Ruth Tessema Part 1: The Art of Saying No
Our favorite therapist returns to talk through the self-healing journey, some of the speed bumps we hit along the way, and the impact of holistic therapies. No is a whole sentence and in this episode, we explore how to best use that in your day-to-day life.
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Our Host
Ari O’Donovan
Transcript:
Ari O'Donovan: (00:00)
Are y'all comfortable? We hope wherever you're listening to this, you're comfortable. This show is for the Bipo communities in Oregon hosted by a black woman about the amazing work we do every day in this state. So let's build together, connect with our communities, add some laughter and humor even when it's a difficult conversation. Let's boost our voices
Ruth Tessema: (00:25)
Really not liking those old parts of me and not wanting to go back there. I didn't wanna go back to my rebellious teenage parts of me who just, you know, like why did she do all those things? Like I didn't wanna go back there and and talk with her or get to know what was going on in her life. It's scary for a lot of people and what's helpful is the mentality of moving forward and just saying like, let's just survive. Let's get it done. Then it's counterintuitive to do it that way, isn't it? Because then they'll start to say, okay, well I have this anxiety , I don't know where it came from, or, I don't wanna know where it came from. I know it's been there for a while. I just need a script for that.
Ari O'Donovan: (01:06)
Welcome back y'all, to a brand new episode of Boosting Our Voices. As always, I'm your host Ira o' Donovan, and I'm also Boost Oregon's Diversity Program director. We have a repeat guest here today. One of my favorite people I've talked to so far. Ruth Tessa, if you don't know her, Ruth, can you share a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Ruth Tessema: (01:29)
Yes, thank you. Uh, so happy to be here. Well, I am a holistic mental health practitioner. I provide mental health therapy counseling for specifically those who have developmental trauma, those communities of color. And so I provide a array of strategies, techniques in my practice just to kind of, you know, help people heal. So I'm happy to talk more about that.
Ari O'Donovan: (01:59)
I love that. And she, let me tell y'all, she's one of the very few black therapists in the state of Oregon, so you really gotta know her. You really, really do because she's doing the work that there are not a lot of people here doing.
Ruth Tessema: (02:17)
Yeah, we got a small community, a real small community, but you know, it's hopefully growing. I think people are coming into the land of mental health and you know, social work and all that kind of stuff and hopefully, you know, it gets a little bit bigger, but yeah.
Ari O'Donovan: (02:34)
Yeah, it's an outstanding, you do such great work and I know you personally as well as our professional relationship here and just proud of you. Just had to put that out there, .
Ruth Tessema: (02:47)
Thank you. I appreciate you. Yeah. And yeah, it's always a good time talking with you. I feel like you get it, you're very much a mental health, you know, advocate and you're all about growth and getting into the deep stuff. So we always have really good chats. So I'm excited for this.
Ari O'Donovan: (03:07)
We really do. I'm super excited too, and it's important to talk about stuff that might be uncomfortable or, or not always discussed. This episode is gonna focus a lot around the importance of saying no and self-love and how we can practice and get a proficiency with doing those things. And I really like both of those things right now in my life. That is my whole energy right now that is like, they're like the top priorities and it's hard. It gets hard to tell people. No, and I mean you then you feel like you wanna give like an explanation for why you're saying no. Sometimes that makes sense to do. Other times it's like no period. That's a whole sentence right there. You ain't gotta elaborate all the time.
Ruth Tessema: (03:56)
Yeah, I'm really excited to talk more about boundaries because it's something that has been a little bit more in a way kind of glamorized, you know, in social media and you know, when we talk about self-care and I think there's so much more to it,
Ari O'Donovan: (04:12)
Especially
Ruth Tessema: (04:12)
From a trauma, trauma informed lens and especially also with the community that I work with, complex or developmental trauma boundaries. It's just like bam, it's out there now. Like okay, so we could say no. All right. Is it that easy? You know, there's so much more to it. So I'm glad that we're talking about this because we can kind of get into the deep stuff of, yeah, the nitty gritty, like you were saying of just, you know, maybe why is it so hard? You know, where does that come from? Is there a spectrum of boundaries of, can I say no to all these other things? Can I say no to this and
Ari O'Donovan: (04:49)
Do I
Ruth Tessema: (04:49)
Have to think more about
Ari O'Donovan: (04:51)
This
Ruth Tessema: (04:51)
Area of my life? You know? So there's so much more under this umbrella.
