The Unshaming Way with Dr. David Bedrick

Dr. David Bedrick [00:00:00]:
But the thing that moves me about it is no one has ever thought maybe she has a no and we can't get around it. And her no is so powerful that even the inner self hatred, even all the medicines to try to get her to do different, even the therapy sessions that she's invested in to try to get her to do something different are not more powerful than her no.

Walker Bird [00:00:30]:
My Inner Know empowering you to find your compass for the journey. We are dedicated to supporting you to rediscover and trust your natural ability to navigate life. Each day by sharing insight and experience through the lens of two professional communicators and their guests, we intend to prompt internal inquiry that supports all those willing to explore a unique path.

Theresa Hubbard [00:00:58]:
Well, hello.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:00:59]:
Hello.

Theresa Hubbard [00:01:02]:
Well, thank you for joining us. Dr. David Bedrick. We're so excited to have this conversation with you today. Me too. Yeah. When you think about where you are in your life right now, how would you best describe yourself in the work that you do?

Dr. David Bedrick [00:01:24]:
Phew. You're already touching a deep spot. Been reflecting on aging lately. I'm going to be 70 in a week, week and a half. And not that that has to be the chronologically, the number that's important. But my body is doing aging things. Aches and pains that are not only going away easily and teeth that have been worn down, that need dental work and other kinds of sleep problems and things that are individually interesting, but they go along with. With aging also.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:01:59]:
So the, the sense of, oh, this is a limited time is not just a theory. It's on my mind more. Yeah. Yeah. What is? I can't remember the other part of your question. You provoked that deep feeling in me that had been. Was been sitting within the last couple of days. But you asked me something about my work and if you could repeat that, that would.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:02:25]:
I would. Yeah.

Theresa Hubbard [00:02:27]:
Yeah. So as best as I can recall, what I asked David would be, where do you see yourself in your life right now and the work that you're doing? How would you describe it at this point in your life?

Dr. David Bedrick [00:02:46]:
Yeah, I feel and growing with my aging process a kind of mission calling mission to educate people to think of healing and become healers outside of the current dominant paradigm. And that paradigm is if you have a difficulty, you're depressed, or you got headaches, or you get physical symptoms, emotional difficulties, relational patterns, to not think of those as only things to relieve and release and let go so that you are suffering less. Yes to that. If we can suffer less, I'm. I'm all for that. And the experiences we have come through us as intelligences and messages about who we are and how to live in the world and the environments that we live in and the stories that are in our bodies and psyches. And that needs to be included so we're not so quick to remove and relieve before we make a genuine inquiry. I'm thinking about if I can tell a quick thing.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:04:06]:
I six months ago was it, I was in Slovakia and they're making a documentary on eating disorders. And I'm part of or center of that, working with people, women who have been hospitalized for 20 years and have not been able to make the changes that they would like and that the people around them would like. And this is so touching to me because I just got a video clip from, from the documentary of me working with a woman. These are obviously okay to tell. They say this is going to be public and the person I was working with has given the okay. And this is a person who said I can only eat a very limited number of foods. I think it was five may have got that wrong, but like five foods. And I asked her what would happen if someone tried to get her to eat any other food.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:05:05]:
And she put her hand on the throat so my throat would start to close, I would gag a bit. And I said, give me an example of one of those foods. And she said, meat. And I said, imagine I have meat in my hand. I didn't have any meat. And I put my hand way away from her so that there's no like, it's not an intense confrontation. And she also knows that I'm not trying to get her to do that. I'm just asking her and just doing that.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:05:32]:
She had that feeling in her throat and she said if I moved closer she would not be able to breathe. Not powerful. So stirring to me even to retell it. And for all these years, doctors and therapists and her have been trying to open her more to eating other things. But over year after year her system says no. Now it would be good to eat other things. Her health is not a bad idea. It's a compassionate idea at best to help her health and her well being and her nourishment.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:06:11]:
But the thing that moves me about it is no one has ever thought maybe she has a no and we can't get around it. And her no is so powerful that even the inner self hatred, even all the medicines to try to get her to do different, even the therapy sessions that she's invested in to try to get her to do something different are not more Powerful than her. No, she could die rather than do what she's been asked to do. That touches me so much.

Theresa Hubbard [00:06:45]:
Thank you for joining us today.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:06:47]:
No one has approached.

Theresa Hubbard [00:06:48]:
We are excited to explore life with you. We encourage curiosity that you want to and we strive to be more compassionate every day.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:06:58]:
I won't say much more about that. I asked her if she could show me the energy of her throat closing by putting up my forearm and asking her to grip my arm the way her throat closing energy is so she's not choking herself. She's not self harming, but she's showing me. And I said, you really should eat meat. Man wheezes Feeling it is welled up in her face and her eyes because she's never done that before and probably done that with a man person that she's going to say, you can't make me do anything I won't do. Isn't that touching? That's very. Makes me weep just to remember that.

Theresa Hubbard [00:07:40]:
Oh yeah, yeah. So powerful.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:07:44]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The pause is the. Is the feelings. I want to fill it up with words, but the feeling is. Is important that some of us get that some people not. But how we can get her to eat and good questions, good questions. But I would like to live in a world where more people get it. Get the.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:08:19]:
This person has a no. And that's more important to her than our agendas to heal and fix her.

Theresa Hubbard [00:08:30]:
Right? Our agenda. Yeah, right, right.

Walker Bird [00:08:37]:
I've never heard it described as a no. And my. It could be anything since. I'm hoping you can teach us a little bit about identifying a no in a person. And maybe we all have no's and it's a way that you're describing something. What, what do you mean when you say a no?

Dr. David Bedrick [00:08:59]:
Well, in this case it's more general in the sense that I'm saying do this Walker and you're not doing it right. And then I'm nudging you and pushing you and you still don't do it. And then I'm pressuring you or pathologizing you and telling you something's wrong with you and you still don't do it. And inside something saying, I'm screwed up, I messed up, I don't like myself this way and you still don't do it. So the general thing is somebody's not moving. So I'm calling that quote unquote a no to something. All of those are genders. Yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:09:37]:
Okay. Yeah, but say more or ask more on that stuff.

