00:00:00 Andrea

When somebody’s taking substances, alcohol or drugs, you don’t know as a child or as a spouse, you don’t know with whom you’re talking at that moment. And that’s something that has an extra layer because then you don’t trust any more, anything that your body is sending you as an alert. There is this layer of shame that I was not even really aware that was there until I started to do Compassionate Inquiry^®. That’s something that I really came across that has been like, influencing how I stand in the world. And that’s the secrecy, that’s the shame… has been the under layer and underdog in my feelings around it. And I thought I really wanted to give some voice to that because now I can see that part is there. The main thing that I realized is that creatives have the power of putting into images, putting into anything that they create themselves the pain and whatever it’s inside that they are not able to say with words. 

00:01:18 Rosemary

This is the Gifts of Trauma Podcast. Stories of transformation and healing through compassionate inquiry. 

Welcome to the Gifts of Trauma Podcast. I’m Rosemary Davies-Janes, and today I am welcoming our guest, Andrea Porcelli. We’re so happy to have you with us today to shine a light on the often overlooked collateral damage that addiction causes within families, to family members, spouses, parents, children, even friends of people experiencing addiction. We’re so glad to have you here.

Welcome. 

00:02:08 Andrea

Thank you. Thank you, Rosemary. Very happy to be here.

00:02:12 Rosemary

It’s a delight to have you. Now, Andrea, we will get more into this as we talk, but I’m curious right off the bat. In my research on this topic, I came across so many studies that identified secrecy and denial as typical behaviors in families where a spouse, parent or child is enmeshed in addiction. What inspired you to step forward and share your experiences, your journey, living with, and witnessing multigenerational addiction?

00:02:43 Andrea

Yeah, it’s a good way of putting it, actually, because I was really thinking about… there’s this layer of shame around it  that I was not even really aware that was there, until I started to do Compassionate Inquiry. And that’s something that I really came across that has been, like, influencing a lot of things that I… How I stand in the world. And that’s the secrecy. That’s the shame has been the under layer and underdog, in my feelings around it. And I thought I really wanted to give some voice to that, because now I can see that part is there. And I realized how much, I don’t know if… to call it damage, but how much pain that part has or had. Yeah. So I wanted to give some voice to that. 

00:03:40 Rosemary

Thank you so much. Now I’m going to loop back and share a little bit more about you. You’re a trauma informed facilitator, therapist, and coach. And prior to that, you spent 25 years as a producer for international photographers and commercial advertising. And your work there really supported creatives in bringing their visions to life, and today you focus your work on helping individuals reconnect with their authentic selves. That’s a dramatic change in your professional path. Could you tell us how that came about?

00:04:17 Andrea

Yeah, I guess I always said, I started the film… I went to the film academy in Amsterdam and that was like the first thing I study, really. When I went there, my idea was like… That was like the way of mixing the psychology of the research, the curiosity which was very awake in me already, but I didn’t know that was curiosity. And I was really intrigued in doing that, in finding why people react to things, and why the same situations have different reactions in people and… Or even in different parts of the world. So that was, like, my first calling that I thought was there. And I realized that was not it. That was… that I didn’t like the world of the whole filming thing, but because I needed to work and I needed the money and I was good at solving problems. That was like my superpower. I will just start doing that. And I realized that I really liked it to be in the creative world, but just solving the problems that were appearing, and helping others to do that to… create whatever. And that was the shame part. Who am I to say anything? Who am I to create anything? So it was comfortable for me to stay behind the scenes in a way. 

And suddenly I came across… that a lot of photographers first started to ask me more deeper advice that was just not solving practical things. And then I started to create this coaching for photographers and creatives, after I had to study next to my job, always, a lot of things that had to do with psychology and understanding and awareness. And when I started to do the coaching for the photographers and the creatives, I really very quickly came to the essence of, how did they start to create? What was the calling? What was the motivation? What moved them to want to say something to the world? What was their message? What was inside them? And that’s how I just went just deeper and deeper into understanding that part. And I realized that I wanted to deepen myself as well, in the traumas that I was carrying. And what was moving me to want to help people like that. Yeah. So I just… I started to go more into this trauma-Informed coaching and counseling and understanding me, myself more, and bringing that to light more. And then Compassionate Inquiry just made the world completely different, in another light suddenly.