Ari O'Donovan: (04:56)
I guess I wanna start by talking about holistic therapy. I know a little bit about that. Some people might not know what it is at all. Can you give us your definition?
Ruth Tessema: (05:08)
Yeah,
Ari O'Donovan: (05:09)
I'll
Ruth Tessema: (05:10)
Preface by saying, you know, a lot of the work that I do with my clients, a lot of it has come from me experiencing the stuff in my own healing journey, trying
Ari O'Donovan: (05:23)
New
Ruth Tessema: (05:23)
Things, creating a balance between western wellness and what that's supposed to look like and using eastern or indigenous or you know, ancient practices, you know, in wellness and healing. And so I've learned a little bit of doing my own shadow work, my own healing, and um, started to get a little bit more training in some other things so that I can provide
Ruth Tessema: (05:51)
More of a comprehensive therapeutic approach working with the clients that I have who again, developmental trauma. It's like one of the top things that, you know, people see me for with just trauma history and they end up finding out, oh, okay, there is some developmental trauma here that I need to work through. The way I see it is really just getting to know the whole person and getting to the root of harm, getting to the source, the root of a lot of the things that are kind of like stuck. I make sure that we, we do incorporate physical wellness with mental wellness, spiritual wellness, which I'll talk about that kind of clarify. And then also there's the social communal part of holistic wellness too that a lot of people forget that we need access to or you know, how to get access to it. And so traditionally, like, you know, western psychotherapy, a lot of the therapists, you know, learn in school, like these typical kind of ways of approaching mental health.
Ruth Tessema: (06:56)
It kind of is from the top down approach, which is very much like the thinking and the thought processes, which is very helpful. Like cognitive behavioral analysis, like really just working with, you know, our thoughts and our patterns and our belief systems. So very head heavy. But what I find very helpful and I think we're moving into this direction through, you know, the next couple of years it's gonna get stronger and stronger. But what I've found for the people that I work with who have severe developmental trauma is that we really need to incorporate a lot of other things and maybe even start working from the bottom up, which is starting with the body, starting with the body sensations, getting to know that, you know, understanding where do my triggers show up in my body? That felt sense, bringing in imagery, bringing in breath, bringing in some of that nervous system education.
Ruth Tessema: (07:56)
'cause you know, if you have someone with trauma, you just can't just work with thoughts. Like you really have to work with the rest of the body. There's a saying too of like, I don't remember where I got it from, but the issues are in our tissues. Like it really is how to access awareness about how our body interprets trauma, the world, how it perceives things, how it absorbs information, very much incorporating physical, how to work with the body, mental wellness. So yeah, of course like working with the mind and cognitive strategies. Spiritual, I say spiritual just because, you know, I think it is important to find whether you're spiritual or not, it doesn't even have to be religious, but finding some sort of source of connection, whether that might be yourself, which I would say is the priority, like the connection with yourself, how you view yourself, how you're guided by yourself and maybe other areas of source too.
Ruth Tessema: (08:56)
So if you are religious, that could also mean, you know, some other areas of guidance too. But again, it doesn't have to be spiritual or religious to be holistic, but there's that area too that I think is, is very important. And you know, going back to the social communal part, you know, we're human. We need community. Going back to our ancestors and our roots, you know, we've always, you know, done things in groups, we've healed in groups, we've gone through a lot of things together in groups. And so with our western mindset, I mean a lot of us tend to be very individualistic. And so if we're trying to heal from whatever might be from something like DV or you know, war crimes or you know, inflation, whatever it is, that's really, you know, causing a lot of stress and stored in our body, we wanna find community.