Walker Bird [00:09:41]:
Well, I just. And I don't know a lot. But just going through your website and, and looking at the books that you've written etc, and the, the unshaming journey that you talk about, that's kind of what's prevalent on your website right now. And I'm just. There's a whole somatic piece to what you do and that's part of what you're describing when you're having this client squeeze your arm to describe the feeling inside. And so just I was wondering if no is. Is associated with finding the shame parts in our body or if it's different, something more significant or broader based.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:10:23]:
The great question. No is such a fundamental word as you know and people know that means no is part of my self identity. For me to be able to say yes and no, no. And now I can maybe do something that's more like David. So that's so fundamental. So no, it's self resistance. No, I won't do that. I have my own way.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:10:52]:
That's enough. No effing way. Don't you dare. All those things are often covered in shame. That means it's not okay for me to do that. And I think something's wrong with me for not going along with the family, with the culture. So you say, can't you do this, David? And I'm like, oh, and then something. Then if I have some shame growing up, I can talk about how that arises in me, how that is formed in me.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:11:22]:
Then I think, why aren't I doing that? How come I'm not doing that? How come I'm doing the work that I'm supposed to do? How come I'm procrastinating? Oh, I'm not doing my exercise. Why aren't I saying okay to you? It's no big deal. So do you hear the self talk? I have a lot of things against me. Saying that won't work for me and all of that suppression and that viewpoint. I should be willing to go alone. There's no reason why not. Why am I resistant? Maybe I have a problem. Maybe there's something wrong with me that I can't flow with people.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:11:55]:
People aren't going to get along with me this way. I'm creating problems in my relationships or all those ideas that I've been educated, conditioned into wrap around my no. So then whenever the no comes up, I just start thinking all those things. Am I being an unaccommodating podcast host? These wonderful people ask me on. They're asking a good question. Why don't I just answer the question? So I'm thinking that I'm not inquiring. Oh something doesn't want to go forward. Who is that? Does he have something else to say? I don't make that inquiry.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:12:31]:
Self trusting inquiry. An unshamed inquiry. Yeah. So the no itself for most people now when a person is abused early, like almost everybody in some way, familially or culturally. 80% of women report being sexually violated at some point in their lives. Well that's a lot then and everybody. I'm not just focusing on women only, but that's a one statistic that's ready in my mind. So what happens then? Somebody when a person is abused, their consent is overridden.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:13:09]:
I don't say it's okay to hurt me. Right. So either I'm not thinking, I'm not free to say no, or I'm frightened to say no, or if I say no, it's irrelevant, my consent is overridden. So that the function that in me that says no, not okay, overridden. Where does it go now if somebody said oh my gosh, David, that was not okay. No, that didn't feel good. Well, didn't hurt. Then you'll recover that part of me that says oh wow, you're right, that didn't feel good.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:13:43]:
But if nobody cares for that experience in that way and they just gaslight me, oh yeah, they didn't mean it or why are you so resistant? Why are you still angry? Why are you depressed? How come you get upset? How come you can't go along with things, all those kind of things wrap my that problem in shame. So I'm no longer thinking this no inside of me was relevant. So now when I enter the world, that no doesn't exist anymore. It only exists. It exists, but it's buried. It's in the body somewhere. Because if you said something to me and you asked me to check my body carefully, you will notice a tightness in my jaw or in my belly or my shoulders are getting tight or my body wants to move away. The body will still hold that.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:14:29]:
I don't want to go forward. Yeah. So it's a kind of a traumatic covering.

Theresa Hubbard [00:14:40]:
Yeah. Do you feel like that was helpful?

Walker Bird [00:14:45]:
I do, I. What I don't want to do is hog the interview with a bunch of.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:14:51]:
Whatever. Wherever we go is good Sometimes that happens, David. But you know, right everybody, we're all polite. I'm also stopping. I'm thinking, okay, David, you could stop. You don't have to tell three stories right now. So we're all kind of like being Being respectful. Which is, which is good.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:15:07]:
But then we could, we could now that we have that part taken care.

Theresa Hubbard [00:15:11]:
Keep going. I'm good.

Walker Bird [00:15:13]:
Yeah, yeah. I just, they're, they're. The somatic piece is fascinating to me because it's been touched on in, in the therapy work that I've done. Right. And there's some commentary like on your latest, the seven week course that you just started last week, for example. It talks about preparation needed to do somatic work safely or appropriately.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:15:38]:
Yeah.

Walker Bird [00:15:40]:
And I've done through the trial lawyers college, which I don't know if you've heard of Jerry Spence or not, but he was a really famous attorney back in the, you know, 70s and 80s.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:15:50]:
Oh yes, yes.

Walker Bird [00:15:53]:
In any event, they did, they have, they do work with psychodrama and so we, I went to a month long course at his ranch and we, the first week is all psychodrama. And what I believe is that is. I know that's not somatic necessarily, but it gets you there. All of those things are there. And I just was interested in the preparation needed to do somatic work safely, which you say is self awareness empowerment and clear ethical safeguards. And it's not a test, it's just trying to get a better handle on, you know, if you're doing somatic work so you've identified that space in the body where this is residing one then what? And I guess maybe the precursor to number one is what have I done to prepare for that? You know, the next step.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:16:53]:
Yeah, it's a great question. But first around the psychodrama, that's a really powerful technique. When I teach. Yes, that's a big part. We used to call it psychodrama, then they called it role play, Then they called it parts work and family systems. Work is, is in that space. And the beauty of that is of the psychodrama is it gets to actual experience as opposed to thinking. So if I say you better do what I want.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:17:23]:
Right. Then you get to have the experience of your response. If I say, if I ask you about it, do you sometimes feel this way? That's not going to be as direct an experience. You can say, yeah, sometimes I don't feel like I want to listen to David, but if I say, you better do what I want now, your voice will come out of your body also. So there is an embodiment because you're speaking from the place, not about the place. And once you're speaking from a place, it's a more embodied experience in general. The voice itself has is body when it's speaking directly, when I'm thinking about it, I'm disembodied. Yes.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:17:58]:
I can really not want to go along with things that's not embodied. But yeah, I want to say, don't you talk to me like that. That's going to have energy and feeling and body to it. So that's. It's a very powerful thing in terms of the ethics. It has to do with this word. No, because so many people have a traumatic background. I say everybody, but some people won't agree with me.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:18:25]:
But what I mean by everybody is not everybody has a specific story. This is the violence my father or mother did to me or the police did to me or a hospital did to me. But the cultural level is often an adaptation to histories that aren't dealt with. That's a longer social story, but I better hold from that. But what that means is that my consent has often been disregarded. Don't speak back to your elders. Maybe it's just a value system, right? Or spare the rod and you. Of course, it's good to be hit and not have a reaction.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:19:00]:
So there's so many value systems. Don't only look like I'm a bad, nasty abuser that are part of child rearing and the culture itself. So that means when you work with somebody, if somebody's my client and I say, let's try to do this, let's go into your body, or tell me the story of your childhood, that person might not be able to say, not so fast, David, or can we do something else first? Or that's not really right for me, or that's too much for me, Or I need to tell you something first before we do that. A person might not be able to do that. They may fawn, okay, David, I'm an authority and they're going to do what I say, like I do sometimes with my teachers, right? I'm like, okay, you know, I'll go along. That may not be injurious, but if it's a hurtful to me, it's injurious. And some people are just unconscious about that. They'll just be like, oh, oh, oh, okay, Right, right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:19:59]:
So listen to this one. Oh, we could do that. That person's not saying yes, right? They're saying, I have hesitations that I can't support enough to say them. Not okay for me to say them. So in that case, if I proceed, I'm overriding their consent, just like it was overridden. Now, I'm not a bad Guy who's being abusive and not caring about their consent. I'm not saying that I have to be even perfect about that. I'm a human being.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:20:30]:
I will miss some of that. I will not always catch those minimal cues, those minimalists verbal cues, tones and hesitations. I might not be aware of that, but it's still creating a dynamic. The dynamic now is not one of client and facilitator trying to help. It's resonating with the violence they had because I'm one more person asking them to do something where their yes or no is not terribly relevant. So now we entered an abusive space. Again, I'm not trying to hurt a person. Let's assume I'm a good hearted, ethical person.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:21:10]:
I'm not like a person who's like, yeah, I think I'll take advantage of my clients. But nonetheless that can still happen. So I say that's an essential that care about an awareness of those communications. It's part of the fundamental ethics, especially when working with trauma. Because we're working with the overriding of consent. Yeah, right. Some people just do that by saying go slow. But I think you can actually check with the client now again, I'm imperfect.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:21:40]:
If you watch a session of mine, I can show you clients when I didn't get it and the times where I did get it. Yeah, sure, I'm not perfect, but over time I should start to catch it.

Theresa Hubbard [00:21:51]:
Right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:21:52]:
The third time now I saw, oh, right, that person didn't say, yes, that will be plenty.