00:07:04 Rosemary

Thank you.

00:07:04 Andrea

Yeah.

00:07:05 Rosemary

I’m wondering… you have a special spot in your heart for creatives, which makes perfect sense given what you’ve said. I’m curious as to whether the sensitivity of creative people makes them/ us, I consider myself one too. A little more susceptible to trauma to maybe just we’re more open to what the world throws at us. So it might land a little bit more harshly. That’s my guess. What have you learned since you’ve been working with these people, and you yourself are one?

00:07:40 Andrea

Yeah. The main thing is that I realized that creatives have the power of putting into images, putting into anything that they create themselves, the pain and whatever is inside, that they are not able to say with words. And that was like, very attractive for me, actually. So I needed them as well, to understand that part. Yeah. And that’s the main thing, is that the putting up that part so strongly. And yeah, there is a sensitivity, but it’s not more sensitive than other persons that are not able to create, but find the words or behaves in a certain way to just express himself. I guess it has to do with, that talent is helping them to process even more deeply, maybe in another layer. It’s another tool that they’re putting in there… To the world.

00:08:35 Rosemary

Yeah, I totally understand that. And what I’m hearing, through your words is that they are working on releasing their trauma, but they’re not talking about it. They are expressing it in visual artistic realms. And that also connects with what a lot of our guests have mentioned, that they find getting into artistic pursuits very therapeutic. So it’s an alternate form of expressing what’s going on inside us. Thank you. I have a question here. At this stage of your life, what would you say your purpose or mission is?

00:09:18 Andrea

I think it changes a little bit. I do. I feel extremely at home with what I do now and giving that space, holding that space for understanding, for finding out, for finding the curiosity and finding the joy as well. It’s something that I really feel, that is in me, and that I want to give to whoever wants and needs it. I guess there is this part as well. And I was even thinking about that just a few days ago. The dissociation, that’s one part of me. So that part of this dissociating has helped me as well, to see the world with colors. And that part has saved me in a way as well. That part that just goes away and goes into this inner world, which is like, with a lot of colors, and a lot of things happening, has helped me to stand here today and see still, even when there are problems, I know, okay, that part is there. That part is there with me. So when I need it, I just go back and fall into it and say, okay, nothing happened. It’s going to be okay. We are going on and we are going to find the solution.

00:10:34 Rosemary

I’ve heard people refer to creative pursuits, artwork as active meditation. Does that resonate with you?

00:10:43 Andrea

Definitely, yeah, definitely.

00:10:46 Rosemary

Fair enough. Now, your life has been deeply shaped by addiction. Can you tell us a little bit about your life situation, where you were born, where you grew up, your hopes and dreams as a child?

00:11:00 Andrea

Yeah, I was born in Barcelona, but my father was Argentinian and my mother was from Chile, and they came in difficult years in South America. My father was a tango singer and a musician. He was really from his heart, he was definitely a musician. And my mother was like, a very charismatic type woman, you could say. And they came here very young. They had me, and from there just they had a very difficult life themselves, and there were a lot of monsters following them, in a way. So yeah, I guess I got the consequences of that, of being born into that world with them. They separated very soon, so I was like jumping from one place to another with them. And my mother fell into addiction and it was… yeah, it was like heroin. So that was very difficult. And yeah, she just couldn’t take care of me a lot of times. So there was a lot of abandonment in a kind of way of leaving me with one or with the other, or sending me to South America to an aunt that I didn’t even know when I was five, who I love now. And I’m so happy that she’s in my life, and my whole family in Chile. But yeah, that was a lot… It was a lot of difficult periods and my father was like, very kind, funny, very funny man, which he, yeah, he showed a lot of love but just didn’t know how to manage and how to do things. And so I didn’t have really much with him, in that sense, of protection. That was my growing up. I’m really thankful that… How can I say this? I’m thankful that what they gave me, in the sense that my father gave me two amazing brothers who I love like crazy a lot, and he gave me a lot of humor and a lot of really funny things and nice things and a lot of, as well, moral things, ethics, things that came from him. And my mother gave me a beautiful sister, and an incredible family in Chile, which I love. I’m grateful for everything that is there.