Ruth Tessema: (09:50)
We need to be able to have access to that. You know, a lot of us, again, it's kind of like a trauma response, but a lot of us like to like just stay within ourself. So finding access to that too. And so that's kind of what I try to help people with, finding access to what it is our body needs to feel safe and safe and well that is going to have to be holistic. And that's just my lens. And I really strongly believe that's, that's the trajectory of mental health and wellness throughout the next couple of decades. It's going to be incorporating a lot of these things. I will just add too. And that might, you know, look like working with a nutritionist, you know, it might be also working with, so not only someone who does a lot of somatic work, like myself, the body and the mind and all these other things, but working with a nutritionist, maybe an acupuncturist, maybe a, a naturopathic doctor or um, a doctor that you, you know, can trust and you like to work with.
Ruth Tessema: (10:49)
It could be an herbalist, you know, and it might be someone who can help you understand a little bit more of some of the ways to work with your body. So if we're dealing with trauma, we most likely are dealing with chronic illnesses, most likely dealing with chronic physical strain and muscle strain in the body, other illnesses that are really, really difficult to work through that also promote more depression or anxiety, more stressors, help you heal and get better. So there's a lot that can go into it and it's not as difficult as you might think. It really just starts with, you know, your attitude and your education around nervous system, mental health and wellness and what you want, you know, that's kind of like what I would say in a nutshell. And again, just real quick going back to the body, you know, if we say our issues are in our tissues and there's no way to heal trauma with just, you know, working with our head, you know, our thoughts, you gotta work with the body, you know, that also might mean to recognize, you know, the grief might be stuck in in your back area.
Ruth Tessema: (12:03)
You know, that relationship that you haven't really quite processed from
Ari O'Donovan: (12:07)
From
Ruth Tessema: (12:07)
Five years ago is stuck in your heart space or you know, these gut issues. It's from this chronic anxiety from childhood, you know, like your first several years of life have been, you know, for example just, you know, trying to find adequate housing and making ends meet and you're absorbing all the stress from your parents, you know, that creates anxiety and then maybe gut issues later down the line. So just understanding like there's a lot of self-awareness that has to, that has to happen here, um, to be holistic. But I hope that makes sense. It just really is, it's like getting to the whole person, like all, all of it and the root of the harm and just really doing it in a compassionate way.
Ari O'Donovan: (12:55)
It goes into your own overall wellness, feeling good, feeling like you can wake up in the morning and deal with life's problems and not have a meltdown and feel like you have good things in your life and you feel good about who you are as a person. I feel like western medicine gets a lot of things right, but it doesn't always have all the answers. It really doesn't. So we need to incorporate and pull from other sources to really get things right for people. Otherwise you're only dealing like what you said with one dimension of the problem. And it's not going to, I mean, I had a doctor's appointment not too long ago and I'm like, I have all this, like, I feel like the muscles in my shoulders are like, really? Is that normal? Do people keep like a lot of attention there? And they're like, a lot of women carry stress there.
Ari O'Donovan: (13:49)
That is extremely common. And it's like, wow. And then I started trying to do things about that and massages are great. That's a really nice way to help with that quickly. And then I started to have less tension there and I changed some of the things that I was doing in my life and the way that I was thinking about things. And you really like, you really have to do all that stuff and you're like, wow, that's a lot of stuff to focus on. All of those aspects of who I am and how I walk through the world. I don't think I can do all of that. I'm a very busy person, but you have to make time for your own wellness and health, otherwise it's gonna force you to make time when you don't, you really don't have time when you're really not prepared at the worst possible time. And it's not hard, but you do have to try and you have to talk to people that know what they're doing. Like you ,
Ruth Tessema: (14:47)
I 100% agree about all that you said. I mean, gosh, like especially the muscle strain and the shoulders. I mean, we're just talking about like emotions being stuck in our body. Think about some of the intersectionalities, you know, being a black woman, being a woman, you know, in this day and age. And then add, you know, other intersectionalities
Ari O'Donovan: (15:08)
Like
Ruth Tessema: (15:08)
That too that might be visible markers, you know, disability, some other elements too. And so living life in in all of those different markers can cause a lot of strain on the body, if not given the compassionate time to really address it.