Theresa Hubbard [00:21:56]:
Right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:21:57]:
I catch it and the person will start to develop a relationship with me.

Theresa Hubbard [00:22:01]:
Right?

Dr. David Bedrick [00:22:02]:
Like that woman I was working with, with the eating this or they call eating disorder, I'm saying called that because some of the people said they didn't like when, when helpers called it eating disorders. Fascinating. Yes, we can talk about. But I don't like that you call it that word. Anyway, that's an interesting consent question. But at one point I said to her, do you want to try? She was doing this and I trying to help her feel that energy of tightening expressively, outwardly. And I said, do you want to stand up? And she said, okay. And then she move, right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:22:40]:
So the body's not only saying yes. And I said, yeah. And she said, I'll sit. So it's just a subtle little thing. But if I said, come on, let's stand up, she might have done that. I don't know. Let's assume that she's accommodating a person that looks like an authority in her life. That's been in her life for many years.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:23:05]:
She probably would do that. Not congruently. Probably wouldn't stand up. Okay, great. She would do something that looks like a body that's moving, but not only wanting to move. So then that would show up in that way. And if we did nothing but stay right there. Oh, a part of you wants to move and a part of you doesn't.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:23:25]:
If we did nothing else for an entire session but ask about, Inquire about that particular moment, it would be an amazing session for that person. Some people think, well, how are we going to get anywhere? You are somewhere. That's a very powerful place to go. Can I not go along with an authority, in this case a male authority, with a woman who's been hurt by men and things for her to say no to me, that's big. That's a big moment.

Walker Bird [00:23:53]:
Wow. Yeah. I really appreciate the subtlety of the work. You know, it just the. And the care.

Theresa Hubbard [00:24:03]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is so important. You know, I talk a lot, David, about, you know, clients need a lot of permission, you know, to believe what they believe and feel what they feel because they have been told it's not right or okay or inappropriate or wrong. And, you know, what came to mind was Walker and I are both fire walkers. And when I fire walked the first time, which was probably like 16 years ago, it was the way they taught it in this small group was really helpful for me because it wasn't about walking or not walking. It was about. Which is why the podcast is called My Inner Knowing, because the lesson was I listened to and follow my inner knowing. And, you know, for me, that was life changing to recognize that I had choice to do something so significant or not.

Theresa Hubbard [00:25:13]:
And so we still do fire walks at our retreats. And. And I. And I. I do it the way I did it. They tend the fire, they build relationship with the fire. Whether they walk or not is completely their choice. And it's always their choice.

Theresa Hubbard [00:25:32]:
You know, how much they involve their phone during the retreat is their choice. I want them to choose their journey, not me deciding what their journey is.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:25:48]:
That's so powerful. Yeah, I can imagine being low. I'm not walking along the path of your process right now. I'd be like, yeah, I'd be fine. You know, but I guess that would. Something that would have to be developed over. Over the moments of, wow, what does it take? I guess you're saying choice. Is there a courage thing or belief? I guess you're saying belief is that the.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:26:18]:
What is It. That allows a person to move forward in that way.

Theresa Hubbard [00:26:22]:
Sure. So, I mean, the way I teach it, you know, David, I mean, every, every retreat is different. We don't ever duplicate retreats, but it's always learning to trust yourself and doing that by paying attention to your body. And what is your body, you know, telling you and then how to value it accurately. Because. Right. We can. We can have experience of our body, but then actually not value it accurately.

Theresa Hubbard [00:26:47]:
Right. And so, you know, learning to explore, experiment, and then the process really is through the, through the four days is, you know, are you present in your body? How do you know you're present in your body? What's most important to you about being present in your body? What are you afraid of? I mean, so there's just this process that we go throughout the time of preparing and then again, giving a lot of permission, helping them see that there, that there are places in their life they do have choice. Maybe they didn't see that they had choice in different areas. And then for me as a therapist, I mean, our body has a natural physiological resistance. Right. I mean, if we didn't, we'd be a mess. So we, we need our body to push back to some degree. And so what I, you know, tell people is, for me, it's.

Theresa Hubbard [00:27:52]:
What I want your body to do is to get curious. I want your body to go, oh, that's interesting. I wonder what would happen if. Whatever is how I think about it, I don't want to shock your body. I mean, to me, that just, you know, defeats the purpose, wastes time, you know, what is it teaching you? Oh, you're afraid. Oh, okay, now you know you're afraid and that makes you afraid. Well, you already knew you were afraid. So I want to use, you know, the body's base level of fear that I think we all carry, and that is more representative of our daily life.

Theresa Hubbard [00:28:29]:
And then how can I. How can I manage that around different circumstances? And then you have this fire. And the fire is to me, a really a representation of life. Building the fire, building the structure of it, forming relationship with the people in your group, getting to titrate in and out. Because when you're a firewalk, fire is so hot, David. It is so hot. It's not like sitting around a campfire. And you can't do it alone.

Theresa Hubbard [00:29:01]:
You have to have a team and you have to work together and you have to take turns to do it well and safely. And so that relationship building is a piece of it, too. And then ultimately, when the Fire is ready. You know, I always walk first to make it safe, make sure it's safe physically. But I always get grounded. I lay down on the earth for a while before I walk, just to make sure I am as present in my body as I can be.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:29:33]:
Gorgeous.

Theresa Hubbard [00:29:35]:
And then I walk, and then I say whether it's ready to be walked on or not. And it's hot. It's always hot, David. But, like, the last one we did, it was too hot. And I said, too hot. Too hot. And I said, let's give it. Let's give it a little bit.

Theresa Hubbard [00:29:54]:
I was too hot. And. And I wasn't sure how people would be because my reaction of too hot, too hot. But I think for me, modeling, demonstrating care for myself, not shaming myself, is really helpful. One of the things that I so love about your book, which is, again, one of the reasons Walker and I do this podcast, is we don't want to talk about it as much, David, as we want to show people how to do it, because there's a lot of writing about. About it. Yes, but how do we. How do we do it? What does it look like? What does it feel like? And that's so much of what I appreciate about, you know, the dialogues in your in the Unshaming Way book is, you know, giving people a sense of what that is like.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:30:59]:
Yeah.

Walker Bird [00:31:01]:
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Theresa Hubbard [00:31:18]:
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Walker Bird [00:31:41]:
Thank you.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:31:44]:
Yeah.

Theresa Hubbard [00:31:44]:
Okay.

Walker Bird [00:31:45]:
I thought that was pretty good.

Theresa Hubbard [00:31:46]:
Okay. Sounds good.

Walker Bird [00:31:47]:
Okay.

