00:00:01 Irma

One thing nobody ever tells you is when you’re assimilating, you’re losing part of yourself because you want to belong. You want that safety.

00:00:09 Kevin

How does that feel to not have somewhere that you’re really considering as home? How does that show up for you?

00:00:19 Irma

Lots of sadness, lots of grief, lots of anger, because everybody tells you, “go home.” Refugees, when you’re a refugee, nobody wants you. You’re taking space. You can’t go home because you’re told you don’t belong there. You see a loss when you come to different places. People want you to become part of their community, but there are rules that you’re supposed to follow. One thing is how you speak. There’s lots of shaming when you’re not speaking the way they are speaking. So then you really work hard on on that and that would cause me great stress. And I remember when we crossed the border and I was staying in north Croatia that first year, I was so grateful. And there I had a place to be. And.. but every time I would open my mouth I would be corrected how I’m saying something.

00:01:15 Kevin

How does that impact a young girl at that time and maybe a young woman to be having to assimilate so much, to have friends and integrate and be connected, but each time losing a little bit of yourself? What happens there?

00:01:41 Rosemary

This is the Gifts of Trauma Podcast, stories of transformation and healing through Compassionate Inquiry.

00:01:59 Kevin

You’re very welcome to another episode of the Gifts of Trauma podcast from Compassionate Inquiry. I think by now our audience will be familiar with our desire to uncover and reveal and listen to stories of,
I guess, from trauma to healing, from constriction to peace. And today I am joined by Irma Rubil-Jonatan, am I saying that right, Irma?

00:02:32 Irma

Yes, you are. You’re pronouncing my name really well. Most people call me Irma.

00:02:38 Kevin

Yeah, I’m glad I got that right, Irma. You’re very welcome. I am really keen to chat to you, really excited about this and I’m just curious how are you doing in this moment, as we begin our conversation?

00:02:50 Irma

Yeah, I’m full of gratitude. It’s really lovely to be here. Thank you for inviting me.

00:02:56 Kevin

Irma, it didn’t pass me by that you and I, given our upbringings and where we’ve grown up, where our families of origin are from, have a lot of similarities there. I would love the opportunity to speak to you about some of those, probably around conflict, war, PTSD and complex post traumatic stress disorder, and those sorts of things. Before we do that, if it’s OK with you, I would love you to introduce yourself. How come you came to be sitting with me in an episode of The Gifts of Trauma podcast? How come you’re here? Who are you?

00:03:38 Irma

I am psychotherapist and traumatologist. I am originally from North Bosnia. I was born in Croatia but the first eleven years I lived in North Bosnia and I’m a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner, Private Mentor and as of recently one of the Facilitators, and I’m currently based in Prague, but part of the year I live in the UK. I’m a bit here, and summers I spend most of the time on the Croatian seaside and I joined Compassionate Inquiry in 2021 and it seems that I’m unable to leave. I found my tribe, I found my place. So yes, this is my family.

00:04:25 Kevin

Well, thank you. Your introduction sounds very glamorous. Sounds like a bit of a rock star lifestyle, Irma. “I summer in Croatia and winter in the UK”. Is that right or is it the other way round?

00:04:35 Irma

I summer in Croatia, yeah, and a little bit UK and here in Prague. So, but yeah, this is, this is more to do with me actually not knowing where my home is. And so I have like places that I live, but they don’t feel like home. And that’s something that I’m searching for a place where, you know, to come and stay, settle down and just release my roots. And this is something as well that I kind of, I’m reflecting on last like a year, year and a half. Um, yeah, because my home was in North Bosnia and I left and then I moved quite a bit. I moved a lot, so not …I did not put my roots down since then. I could say.

00:05:15 Kevin

Yeah, thank you. And you Irma. I want to chat to you a little bit about your recent role as facilitator with Compassionate Inquiry. And maybe we’ll laugh at this. And anytime one of these question comes up, I’m sure we’ll have a little chuckle to ourselves. But you say that it doesn’t feel like you have somewhere that you’re really considering as home.

00:05:35 Irma

Perception. Yes.

00:05:36 Kevin

I know it’s just the use of language, but how does that feel? How does it feel to not have somewhere that you’re really considering as home? How does that show up for you?

00:05:49 Irma

There’s some heaviness. So there is some heaviness in my chest, so I guess there is some grief. and home comes with the land, and ownership of land. My experience brought war, and with that a lot of loss and grief. Losing your friends, losing your family, then moving different countries, assimilating, not…  because where I was, I didn’t belong there. I had to leave. As a kid I started really to understand that because that was my home. This is place where I was born and I belonged to. And then I ended up in Croatia where apparently I belonged, because midway through the war I realized I was Croatian. Up till then I was Yugoslavian, because my parents, they were not distinguishing between Muslim, Serbs and Croatians. So I was Yugoslavian, and I had family and I still have family in Serbia and Bosnia and Croatia. And a lot of my friends are coming from mixed families and, there are mixed marriages in my family. So we were Yugoslavians. So when I left home and I went to Croatia, where according to everybody, this is where I was supposed to be, where I belonged, then I had to assimilate and change the language, learn a different accent. Then we moved from the northern part of Croatia to the seaside and it was a different language with some Italian words and different accent and then some words that we used in Bosnia were appropriate there. And from northeast Croatia they were not. So I had to again assimilate, and then I moved to northern Croatia close to Zagreb. So I had to assimilate again and then UK. One thing nobody ever tells you is when you’re assimilating, you’re losing part of yourself, because you want to belong, you want that safety.

