Forging Resilience
Join us as we explore experiences and stories to help gain fresh insights into the art of resilience and the true meaning of success.
Whether you're seeking to overcome personal challenges, enhance your leadership skills, or simply navigate life's twists and turns, "Forging Resilience" offers a unique and inspiring perspective for you to apply in your own life.
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Forging Resilience
S3 Ep 82 Dr. Rebecca Nicholson: Healing Moral Injuries
What happens when everything you believe about yourself and your purpose suddenly collapses? When the institutions and systems you trusted betray your core values? Dr. Rebecca Nicholson, who works at the intersection of conflict healing and resilience, guides us through the challenging terrain of moral injury—a profound identity crisis that affects people from all walks of life.
The conversation opens a window into understanding conflict at its deepest levels. Dr. Nicholson explains how moral injury differs from ordinary struggles, comprising three critical elements: a legitimate authority you believed in, feelings of guilt and shame, and an existential crisis where you no longer understand your place in the world. This often manifests when people realize years of effort and sacrifice within a system were ultimately meaningless, leading to what she describes as "anhedonia"—the breakdown of the brain's reward system where nothing feels worthwhile anymore.
We explore the devastating consequences: broken relationships, substance abuse, and suicide risk. Yet through Dr. Nicholson's expertise, we also discover paths toward healing that conventional approaches often miss. Her work in unconventional healing addresses the whole person—emotionally, mentally, physically, and spiritually—offering hope where traditional methods have failed. Particularly fascinating is her identification of three characteristics that help people recover: flexibility in identity, motivation driven by service to others rather than personal gain, and the ability to redefine success beyond conventional measures.
Whether you're facing your own crisis of meaning, supporting someone through difficult transitions, or simply curious about the deeper dimensions of human resilience, this episode offers profound insights into how we survive and ultimately thrive when our foundations are shaken to the core.
Connect with Rebecca on LinkedIn or through her website.
Welcome to Forging Resilience, exploring for a different perspective on strength and leadership. Join me as we discuss experiences and stories with guests to help gain fresh insights around challenge, success and leadership. Today's guest is Dr Rebecca Nicholson.
Speaker 2:She works at the intersection of conflict healing and resilience. She works at the intersection of conflict healing and resilience. From frontline settings to boardrooms. She helps people navigate their inner battles that most don't have words for, yet they shape them.
Speaker 1:Rebecca, welcome to the show. It's great to have you today.
Speaker 2:Thank you. I did a post the other day, or today in fact, asking for some advice and feedback on this little podcast project. I've got going and one of the things was to try and smile potentially when I'm asking my questions, which I thought was really interesting, and I definitely catch myself going all serious. So I'm going to try and apply that straight today. But yeah, I just want to check in before we get going. How are you doing today, rebecca's? What's going on for you?
Speaker 3:well, my immediate thing is I'm laughing because I've never heard men get told to smile. I get, I get really intense and I forget to all the time. I have to remind myself because I really concentrate. It doesn't mean I'm unhappy or anything like that, I'm just very concentrated so but then I forget. It makes people feel more comfortable, so you should do that yeah, I'm.
Speaker 2:I think this point this guy was alluding to. Is it that, um, there's a warmth to the voice rather than yeah, like you, I'm. I'm deeply connected to my gut and my heart with the question and I'm not thinking so. It's concentration 100 that I wonder what if I it would look like if I could do concentrate and have a gentle smirk at the same time.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, well, let's see what happens we forge ahead and see what happens rebecca, one of the uh, really interesting things that that drew me to ask for a conversation with you is is is the the work you do around moral conflict, um, and unconventional healing, um, so it help us understand what conflict is and what moral conflict is I will.
Speaker 3:Conflict is the real or perceived blocking of goals between two or more interdependent parties. You can categorize it in content, relational process or identity. So you can organize your conflict. And there are a lot of different ways that you can resolve conflict, from formal settings to informal and unconventional ways, which is more where I go, because usually when I reach people they've tried the other ways and nothing's working. So we have to look at some other directions. The other piece, the moral conflict, how I've come to adapt my work, is I look at conflict in these four different domains, so I look at emotional, mental, physical and spiritual, and moral conflict is its experience in each one of those, the work with moral injury that I'm. So I'll stop there. No, go for it.
Speaker 2:Roll on Okay.
Speaker 3:Moral injury, for example. I met you in the course of doing this research that I'm conducting right now, so I speak with retired operators and find out what happens with them. So, with moral conflict, there's sometimes things that occur which they affront your core values, your core identity, who you think you are In. Moral injury that's the term that's currently used. I think I'll come up with another by the end of it. There are three major issues. So moral injury is, it's a form of identity crisis. So inner conflict to the hilt.