00:13:23 Rosemary

Thank you. I love your gratitude. In your bio it said that as a second generation immigrant, you spent years searching for your place in the world. And growing up in the Netherlands, Chile, Argentina, Spain, you were surrounded by refugees, musicians, poets and philosophers. There were other influences in your life. Would you like to speak to how those sort of played off against your environment of addiction?

00:13:51 Andrea

They were part of my environment. That’s the thing, because I was born in Barcelona in ‘76, which was like the end of a dictatorship here, which was very long, which was Franco. There were a lot of refugees coming from South America, because there were a lot of dictators in South America at that moment, all over the place. So all these artists, philosophers, all these people that were the creatives, were here creating and getting together. I will be part of that, actually. So I will be part, always, of that world. I grew up between all of them. And so for me, it was the normal thing, the norm. it was to be between them and between music and jam sessions and rehearsals and an artist that didn’t know where to go and just ended up there. And there was like this big kind of community of underdogs as well, all over the place. And a lot of them just didn’t make it as well. So, yeah, that was part of my base. When I was very young, I went to Holland, to Amsterdam, because I fell in love with a Dutch guy. And he was an artist, he was an actor, he was a musician, and I ended up in that world as well. But in Amsterdam, there were writers and there were musicians, and so that was my home, let’s say. But I always thought I was out of that. I always thought, but I’m not creative. I try, but I’m not. I just, like, I stay out of the… Of this one. But I can understand them. There’s this kind of part of me that there’s this understanding very deeply of what is the process, what’s happening there.

00:15:33 Rosemary

Yeah, now you have the understanding and you have the curiosity that led you to study healing work. So many mind, body and emotional approaches. So Compassionate Inquiry, Systemic Coaching and Family Constellations, Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy, Yin Yoga, Stress Management Coaching, Psychosocial Counseling, and even the Feldenkrais method, which, if you work with people in dance, if that’s of interest to you, that makes perfect sense. Can you tell me a little bit about your journey through this, all these different approaches to health and healing?

00:16:12 Andrea

Yeah, they all came because of a need of myself, of understanding what was happening with me. So that will be like the most honest answer I can give you. I had a need. I had a burnout at a certain point, because one of my mechanisms, let’s say, was to work a lot and to provide for my kid, so that he will not miss anything that I didn’t have. So I worked really crazy hours. And that brought me to a burnout, which was like, the best thing that could happen to me, actually, at that point. Because I really had to stop, and I really had to become aware of my body. Until that point, my body was, like, just transportation for me. There was like, if my mind is put there, my body has to follow. And that was, like, the big shocker when I got the burnout and the big panic attacks that came with it, was like, wow, my body is not responding, and now what? So I had to really figure out how I was going to do that. I had a child, and I was alone with him.

00:17:23 Rosemary

So if I may interrupt, were you parenting on your own at this point?

00:17:27 Andrea

Yes. The father of my son has trouble with addictions still, so we separated pretty soon, and he’s still very struggling with it. Since then, I’ve been just, like, the caretaker of my son.

00:17:40 Rosemary

You were it, for him.

00:17:42 Andrea

Yeah. And that… And because I didn’t have family, because I’m in Spain, and that’s the belief I had as well. I had to do it on my own. And asking for help was not really an option, because what kind of help can I ask? So I really worked very hard and tried to hold it all together until. Yeah, until I get the burnout. And then I just… My whole fairy tale all just fell down in a way.

00:18:10 Rosemary

How did the burnout show up for you, if I may ask? Because I know of people who’ve hit that wall and they don’t recognize what’s happening. How did it show up physically, and did it take a little while for you to realize what was happening?

00:18:24 Andrea

It took a long time, I must say. And even if you will recognize it, I still was like, yeah, okay, but I should be doing… Come on, Andrea. This is… So, It took me a while. Even after that, I was, like, diagnosed with burnout or whatever. But my way with the burnout was finding out how to get out of the burnout and how to make a clinic for burnouts and integrating everything. I thought it was important. So even then, it took me a while to just really calm down.

00:18:57 Rosemary

You brought your beliefs into the burnout zone.