Ari O'Donovan: (15:28)
You
Ruth Tessema: (15:28)
Know, and a lot of this is external constraints, right? Like a lot of this we can't quite really change or do much about it, but like you were saying, like the routine, the compassionate awareness, just like making sure that we have
Ari O'Donovan: (15:42)
The
Ruth Tessema: (15:42)
Time to address it, not think of it as like, you know, I, I have to keep it pushing, but like sure, but you can also have a different lens in
Ari O'Donovan: (15:53)
What
Ruth Tessema: (15:54)
You're experiencing and doing something about it. You know, your body's always giving you messages, it's always telling you like what it needs. So I
Ari O'Donovan: (16:02)
Think
Ruth Tessema: (16:02)
Massages are great, you know, and I think that's one area of giving your body some compassionate love for what it's been going through. And there's also other areas where, you know, yeah, you do need to have
Ari O'Donovan: (16:14)
Some
Ruth Tessema: (16:14)
Sort of routine in place to make sure that that it's sustainable and it doesn't just come back, you know, after the next month or two or something like that. But yeah, oh yeah, emotions are sneaky and they can really be stuck in, in your body, but there are ways to help alleviate that.
Ari O'Donovan: (16:34)
Yeah, it's all so connected. And recently I attended a sound bath experience that you did for me and a group and it was such an amazing experience. A lot of people talk about awareness of things, but you really, awareness isn't just like stopping what you're doing and just like being like right there. You gotta think about what you're feeling, what you're hearing, what you're smelling, all kinds of stuff to truly be aware. And I felt like that sound bath experience was the very first one I've ever had. And it was amazing and it really showed me a lot about awareness and just trying to just be with your own self in that moment. And it's part of holistic therapy and a lot goes into it like we've been discussing, there's a lot that goes into holistic therapy. It's not just one thing, it's not even just two or three things. It's, it's several different things that, that matter and make a difference. Can you talk about sound baths and breath work and give us a little bit of insight
Ruth Tessema: (17:50)
For
Ari O'Donovan: (17:50)
People who have never heard of these things, never experienced them, maybe have and wanna know your take on it and the impacts of these experiences?
Ruth Tessema: (18:00)
Absolutely, yes. So I was definitely in your position a while back. Again, like I mentioned, a lot of the things that I'm teaching and providing to the community, providing to clients, I've experienced myself. And so if it helps me, I want to continue to, you know, share that with the world if I, you know, have access to it. So, so sound healing is just this ancient practice where we use instruments or sound frequencies to help reset the nervous system. So really going into the body and activating that parasympathetic nervous system which promotes the opposite of the fight flight, which you know, that anxiety, the fear, the anger, um, the stress, it really activates the rest and that the digest, it almost like does it for you, which is nice 'cause you kind of just have to have the intention that the sound vibration from instruments or voice or whatever it may be, isn't intentionally healing my body.
Ruth Tessema: (19:04)
Once you have that intention and you let go and you just kind of help yourself be still the frequencies penetrate yourselves, like on a cellular level, really get into your body and start rewiring your nervous system. And so there's this vagus nerve, which is like the longest nerve in the body that starts from the brain and the rest of the body. Like, it's like the longest one. It is the one that gets stimulated when we do breath work and when we have sound baths. So when this nerve gets stim and there are other ways you can get it stimulated to promote the healing or promote relaxation and calm, which I'll talk about. But when we do it this way, our vagus nerve gets stimulated and we are able to access that calm and that relaxation. It's almost like it helps send a message to your body quicker that you're actually safe and you can relax and you don't have to hold on to this tension that you've been holding on for years, decades, whatever it may be.