Speaker 3:It has three different elements to it. There's a legitimate authority, so you think you're doing something for a particular reason. It didn't come out of nowhere. And then something happens. There's guilt and shame attached to it, so I should have done something differently, or there's something wrong with me because of what happened. And then the third element is existential crisis.
Speaker 3:So this is where it goes from sometimes. So it goes from we don't understand our place in the world anymore because of something that's happened. It's shaken us so badly. Really, still adhering to that definition, I can still see this applied a lot of different places in society. And so, to circle back to the original question, when we think we're doing our best in this world and we go about our jobs, our families, our relationships, doing what we think is right and what we've been told is right, doing what we think is right and what we've been told is right. And then something happens and our identity is ripped away from us. We don't know who we are anymore or what we're doing in the world anymore. That's really. That's the type of inner conflict and moral conflict that I deal with so I?
Speaker 2:it sounds to me like, then, that potentially, uh, a moral injury is almost like a fast track for for a crisis earlier on in life than it may have or may or not happened could. Could that be right? Because you've got you've some, you've got certain beliefs, some things happened, and then that rug is pulled away from from underneath your feet Because you've got certain beliefs, something's happened, and then that rug is pulled away from underneath your feet.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, yes, you have it. We're looking at the spatial element when we're talking here. So why I started the research is because I'm seeing it defined in literature like this one thing that happened. And it's not just this one thing that happened. It's like you just said, our identity culminates over a period of time and it crystallizes because of a lot of different experiences. So when we come to that place where we have betrayed our core selves, where we have betrayed our core selves, that's been a long time coming and that's like.
Speaker 2:so, when we shatter our own identity of ourselves, yeah, that's years in the making, so it's extremely detrimental to a person so I guess, I guess then, if I look at my own scenario, that could, that could be also potentially something just like an authenticity, because I've been playing a game or acting a certain way or saying certain things that wasn't quite me. But to try and fit in and assume acceptance is the same sort of thing potentially.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, that if I understand you correctly, that idea of you're doing some things, they're not exactly you. But I can forego my true self a little bit because I'm trying to fit through the process, because it's going to help me accomplish my goals and help me with this greater inner mission that I have. I mean not intermission inner mission which comes from inside us. Do I understand you right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, pretty much, and that can be the way that I acted and behaved in social settings, specifically drink and behavior, just to try and fit in Because everyone else does or did. Well, that's my assumption and I wonder would I have had the self-awareness to do anything about that? Anyway?
Speaker 3:so with that, so like, like. We'll apply that scenario to oral injury. It's not that itself, but that's part of it. So imagine you're doing things that aren't exactly you, they don't exactly fit like you know, like you kind of squirm when you do them, but you have to just suck it up and go about how you because you think this is the way to accomplish what you're trying to accomplish.
Speaker 3:Moral injury occurs when you see all of that was for nothing. You did all of that and it didn't get you anywhere. It got you absolutely it did not. So this is where the institutional betrayal comes in. You were told by the institution and this could be society, this could like. Sometimes it's in military, this is in social contracts, in like what marriage is supposed to be, what government is supposed to be, you know what higher education, all of these things that are promised to yield you some result. And so you've acted in a way that's out of your character. But you're trying so hard to reach that result and typically it's not a selfish reason, it's because you're trying to do good for a lot of people, so you go outside it. Then there comes the point when you realize none of that mattered. You can't outsmart a system. You can't outsmart the system. You become carnage of the system. And then you wonder what the hell was I doing? What was all of this for that's the moral injury part.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so in your experience, what happens to people when they can't answer that question? What was all this for?
Speaker 3:This when they can't answer that question. What was all this for? It varies. The first thing is when I was studying the literature, the literature for moral injury and the literature for a spiritually transformative experience are identical. Transformative experience are identical, and the way that I could identify them is because of divorce rates, substance abuse, suicides.
Speaker 3:That's what happens. It impairs your relationships, it impairs your occupation, it impairs your psychology. It affects every area of your life, because what has happened now is you had an understanding of who you were and an understanding of the world that you're operating in. Then you find out the world you thought you're operating in. It's not that, it's not that at all. It doesn't exist.
Speaker 3:So usually people have seen a lot. You've been exposed to too much. You can't unsee it. So in esoteric terms I'll talk about, the veil has been ripped off your eyes. Now the world is something different. Now you have to figure out who you are and who you are in this world, in this new world that you see. So it's not pleasant. It sounds terrible right now. There are great things that happen from it, because what has happened is all of the constructed identities that you've taken on, they're all gone. So now you really see what you're about.