00:07:46 Kevin

Expand that for me a little bit, dear my, when you assimilate, you lose a little bit of yourself. Talk to me a little bit more about that.

00:07:53 Irma

So to to be accepted, to have friends, for people not to laugh at you, how you’re using certain words because this… they understand you when you’re using that word, but it’s pronounced differently in a different part of the country. So in Croatia, it’s a small country, but so many different dialects and speed, how you speak, as well. So intonation and everything. And then you go to UK and again, different culture and how you express yourself, how fast you speak, how loud you speak. So you start picking up what’s appropriate and you connect appropriateness with likeness. So me speaking in certain way, behaving in a certain way when it’s appropriate and according to social rules, then you are more likely to belong and people are not laughing at you. How you’re speaking. And I noticed as well that some people don’t like when I speak where I’m coming from and when you speak about war because it upsets them, because it brings the sadness and some people choose not to hear about it. So then I learned not to speak. And so you can suppress things because it brings safety. And when people are comfortable around you, when you behave in a certain way, when you present yourself in a certain way, then you’re liked. And then you get to have friends. And that is something what I desperately needed, wanted because I lost my friends, lost my family when I moved. So that that was a huge shock and I didn’t really understand why it all happened. You’re connected with people, nationality and different religion didn’t matter. And then one day it started to matter. So a different set of values that did not resonate with me.

00:09:45 Kevin

Yeah, thank you. Irma, it’s fascinating to me when we assimilate, we we lose a little bit of ourselves. And you have both described there, the polarity of these things, how assimilating and separating from yourself and changing how you speak and how fast you speak and how loud you speak and how you behave, how that helped you to connect with others. And at the same time, you describe that as losing a little bit of yourself each time, as well. What’s the impact of that? For a… actually, before I ask you that question, Irma, can I just do something here? Sometimes when we speak of war? And I know for me as well-being from the north of Ireland, you and I, we are not 200 years old. So this is recent history. This is in the last 25 years we’re talking about. Certainly for you, and I think it’s important just to name that. It wasn’t 1845. It was in the mid 90s, yeah, mid nineties, 2000s, yeah. I think that’s important to name that. How does that impact a young girl at that time and maybe a young woman, to be having to assimilate so much, to have friends and integrate and be connected, but each time losing a little bit of yourself? What happens there?

00:11:08 Irma

Lots of sadness, lots of grief, lots of anger because everybody tells you “go home.” Refugees. When you’re a refugee, nobody wants to. You’re taking space. You can’t go home because you’re told you don’t belong there. You see a loss. And when you come to different places, people want you to become part of their community. But there are rules that you’re supposed to follow. So, you know, one thing is how you speak, and there is lots of shaming when you’re not speaking the way they are speaking. So then you really work hard on… on that. And I remember making sure I’m calling certain bits and pieces, your clothes or your like trousers and sneakers, you call them specific name that’s appropriate for that region. And that would cause me great stress. And I remember when we crossed the border and I was staying in north Croatia that first year, I was so grateful. And there I have a place to be and there is a level of safety. But every time I would open my mouth, I would be corrected how I’m saying something. There’s Croatian way. We say sneakers this way and tomato that way and don’t act this way. So I remember not being able to finish one sentence, at least one word not being pointed out to me that needs to be said differently. So, there was fear in that. So you just know that you don’t belong unless you fix that, correct that, a lot of anxiety and I need to have friends because I lost all my friends cause some people chose to leave shortly before war officially started. So that was devastating. That was really hard, because I was really close to a Serbian family and they left. It was safest thing for their family to do, but some other families stayed, but they left when we left as well. A lot of my friends were mixed families, Muslim and Serbian. We said our goodbyes, whatever. So that that was a shock. And so you come to place apparently where everybody tells you belong there, but you don’t know anybody and according to them you don’t speak their language. You need to do better so you start belonging and some of them are saying you should go home. So it… it was confusing, very confusing. Lots of flaws, lots of grief, lots of fear, because my dad was on the front line at the time. And I know that sometimes with passed two weeks, was he alive or not? You have these new friends and there are certain kind of standards you need to meet to have those friends so you’re not ashamed. So I was focused on learning those words and adjusting my accent to have less pressure when I’m speaking, when I’m connecting with people, almost being like a chameleon there. I managed on the end, but that experience of belonging didn’t happen because I was working so hard to belong, so I never properly relaxed.

00:14:26 Kevin

Irma, It must have been absolutely exhausting, that’s the sense I’m getting right now.

00:14:32 Irma

It was, yeah.

00:14:33 Kevin

Not being able to finish a sentence before coming across a word that you had to say differently. And fear and anxiety and loss and grief and moving and assimilating and adjusting and…

00:14:45 Irma

You’re starting from beginning and you don’t like it where you are, so, and you have no choice.