Theresa Hubbard [00:31:48]:
Check, check.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:31:50]:
Yeah, that's the. That's the transmission, as it were. Yeah. I'm really excited about this documentary. It's going to take a while because they had funding and then they use it up and they have to get more funding. And so there's steps, but for people to see something, because I can talk about the theory and this is part of nature, and you're intelligent inside and all those different things, and that could be said in many different ways, but then the tender, exquisite moments of what it takes for a person to squeeze my arm as a step. Things like this. It's an experience to witness what that's like.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:32:30]:
Then people can feel their way into. Oh, I would love to be treated like that. Somebody will say. And that's what I want them to feel, even if they don't understand what I'm doing. Exactly. But they'll know, oh, I'm like that. Or because they want to be treated like that carefully and with somebody who wants to know them that well. And.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:32:54]:
Yeah, I love the things you're saying about that. So inspiring what you're doing. And I love your. Your focus on choice. And the other thing came up when you were talking is how do you know? How do you. This sort of. This knowing part. Some part of me knows something right or wrong to other people.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:33:16]:
But some part. But my knowing function. No, I know that hurt. No, I know that felt good. No, I know I'm enjoying myself. No, I know this tastes good or not. That seems so fundamental. But when I was a youngster, because I.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:33:35]:
I lived in a violent home, I used to always say my father used fists and belts to express his rage. And. And then my mother was in denial. That meant that. What are you talking about? I don't see anything, even if she was there. So that was how she witnessed it. Why are you getting upset? Even with. That would be the kind of things that she would have.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:33:58]:
And then I reacted in various different ways. I was scared a lot, which people called shy. And I believe that was shy. Amazing. I would walk around in my 30th thing. I'm just a shy person. I wasn't. I was just scared.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:34:11]:
Yeah. It's very different because I'm not inherently shy. I just scared. So that's a. Not a very accurate interpretation. Right. Shy is like, oh, David, that's okay. Scared is like, what are you scared of? Right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:34:23]:
You know, it's a very different experience. But I also reacted by getting stomach aches. And my stomach aches would get so big sometimes that my parents would have to take me to the hospital because I was writhing in pain and then didn't find something physiological that was wrong to create that particular pain. Yeah, but I'm thinking of that. Well, two reasons. One is the body's capacity because I. There was nothing that I could do in my family to stop the violence, but my stomach did because everything stopped. Hospital.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:35:05]:
I wasn't thinking that. I wasn't planning that. That. That's. If you told the movie, you would See all the violence stopping and everyone saying, let's take care of David. Something's wrong, right? He needs help.

Theresa Hubbard [00:35:16]:
Right?

Dr. David Bedrick [00:35:17]:
But the other thing. I had stomach aches for years, more or less. And it was somewhere in my 30s, I think I was 34. Because I'm remembering the person who was helping me, a man named Joe Goodbred, who was a psychologist and physicist. And he was helping me and asking me how I was feeling. And I said, something's going on in my stomach. And he said, put your hand on your stomach. And he said, what's going on? And I said, I think my stomach hurts.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:35:48]:
And he said, oh, how long that's been true? And I started weeping. He said, why are you weeping? I said, I think I've always had a stomachache. It never went away. How could I not know? Like, how could you not know you have a stomachache? Like, talk about not knowing. I did not know. Nobody saw. I just whatever got along with, marginalized, whatever we do, sectioned it off, put it in its own box, whatever you do. So even when it comes to something as obvious as physical pain, like, how could you not know you're in physical pain? I was able to, given the way I grew up, which is nothing's happening, to take the stomach aches and get along with a certain amount of stomach aches that were more or less.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:36:33]:
More or less. And then eventually doctors said I had ibs, Irritable bowel syndrome. That's true. And that doesn't tell the story and the power of my stomach aches and that they have information about it and they still grow and get bigger and stronger or less, even in the daily life, not only because of the past. It doesn't say. My stomach is an intelligent aspect, a barometer for things in my life that's intelligent. It's still trying to, like, I call that pathologize. There's still something that we could find out and fix.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:37:07]:
And yes, it would be great if. If you can say, don't eat this and your stomach will feel better. I would. I will try to do that 95% of the time every so often. She. But still, we don't know the story. And the intelligence that my stomach is. Is me, right? I'm in pain.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:37:23]:
It's not my stomach. And David's fine.

Theresa Hubbard [00:37:25]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah, David. I experienced that growing up too, you know, going. I mean, I think sometimes it was a stomachache and then sometimes. And all subconscious, right? But a way of disrupting unhealthy patterns, you know, that were happening you know, trying to shift things.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:37:51]:
Yeah, yeah. Body's intelligence sometimes shows up in things that just look like medical issues and, and then people, whoever's listening, check it out, you know?

Theresa Hubbard [00:38:02]:
Right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:38:03]:
Like go check. Maybe an antibiotic would help or maybe, I don't know, maybe there's certain treatments that will help and. Yeah. That'll help relieve your suffering or care for you in a way. So I don't think it's all psychological or something like that. Don't do that. I think take care of yourself in all the different ways. And there may be a story and information and intelligence in the body's symptoms as well.

Theresa Hubbard [00:38:29]:
Yeah, I think, you know, from, just from a medical perspective, I mean, I agree, you know, go the doctor, get checked out. Trying to figure out how to shift, I don't know, a broader perspective about self inquiry. You know, I. I always say, what's it most important to you? You know, what are you most afraid of? What do you most want right now? Really trying to start to figure out, you know, what is happening inside. You know, my kids, I mean, I think they appreciate it more now, but growing up, I would say just tell me why you're doing what you're doing. Could you ask yourself that question? It's not as much about your choice. Just. I just want you to know, you know, the why.

Theresa Hubbard [00:39:19]:
I want you to ask yourself the why. I don't want you just doing what you think you should be doing or what someone says you should be doing. I want you to know that you have choice. And so I think about just clients that I work with, you know, differently. I mean, my, my style has developed differently than yours. But you know, what is happening for you in your body? You know, what is your body saying to you? Yeah, really trying to get us to be more curious because I think we're taught growing up like somebody else has the answer for you. Your parents have the answer, a doctor has the answer, a teacher has the answer. Someone you don't feel that way.

Theresa Hubbard [00:40:11]:
That's not what's happening for you. That's not that big a deal. You don't hurt that bad. And so for me, I feel like I'm retraining clients to ask themselves questions instead of somebody else always telling them what their experience is.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:40:31]:
Yes, it's very radical what we're talking about. Radical, meaning it's outside the norm of that's a difficulty, that's creating difficulties. How do we make that go away? That's so dominant, it's so ever present, that mentality. So it's so radical to make an inquiry like that. It oughtn't be. It oughtn't be radical to say to that woman, oh, you're not going along with this. I wonder why. Like that seems like Humanity 101 in a sense, you know, so why? I don't know.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:41:14]:
You have the question, but it's partly question. But the exasperation maybe. Why? Why is it so absent? Why does that woman go through 20 years and having them not ask that? How come I work with people who have addictive issues and no one's saying, what's it like to smoke that crack or take those substances or put needle in your arm or what's happening for you? Not, isn't it good? I'm interested. What is it like?

Theresa Hubbard [00:41:45]:
Yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:41:46]:
What is. What's the known? What's the experience? You know, you're making a choice to have an experience. What's the experience?

Theresa Hubbard [00:41:52]:
Right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:41:53]:
Is it just so dangerous to ask a person that? Is it so threatening, something. There's them, there's. We're swimming in a sea of not only don't ask it, but don't. It's not even thought of. Because when I say those things to people, like, what's it like to smoke a cigarette? They look at me like I'm crazy. I work with a woman who smoked two packs a day for 40 years.

Theresa Hubbard [00:42:18]:
Wow.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:42:18]:
Three times. Surgery for cancer.

Theresa Hubbard [00:42:22]:
Yeah. Dr. David Bedrick [00:42:24]:
And I said, what's it like to smoke a cigarette? What do you mean? I said, take a pen. Here's a pen. Is a pencil. We're not smoking a cigarette. I'll take one and you take one and show me what you do. Like, why? Because I don't know what you're doing yet. Well, I'm smoking cigarettes. Bad for me.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:42:44]:
I have to stop. I know, but there comes the earlier question marker. But somebody is not stopping. Somebody says, no, I won't do that. Okay, well, if the no is winning after 40 years. Right. Winning meaning she doesn't stop, then I ought to find that at least inquire, who is this person who's not going along with it, other than whatever. An undisciplined idiot.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:43:06]:
A person. What's wrong with them? All the reasons. But like your dialogue idea, Walker, I'd like to meet the person who's not doing this. Can you talk to me? You must do it. No, keep going. Talk to me. I'd like to get to know you. I'm not thinking that's a good ultimate answer, but why is that so radical? Or I almost want to Use the word revolutionary.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:43:29]:
Like I'm breaking such a primal rule.