Speaker 3:But in the course of that you're hitting rock bottom of your psyche. It's a very difficult process, it's a very painful process, it's a very lonely process and when you have there's a condition, it's a psychological condition, anhedonia, and it is the breakdown of the brain's reward system. And it is the breakdown of the brain's reward system. So, even if you could, you know for how many years you've been doing this really hard work because you think eventually it's going to pay off. And then you come to this point where it's not going to pay off. It wasn't for anything, it's not going to amount to anything. Well, your brain's reward system, why bother? Because there's no reward. There's no reward for the hard work, there's no reward for anything. That's where the suicide comes in. Or when people think about why bother? Nothing's happened so far, so why should I bother, continuing? That's the space where I find a lot of people.
Speaker 2:There are good answers to that, but that's the that's, that's the hard part so if we were to rewind a few years and and pick up young men and young women that let's make the assumption that the majority, given that your research is done with um operators, people that served in the military could it. Could there be an antidote, then, of self-discovery that went on before they went into these certain situations to almost injury prevention? Yes and what might? What might that look like then, if that existed?
Speaker 3:actually, it does exist. It's not terribly popular right now, but it does exist, and by terribly popular, I mean it's. I'll explain. Operator syndrome is a framework that explains what happens, and this is specifically for operators. So this is what happens to your body, what typically happens with families, what happens with your relationship, what happens to your body, what typically happens with families, what happens with your relationship, what happens to just everything that happens and what I'm talking about. It's included in that existential crisis.
Speaker 3:If you were aware of that, you could see two things differently. You might have regular medical checkups, for example, if you were aware that your relationships might suffer, you might look a little more carefully at what exactly causes the relationships to suffer. So, rather than going into a marriage, for example, with ideas of what it is, you might be more realistic about it and then take preventive measures for where others have not succeeded, where you would like to succeed. So there's also in a war sense. You can understand the tactics of your adversaries and some things that are done specifically to make you feel like you want to die because you've witnessed something so terrible. Sometimes that's theater that's done just for that purpose, so you can learn about it. You can learn beforehand about what that type of trauma looks like.
Speaker 3:Actually, I was speaking with a woman in the Air Force and she said that prior to deployment, when she was commanding, she told her people about this, about what to expect, and it worked. But preventive care is not something when I said earlier about it's not popular. There's an idea that if you tell people about what happens, they might not want to go, they might not want to do these jobs. That's actually not the case case, not the case at all. But there that's where some hesitation takes place.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there are lots of things you can do, find out about it yeah, excuse me so I from what I'm hearing you saying as well, and then just gently holding my own lens of experience up to what you're speaking in terms of my service, but the things that I've seen and done as well in life. I guess part of that is the judgment aspect of ourselves as well, and it's something we talked about just become before coming on on air that the sense of nerves that I feel before these conversations, um, I have a very different opinion of that judgment, although, yeah, I have a very different judgment of those sensations in my body before I record or before I give a talk. I don't judge myself as much, but I'm aware that the potential for judgment is there, but I don't make that mean anything. What did you used?
Speaker 3:to make it mean.
Speaker 2:Good question. I knew there'd be a question. It's my way, I know it is. Yeah, that. So it's self-doubt, and that volume would get louder and louder, and louder, so that the inner critic would be screaming and shouting and it just, if it goes on for long enough, you can start to believe it and then I'll find evidence for it. So tripping up over my intro is potential for that. So I can feel that judgment, but I can let that go quite quickly. Maybe really cares. B minus work. It's done, it's out there. This is the conversation that's important, is important. Um, so, and now, as I alluded to that sense of nerves for me, I choose to see it as a privilege. Uh, I'm alive, I'm well in in connection with with myself and what's going on internally.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, that's what I make it mean now when I get nervous, and every time before I speak I get nervous. I dream about it usually. If I'm, if we're in person, if if I was at a podium, I would be shaking, so I'd need to hold on to something. I get nervous every single time and the way I interpret it which I would hand over to you as well if you want it it's because you're doing something important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I care as well. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, I think I mentioned that to you off screen as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I care, not everybody feels that.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, not everybody feels that, or they misinterpretate that so that I'm no good or I can't deal with this.
Speaker 3:And I think it's quite easy to snowball then Just because you're scared of something is not a good reason not to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a great catch. So what's the sort of impact then that you're seeing on a societal level of moral injury within the States or within your research, the confines of your research?
Speaker 3:Those are very different questions.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:I'm happy to answer either it's, but just where would you like to go?
Speaker 2:yeah, I think the first one was within the states.
Speaker 3:We have a president right now who's continuing from a previous term, where things are happening that are unprecedented. That's different than illegal. There's lots of things that are happening that are unprecedented, and so what we are seeing are the flaws in the system, flaws in our political system, where fail-safes should be, and we're watching our government and some of us holding our breath, seeing if it's really going to hold up. So an institution, the government, the government, the judiciary, the legislature we're watching what happens.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I guess then that's a reflection of a wider truth within society the disconnection, the struggle.