00:19:01 Andrea

Yes, that was my thing, because I realized all the walls you were coming across. You will go to the doctor, you will go to the psychiatrist, you will go to this, you will go to that. And then, yeah, you need to integrate this and how you integrate this and how you talk about this and how you’ve recognized your body. And that was, like, really awakening for me. Really.

00:19:24 Rosemary

Thank you. Now, I’d like to mirror one of your quotes back to you as your Words really struck a chord with me. “You said healing is a journey home to ourselves, our roots and our wholeness.” Can you say a bit more about that?

00:19:43 Andrea

Yeah, I guess, because I’ve been always moving around, I think. Always moving. I. I didn’t know better. I remember one time with a friend, I counted how many times when I was in my 20s, how many times I had moved from schools, home, country, city, whatever. And at that point we were counting 15 times. And I was only in the beginning of my 20s, so I didn’t know better. And I felt that was, like, I had to keep on running until I will find a place in it. And when I started to do this, to do Compassionate Inquiry, to get more into understanding myself, to being more aware and to being able, as well, to understand others and help, eventually, others. I realized that in this community I was home because I could understand myself. I was home because I made peace with that part of my family, peace with that part of the addictions. And for me, addiction was like, my mother addicted was like, I don’t want to know anything about addictions in my family. Not nothing… But it was really like, okay, they are there, but it’s not me. And I realized, no, that’s me too. That’s definitely me.

00:21:04 Rosemary

So you shut them off, you block them off, you put up a wall.

00:21:08 Andrea

Yeah, so I could… I was able to open up that part and really embrace… The worst question you could ask me when I was little, and I would even get angry and really triggered, even in my 20s, was, where are you from? I hated that question, because I didn’t know and I didn’t know what to answer. It was terrible. So I will go for the long answer. So I will go, I was born here, my father is this, my mother is that, But I live as well here. And they will just simplify it. Oh, then you’re Catalan, you’re from Barcelona. No, I’m not. I’m saying all this because I’m from all over, but I’m from nowhere. And that was the main thing that was coming up for me, like, I don’t belong here, but I do. I don’t belong with the creatives, but I do. I don’t belong in this country, but I do and where I belong. And that was the whole embracing part that became home, actually. And now that’s me. That’s all the countries I have blood from. And they are my roots. They are my roots. All the traumas are my roots as well.

00:22:24 Rosemary

You belong in all of these places and communities. I think the world tends to put people in boxes, but you have a multiplicity of homes, of influences. I’m curious about the part of you that said, I don’t belong here. Can you speak about that a little bit? What stopped you from really belonging? And I’ll ask part two, which you can get to later. What allowed you to belong in the community once you got into the Compassionate Inquiry training?

00:22:53 Andrea

Yeah. The part of not belonging is because that’s the old, very old core belief, let’s say, of if I would go back, will be the moment my mother actually recognized to me before dying that she should have an abortion with me. So that is there. And that’s my core belief in everything that shows up in my life. And because that is there, it was, I don’t belong here. I don’t belong in this world. But I just didn’t know how big that was, how deep that was. So I will just really try to adapt, always, to any place. That’s why I speak all the accents in Spanish. I speak the Argentinian accent, I speak the Chilean accent and I speak the Spanish accent so that I could blend as good as possible. And they will not think you don’t belong here.

00:23:50 Rosemary

Yeah, you became a bit of a chameleon, more focused on fitting in. So standing out for you, back then was something you were absolutely not interested in.

00:24:00 Andrea

No. And I guess that has happened as well. If I go back to the addiction part, the same thing has happened. I remember going out with a lot of friends, and I will go out with young people and with older people, and I will blend in all these different places, and I didn’t need to take any drugs or any alcohol. I will just be able to go, all the way they were doing. And I thought, oh, I’m like this sponge that I absorb and don’t need to take anything. I just go with it. Yeah. That was my adaptation talking, definitely.

00:24:40 Rosemary

Yes. Wow. And I’m curious what happened to your… Your true self in this process of self abandonment to fit in. And I’m guessing that’s what you went into the healing journey to find yourself, which is connected to the quote that I just shared that you wrote. “Coming home to ourselves, our roots and our wholeness.” This is, this has been your journey and probably the journey of many others.