00:14:51 Kevin

Yeah, it sounds exhausting. How did you cope with all that? How did you deal with all that?

00:14:56 Irma

A part of it was detaching, ignoring… I ignored war. So I pretended it’s not happening, and started connecting. I eventually did make friends and safety started showing up.  Releasing my roots, one could say, and then close to the war ending. We were almost killed because toward the end, bombs were going everywhere. So not only on the front line, but as well with common civilians. So there was an incident where our whole family almost died, and so my dad had enough. So he was like, OK, so yeah, it’s pointless to fight. So he picked us up and then we moved within like less than a week from that incident to the seaside. So that was a shock. So friends are made in a place that I thought I belong and I’m really seeing my roots now. Now we went completely on the other side of Croatia that was not affected by war and that was a shock. Living on a small island, different culture, very closed community. And you were told, within a couple of months, you know, at school, you know, as children kind of, you know, when are we leaving? Because we are affecting their tourism. So because there were some as well as refugees from central part of Bosnia from Sarajevo and Mostar. So that was a rude awakening. So you come to that place and we are taking space, because less space for tourists. So we are affecting  how things are happening on the island. So that was just kind of OK, so where do I go now? So then again adjustment making friends starting from beginning, and in a very short period of time you starting again from beginning and people that were there, their experience award was way different than us. You know, they were watching that on television. They never experienced any of the stuff that we experienced coming from in Bosnia or northeast of Croatia. Some people actually didn’t want us to speak about it because it would cause sadness for them. 

00:16:50 Kevin

I hear that Irma, I hear that. We didn’t really do much pleasantries, Irma and we got, we got straight in there. And I’m curious, how are you doing in this moment as we’re having this conversation?

00:17:02 Irma

I’m looking back at the past and how heavy it was, and I think I have gratitude for that. In my life, because I lived, I survived. I made lots of friends, I connected with people, I was exposed to different places. I was able to grow. It was stressful, it was difficult, it was hard, but actually it prepared me for work that I’m doing now and I already knew as a teen I’m going to be, I don’t know, therapist, psychologist, something of that kind. There is no question for me what I wanted to be going to grow up. And I think some of those experiences actually prepared me for the work I’m doing currently. And looking back, the level of resilience that was there. Yeah. So I, I have gratitude there. There’s sadness looking back at what happened and all those losses and ridiculousness of war and of people that were sitting at the same table eating. They’re friends and our family till yesterday and then next day they are not anymore. Didn’t make sense then. It’s not making sense either today. But I have, yeah, I have gratitude for my life today, where I am and things that I learned about myself.

00:18:13 Kevin

Thank you, Irma. I really appreciate that. I’m. Hey, I, I know there’s a whole lot of stuff going on in the world right now. And I suppose in Europe, where you and I are from, the Ukraine and Russia being one of them, and many people going through this exact experience as we speak. So it’s not even 25 years old. It’s current. I heard a comment. I can’t remember where the person was from, but they said here there is no such thing as post traumatic stress disorder. It’s just traumatic stress disorder because it’s not post. it’s current.

00:18:49 Irma

Yeah.

00:18:49 Kevin

Yeah. And as I was reading a little bit about you, I want to come on to talk about your work, but I wonder what would you consider yourself to have had or have PTSD or CPTSD?

00:19:03 Irma

Complex trauma. Lots of events for me. Lots of traumatic events. I can separate them. Complex trauma.

00:19:10 Kevin

Would you be willing to share how does that show up in your life right now? What are you doing for yourself to take care of yourself in relation to traumatic stress?

00:19:19 Irma

I entered therapy in my early 20s and as part of my training, it’s actually mandatory to have therapy. So as I was going through different trainings, the minimum was like 12 or 16 hours per modality that you do. And I really had a great supervisor at the time, in UK. She’s really supportive and when I was doing courses with her, she always allocated for us to actually do therapy. That was a great help. So I started addressing many different things that happened to me already in my 20s, and having a child and understanding that you’re traumatized. And I was scared bringing my child into the world. Thinking that it’s dangerous and won’t be able to protect my kid. That was the clear indication I need therapy. I started and a lot of those events were addressed. So my kind of PTSD symptoms that I had in my teens and my 20s, reduced, all those symptoms heavily went down. And for some of the some, for some of those memories, traumatic memories, I actually did a couple of different things, different modalities for each memory. Because when things happen when you’re so young it isn’t resolved from the first. So you’ll go back and over the years you start noticing your triggers and Compassion Inquiry is really great at helping you map out all your triggers and what’s happening for you and was the perception, the belief that you’re having and was the emotion of this present and what’s happening with your body. And for me, it was fascinating, coming to Compassionate inquiry in 2021 where I thought that I was just somewhat concerned. And a lot of that expression in UK, is what was best thing for me. In UK, having a light language for your experience using Croatia and Bosnia were very direct and angry and sad and this and that, it’s very vocal and open with that. But in the UK you are not full of fear and terror, you’re somewhat concerned. And I love that concern, being concerned because it’s such a light and wonderful word. Because over the years I learned if you’re openly frightened or angry, then you’re unstable. And that’s shameful. And you’re weak. You’re weak when you have these emotions and when you’re so open about it. So I learned I am somewhat concerned, and it was a shock to find out in 2021 that concern is just a lighter name for fear. And I was like, oh wow, I’m full of fear. That’s not possible. And then I started self reflecting and Compassionate Inquiry does that a lot to you. It just takes you through that process of what’s happening for you, where is that coming from? What do you make it mean? And then I started figuring out that I’m full of fear, which means I’m an anxious person. And then I started noticing that I’m quite a controlling person because if you cannot control emotion inside of yourself, you start controlling your environment. And I had all these plans. ABCDEFG first doesn’t workout. I have a second and a the third. So there is this backup plan. And I was constantly looking ahead, what’s coming my way to protect myself. So that’s hyper vigilance. So that was something that I had to then deal with.