Theresa Hubbard [00:43:32]:
Right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:43:32]:
Say show me. Which is like to smoke a cigarette. Even though programs helped such a few people around. Addictive issue.

Theresa Hubbard [00:43:44]:
Right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:43:44]:
Yeah. So why aren't we trying the fundamental things that, like, let's try to unsee the thing. The person is doing something that we don't understand. And then my skill is not to know what she's doing, but my skill is to find out.

Theresa Hubbard [00:43:59]:
Yeah, right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:44:00]:
I'm not a Dr. Phil. I know what's the right answer. What are you thinking? My skill is I know how to inquire to help you find out what you're doing.

Theresa Hubbard [00:44:09]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I. People come in, David, who have an addiction issue and they have a certain expectation of who I am as a therapist. Right. And I just say, oh, I'm not here to convince you to stop using.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:44:25]:
Right.

Theresa Hubbard [00:44:27]:
I just want you to get the greater. I want you to Great. To develop a greater sense of self. So using isn't what you need to do. But if, you know, like, I understand this is something that you're using to feel something or not feel something. Like. Like, I just want you to get to a place where that's what you choose.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:44:49]:
Right.

Theresa Hubbard [00:44:49]:
Yeah. I'm not going to shame you into it or try to logically convince you of the. The detriments of it, because you know that.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:44:59]:
So big. It's so big. And then the culture around, that paradigm, the healing idea, but the culture around. Because if it's. I worked with veterans of war that were on the street. Wow. So then the culture around. Even though there's some obvious things, there is something I went through that's overwhelming.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:45:26]:
People kind of know that, but they're still like, this person's gotten screwed up. There's still not a sense of how we hold as a culture.

Theresa Hubbard [00:45:34]:
Yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:45:35]:
The experience of going to war and coming home is not terribly intelligent. Yeah. The heroes. All right. You know, we have that part. And then what about all this other aspect? So the whole culture is not saying, whoa, of course. How the hell would it be surprising that you were suicidal or wanting to use substances? What are we doing? How do we handle this thing called going to war and witnessing being part of violence or taking other people's lives? I mean, there's some people who know a lot more about that, certainly over the years. But the culture at large wants to celebrate the hero, which is good.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:46:18]:
But I work with some people who are looked at as heroes. Oh, my gosh.

Theresa Hubbard [00:46:25]:
Yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:46:25]:
What they go through, I'm thinking of so many people. I'm thinking of a man who lots of people appreciated. When he came home, he would take his child to a ball game. I remember he would say a basketball game. They would get seats to go to the basketball game. And he couldn't go in and sit next to him because somebody would might walk behind him and he freaked out. So he had to have his back against the wall whenever he walked in a large crowd of people.

Theresa Hubbard [00:46:56]:
Yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:46:57]:
So he. So then he couldn't go into the seats. He had to stay near the concessions with his back against the. Okay, my body's kind of doing that. So he'd walk around like that. That's not just a one time experience. That means going to a grocery store was very impossible. Very near impossible.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:47:11]:
Having his child wake him up in the morning was scary because he didn't know if he would wake up in an aggressive mode. That's just one person. He had a home. Right. He wasn't on the street. He was able to function well enough.

Theresa Hubbard [00:47:24]:
Right.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:47:25]:
But those kinds of experiences are, you know there are some movies and here and there and documentaries but it's, it's not public. Those kinds of experiences. So we have a whole culture then doesn't trust that person's knowing and their experience that they've gone through something. And then to pathologize is easier. Why did those people are so screwed up or on the streets they're weird and then we. And then make me uncomfortable. Which is fine. They can make me uncomfortable and maybe I don't feel safe.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:47:54]:
Good. I should trust myself. But then we have a cultural symptom called street vets. So that's not an individual symptom, only those individuals. What are we going to do as a culture to help trust their knowing Coming through in Give me substances. I can't cope with a regular world. My mind and body don't work exactly the way yours do. It's going to be very hard to get a job in my psychic condition.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:48:28]:
Normalish. And I'm better off on the street. If I can get a dog to be with, that would be really good. And there is, there's something beautiful about those relationships. But. Yes, but then the culture itself is kind of T.S. eliot, says the poet. I think it's in the Four Quartets.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:48:49]:
He says the whole world is our hospital. So in that way we are all the hospital. Right. So how am I going to witness that person? And again, people could be scared and they should take care of themselves and things. But then we need a System that says this is a central problem and it doesn't have to be street vest. It could be other large populations, alcoholism in certain populations that we send to individual treatments. And don't think that's a Native American population, that's a black population, that's a gay population that has an environment around them that they're in interaction with, that has intelligence and knowing and choice choices that they're making that need to be brought out, but then they're quarantined psychologically. Let's think of those as.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:49:48]:
Does not take that on as a. As a culture, as a collective, as this is a symptom of our collective.

Theresa Hubbard [00:49:58]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was thinking when you said that about the world being a hospital. I don't know, David, how welcoming we are so much anymore.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:50:17]:
Mm.

Theresa Hubbard [00:50:18]:
You know, instead of, you know, seeing someone we don't know and making eye contact with them and smiling with our heart is what I imagine, you know, we're really seeing others as a threat on some level.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:50:37]:
Yeah.

Theresa Hubbard [00:50:41]:
Yeah, yeah. I was thinking even about comfort. You know, I had a session with someone recently, and she asked me to come sit next to her, and she put her head on my shoulder, and she just wept.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:50:58]:
Oh.

Theresa Hubbard [00:50:59]:
And. And I don't remember what she said exactly. Like, you know, m. Is this okay, or is this not okay? Or is this like, you know, I don't remember the wording. And I just said, you know, how often in your life do you receive comfort?

Dr. David Bedrick [00:51:19]:
Yeah.

Theresa Hubbard [00:51:22]:
How often do any of us receive true comfort?

Dr. David Bedrick [00:51:29]:
It's a beautiful story. Yeah. The. The ethics which have cared about physical touch, which is. Have also needed deeper ethic that cares for people and not taking advantage of them, but that. The idea that. That a person should never make body contact. I wince.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:51:53]:
I kind of think many cultures would not think that's possible, to have no touch in that. And. But anyway, it just makes me think about that. But the beauty of the. That experience and giving a person that chance. I was in Poland teaching how to work with physical symptoms in psychology some years ago. I went twice to teach at a psychology school, and I made some hours to do individual sessions with whoever from that group wanted to come spend time with me. And a young man came to me and privately, and I said, what are you needing help with? And he said, I needed to talk to you.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:52:37]:
And I said, what did you need to talk to me about? He said, I needed to talk to you because my grandfather was in Hitler's army in Germany, and I needed to tell a Jewish person and I said, oh, tell me. And he started telling me. And then he wept and fell into my arms and we both wept. And it was medicine for me, too.

Theresa Hubbard [00:53:05]:
Yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:53:06]:
I didn't know. I need. We're both locked up, you could say.