00:25:07 Andrea

So thank you. Yeah, definitely. Is that. And that is what Compassionate Inquiry has given me. It’s the community. And I think I heard Sat Dharam saying last time, about the community, that you heal in community. I completely agree with it. And I completely love that she said that and the awareness and the being able to be with whatever comes up, being able to be with the shame that I had for so many, that I carried so much. And I realize now with my son, like my son is struggling as well with some kind of addiction. And he had this mother, which was me, working crazy hours and doing everything for survival, and then he has the father that he has, who has really big addiction problems and substance problems. So those things he lived into, not live, because he was living always, usually, with me. But he saw a lot of pain… really painful things. And I guess that Compassionate Inquiry has given me as well, the space to not run away from the addiction or the addictive… or the people that are having addictive problems, but has just put me, every time in my life, something somehow that reflects that I can do something about it, that I could do something about it. And I’m just extremely grateful that I have that understanding as well now, so that I can have another relationship with my son and understand where we are both coming from.

00:26:43 Rosemary

Thank you. So am I understanding correctly that the compassionate inquiry training was your first step on your journey to healing and subsequently you studied these other approaches or no? Okay, thank you. Please share with me how that all came together.

00:26:59 Andrea

Yeah, I started it with… I said, like the burnouts. So I started with the mindfulness. And I must say, I don’t know how to do things halfway. So when I go, I really go. And because of my curiosity, I thought, okay, if I go, I’m just going to do the whole teacher training and I’m just going to study it because I want to really deepen into it. And the same happened with, with the yoga, with the Yin Yoga. I tried different modalities until I thought, no, this is it. Okay, this I can work with. And so I did the teacher training, to really deepen my knowledge. And I did some Feldenkrais. I didn’t do the whole training of Feldenkrais. I did a few modules to understand the whole awareness and philosophy behind it, because that’s what I carry with me as well. I love that part of being aware of very subtle movements. And that has a little bit of the Compassionate Inquiry. Let’s go not hard on it, but just let’s inquire into that movement, into that sensation. And then I did systemic work and Family Constellations, which I thought I needed to heal my roots and my… where I’m coming from in my mother and my father. And how do I do that? And so I just went deeply into it. and then I came across Compassionate Inquiry. And that was like, okay, this is home. This makes it all together. This is where I can put everything, all the parts that I carry, and I have… and feel comfortable in my body and feel comfortable when I’m doing this. And whole. Yeah.

00:28:41 Rosemary

What an amazing journey. Thank you so much, Andrea. Now I’d like to shift gears a little bit and offer some statistics on addiction for our listeners. Then I’d love to hear your comments and perhaps if you’re willing, you could share some personal stories. So the first quote and all of these will be referenced in the show notes. The first quote says, “Addiction doesn’t only affect the person who is addicted. It affects partners, parents, siblings, friends and neighbors. They can find their lives upturned by another’s addictive behavior and in turn, communities and societies also suffer.” And I think what you’ve shared with us so far really reflects that. So I found more information, multiple studies, “…those around the addict, the addicted person, can lose their sense of self as they struggle to control or fix the problem. They face, often, heavy financial, social and emotional burdens. And they tend to hide stress and anxiety because they don’t want to make the problem worse by exposing it. There can be feelings of not being in control due to the unmanageability of the situation. So they can become controlling to create some sort of order and manage their fear.” So there’s chaos, there’s manipulative behavior, there’s broken promises, there’s deceit. Trust in relationships can be just destroyed and self blaming, which I think we can call shame. There’s feeling judged and shame plus denial. And families can become really trapped, isolated due to all of these responses. So I just wanted to share those with you. Of course family roles can become confused. Children can end up parenting their parent, or parents. So I’m imagining that you might have experienced many of those in your upbringing and life…it wasn’t limited to when you were a child. It continued.