00:22:43 Kevin

Irma, can I interrupt you? Please forgive me for this. I said with all compassion and respect, sometimes when I speak to people who have a knowledge of therapy, we can use quite therapeutic language and to reflect on… I was full of fear. I was an anxious person. I was controlling. If I can’t control what’s inside, we try to control our environment. How does that look in real life for a young woman who’s in her late teens or early 20s? How does she show up in the world? How would her life be?

00:23:18 Irma

You’re hiding your emotions through self regulation, and self regulation for me was bulimia.

00:23:25 Kevin

OK.

00:23:26 Irma

So every time I would experience lots of sadness and sadness would come with a lot of pain in my chest. So stuffing myself with cookies and drinking warm milk and then waiting 20 minutes and off I would go and put my finger down my throat. The pain that you experience when acid burns you, when you repeat that process 16 to 20 times, then the pain in your chest and that sadness, that fear, that anger, it disappears because you’re in so much pain, you cannot swallow. Everything is burning and you disconnect. So I successfully disconnected from my feelings to eating disorder, and I was purposefully choosing that because gaining weight would as well indicate that I’m not doing well, and people would be noticing. So I was not comfortable people noticing my emotional process because I believed that if people figure out how I’m feeling, there was a high chance of me being crushed, and me being at loss and me being judged, me being shamed. Because when people know you’re sad, this is where they could come and use you and abuse you. So as a kid, I believed that the world was an unsafe place where you got to be abused. And if you’re perceived as weak, they’re coming to get you. So controlling my emotions through certain behaviors was bringing me safety, and you control your environment in that way, not allowing people to see what you don’t want them to see.

00:25:08 Kevin

Irma’s, it’s breaking my heart a little bit to hear this conversation when you talked about when you feel that pain of the acid reflux burning your chest and you can’t feel sadness and that that’s really sad. And I wonder, tell me a little bit more about how life then would have been for a young woman that was doing that. What else was going on? So you’re making yourself sick to try and not feel sad. What else is going on for a young woman in that period of her life?

00:25:35 Irma

So my family dynamic life changed a lot, from a place of abundance and things being great and lovely, coming to a place of poverty, where it’s difficult for my parents to find a job, you’re not wanted there. My parents fighting, my dad from a guy that was a funny guy, a loving guy, being so easily triggered and being grateful and angry. And there is bitterness of PTSD, and at the time I didn’t know that was that, but I just noticed the heaviness of that bitterness. So I would make sure that I go to school and then my homework so I get good grades and then just spend most of my time outside, because it was so unpleasant being at home. So if I could not heal myself and regulate myself through company, good company of my friends, I would be then doing that with bulimia because that was the safest way to keep me grounded in a way. Because I didn’t want others to see me cry. And I was not comfortable sharing anything with my parents because I didn’t believe they can help me, because they could not help themselves. And I didn’t trust them, because things shifted and changed. People changed so much after war, and my dad after that frontline, was a completely different person. So I was running away from home in a sense, finding family outside of my home. So that was the safe haven that this is where I had connection and I could share with my friendsI was sad, and yeah, sitting at the beach, drinking wine, being underage and company of 15 – 20 people and just singing, having that guitar and music and the sea. So that was comforting and relaxing. But there was lots of sadness. I remember lots of sadness living within me, but it was safe showing it there because it was dark. You’re lying down listening to that music, and you’re crying. And maybe somebody can see you, but that person next to you, they’re crying too. So that was OK. That was safe. And then when evening finishes, we just, you dry your tears, then you go home, back to whatever you were running away from. Yeah. So it, it was difficult. It was heavy and I spent most of my teen years looking for the way to run away, and that was going to UK to study and…

00:28:03 Kevin

What age were you then?

Irma: 19

Kevin, 19 OK yeah. So you painted a picture of a hole…I’m not being crude as I said, a pretty dark hole or a pretty dark place to be in A young woman with bulimia and being sick and nowhere really at home to… connect and be safe and drinking as a young person and finding a space to be at the beach where it’s dark to cry and.