Theresa Hubbard [00:53:10]:
Yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:53:11]:
It wasn't more victimized or something, but in a way, we're both imprisoned now by that story. Hope that people aren't. But I was, because I didn't know that. I didn't know how to have a relationship with certain things in the world, certain people and certain aspects of myself. So then we both hold each other and sob. He didn't say, I have a psychological problem. He said, I need to say confess, but I need to tell somebody who I think a part of my family's heritage of hurting. And.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:53:43]:
Yeah, that was our whole session. We just. Then we just sat there looking at each other with tears like, oh, my gosh, one of the more beautiful sessions of my life. And I don't know what that took. He trusted me, I guess, enough to do that, to want to say that. But the power of that kind of contact shoe.

Theresa Hubbard [00:54:03]:
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:54:05]:
Big medicine, things like that.

Theresa Hubbard [00:54:11]:
I'll let you go now. I know.

Walker Bird [00:54:16]:
Come back since I'm not a therapist.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:54:20]:
Yeah. Oh, yeah. No. Yeah. Right. No, you're on the outside. Us. You can't come in, right?

Walker Bird [00:54:29]:
No, I'm just in the other chair.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:54:32]:
The in crowd here, you know.

Walker Bird [00:54:36]:
Oh, the. I'm interested in your experience with. And whether it's your personal experience with the IBS and your stomach pains from the time you were a child. And just wondering, because I think that there's some people go all the way that, you know, they don't hear it and they get cancer or whatever. The next step is for the body to just continually say, wait a minute.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:55:02]:
Yeah.

Walker Bird [00:55:03]:
And in your. You're in your 30s when you make the connection, is what it sounded like. And then we know you've done tons of work on yourself and for others since then. And I guess the question is, as our. As we identify those issues in the body, you know, you have it. You had. And I don't know if you still do a diagnosed condition, ibs.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:55:29]:
Yes.

Walker Bird [00:55:30]:
But we also know that there's a, you know, a starting point that's psychological, most likely. Right. And as you've done your work since that time, has the IBS resolved or has it become more manageable? Reduced some. And what I'm trying to get at is hope in that process that as we learn about our body from a somatic standpoint, do we progress.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:56:01]:
Such a great and important question. The IBS has mine and some people I've worked with has two. I don't know if I would say causal, but let's imagine they're causal elements. One is I have a story and then I have a predisposition to express my distress through the stomach. So somebody else might not. Then maybe they get headaches or maybe they're just going to go numb and read or maybe they're going to throw plates or I don't know what they're going to do. So I have a predisposition. You could say my stomach is, let's call my stomach a sensitive part of me, something that can respond.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:56:41]:
Or maybe somebody would say it's a weak part of me or a non resilient part of me, but it's a part of me that would react. So now you have an event and now David's stomach starts talking. So the stomach, I'm going to call it the predisposition. The stomach is already doing, it's already a place that will happen that way. So then I would start to think this way. Then my stomach is also part of my nature. That means my way of knowing in part is through the stomach. That's part of my way of knowing.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:57:14]:
So if I de. Pathologize it, I think my stomach is a way of knowing and then it knows in this way. So there's a few things that implies in terms of the resolution of the physical symptoms. One is can I make an ally with that stomach and say that's a really rich knowing part of me and learn to be more sensitive to it. Whether that's food, wine and cooked tomatoes and a cup of coffee during the day. That's a lot of acid. It's good for me to know that then I can do that and take, take a antacid, which still may help. Or I might kind of go, ooh, maybe I shouldn't eat that, or whatever, I shouldn't have coffee and wine if I'm gonna have cooked tomatoes and those kind of things.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:58:03]:
So dietary things are good to know because it's sensitive to those things. Another thing that means is when my stomach is acting more like that's more symptomatic, then I should start thinking what's going on in my life. So it's a, this is what's going on. I haven't had this kind of time. That kind of time is always good for me. And then my stomach will talk less symptomatically. Does that make sense? So it's A relationship, so it doesn't go away, only it's a relationship over time. And then if that relationship becomes more sensitive, like any relationship, then you have, then you have fewer conflicts or the conflicts are not as aggressive.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:58:47]:
If you and I in our long term relationship, then we still have conflicts, but they don't get as rough because I don't wait 10 years to tell you something and then finally spelled it out right. I tell you a little something and then you're used to hearing me so you can actually listen even if you disagree. So our conflict gets easier and less hurtful and we resolve easier and we make up easier. So the stomach is like that. So we still have conflicts, right? That means it expresses itself, but we resolve them quicker and easier. It doesn't have to escalate quite as much over time. In general, my stomach is much less painful. Much less painful.

Dr. David Bedrick [00:59:29]:
If I was in a stressful time, that means I'm pushing myself and not taking other kinds of time that are in stress times. And I'm tired and I decide I'm going to have coffee to help my energy, right? So then you have what I'm eating and the fact that I'm tired and trying to compensate, right? So you have the psychology of overworking and being tired and compensating with coffee to make myself less tired. Now you have diet things and physical things and stress things all happening. My stomach is probably going to start will say, I'll give you a certain amount of time like that. Here's an interesting thing. So if I had, if I had like I can't drink like a cup of regular coffee because it's too much caffeine, which caffeine reduces, pulls the acids out of the stomach. So your stomach gets activated. So I have to have like a half of a cappuccino, kind of a caffeine or heft.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:00:25]:
Caffeinated, Heft decaf or no caffeinated. So if I do that on a bunch of days in a row, if I had even a half a caffeinated coffee for a bunch of days in a row, my stomach would start talking. It wouldn't only talk about coffee, it's talking about you're using something to override your tiredness. So it's saying both, it's saying don't put acid in and it's also saying, you need rest, David. So that would be overriding. If I go away on a vacation, I could go for a vacation for two weeks and just be with my sweetheart. I could drink a full cup of coffee. Once or twice a day and nothing happens to my stomach.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:01:10]:
I'm not saying I should not care about the acid. The acid is also an issue. But you can see how they weave together over time. At the very best, I'm becoming more sensitive to my body and then even to minimal aspects. Ooh, this conversation is getting a little dicey. Let's slow down here. That makes sense. Now my stomach is even informing me it's becoming a good friend, Right?

Theresa Hubbard [01:01:35]:
Yes.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:01:35]:
My life is getting richer. Whoa. I've now spent an hour looking at the news of what's going on in the Middle east, and I'm getting overloaded. I need to do something. I need to meditate or write something or scream online about what's happening to the children. I need to do something. Make sense. So you could say it's becoming a woven relationship over time.

Walker Bird [01:02:01]:
I like it. I mean, what. My. What I'm taking in from that. My interpretation is honoring. Instead of having an enemy relationship or. This is a curse. You know, I have interstitial cystitis.

Walker Bird [01:02:15]:
It's an autoimmune disorder that came on about 2015. And I'd had appendiceal cancer and different things like that. And I think when you have things like IBS or interstitial cystitis, etc, that it's easy to go to if we can get judgmental and frustrated and angry with our body. And to hear you honor that and, and, and give it a. Recognizing it as a part of you that actually is providing intelligent feedback is just. It's a new way of looking at it for me. So I. My mind's kind of going.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:03:09]:
Yeah.

Walker Bird [01:03:09]:
Because I never viewed. Never viewed my condition that way. I just want it to go away.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:03:15]:
Yeah, that's. That's self love too. Like, hey, this is hurting. It's dangerous. I want to live longer. I don't want to die. I. I want to be in pain.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:03:23]:
I want to be able to have a freer life. So this is something that can relieve this. That's a. That's good. You know, I wouldn't want to take that away. And then also maybe what's happening with that area? What is the. Why is that part of your body, let's say sensitive or awake or. How does it.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:03:46]:
How does it represent things that are less known? Yeah, that's a really big thing. How did you. How did you first learn. How did you first know something's going on inside of my intestines? Did you suffer? Did you get suffering? Did you get pain? Did you.