Speaker 3:I'm thinking about how to answer your question, but I'll tell you exactly where my mind goes. When I started my career, I started in politics, so I started since when I was a teenager I started on campaigns. I was very interested in how close you could get to power. You could be in the same room as people then who would hold office. I didn't understand why everybody wasn't doing that. That. I probably.
Speaker 3:I don't know why they let me in, but I got to be in there and I got to hear a lot of things and see a lot of things and then new people, like when you're in, like I was in the Capitol in Pennsylvania I was never in Washington, but I was in the Capitol in Pennsylvania and when you go out, you go out with it's, the, it's everybody's there. So you see all the people who hold office like you get to see them as people, not people from a distance. They're drinking beside you. I used to drink for the governor's detail. So you get a very different vantage point and so from that I did not continue in politics for very specific reasons. But what I did learn definitely in that was who people say they are and who they are are not the same thing. So whatever you see as a public statement, I don't believe any of it.
Speaker 3:I watch what they do, I watch where their money comes from, I watch who they accept from. So I've grown up with a very different view of the political system, not in a partisan way, just looking at like. I was partisan to start with, so I've looked at it from a different way. But the idea that politicians are your saviors, which some people have, this idea and the United States politics has become the new religion to me, where you just follow these people. They haven't done anything for you. I'm talking both sides. They haven't done anything for you. I'm talking both side, like they haven't done anything for you for years, but they know you don't want to go to the other side. So so I'm just, I'm watching it now and experiencing it in a very particular way yeah and hearing people yeah yeah, um, can I make an?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm going to directly ask you have you had your own struggle then, in terms of moral injury and conflict, given your experience with working and you don't have to give details and if that is the case, how did you work yourself through that?
Speaker 3:The answer is yes, and that is why I know the difference between institutional betrayal, spiritual crisis and existential dilemma. They're very different things. They're very convoluted in moral injury literature right now, so I have gone through them and the benefit of that is I can see it, I know what to test for, I know what questions to ask and then, as I'm putting things like stepping forward and doing my analysis and findings, I can articulate that so that people can find their experience and then know what to do with it, how to go with it. They can understand that the moment they're in is not the end. It's not going to stay there.
Speaker 2:It's a a moment of crisis, but you have a very different life after that and and could you allude to a couple of things that you did then, rebecca, to work yourself through through that situation?
Speaker 3:let me think how to answer that. It's a great question. Now I'm thinking back to politics, like who we say we. When you're going through this process, the way like okay, so let me say, like the way I would describe it imagine the psyche, so the way you make sense of things. Imagine it's a world. Imagine that world gets bombed and there's nothing left. That's kind of where you're starting, so you don't know how to make sense of anything anymore. So the difference in who you say you are versus who you are becomes clear at a granule level and being very it's being brought to your attention where you have these internal hypocrisies and just things that you don't really want to see about yourself. It's good at the other end but, god, it hurts when you're going through it. It is extremely humbling.
Speaker 3:Usually, your profession will change your direction, will change the inner motivations that you have. Maybe this may be similar, but how you do it will be very, very different what we were talking about before, about things you do that they're not exactly you, but you need to get to a certain place. I can't do that anymore. I've had a couple opportunities where I could have made a great deal of money if I was a little vague on. I can't do it. I can't do it. So it's its own freedom and its own trap at the same time. But you're a very different person at the end of it, in a good way, in a really good way. I've met other people who have gone through this and there are different levels. I've met people on the way they're falling lower, but they don't know they're falling lower and they're trying to hold on and I know where it's going. And then there's some people who have had to crash out.
Speaker 3:That's a different animal, but the way, one foot in front of the other, one day at a time. Long-term plans don't really. You've seen the fallacy of them when you're in that position. So just really, one day at a time, get a routine, take care of your physical health, learn how to breathe. Seen the fallacy of them when you're in that position. So, just really, one day at a time.
Speaker 2:Get a routine. Take care of your physical health. Learn how to breathe. What.
Speaker 3:I'm interpreting that is presence and connection you have to get really grounded in the real world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, early on you talked about unconventional healing, which is something that's interesting to me and quite unknown. So what? What does unconventional healing look like? How might you describe that to to the listeners? We're aware of what conventional healing looks like, so when we think about that.
Speaker 3:We think about to the listeners. We're aware of what conventional healing looks like. So when we think about that, we think about going to the doctor, we think about medication, we think about our diet plan, standard things. Unconventional healing takes from traditional indigenous practices, things that have been around for a long time, things that are very likely discredited by Western elites. Those are actually practices, things that have been around for a long time, things that are very likely discredited by Western elites. That's what I found the most helpful and that's why I practice them right now.