00:28:31 Irma

Pretty dark, gloomy, heavy. And yes, I was so suicidal at the time as well because I didn’t see what was the point of living and growing up because the world is so terrible and you have all these adults, because it was really angry at adults, because the things that were done during the war and seeing parents bearing their children in the sandwich bag. So seeing human pieces, and walking through the field of that. So that just stays with you and… and it just didn’t make sense. So growing up, it sounded not a safe thing to do either at the time, because you have all these grown-ups, they’re making such horrendous decisions and people are dying. And when you’re 11 1/2 you realize that during the war, human life has no value. You can be as good person as you want to be, but if you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, horrible things can happen to you. So, that was what I learned with 11 1/2. So when we finally moved away and I was on that island and it was like 14 / 15, that was my reality. We were away from war, but I had that war within me. So I didn’t know at the time I had that PTSD, but I was more successful than my parents hiding it and suppressing it. But the bitterness I was running away from, and I ran all the way to UK, I actually found out years after that I have it too. So I was not anymore as successful as I used to be suppressing it. It just started coming up to the surface. So that bitterness was there and that… that is when I entered the treatment that was partially successful.

00:30:10 Kevin

Let me pause you there, Irma, and I just want to –  for our compassionate inquiry stepping stone tick box. Let me guess that as all of this was going on, no one was helping you. No one was there to… No one was there to see this pain and this suffering, this eating disorder, this rage, this anger.

00:30:32 Irma

I was very good at masking it. Yes, I was very successful. For that reason, I didn’t choose anorexia or binging because you could see fluctuation in weight.

00:30:42 Kevin

Yeah.

00:30:42 Irma

So bulimia was the way to go and nobody knows. So you have privacy in your misery, and I like that, privacy in my misery. So that brought safety for me.

00:30:53 Kevin

Pretty smart behavior, right?

00:30:55 Irma

Yeah.

00:30:57 Kevin

Yeah, pretty clever girl, to be able to recognize that I don’t want anorexia, I don’t want the binging, bulimia, is the way to go so that I can have privacy in my misery. That’s pretty strategic thinking.

00:31:08 Irma

Yeah, so if I wanna fall apart and share that misery, I will choose those people. And after all these events, it took me a while to connect with people, and put my guard down, and actually trust I would fall apart then ,in a planned way and that would bring safety for me. The only people very close to me would know how it really felt, and what’s happening inside of me.

00:31:34 Kevin

That’s a hefty burden to carry for a really young person, Irma.

00:31:39 Irma

Yes, that’s one side of it, but the other side is, looking back, I’m just amazed how resourceful I was. Yeah, and I’m just like, in awe with the younger version of me, all the hoops that was jumping and things I was figuring out about the life and the world. It was important to me for people not to think less of me because I was coming from war area, because there was a label that’s coming with that that’s you’re not going to perform, you’re not going to do so well. You will be a burden to state or you’re not going to be loyal employee, or no, I was just… I am strong and capable. You can rely on me. I’m here. I’m independent.

00:32:24 Kevin

And I can see, I can see the resolve in your face as you say that, it’s about determination. It’s almost a determined jaw.

00:32:33 Irma

Yeah, yeah. It’s just like my past will not define me. That’s that kid in me. It’s like all life is not going to be taken away from me. So that that’s coming from actually with Yugoslavia. That’s something that I really appreciate about communism, the equality that existed before war, equality, and you can make it. It’s your right. OK. So that was instilled in me and my dad was always saying to me, yeah, you can do great things, You can do whatever you want. Education is really important. Just push forward, look forward. You always have a choice. I still have that belief, mixed with that bitterness and misery. So I had different experiences within me, but this stayed with me, this belief from a young childhood. So I was like, yes, I’m going in, I’m falling apart, I’m depressed, but I’m going to work and I’m studying. So good days are coming. There are somewhere in there. I cannot see them, so let’s just roll with it. Yeah, there was definitely that. My past will not define me.

00:33:36 Kevin

And then you briefly mentioned going to a treatment centre and moving to the UK to study. What was the timeline of those two things you were describing just there?

00:33:45 Irma

I left Croatia when I was like 19, 19 1/2 and I had no money.

00:33:50 Kevin

Could also say there, you know, I have a daughter, I met her this morning who’s 19. And again, if she listens to this, she’ll kill me. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to you, but 19, like my daughter at 19, she like, she’s still a girl. She’s still… I know she’s a young woman, but she’s still a girl. She’s 19. Yeah. So I just want to, I just thought it was important to mention that as well. 19 is a it’s just a little thing.

00:34:16 Irma

Yeah, I just decided to sit there, finish my high school and it’s time to run. And I had no money. My mom, she bought me a plane ticket, Dad gave me £150 and I had one bag with my stuff and I came to the UK. And the idea was for me to go and study, but I had to get a job. So I started as an au pair and then I was figuring out what are all the laws in UK, how do you go about things, changing your visa and everything and becoming a student. And I figured it out and then in a year or so started preparations to go in that direction, improving my English. And I met my partner, we married. I’m still with my husband that I met.

00:35:00 Kevin

Oh, don’t tell me here. Don’t tell me he’s an Englishman, please.

00:35:03 Irma

Yeah, we met at uni.

00:35:05 Kevin

And I’m just saying that playfully, no offence to any English people that are listening. That’s my Irish bias coming out there. I’m sorry. So he was a Croation. He was a Croatian guy living in the UK.