Walker Bird [01:04:09]:
Yeah, it Was it starts off like a, you know, urinary tract infection is what it seems like. And then it just progresses to so much pain that it's hard to sit.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:04:23]:
Wow.

Walker Bird [01:04:25]:
Pain itself and all kinds of other things as it just progressed and got worse and worse and worse. And so.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:04:34]:
It.

Walker Bird [01:04:36]:
I think, with personal work has become manageable. But I still think that this is. I mean, it's a really important conversation for me, listening to you about that. That piece of the relationship. And it's so funny because, you know, but you don't. You know, it's like, I didn't know. I didn't know.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:04:56]:
Yeah.

Walker Bird [01:04:57]:
Because I thought I knew. So anyway, no, I. I think it's a. It's a really big insight for me just all of a sudden. And so I appreciate it. And, you know, would I like that to go away? Yes. But maybe if I honored it a little bit, that would be helpful to the end. Viewed it as a relationship.

Walker Bird [01:05:19]:
It would be helpful to getting some, you know, some more freedom.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:05:25]:
Yeah. Many people, their symptoms do relieve significantly, but I always have to say it that way because. Because we all want. I want relief from the things that are most difficult. So the. The promise. Oh, I know what that is. If you do this, this will happen.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:05:43]:
I'm always. Other people should do that, and maybe they know and maybe they can cut a tumor out and that's good donation, then that's a different kind of medicine that I offer. And if they have that, or I have had infections that have gotten antibiotics and the infections have gone away. So I'm like, yes. You know, I think somebody might not think that's a good. I think that's great. But. But then there are so many.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:06:07]:
Well, there's two things. One is it's new because we were talking about before, because no one's treating you in that way. No one's saying, oh, let me. Tell me more. What is the feeling? Like, where is it? Can you express that feeling? Because no one's treating you that way, which to me is fundamental. Right. Then how would you know?

Walker Bird [01:06:29]:
Right?

Dr. David Bedrick [01:06:30]:
How would you know? I worked as a volunteer in a psychiatric hospital in. In New York when I was like 18 years old or 19. I can't remember when I came home from college. I think maybe it was right out before graduate school. I can't remember. And it was mostly filled with. With black youth males. And I was like, well, how did these people get in there? And like, well, they gave them IQ tests.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:06:56]:
And if you. At that point. So it wasn't like A Some kind of other cycle. It was like, if you're below a certain level, then something's wrong with you mentally. Right. And I look at these IQ tests and some of the questions would be like, where does milk come from? Well, if no one told you milk comes from a cow, you don't intuit that. Right, right, right in lines. Because just worrying, going to school, basically.

Theresa Hubbard [01:07:19]:
Yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:07:20]:
So how. Anyway, sorry, it's a little bit detour. But how do you know things unless somebody treats you in a certain way? But if nobody says, when you're young, oh, you have a headache, what's your headache like? Is it pounding? Is it making you dizzy? Is it pressure? Is it in one? Do you want to close your eyes? Because it's like a migraine. Is it more in your sinuses? In the eyes? Is it sharp? If no one ever asks fundamental questions, show it to me. How bad is it? 1 out of 10 make a noise so I can hear how bad it is. If no one does those, it wouldn't take long. It's not like, well, that's a long time. I take six, seven minutes.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:07:57]:
I could probably learn a lot more than most people know about themselves. You don't do that to yourself. You don't think. Then I think, I have a headache. I take this thing and it makes it go away, which is fine, but I don't know fundamentally what's happening. And then the other, the shame piece for me is I work with so many people who have chronic symptoms, so it's not going away. And they've done lots of things over many years. So then I think somebody ought to.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:08:28]:
I want to treat that person. Not like, how do I make it go away? Only because they've spent a lot of time there and I'm glad. And maybe they found some reliefs in some people or not. But then so many people are saying, I've done all these things and nothing's happening. So then I stop thinking, how can I make that go away? Because they're trying their best, right? I don't think I'm so brilliant that I can make it go away if nobody else can. Maybe, but maybe not. So then I start thinking, what are we going to do if we can't? I used to work in a hospital. What do we do if we can't? If you're going to die, should we give up on you? And.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:09:08]:
Yeah, and what kind of intelligence lives in you? In your intestines, in your urinary tract? What kind of intelligence is living in there? What part of you Is that way we could say, we could have a, a psychodrama with it, but we have to get in touch with it a little bit first. Might just be able to make it up right away. But if we helped you get in touch with it, even pain. Pain is a huge thing to express. Very few people express pain. They say, I'm in pain, but they're not screaming. Some people are screaming, so we don't like. If I said, I'm really in a lot of pain today, you say, oh, if I wait, Walker, I can't stand it.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:09:50]:
I hurt my finger. Right now you're kind of like, oh, right. Your body gets moved, your emotion gets moved. I can. I started getting teary just saying that. Compassion, that's a whole different experience. And now I'm in community with you and you might want to share your pain or you're feeling things. Right.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:10:07]:
We're in the firewalk. You could say there's a community and you're, you're knowing your pain and you're moved by my pain and I'm connecting with other. Other people and other people are in pain. So a lot of things happen because expressions of pain are more or less shame. That means people don't make expressions of pain very often.

Theresa Hubbard [01:10:27]:
Yeah. Remember at the last retreat that we did when we hung the punching bag in the barn and everybody was expressing their emotion in front of everybody?

Dr. David Bedrick [01:10:36]:
Yes.

Theresa Hubbard [01:10:37]:
How power. Well, how hard it was for people to do, but then once they did, how powerful it was.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:10:45]:
Yeah. I worked with a woman many years ago who, she also lets me tell her story. Her name is Rena and she came to me because she read an article of mine on Psychology Today that I don't think I talked directly about physical symptoms, but I think that was part of it. And she was very self loathing, like some people are of her body and didn't have a lot of support systems. But she was good at her job. So because she was good at her job and people praised her, she never took vacations because it's the only place she feels good. She doesn't feel good alone. She's not really having people around who love her very much that she's in good relationship with.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:11:25]:
So she worked a lot and she didn't take breaks. So it was like 20 years. She didn't take a vacation. Now she takes a vacation, she goes to some beach place and the last day of her vacation, she's walking on the beach and she cuts her foot on something. She goes to some kind of lifeguard or something. And they. It's not too bad. They put some ointment on it and some antibacterial and they put a bandage on it.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:11:51]:
And she goes home. And the next day there's an infection and it's swelling. So she goes to the. I'll have to shorten this foot story because it'll take too long. But anyway, she goes to them and they lancet and let the pus out and give her an antibiotic, which doesn't help. The infection comes back. And now she's going into the hospital. They're giving her intravenous antibiotics to, like.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:12:12]:
Let's get the biggest dose we can give. Because this is really bad and this is a little alarming, triggering. So 30 surgeries.

Walker Bird [01:12:21]:
Wow.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:12:22]:
Cutting away parts of her foot and then. And then the ankle and the (unknown). They're trying to stop the infection.