Speaker 3:People will ask me, when I was in the worst of it, like, what modality did you use? I got a reading from somebody. I didn't know. I didn't even know what it was. I was on the phone with somebody and this person said all of these things to me that I had never said to anybody, but yet that was what was on my soul, that was what troubled me. And this person said all those things to me, said exactly the way that I felt and I was like and then here's what's coming, here's the future, and that's actually I would say. I was at my bottom moment when that happened and that's what gave me the hope to keep going. Then, after that, I learned I was never. This was just. I never did these things.
Speaker 3:I grew up very religious. I never did these things, so it wasn't like I had a curiosity, it just came to me. I started learning about Vedic astrology and in that you have the 27 stages of the soul, and so when you understand what your placements are, you understand what your particular path is, and everybody's path is different. Even if you have the same placements, you'll have different aspects, but everybody's path is very particular. So then you can see the trials that you have in the life. So all the things that you took on and thought that you know, like for me, like I thought, oh my, I messed this all up, I could have done this differently, I wasn't smart enough, I should have figured this out, and people feel the same about a lot of this.
Speaker 3:Then you find out no, this is exactly what the path looks like and at a spiritual level, you were meant to fail on the physical plane, because here's what's happening for you spiritually. It's like when we were talking before, when all of these linear, worldly ideas that we have about ourselves, when those get stripped away, then you find out who you really are and not everybody can take that, but if you can look that in the face and move forward, that's a very different life you have. That's also the time that I became aware that I had different abilities to tap into alternate states of reality. So now I can access those and I can access those for other people, and these are things I found incredibly helpful, incredibly helpful. Was that what you were asking me?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, it was yeah and and so what it sounds like you're describing to me is almost that. Yeah, yeah, it's therapeutic on a level because there's a healing that comes from it, but it's just a different way of doing it because we've not been brought up around those sorts of practices or teaching. And I'm curious you talked about astrology there and, likewise, I was brought up in a Christian household, so for me this was almost shunned, um, misunderstood, um. I recorded a podcast just today talking about god and our beliefs and and how the the guest really wrestled with some of this, uh, deep man of faith. It's really fascinating conversation, um, but how much of astrology is open to interpretation? I guess my ego is trying to say is what is said done to the letter?
Speaker 3:Placements are different. So, for example, you can have, I'll tell you like, mars and the 8th house. Mars has to do with the body. The 8th house has to do with hidden things, psychological things, control. There are two women who had Mars in the 8th house. There are two women who had mars in the eighth house. One of them was devoutly religious and bulimic. So we're dealing with subconscious things and then the body in control of the body. She controlled her body by being bulimic. The other one was a dominatrix. So it depends on the placements, it depends on what's going on. There's like you're not one placement, you are a whole chart, like you are. You are many, many things.
Speaker 3:If you're asking another question, like, does it defy or move against religion? Move against religion? I've never seen that. I was also raised like that, where we were told that you're not supposed to seek these things out.
Speaker 3:I have a couple of family members who believe strongly that I'm doing the devil's work and don't have anything to do with me anymore, but with religion and with all of these different modalities where we're trying to understand ourselves at deeper levels. That's why we're involved in them, not because they're. We're talking about states of life that are not enjoyable and we're trying to find ways to make meaning of them. So this is why we reach to these other non-linear ways of experiencing ourself and understanding ourself. Any method that brings you peace, that challenges you for your development, that allows your psyche to heal and rest, those are all positive, whatever direction they come from.
Speaker 3:I've never heard an astrologer say don't be a Christian. But from the other side, from some, we hear that a lot. The very first training I was in for it was a healing class and there were all these old ladies in the class. They were all mediums. They were all lifelong Christians, all ostracized by their families. The reason that you do mediumship is because it brings people healing. It answers questions that cannot otherwise be answered. So people are comfortable with different things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. So again, if we turn to the example of a veteran who's suffering from, let's say, ptsd and has sought traditional healing, what might unconventional healing look like as a process for them? What sort of things are they going to go through? In terms of the not the diagnosis, but the format of the hearing.
Speaker 3:I don't quite know how to corporalize that, but let's look a little closer when we're talking about this veteran. What's going on with him or her? Yeah, so I can answer you better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay. So I guess I guess they suicidal tendencies or have tried to take their own life and they're really, really struggling. They've probably had a rough childhood. They've served in the military, They've seen things and they've either left or getting towards the end of their career and everything's becoming too much and they're looking to find a way out.
Speaker 3:Okay, so then, with this person, are they open to anything? And I'm just going to make a suggestion.
Speaker 2:I'm making this person up, so I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no.
Speaker 3:So pose me your question again with this individual.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what would an unconventional healing path potentially look like for that person?