00:35:15 Irma

In the UK, yeah, he was there at uni, and we met there. And that was such a lovely, scary and horrendous experience at the same time. Because I wanted to exit and run. Because one of the things you learned, I learned, that the only way you get to be hurt is if you enter a relationship, if you attach, but if you don’t attach, then you’re safe. So I tried to kill that relationship a couple of times. That he was smart and he figured it out and here we are still together. So I started uni, I got pregnant. That was interesting because pregnancy hormones and post pregnancy hormones, they messed up my system, and this is how postnasal depression and state everything just surfaced and this is how I entered the treatment. At one point it was just like I woke up one morning and I realized oh my dear, I’m so messed up. This is so horrendous. My parents were in a better state at this age than I was, and look what they’ve done to me. So you know what am I’m going to do to my kids. So I should not continue to live. You know, she should be better without me. This is how my treatment started me being depressed and suicidal. They almost refused treatment because it’s because they didn’t expect me to do well in therapy, because the only reason why I wanted at the time to enter therapy is for the sake of my daughter. So for them that was a not good enough reason but they were scared to send me home. So they provided therapy for me and I responded well and this was beginning of my journey resolving things. But again, lots of memories I had to work through, and let go of some of them. And lots of beliefs attached to ‘people are scary. People can hurt you, and the world is a very scary place’. So it took me a while to part with those beliefs because I was so holding on to them. That was bringing me safety and constantly scanning the environment for the possible danger. So there I was like 22.

00:37:28 Kevin

And this is a little aside. You have, I would imagine, a grown up daughter.

00:37:32 Irma

Yes, she’s 25.

00:37:34 Kevin

25, Wow. Yeah. Yeah. So you got her to adulthood, You got her three. Yeah. When both my kids turned 18, I celebrated like, yes, yes, we managed to get them to 18. Even in the terrible state that that I was, we got them through. So Irma, then that study, when I read that study for you was around the psychology and psychotherapy and that that type of thing.

00:37:58 Irma

Yeah. And last couple of years that it focuses more on traumatology, yeah.

00:38:04 Kevin

Yeah, traumatology, it’s a beautiful word. And reading again, things like CA0, CBT, IFS, we know you’re trained in Compassionate inquiry, you’re one of our facilitators, and I want to chat about that. I really see a young woman deeply traumatized, in a very difficult position, about to have a child, going through therapy and education and straightening herself out is a very clunky term, but healing from that trauma. Tell me a little bit more about some of the skills or some of the things that you have in your toolbox that you use for helping people right now Irma.

00:38:39 Irma

I’m training different modalities and the reason for that is because different people, different backgrounds and family history, and some people don’t respond so well to certain treatments. So you learn you need to adapt and adjust your treatment. A lot of my clients are coming with a history of childhood abuse, childhood sexual abuse and then abuse in later years and assaults. For some clients, for example, compassionate inquiry brings people a lot into the body and checking in what’s there. But for a lot of my clients, the body is such an unsafe place to be.

00:39:16 Kevin

Yeah.

00:39:17 Irma

Especially if you survived a couple of sexual assaults, getting into your body, connecting with your body is something that gets you in a state of panic attack. So for this reason, I’m trained in different modalities and with some of my clients, I work top down first. So it brings clarity to people and you challenge those beliefs and bring in different points of view and a lots of stabilization work, Commission inquiry does as well brings in stabilization, but some clients are refusing to go in that direction. So I would use other modalities instead, because some clients really want to know what’s coming next and they want to know the structures, the structured kind of protocol, type of therapies, they prefer them and they like to see how well they are doing so for example, I use PCL5 scale, so kind of a PTSD checklist for DSM 5 and it can be used to assess severity of PTSD symptoms. So clients can see how how from a score 47 they’re going down to 43 – 37 – 32 so they can measure that and they can read in advance what’s happening in this next session. So it helps them, and some clients are very comfortable jumping in and doing bottom up process, and you just stay with body, stay with the process. You learn how to hold your experience and release it. For that reason, I know different modalities and kind of some of my clients if, if they’re not paying for their sessions, if they’re coming from, if insurance compay’s paying. So they will only pay for a certain number and you have a very short period of time to get the client from A to B. For them to be able to keep their job and in that sense pay for the mortgage, then I would use protocol. It’s to a certain degree client led, but therapist led really. And what is beautiful about compassionate inquiry, it’s very much client led. Everything happens in client’s terms. So there is that freedom that doesn’t so much exist in in the other modalities. So I spend a lot of time picking up different tools, different skills that were helpful to me as well. With every training I would look into it, how much of this applies to me and what I can take home and use myself. But most of all, what I appreciate is the gradual exposure, introducing titration, introducing things in small manageable doses. That’s very much. It’s present in other modalities too, but in compassionate inquiry very much, because it’s client led. Yeah. So it’s not me who is titrating, but actually client, so.