Ruth Tessema: (20:11)
And that you can kind of just let go to achieve that. It's really tough. It takes a lot of practice to achieve that without sound or without intentional breath work, which is why meditation is really tough, but also very, very much effective. It's hard to kind of help slow your brain down 'cause we, you go, we've got this like part of our brain that is very hyperactive and hypervigilant, you know, in a protective way. It just wants us to know about everything. So it's really hard for it to slow down. But when we intentionally make space for sound healing, again the intention that the frequencies are healing our body, we're really able to drop in and allow that to do this amazing work. And so it's a practice of mine to have it done for me. And then I, I also host what I'll talk about later, community breath work and sound bath experiences for the community and private treatments as well.
Ruth Tessema: (21:11)
But holistically speaking, I mean this is also a very ancient practice. So in ancient Egypt they use vocal toning. So a lot of like hymns and downs to promote healing. There's an intention for healing. This is like ages and ages ago and Gregorian chance, you know, from middle ages of Europe, I think just Gregorian chance of healing practices. So the use of sound for healing. And in ancient China, specifically the region of Tibet, creating sound practices using instruments to promote healing. There's this very wise ancient wisdom from all over the world. You know, back in the day, day of just like really getting into let's heal the body, let's heal the body. And oh, we can do that with our sound, we our voice. We can do that with instruments that we can create to create a certain kind of vibration that penetrates the body.
Ruth Tessema: (22:17)
So it's a pretty amazing thing and I'm really happy to see that it's starting to become a little bit more open to other people, but it's still kind of used as like a, is this like a, a new age thing? Is this like woo? Which by the way, and I'll talk about breathwork in a second, I kind of find offensive, you know, when people say is this woo woo, like is this, is this like new age because this is what our ancestors did and there's nothing woo woo about it. Like this is what our ancestors did and this was medicine and this isn't sure we can acknowledge that some communities might find it a little different, you know, especially if we think about our generations of like, you know, baby boomers and then you know, gen X and then we've got millennials and we've got the Gen Z.
Ruth Tessema: (23:15)
You know, like we've got lots of different, you know, generations going on and like you can kind of see where things are starting to become a little bit more integrative with like eastern practices and Western and things that are becoming a little bit more open with new generations having access and having questions and being curious about things, which is amazing. But I'm really hoping that people kind of don't see these type of healing modalities, these holistic healing modalities as like woo woo in a negative way. You know, some people are using woo woo as like a positive thing, you know, like to take back this negative phrase. But others are really thinking like, what are you doing? Are you saying like the sound is healing and medicine? Are you saying like if we just breathe, you know, like that's supposed to heal us , you know?
Ruth Tessema: (24:04)
So it is something that I think is gonna start to change at the next couple of years. But, and with breath work too, I'll add too, it's, I teach a lot of different types of breath work strategies in my community events. When I do these sound baths, I integrate breath work and it's a little different than maybe nose breathing or yogi breathing or you know, just simple deep breaths. It's a different kind of active breath work because the intention is we have stored trauma in our body, stored stress in our body, issues are in our tissues, emotions are stuck in our body. So we work with our nervous system to reset it and help discharge a lot of the stuff that is stored in our body. And we do that through this specific active breath work. It's called conscious connected breathing. And it's actually in and out through the mouth instead of the nose, which is, you know what a lot of people are used to just nose breathing.
Ruth Tessema: (25:05)
Both are very helpful for the nervous system. But I use this conscious connected breathing for like 25 minutes for people before we enter the sound bath. Because what, what I do is I help people go on a journey. So like they stimulate their nervous system by doing the out of the mouth breathing. They stimulate the nervous system to get a lot of stagnant energy out of our body. So I guide people through that experience and then after 25 minutes or so of that, I help them kind of go back to nose breathing after everything's been discharged. And then we implement sound healing on top of that. So there's this cycle that's happening here where we bring up a lot of the stuff that's stored, bring it up to the surface and allow it to be discharged out of our bodies through the breath, the power of breath.