Speaker 3:okay, this conventionally therapies will look at, or medicine will look at, one piece of an individual or one piece of that person's life. When I'm conducting my research, which is also based in conventional Western methods, the unconventional healing looks at the person who's in front of you and you're considering that soul. So this moment that they feel it, this is one moment of their life, this is a snapshot of their life. So what unconventional methods do is give you the context of that moment, the greater context of who that person is, where they are, how it's been for them, acknowledging these things at a really deep level, and then also it provides them the comfort of validating it has been just as bad as you think it is. And then offering the optimism and the hope of but here's what's going to happen next, because this will not last forever. The hope of, but here's what's going to happen next, because this will not last forever. And then, depending on what you use and there are different modalities for it there are specific things that you can do.
Speaker 3:If you look at the chart, you can see the specific trials that the people have, and so there are some things that what I want is not what my sister wants, it's not what your wife wants. Like, women are not all the same, men are not all the same. We're very, very like. Each of us. We're very different people. So what might be super easy for you might just destroy me. I don't even know how to approach it, and you would not understand why is this such a big deal for me? Because it's so easy for you. Well, this is what you learn when you look at the chart, because there are some things that we are so good at we assume everyone else is good at. We don't know that we are exceptional at this. So, like there might be your work, it's so easy for you that you don't even think it's a thing. You don't even acknowledge that thing. You don't even acknowledge that. You don't even acknowledge something that is extraordinary within yourself because it's so normal to you.
Speaker 2:That's another way that it works I kind of feel like I'm going to rewind a little bit and and again for my own clarification. But also I'm really curious to understand your definition. But what does spirituality actually mean to you?
Speaker 3:I have a slide with this, but it's looking at when we think of religion. That's like a religious structure, that's the expression of something. I'm talking about, that pure essence that connects us, that connects each of us with the universe. But that very pure connection, that part I'm sorry I can't remember the way that it's translated. I don't want to say psyche is not the word for it.
Speaker 2:It's like I'm a 10-year-old and I want to get it. It's like I'm a 10 year old and I want to get it. I want to try. And, yeah, how, how might you explain it to a young kid or somebody that's really struggling with it?
Speaker 3:this is how I would is, if you can think of a memory that you were the happiest you've ever been. It could be as a child, it could be as an adult. Like the happiest, just the pure joy, like when you hear a little kid laugh, something like that. Like it's just, it's a delight, it's just so happy, it's like something where you've got no trouble, just like that, that pure joy, that, that and so. That's what we're connecting with, that, that and so. That's what we're connecting with, that's what we're looking to connect with. I have felt that in church. I have felt that in places other than church there's not one outlet for it. We have many ways that we can connect with that, but some say with the divine. But if you don't buy into the divine I don know, but that's the way I would describe it that's like it's that particular sensation that it just reaches you, just the purest, cleanest state that there is. And I did not like, I just destroyed that. I like your question. I should have been better prepared.
Speaker 2:No, no, that's fine.
Speaker 2:I I I'm aware that I get to speak to some really incredible people with a really awesome experience, and it's quite easy sometimes to be intimidated the right word yeah, I guess so with their experience or qualifications, but I can also catch that and bring it back down and that's where the curiosity kicks in and I know people appreciate, yeah, can you help me break that down type of mentality as well?
Speaker 2:So, if I can help myself understand it and I know that arrives for other people and so, yeah, I from what I'm hearing again is that connection, connection to presence. And the example I give myself is when you go on holiday and you arrive at the beach and you jump into the sea and it's either slightly warmer than you've remembered or slightly fresher, but it's just that, that complete, yeah, physical sensation of everything being washed away and in that moment you're not thinking about work or the bills, or the argument you had with your wife or your husband, or politics, or a conflict in this country, or that. It's just complete connection to yourself and in this case, the seawater. That's what I think connection, your present.
Speaker 3:I think you really got it, yep.
Speaker 2:I think we can probably just end it now. I feel like I'm joking.
Speaker 3:But again, because that sensation, if you think of when you're in a really tough moment, that particular sensation, you remember that the world is okay, you're okay, you're going to be I don't know how like work, forgive me, words belittle the actual sensation of it yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2:I gave a speech to a school the other day, um 80, 90 students and and I. It was an awesome experience for me. I think it's only 10 or 12 minutes I spoke for, but I had the courage. Just, you know, I like to pause a lot. Um, as some of my friends are catching on, those pauses are getting slightly longer, so I have to check I don't turn into my gran, who also closes her eyes and looks up when she pauses, but anyway, um, it was an awesome experience just to stand there just before I started, just scan the room and be silent for maybe three or five seconds.