00:42:02 Kevin

That, that’s one of the, one of the joys I have with compassionate inquiry as well, is we just go as fast or as slow as the clients organism is allowing that to happen and really acknowledging as well, Irma, that for people who are healing and doing their healing work, I sometimes get a little bit frustrated at the idea of… because I too have people refer people to me for six sessions and I get very frustrated at the idea that something… we’re limited to six sessions. Sometimes it only takes 2, but sometimes it takes 22 and sometimes it takes 202. It’s as long as someone needs, and the point I want to make now for anyone that is doing their hearing work, and maybe you would agree with this, that you’re not a failure or you’re not broken or you’re not damaged beyond repair if you can’t manage to do your healing within the six allotted sessions.

00:43:05 Irma

Yeah, that’s, that’s true. It’s… that’s the thing. And insurance companies, they have their own agenda and they’re trying to offer as little possible time because it’s to do with how much they’re willing to pay. And obviously, if people are really struggling and they’re unable to pay for their own therapy, they, they have to accept that. And I’m trying to do my best to adjust my work accordingly. But compassionate inquiry, it’s so beautiful in in helping integrate everything and especially when, with certain therapies, different parts are activated. So you’re processing different things and it’s not so much client led modality. So you will have reaction there. But compassionate inquiry does a beautiful job integrating that and supporting clients and allowing those parts to speak and find their way. So I really appreciate that about CI.

00:43:56 Kevin

Yeah. And so I want to talk to you with your compassion inquiry work Irma, something that I really like about CI and I often find myself again, I’m curious about your thoughts. I often find myself asking a client about their thing. What is the thing that you love to do? What makes your heart sing? What enlivens you? And again, just for our listeners, the ability to heal through swimming, nature, art, music, dance, martial arts, whatever that might that might be. And for me, when I’m doing competitive inquiry work that will often come up for people, they say things like, I really used to love playing guitar and I haven’t done that in years. Would you agree that compassionate inquiry helps people with that?

00:44:45 Irma

Yes, it brings a lot of kind of reconnection with yourself, with the playfulness, with joy, in a really gentle way. But those tastes of victory, people connect with real self. I don’t know, different people have different name for it. Higher self, real self, self, essence. Because through releasing the bitterness of PSD, that’s something it took me a while to let go and release. I started connecting with joy. Joy permanently entered my life. And gratitude too. Before that, it was really difficult to connect and to see that I didn’t believe that people could be so happy and joyful. It looked fake from the place where I was coming from. So seeing my clients releasing those memories and releasing themselves from those memories and the emotions and processing you connect with life, you start actually thriving. So what is really beautiful is you notice you’re not surviving. It’s not survival anymore. You will actually you. You’re living, you’re breathing, you’re living. And there is. There’s that freedom that comes with it and it’s very experiential for me when I entered compassionate inquiry and seeing all these wonderful facilitators doing magical work. Especially seeing founding facilitators showing up in a real time and having demonstrating, having ability to experience this equanimity, this calmness, while holding clients through their really difficult and challenging, almost horrendous moments ,of their life that they’re sharing with therapy. And also having capacity to hold themselves, aspects of themselves that are reacting and actually showing up for the clients. That was a mind-blowing experience for me actually. To see that gave me possibility – brought that belief that’s possible for me. It’s shocking to sit in this space now here with you to talk about it because I was in a completely different place in 2021, where I was just introduced to that idea, seeing people living in that way. And I would like as not to take opportunity now in this place here with you just to thank Sat Dharam and all the funding facilitators and Gabor and everybody that actually is here. And we are able to have this community to give this experience and get people to that level where they can grow, they can heal and they can experience that calmness. And whole people in the most horrendous moments have a reaction, hold themselves and showing up for their clients. So that’s something it’s like not, it’s not from this world. So for me, that’s amazing to be in this place and able to reflect that.

00:47:42 Kevin

Thank you, Irma, and right back at you. I sit here with the same level of gratitude for the community that I get to sit in as well and the work that they do. And a couple of things I just wanted to lay a little bookmark on. You said the experience of the release of trauma from our bodies. That’s a really beautiful thing, when we find a modality that helps us heal, and we experience the lack of something. That’s all. This is how I meant to feel. This is what being alive feels like, and it’s the absence of that anxiety or fear or.

00:48:23 Irma

No need to control. Yeah, no need to control your language pretending you’re somebody else. No need to control your environment, just living and letting others live.

00:48:31 Kevin

It’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it, to have that freedom. That’s liberation for me. That’s enlightenment and liberation and freed, and.

00:48:37 Irma

Yes, thank you. Yes, Lightman, liberation, freedom, exactly. Thank you for bringing those words, totally resonates with me.

00:48:44 Kevin

Yeah. Thank you. And something else you said earlier, I just want to add a little bit more to that as well. You talked about how we, we arrived in compassionate inquiry as different people and it made me laugh because I know when I joined competitive inquiry, I thought, hey, I’m pretty good. I’m a pretty compassionate guy. And yeah, I’m pretty assured of how I show up in the world. And then we go through this compassionate inquiry training and our dyads and our triads and our therapy. And I realized, oh, I’ve still got a few things going on that I need to take care of. And through compassionate inquiry, we’re able to do that. Yeah. So I just wonder how many of the thousands of people that come through Compassionate. Inquiry arrive thinking yeah, I’m OK. And then we think Oh, maybe not.