00:30:44 Andrea

Yeah, definitely. I. If I hear you say all this, I will just go ticking all the boxes above. Yeah, the shame is not only what’s happening there outside, but there is this shame of not having money. When there is an addiction so strong, there is money problems. I was a lot alone. I didn’t know if I could, if I will open the fridge and we will eat or not. There was no prediction of my times. I didn’t know when I would go back to sleep, or if I will be up until 3 in the morning. So my whole system actually was completely upside down and I was just waiting for what was going to happen. So my alert system was extremely open, of knowing and trying to anticipate what could happen next. And it still is. It still is in my relations. It can be in my relations that I just shut down some parts of me that could give me the alert, or the ‘this is not right’, because it just didn’t serve me. It just didn’t serve me to see everything that was not right at that moment. So I just put it all down and just shut it down. I think the shame… it goes into those layers, as well. And I remember even confronting my stepfather about it, confronting him and saying, I think you’re using again. And I was like six or something, or seven, I don’t remember. And then he told me, you’re crazy. No, that’s old. That’s old, what you found there. It’s just old. So you’re being gaslighted, at a very young age, because you don’t even know if that’s true. And you think, oh, I might be paranoid, okay, so I will try to relax. And then you find… so there’s lot of these kinds of situations happening. Might be different from what we heard sometimes in Compassionate Inquiry when somebody’s taking substances, alcohol or drugs, you don’t know as a child or as a spouse, you don’t know with whom you’re talking at that moment. And that’s something that has an extra layer, because then you don’t trust anymore anything that your body is sending you as an alert.

00:33:06 Rosemary

And if you shut down your neuroception, which… we’re wired to be able to tell safe from unsafe, but if you don’t know what safe is, do you have a choice but to be constantly hypervigilant?

00:33:20 Andrea

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

00:33:23 Rosemary

We had a naturopath guest on recently and she talked about the huge impact of stress, which hypervigilance is a form of stress, and the impact on our bodies… Our adrenals are overloaded, our systems are flooded with cortisol. So did that play out in illnesses or how did that affect you?

00:33:44 Andrea

Yeah, I didn’t even know that I had this eating disorder for a long time. When I would just be stressed, which was a lot, I would just not eat. So that took me a long while to really understand what was happening, and how I could manage that. So I will eat, just for the need to put some food in my body, because I knew somehow, that I had to take care of myself. But I had a lot of moments where the stress was so high that, it was like, not even a glass of water I could drink. So that played for a long time. Really a long time. Even after I had my son, I remember going to a psychiatrist and she told me, okay, you are so under the weight now, that if you go one kilo less, I’m going to put you in a clinic. Which, it was such a shocker that I thought, like, I’m going to eat like crazy. So I just thought, okay, this cannot happen. And of course, in a lot of other things this played too, the burnout is a clear one. I had sciatica from my 18th birthday., after the death of my mother, I started to have sciatica. And for years I just sometimes couldn’t even walk from the pain. And I would just go across it because I had to work. So it was just like, okay, do productions with this pain. That was crazy. But I will not almost take pills because that was something else. I didn’t take pills.

00:35:19 Rosemary

Yeah, understandable. Seeing what happens when people take pills and medications and legal or non…

00:35:26 Andrea

I must say I was very fortunate not to have anything very badly. The only thing I had in the end was like this tiredness, actually like chronic tiredness, which I will just go over myself and just collapse. And in a certain point, and with Corona as well… I had Covid. Very strong Covid. And after that I got this post Covid syndrome. So I dealt with it. I feel that I’m okay now. But it has been, always, the layer there. It’s like the nervous system is just, sensitive, let’s say.

00:36:02 Rosemary

Understandable, given what it’s been through in your life. Thank you for sharing that. Now, I came across something interesting. It’s a bit of a sidebar, but a form of the impact or the collateral damage of addiction that many might not consider is how stigma and labeling can affect our lives, whether it’s adults or children. And this is a question I’d like you to address when I’m finished. Can we actually really hide the fact that there’s addiction in the family? Because the stigma and labeling social invitations dry up. Children can be targeted by bullies. Friends and extended family withdraw their trust, particularly around money. And colleagues at work may start to treat you differently. Lik,e every area of your life can be affected. Is the attempt to hide the addiction… Is it possible? Or is that just part of the delusion?