Speaker 2:That's what I want to say. It felt like an eternity, but the noise inside of my chest, the constriction in my stomach, I chose to see that as connection to myself and that's really quite awesome to feel, rather than, once upon a time, I'm nervous, I've not got this. There's no doubt they can see me shaking, sweating, um, yeah, why is he even stopped? Why is he not even started? So, yeah, that that's. That's. That's what I think I am learning to understand spirituality, meaning a connection to myself and that which I'm experiencing, irregardless of if it's the warm seawater on holiday or the pure joy of a baby and good, for want of a better expression or the negative, and the challenge, or the struggle, or the fear.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's this term called spiritual bypassing, and it's when you're trying to cognitively take the lesson, but you don't actually get it in your cells. And so what you're talking about, about being in these moments there where the sensation is not something that you're used to or not something that you're necessarily loving, but like it's just, it's the real moment.
Speaker 2:I think that's that's where it's at rebecca, in terms of your research, the people that you've worked with and supported, the people that have recovered from moral injury or and conflict. What are some of the characteristics that that you see in them?
Speaker 3:do you mean that help them?
Speaker 2:yeah, okay, let's take, yeah, let's go for that.
Speaker 3:That that's helped them there are, I like this question. There are three characteristics that I've seen that are, I think, instrumental in what your progress is going to be like, and I'll explain them. One is identity, one is motivation and one is your version of success version of success.
Speaker 3:So, with identity, we are okay, so I'm going to draw the conventional versus unconventional, so I'm going to say the linear versus the nonlinear world. So the linear world. We are told that we are supposed to be this way. If you are a man, then this is what you do. If you're a woman, then this is what you do. If you're a serious person, this is how you dress. If you have this profession. This is what it means about you. If you're a serious person, this is how you dress. If you have this profession. This is what it means about you. If you have this type of dwelling. It means thus so we have all these things put on us, and if you want to tell if somebody's really made it in the world or is really worth something, look at their bank account. So we have all these things, all these things of what we're supposed to be, and they are piled onto us daily, by the minute. So what I've noticed? The idea of identity. Who you think you are, the more fixed the identity it's like with operators, the ones who are like yes, I'm an operator, I'm like you put a lot of work into that. The people who are really, really stuck on that. The transitions into the different periods of life are much more difficult because you're this, which means you do things this way and so like, and this, this pertains to everything. So there are people, um, with gender, with religion, with, um, just ethnicity like we do things this way, okay. So if you do things this way, you've made a lot of choices about how you don't do things, and unconventional approaches are that's everything, that's not in the parameters of normal, those are all the other things. So you've left all those possibilities off the table. So the less fixed one's identity is, the more fluid. Instead of like I am this on the outside, if your identity comes from stuff like I'm this kind of person, these are the things I do, and you identify it like that. I've seen that ease the transition considerably.
Speaker 3:The second item is motivation, and we always like to say intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. But no lie, like we were talking about before, there are so many things that are piled on our head for expectations of what we're supposed to do, so your motivation gets a little screwed up. So people who do the best that I've seen and who become the most resilient, who are the most resilient, their motivation is I'm trying to do this and what I've seen, they're usually trying to do it for other people. So they're having a terrible time with things, with circumstances, with life events, like everything falls apart. But the whole time they're doing it they were just trying to do better things for people. They're trying to make a better world, they're trying to create safer circumstances, they're trying to make it so more people can eat and be healthy. And then, when things fall apart, they're like, oh my God. So let's go back to the motivation. If you're looking from a worldly sense, from a conventional sense, maybe your motivation is supposed to make money. Your motivation is supposed to make you have some type of title. But if your motivation is to see people healthy, maybe you start in your family, maybe you start in your community. You start with places that don't award you any esteem, but you're still doing that work. So what your motivation is really matters and you'll have a lot more flexibility with how you go after what you're trying to do.
Speaker 3:And then the third item success. Like what your idea of success is, and that's something that we're talking. We're both in countries that you know. We woke up in beds, we had breakfast, we're not displaced people, you know. We're not in detention centers Like we're okay, we're doing really, really well. But the idea of success, like when I was reading and learning about refugees they're doctors, they're people who have had huge like they've had, they've worked so hard and they've had these lives and then by nothing that they've done, it all gets torn away from them, right? So what's your idea of success? So you can do a lot more if you're not looking how to say, like, what your idea of success is. So if you're still trying to prove to the external, or if you're still trying to make your way, like, make some mark, like who are you trying to be successful for? What is success? That's something that if you're able to adjust that in a way that still has meaning for you, that I've seen be resilient.
Speaker 2:So the identity, the motivation, motivation and one's idea of success love it and there's there's some big questions there to be asked. You, you've touched on it, so I'm glad that's come up. So, yeah, resilient and resilience. I'm curious as to your, your interpretation, definition of that rather than the formal one. Um, and and yeah, how does that again play out in people's healing, the ability to be resilient?
Speaker 3:I look at resilience as the ability to adapt in a healthy manner to drastically changing circumstances and still be able to live your mission Because you can survive. But if you're not doing what you feel like you were born to do, you're not feeling like you're living to your potential. Why bother? So I look at it for those two pieces. And then what was the second part of the question?