00:49:33 Irma

Yes. And then it’s a shock, Yes, going through all those videos and dyads and triads, yes, it’s a huge shock when you can see so many things that you still need to look at and work on. But the level of support you receive in the community, in the training, it’s, it’s wonderful. Everybody gets opportunity to grow, to be supported.

00:49:53 Kevin

Here you and I am, and this conversation is about you, but speaking about your early childhood and moving and assimilating and losing a little bit of yourself and not having support and bulimia and, and moving to the UK, and starting studying and getting pregnant and entering therapy and doing all this work. And then here you are. This podcast is a… is a collection of stories from trauma to wellness or trauma to healing or trauma to peace. And here you are, an adult woman with a grown up child and her partner, doing this wonderful work. Tell me a little bit about your landing as a Compassionate Inquiry facilitator. How did that land for you? How did that make you feel?

00:50:37 Irma

That’s really interesting because I had opportunity to work with Sat Dharam, and in one occasion she asked me where do I see myself in the future? I was like, next year I think I’ll be one of your facilitators. And she was in stitches. She was laughing. So it didn’t take a year. It actually took two years. So I had this vision. I’ll be there. So I’ll be part of that community and I just saw myself. I’ll be there. Yes, there was that knowing, actually having opportunity to be part of the team, be be there supporting students, sharing compassionate inquiry experience, and making the world better place in that way, and helping people with themselves with the joy. There is this humble as well experience and I’m in awe with all this, but it’s still, I cannot believe it. I’m here and so there is still that, but I’m as well noticing many different places, how I can grow. So that’s a wonderful side of actually being part of this community. The level of support you receive and space for self reflection is there, and as you self reflecting support that comes from your peers, from this whole community and being allowed to be free.

00:51:56 Kevin

And again, that comes from trauma healing, and it comes from community, and it comes from doing our work and and being with people who can support that. But to be allowed to be yourself and to be free is one of the greatest, is one of the greatest joys, isn’t it? I was about to make a comment that I think of this community as, me as a pebble being tumbled around this community. And the more that I tumble around it, the more it rubs my rough edges off, the more it shows me my blind spots that I can work on and rub these little bits off. Maybe in 1000 years or 10 lifetimes I’ll be a… I’ll be a nice smooth polished diamond or something like, I don’t know, let’s see, I’ll meet you in 1000 years here, Irma, and we’ll see/.

00:52:39 Irma

Yes!  I think I’m hoping for the same!

00:52:41 Kevin

Irma, one question, you’ve probably heard it 1000 times, maybe not because you probably heard it with every interview that I do, and I ask it playfully, but I’m really curious. I really like to hear it as well. If Irma, with all your experience, with all that you’ve been through, with all that you’ve done at the successes, the highs and the lows and everything else that has happened in your life, if you could whisper a phrase, or a word into the ear of humanity, what would that be?

00:53:15 Irma

What stuck with me was a quote from Fitzgerald. “Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he’s alive and not after he’s dead.”  What it means to me is when we are stuck in our perceptions, beliefs, and we hold on to our truths and those are the only ones that matter and exist for us, we are at a loss. So I would invite your listeners, our listeners, to be open to different possibility, opening their hearts and inquire what is there, and if there is another possibility? Because if they do, if they choose that path, they will start living and thriving instead of surviving.

00:54:13 Kevin

Well thank you, Irma. That was really beautiful. You reminded me of a little poem. I wasn’t intending to do this. So this is completely ad hoc. Can I read you a very short poem? This is in response to what you just wanted to whisper into the ear of humanity. And I’ll pronounce his name wrong. It’s a Jewish name. It’s Yehuda Amichai. Yehuda Amichai. And the poem is called The Place Where We Are Right. And he says from the place where we are right, flowers will never grow in the spring. The place where we are right is hard and trampled like a yard, but doubts and loves. Dig up the world like a mole, like a plough, and the whisper will be heard in the place where the ruined house once stood. The place where we are, right. Thank you for listening to that.

00:55:10 Irma

Yeah, that was beautiful and that was so beautiful.

00:55:13 Kevin

I think quite often we find ourselves in a place where we think that we are right. Irma, If people wanted to reach out to you, if they wanted to get in touch with you, how would they do that?

00:55:23 Irma

Through the Compassionate Inquiry website, that’s the best way.

00:55:27 Kevin

Irma, I am really honored to have had you for an hour to chat and share so deeply. I just want to honour that you shared so openly and authentically and honestly about yourself and your story, and I’m really grateful that you did that. Thank you very much.

00:55:42 Irma

You’re welcome, it was a pleasure being here. Thank you for having me.

00:55:50 Rosemary

If you’ve been listening to our podcast and are curious about the Compassionate Inquiry approach developed by Doctor Gabor Maté and Sat Dharam Kaur, consider joining the Professional Training Program. It’s open to all healing professionals, including naturopaths, physicians, body workers, coaches, and therapists. In addition to learning how to use compassion to support your clients in their most vulnerable moments with greater empathy and authenticity, you’ll also deepen your own internal process. If you’re interested, look for the link in the show notes. 

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.