00:36:59 Andrea

It is there. I did learn when I was very young as well. I remember one time having this friend… I was around 8 or 9, something like that. She was my best friend at school, and she was going to be for the weekend with me in our home. And we were living in Majorca at that point in Spain, and with my mother and stepfather. And I remember explaining to her because I didn’t talk with anyone. So I remember explaining to her what was happening, but trying to do it in a very nonchalant way, let’s say. So, like, it’s okay, this is happening, but don’t worry. And I remembered, because they left us in the car for a long time, and we didn’t know if they were coming back or when they were coming back. And I thought, oh no, she’s going to be where she wants to go home, and we have to wait. I don’t know when they’re coming back. So I remember trying to calm her and trying to explain to her, this is normal. This is what’s happening. Don’t worry. And after that, she never played with me anymore. That was the reality. Of course, if you have a child and you’re not going to let him or let her play somewhere where there are addictions coming up. So I had to learn it from this hard reality. Okay, I didn’t talk anymore with her. And then from that point, of course, you learn in all the puberty and everything, you learn just to hide everything. And my mother died very young, so that was there too, because that was another stigma. My mother had aids, she got aids, so she died very young. That was something that came with it as well. And the father of my son as well. It works the same. It was like, oh no, it cannot be happening. So what I did, it was like blindly thought, I’m not seeing it, I’m not seeing it. Until it was just like, very obvious, too obvious. And I remember asking my father, am I being very blind about this? Am I not seeing something? And my father looked at me and he was like, Jesus, finally you’re saying something. Because he, even, didn’t want to tell me. So that’s there. It’s this blind spot. Let’s say I call it blind spots. I don’t know if. If I will be so judgy about that part as well. I think, yeah, it blinds me. And then I just shut up and don’t say it. And what we say, it’s like this shame, this part that comes up as well. And as a parent, even more can come up, as well, because you think, oh, God, like Gabor says sometimes, yeah, she just messed it up already. So we all messed it up. Okay. And now what?

00:39:53 Rosemary

Yeah, as I’m taking in your words, Andrea, I just… It’s so much not being said, so much being held inside, so much repression and constriction. And when it comes to addiction, he (Gabor) always asks why the pain? He doesn’t talk about the substance. And I’ve got to imagine that keeping all that pain bundled up inside, it’s not a wonder that people look for a way to find relief.

00:40:27 Andrea

And that is the beautiful part of the work that he does, that he shared with us in a way is that philosophy of why the pain, and to understand that gives me, as an observer, as a collateral damage person. It gives me so much space and understanding for myself as well. And softness, actually, I will definitely call that more, the softness of it has eased the pain in me as well.

00:41:02 Rosemary

Thank you. Yes, it offers an invitation for people to speak, not about the taboo topics, but about the pain that drives those actions. Would you say that’s a very new space to a lot of people experiencing addiction?

00:41:19 Andrea

Yeah, and that’s the thing, because of course, the history I have, I’ve been involved in different 12-step programs and programs that are there, which have been great, and it’s great that there are all these programs, but definitely there is a missing link there where they are coming from. There is some kind of responsibility from the guilt and from the shame. And you’ll need to confess, and you need to open up and say sorry. And I must say it’s not about that. I don’t think I need the sorry from my mother. I don’t think I need the sorry from my father or from the rest of my family. It’s more the having the space to understand and to just be able to see and to talk about what does hurt so much, what is the pain behind everything, and that I understand it and that we understand it and the community, the sharing in group, the sharing in a space where it’s safe, that would be definitely the message or the, I don’t know, the story behind it.

00:42:20 Rosemary

I appreciate that, Andrea. I love that softness and spaciousness. And as you shared, you dove deep into healing, and explored all kinds of different approaches. And very much on that same page, you’ve offered a wonderful array of videos and books as resources for our listeners. I’m wondering if you could offer them any suggestions as to how to begin to navigate those.If something you’ve said in this interview really speaks to them. They can say, ah, I relate to that. And then look at the resources list and. And maybe I just answered my own question. Maybe that’s how they choose, they select, which one to pursue first. Does that seem to fit?

00:43:04 Andrea

Yeah, definitely. And definitely. I think it’s the… That’s why I gave the titles of it... If it resonates with you, just go for it. And they are not long videos. And of course, in the resources. I didn’t even put music in the resources, which is something that comes in as well. But yeah, in the books, of course, there’s a lot of healing books. But what I definitely… has reached in my world as well, are the kind of writers that come from Latin America that have been making my inner world so rich in that sense, and making all this pain. I think Latin America has this. We all know them in the Western world as the soaps and the drama and the passion. But behind that is people that really can hold pain, sometimes, that really are openly crying and openly talking about love and about passion and about the family disasters, like Allende, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez. They are like, these writers, that tell stories that are unbelievable, but they are real. They are like, if you go to South America, they are real. I will definitely invite to that.