Ruth Tessema: (26:04)
And then we close it off with sound healing as we go back to our normal nose breathing to allow the sound vibrations to hold us in this amazing experience of just resetting the nervous system a little bit more and bringing more of a calm as we end the experience. So these two are like my favorite. And I always tell people when we have these community events that these two are my favorite, but I have so many different holistic tools in my toolbox. But if I have an hour and a half with people, we're gonna do some active breath work and a sound bath to complete our journey. So these are ancient practices, like these are pretty ancient practices and it's pretty remarkable what our ancestors have learned and come up with to create healing. So I'm hoping that that can be a little bit more digestible for people as we, you know, move through. 'cause it's a lot of change, which I get, yeah, a lot of different things that we're all throwing at each other to try, but it could be overwhelming. But you know, if we just kind of have a little open mind about what holistic health can look like it, it can go a long way.
Ari O'Donovan: (27:21)
I think that's so important. Sometimes there's not always a need for a prescription drug to solve your problems. Sometimes you may need one and maybe it's in combination with the types of services that you offer Ruth, but I don't think that that should always be your very first go-to is a prescription drug. So I really like to see now that people are getting into breath work and sound baths and I mean, like you said, some people might think of it like, so you're telling me that breathing is gonna solve a lot of my problems and my stress and have everything just feel better? It's like, yeah, it can be that easy if you just follow like the instructions and use the tools and you don't always have to go get a prescription to make it to where now you can't operate machinery , I mean let's try a different way first. Sometimes it might get there, there are people that need those types of medications and that's fine, but let's, let's not go for the top shelf life altering. It provides some benefit, but it also provides a lot of things that are going to hinder your quality of life versus breath work and sound baths that just, they're there to improve your quality of life, not take something away.
Ruth Tessema: (28:46)
Yeah. Oh, I think that's so important, what you just said, not take something away. Yeah, because typically, I mean again, I'm with you like sometimes medication is very necessary, but if you know a lot of the things that aren't natural, I will say there's some side effects, there's some pretty harmful side effects and other times we don't even know what the side effects will be until 10, 15 years later. I mean, you know, I hate to say that because I know that we are very much in the western society of how things work. You know, there's a script for that, you know, kind of mentality. But if we were to start thinking a little bit differently about wellness, that there are natural non-medicated al alternatives to wellness. You know, like for example, going in your backyard and planting a seed and starting to kind of grow vegetables in your yard if you have one.
Ruth Tessema: (29:47)
If you don't have a yard, you know, some sort of, you know, station or you know, some sort of setup, you know, where you can plant box or herbs, you know, like lavender or what are some of the other herbs that I'm thinking of? Like raspberry leaf, oat, oat straw. There are so many things that you could use for, you know, cleansing your nervous system, resetting your nervous system, just feeling good for anxiety, for depression. Um, and that's why I say like, we wanna collaborate with people in these other fields. Like I might not be a nutritionist, but I can get you to someone who is, you know, I might not be a herbalist, but I know what herbs would help, you know, but I, I know someone who can actually practices this and this is their work. They know all the herbs, like, they don't have to like pause like I just did.
Ruth Tessema: (30:40)
Like, you know, they know, oh, depression, I got you. Here are some of these herbs, anxiety, I got you. Here are some of these herbs. So everyone has a craft and it's just really like finding, you know, that versus I've got this anxiety, uh, since I was a kid and it's really preventing me from doing this work at my job and preventing me from getting into the relationships that I want. Um, and so I just need something to kind of like get rid of that, you know? And so when we think that way, it is going into that closed mindset that you don't really have the power in your wellness and that, you know, you need to kind of find it with this kind of, I hate to say it, but like kind of like a quick fix type of way. Whereas if we were to kind of, you know, think of it as, okay, well let me get into this world of self-exploration and discovery and awareness about the root of the harm. It might be harder and a little bit longer, but you know, there might be some great benefit in the long run once I get to the source of my anxiety and work with a team or a holistic practitioner that can help connect me with people and get through a lot of this stuff. So, pretty interesting perspective to take, but I'm hoping that we all start to open up a little bit to these other non-medicated ways of healing.