Speaker 2:That's a great question, sorry, yeah, well, I would rephrase it then um, as I've forgotten the second part, but how? How can people practice or implement those, that of resilience in terms of their healing?
Speaker 3:A big one is and I don't say this lightly, but calming down about what you think your life is and what you think the world owes you. And I will explain that because I didn't get it at first. I was upset, for example, of my problems. So I'm a white woman living in the United States. I've met a lot of people from a lot of other areas I could, as a baseline things could have been a lot worse, just starting out. There are. So, yeah, what you think this world is.
Speaker 3:I remember being in Liberia and the man who was driving around the car. This is like post-war, like after the civil war, so around 2007, 2008,. He was a photojournalist and now he's driving the car for people in the NGOs, like he doesn't get to go back and do what he did. He can't make money off that. The country's in shambles and there are lots of people like that. So there was another. There was something else that it stayed with me A man I was talking with and I'm taking this point from him and he said his former wife.
Speaker 3:She studied to be an attorney and then before it was in the 60s when she was going to take the test. So you have to do it manually. At that point she was in a car accident and suffered a neurological condition where she couldn't hold the pencil. So she did all of that and then she can't be an attorney because she can't take the test we're told in this that's why I go for unconventional because we're told in this conventional manner that if you go to school, if you have a family, if you do and say the things you're supposed to say and do, if you dress the way you're supposed to, like, that it's going to yield you some result.
Speaker 3:The world is very different than that. So we but so I say like we grow up thinking that, like I'm trying to not to use the word entitled, but like that that something's going to happen for us, and when it's not the case, we're staggered by that. Didn't see that coming. So like, so that just relax with what you think you should have and see what the world needs, and that's more where, maybe, to direct your mission yeah, and a great place to start, I think, is, is with ourselves, isn't it just like you said, yeah, with ourselves, rebecca.
Speaker 2:I'm going to start to wind it up very shortly, but I'm curious is there anything that we've not talked about that you'd like to mention?
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, yeah, I offer these things, but I'm telling other people because you can also offer these things, also offer these things. I'll draw the conventional versus unconventional. So typically when we're talking with somebody, we get 45 minutes or an hour and then your time's up and then we'll see you next week. I don't do things like that. When I talk with people, I offer deep listening for them. I can just ask you questions and we can just get out what you need to get out. Sometimes that takes a couple hours, sometimes that takes 20 or 30 hours, but it's like you've had this with you for a long time. There's usually lots of layers to it, but I do sessions that are five, six, seven, eight, as long as you need to, and then we'll start again the next day and then we'll start again when you're ready. But I do very long sessions with people. I stop when you're ready to stop. That, I found, is unconventional, which I find very weird. I don't know why people would time it and think that that's a good idea. So, if you want, I offer a neutral assessment. So if you're thinking about something, a lot of times we do have resources and people available to us, but very oftentimes they have some interest in where we land on a decision. So I'm a neutral person listening like I'm not involved in your life, and so if you're telling me something, I will just break it down in this not a spiritual sense, but just a conflict sense and just like, show you the chessboard and where you're sitting and what your options look like.
Speaker 3:Then I offer some spiritual services. So one is conscious conversation where we'll just talk and you want somebody who has like a PhD so I can look at things in a very linear fashion, give you that look, and then also from a spiritual perspective. So if you're wondering what the moral implications of it are, you can have both of those. We have both those conversations at the same time. Soul cartography is something where we look at your inner terrain.
Speaker 3:I also do spiritual intelligence, where people will take plant medicine more and more now and they're accessing alternate states of consciousness. Some of us can just do that and give you the information that comes through. So that's something else that I offer. And then there are more intensive experiences if people are interested. But I don't take a lot of clients because I go very deep with the clients that I take and I also don't look for repeat business. When you're finished, when we're finished working together, you're cool. You're not coming back, yeah, and I strangely find that not the approach that a lot of people take, and I strangely find that not the approach that a lot of people take.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, awesome, awesome. Where can people reach out to you or find out a bit more about the things that you offer, rebecca?
Speaker 3:You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on Instagram and on TikTok by, probably by searching my name, and then also drrebeccanigelsoncom.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, rebecca, thank you so much for taking the time to speak to us today. It's been a while coming this conversation, so I'm very grateful for it. Yeah, I can attest to the power of your ability to listen and ask short, powerful questions's. Uh, it's an incredible experience, um. So, yeah, thanks, thank you for holding that space for me from the bottom of my heart, and thank you for your time today on the podcast.
Speaker 3:I appreciate it and I appreciate you thank you so much for having me and I really I like what you do and I like the guests that you have and I think you do great work and I really appreciate being among your guests at this point now. It was a pleasure, Cheers Rebecca. Thanks, bye, erin.