Theresa Hubbard [01:12:30]:
Wow.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:12:31]:
So let's just. I don't want to say it, but let's amputate pieces of her to see if we can get the infection out in other parts. Nothing is. Nothing is working. She eventually died after about six months working with her. That infection never stopped. She was in incredible pain in her body in various places, especially towards the end of her life. And.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:12:56]:
And one day I kind of slowed down because it's so much. Yeah. Anna, I remember, taught me things. I want to say something about what she taught me, but. But I want to say something about pain as part of that. And then another. One more thing I said to her, let's make sound. You can express the pain.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:13:23]:
I don't know how to do that. Let's try a little bit. I'm like going, ah. Oh, what's it like? And then as we were doing that, we were on the phone, she had a dog. And a dog runs into the room and those are going, right? And then pretty soon we're all kind of going. We're all like yelping and yelping. And here's the interesting thing. When we're doing that, we're doing exactly what you're all doing.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:13:47]:
We're all. We're laughing hysterically. Her pain didn't go away or did. What's happening at that moment? I think, like, she's still in pain, but something in her is feeling well. I'm not saying we cured her pain. That's a whole discussion about what is healing and all. But something in that moment, very special is happening. The connection.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:14:09]:
Are we welcoming her? We can have different ideas, but something I know is very special because we're laughing and crying Pain and joy all together in this intimate moment. And then does the pain go away? No. Was it there at that moment? I don't know what was happening at that moment, but I know that was a special thing. The other thing I wanted to say is she came to me once and she said, I had a dream last night that I was on the road gone a highway, and I was laying in the road and I was bleeding. All the cars were rushing by and no one was noticing. And I thought that's what her life. A lot was like. She was in a lot of pain and nobody knew.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:14:55]:
Right. People are just like, walking over her, you know, in the street, so to speak, on the driving past. So I thought that was my sort of thinking. So I said, what's it like laying on the road like a psychodrama? Imagine you're back on that road. Oh, yeah, I can do. What's it like? And she said, those people driving by. And I said, yeah. She said, they're all dead.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:15:15]:
Who's alive and incredible. She's saying, I know what's going on. I'm awake. Yeah.

Theresa Hubbard [01:15:26]:
Yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:15:26]:
Touching. I was expecting something different. Oh, I can see. I can see how to touch the world. She's like, I'm here, Dan. I'm. When I arrive on the scene, I'm bleeding.

Theresa Hubbard [01:15:39]:
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:15:43]:
Amazing moment. Oh, God. I want to chat with you both. What a privilege it is. Some of the privileges of my life, you know, the social privileges and gender privileges and racial. And what does the privilege of getting to meet certain people like yourselves and let some people, one or two, if maybe, maybe more, be moved by the conversation and. Yeah, the privileges of my life that somebody would, like the two of you would say, I'm interested in what you've been thinking about and working on and caring about and have some audience. I can even share that with other people.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:16:28]:
And thanks a lot for that. That's very meaningful to me.

Theresa Hubbard [01:16:33]:
Yeah. Thank you.

Walker Bird [01:16:34]:
Yeah, thank you. David.

Theresa Hubbard [01:16:35]:
David, I. I did want to ask you one last question.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:16:38]:
Yeah, yeah.

Theresa Hubbard [01:16:39]:
Tell me how you chose the narrator for your book, the Unshaming Way.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:16:45]:
That's an interesting question. Some of my. My dearest students were like, you should do the narration of the book. You should do the narration of the book. I could say I didn't have that choice exactly. Maybe I could have, but I. But I. I really loved North Atlantic Books, the publisher and who they are kind of people they're publishing.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:17:08]:
So I also trusted them and they're like, that would work for a few people, but it Wouldn't work in general as well. So they said, here's six different people or five different people doing readings, and what do you think? So while part of me was thinking I would maybe I should do it, I sort of trusted that they know something about reaching people. But I heard that voice, and it was so full of depth and feeling, or I don't know what, but something in me inside recognized that's a good voice. It's a woman's voice, so it's not a man's voice. So I did. I don't know if that was good or bad. That didn't represent mine, but I. I was touched by it.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:17:53]:
Did you have a feeling when you were listening to her voice?

Theresa Hubbard [01:17:57]:
Yeah, there were several things that came up for me. The first thing was that, oh, it's a woman's voice. That's fantastic. Let me see what my brain does with that. Knowing that I've met David now, and. And so I'm hearing him, but I'm hearing him through a female's voice. And then I also thought the conversation we touched on just a little bit when we met the first time was that in this world of mental health, how most of the people that are the experts are males. And.

Theresa Hubbard [01:18:39]:
And I thought, what a fantastic way to introduce your material that's written by you and. And your lived experience with clients, but then presented with a female voice I thought was also fascinating. I love her voice. Voice like you were mentioning.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:19:03]:
Yeah.

Theresa Hubbard [01:19:04]:
And I went and looked her up because, you know, we. We rarely know who narrators are. Right. And also a beautiful, you know, bright woman, you know, and so there was a lot of things about it that really stood out to me, but I appreciated it, even though at various times I'm like, oh, that's David saying that, you know, like.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:19:29]:
Right, yeah, right.

Theresa Hubbard [01:19:31]:
But not in any way negative. It was all fascinating for me.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:19:37]:
Yeah. The publishing process and how it. How it unfolds. And in the end of. At the beginning of next year, there's going to be a workbook that goes along with it that will have less text and just more guided kind of exercises. And when it comes out, if you let me know, I'll get you a copy. Because, worker, there will also be things about chronic symptoms and how to work with those. I think there's some things in the unshaming way on the chronic symptoms and symptom section, but you might want to check those out and see.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:20:12]:
Walk your. Walk through your symptoms and see if you get to know something about that. And thanks for Sharing the details of that also, that's meaningful. And talking about the body and symptoms. And the word cancer brings up death and dying for people because that's one of our associations. Not saying that's with your concern or fears or whatever, but the topic ends up coming up for people around cancer and more open discussions about that. It's probably happening in certain communities. Within the communities, people talk about those things.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:20:57]:
Right. But not enough in the mainstream. I know I want to feel invulnerable relative to death, you know, as best I can, whether I admit it or not. Right. I'm like, I'm not getting older. Oh, three of my teeth are now ground down to the point of needing crowns. Okay. My teeth are kind of saying, you've worn me down.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:21:20]:
You know, like, not hard to get that one. You know, like, how much chomping can you do on me? You know? You know, it's like, you know, it's a lot of pressure in that bite and. Yeah, I'm gonna start cracking, you know?

Theresa Hubbard [01:21:38]:
And that is how we talk to ourselves.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:21:40]:
Right, Right. That's true. Do a root canal. I learned. I've had root canals. And then that means the tooth's no longer alive, so it doesn't have blood flow. If tooth no longer alive and have blood flow, then it gets brittle. And if you have 70 years of chomping on things and some bunch of years that it's brittle and no blood flow, don't be surprised that it starts cracking.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:22:04]:
Right. It's like anyway.

Theresa Hubbard [01:22:07]:
Right.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:22:08]:
That's my understanding of my teeth lately. Yeah. Teeth symptoms.

Theresa Hubbard [01:22:16]:
Yeah. Our body keeps talking, whether we're listening.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:22:19]:
I know. A little more gum, a little more gum, a little less tooth. Right. To be good, you know, don't bite down so hard and everything. Okay. I'm learning you.

Theresa Hubbard [01:22:32]:
Thank you again, David. We would.

Walker Bird [01:22:34]:
Lovely.

Theresa Hubbard [01:22:35]:
Yeah. We'd love to do this again sometime.

Dr. David Bedrick [01:22:37]:
I would love to. Thank you both so much. Remind me.

Theresa Hubbard [01:22:41]:
Thank you for joining us today. We are excited to explore life with you. We encourage curiosity, self growth, and we strive to be more compassionate every day.