of that extra stored

chemical in your body. And then the last piece is to really connect to who you are at the core. You are not your job. You are not a relationship. You are not your family, your children, your spouse, you are not any of those things. You are who you are at your core and understanding those core values. Those core drives.

That's really helpful when you're moving through something, that's changing your identity.

[00:41:25] Damaged Parents: Yeah. And based on what you said earlier, I would think that takes that breathing

[00:41:29] Avery: The breathing and self-compassion for sure, but I didn't want to just jump back to those. I was like, I have time to do something else.

[00:41:35] Damaged Parents: I know. I love it. I love it. That was actually what I was thinking. It was going to be the 5, 5, 5,

[00:41:40] Avery: Yeah. So please don't forget those. Cause those are really good, but

I didn't want to miss an opportunity to squeak somewhere ideas and.

[00:41:46] Damaged Parents: oh no. That's I think it's great because I think in order to get to the core, if we don't breathe, we can't, I think it's really hard to get there.

[00:41:55] Avery: Agreed.

[00:41:56] Damaged Parents: impossible.

[00:41:57] Avery: Yes. Very challenging for sure.

[00:41:59] Damaged Parents: Yeah, thank you so much, Avery Thatcher for being on the show, you can find her at @TheUltimateLifeSurvivalGuide on Instagram and also her website, https://theultimatelifesurvivalguide.com what a great story and what a great conversation. Thank you so much.

[00:42:16] Avery: Well, Thank you so much. Angela. It was my pleasure.

[00:42:18] Damaged Parents: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Relatively Damaged by Damaged Parents. We really enjoyed talking to Avery about how she has been able to find peace by changing her name. We especially liked when she spoke about our inner critic and how sometimes it's helpful. And sometimes it's not To unite with other damaged people. Connect with us on Instagram. Look for damaged parents. We'll be here next week still relatively damaged see you then