00:44:20 Rosemary

Thank you. It’s going back again to where we started talking about creativity as a very strong theme in your life. We’re coming towards the end and I’d like to ask, what’s possible for you today after so much healing work, that might have been completely unimaginable in the past?

00:44:41 Andrea

Yeah, that’s a good question. I’m able to sit with my pain. I’m able to not panic when I have pain. I’m able to not panic when I am alone or left alone, perceived like being abandoned. I’m able to not panic when something happens to my son, or my brother, and not think that I have to solve everything. I can be with whatever comes up, even if that means that I have to sometimes sit down and just cry or call somebody from the community, and ask them to just give me a session because I need to talk. And I’m able to really love what I do, love the work I do, and help people who’ve been crossing my life as well, and say that I’m even creating a program together with another CI colleague, another Compassionate [Inquiry] colleague. We are trying to create a support program for families or people that has… That is struggling with addiction. And yeah, that’s the way I’m going towards the things that I can do, instead of thinking that I have to hide.

00:46:00 Rosemary

Thank you, Andrea. And I love what you’re creating with your Compassionate Inquiry colleague. And I love that you are now able to pause, turn inward and process the pain, allow it out. I love that you are able to ask for help, which you said was impossible for you, in the past. And I love that you don’t feel the need to fix anything for anyone. You just are this abiding, empathetic presence, and you honor yourself and you honor those around you who, yes, may be struggling. What a beautiful shift. I’m so happy for you, that you’ve come to this place now and we’ll be definitely looking out for that program that you’re collaborating on now. It sounds like that’s going to serve so many people.

00:46:50 Andrea

Thank you. Thank you so much.

00:46:52 Rosemary

You’re very welcome. Is there anything that I haven’t asked you that you’d like to speak about?

00:46:59 Andrea

Maybe just one thing that comes a lot, to mind, when you were mirroring what I was saying. Especially one thing that I can do, is speak up, which is something I couldn’t do before, and speak up from easiness, and not from I have to fight or I have to defend this, but more about it’s okay, I can come out and say it. And find amazing responses as well, in people.

00:47:28 Rosemary

Such progress. That’s amazing. What final words of wisdom would you like to drop into the ear of our listening audience, which may very well include people struggling with addiction in their families? What do they need to hear?

00:47:47 Andrea

Don’t be afraid to speak up. Just find your team, find your people to talk [to], and that will be the best gift you can give yourself, and that you can give as well to the person that is struggling, because that means that you as well, can heal and can share and can hold the space, when it’s needed.

00:48:09 Rosemary

Thank you so much, Andrea, for being so open, for sharing your voice, for speaking about this topic, for being such a beacon of hope and inspiration for other people who are perhaps at an earlier stage on their journey of healing. It’s been such a blessing to have you on the podcast today. I really appreciate what you shared and the message that’s going out to the world. Thank you.

00:48:35 Andrea

Thank you. Rosemary. Thank you for having me and thank you, the whole team.

00:48:42 Rosemary

It’s been an absolute pleasure.

00:48:48 Kevin

If you’re not a therapist or a healer, but you heard our guest describe the personal transformation affirmations they experienced during their Compassionate Inquiry journeys and wonder, what might that be like for me? There is a program that is offered to anyone who wants to experience the power of Gabor Mate’s approach to trauma healing. I’m Kevin Young and I’ve been facilitating CI Circles since 2022. I’ve seen people transform in many ways. I’ve seen people change beliefs, relationships. I’ve seen people change how they show up in the world. I have seen people literally change how they look in front of my very eyes. There are many, many ways that people change during Compassionate Inquiry Circles. Circles is a 10 week small group experience. Click the link in the show notes. That’ll bring you to a web page that gives you all you’ll need to figure out if this is for you.

00:49:53 Rosemary

The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma healing, transformation and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. 

Listen on Apple, Spotify, all podcast platforms. Rate, review and share it with your clients, colleagues and family. Subscribe and you won’t miss an episode. 

Please note this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for personal therapy or a DIY formula for self therapy.