Ari O'Donovan: (32:16)
I absolutely agree. For people that are on their healing journey, whether you just started, you're kind of in the middle of it or
Ruth Tessema: (32:24)
I
Ari O'Donovan: (32:24)
Don't even think it really comes to an end ever. You're just
Ruth Tessema: (32:28)
At
Ari O'Donovan: (32:29)
Different stages. 'cause things happen in life
Ruth Tessema: (32:32)
At
Ari O'Donovan: (32:33)
Different parts of your life. So you may think, okay, I'm, I'm good with
Ruth Tessema: (32:36)
My
Ari O'Donovan: (32:37)
Healing journey, I've reached the end of that and I know what I'm doing and I have techniques and tools that I've gotten from professionals who have trained me and, and I know what I'm doing. And then something could happen, someone could die, a divorce could happen, you move to a new place or you start a new job, but it's not what you expected. All kinds of stuff happened in life. So I think the healing journey is always going, always, always happening. It's just a different stage. But that is such a heavy lift for people, you know, especially if you're not really , like you're becoming overwhelmed at something you're thinking about before you've actually even done anything with it. It's like you have to really think about yourself and, and how this is affecting you and the holistic aspect of it for you, rather than immediately thinking that a prescription is going to solve all of your problems and not introduce new ones. And like I said, and like we've said, some people really need these prescriptions and please take your medication, but if it doesn't have to get there first with your healing journey. And when we think about what's hard and the hardest thing and, and the heavy lift in the beginning, what aspects of the healing journey do you think are hardest for people to deal with?
Ruth Tessema: (34:00)
Yeah, the hardest part, the hardest aspect in one's healing journey that I've, my, me personally speaking, and then also a little bit of what I've noticed with the clients that I work with is really getting into that mindset like we were talking about, of self-awareness and self-discovery. You know, like, okay, and we'll talk about boundaries too, because that goes underneath that, right? But getting curious, getting curious about
Ari O'Donovan: (34:28)
Your
Ruth Tessema: (34:28)
Self, your life, your parts, your insecurities, your fears, your behaviors, your patterns, like you know, all of these
Ari O'Donovan: (34:36)
Patterns
Ruth Tessema: (34:37)
In relationships, the patterns with your work history, your, you know, patterns of your self-talk. Just really getting curious about it. I think it's really hard for people because that's some of the stuff that our protective mechanisms in our body have locked away and exiled away because it prevents us from moving forward, you know, so to speak. That's kind of like the intention, like we don't really focus on those, the hard stuff. So this helps us kind of move forward. But the hardest part in the healing journey is actually addressing it and getting curious about it from a compassionate lens. That is the roadmap to healing really. It's that hard work. And if you're working with a holistic therapist or somatic based therapist, sensory motor therapist who really works with the body, they'll help you titrate it. So it's not as hard if you were to do the shadow work on your own, you know, they'll titrate it.
Ruth Tessema: (35:32)
Something I do is make sure that I, you know, slowly help people go through that roadmap of self-discovery and healing. And, and that might mean, all right, let's explore some boundaries. Like, you know, what were boundaries like when you were a kid, what were they like in your relationships? What were they like in your, your romantic ones and in your friendships? You know, what do your boundaries look like in the family, you know, now as you're an adult, you know, and getting curious about it. And then starting to ask yourself questions about what feels safe, what doesn't feel safe, and really understanding some of the patterns in your past in order to promote healing of your future. So it's kind of like getting to know yourself all over again. And I've noticed, I'm part of this boat too, back in the day, like really not liking those old parts of me and not wanting to go back there.
Ruth Tessema: (36:30)
I didn't wanna go back to my rebellious teenaged parts of me who just, you know, like, why did she do all those things? Like I didn't wanna go back there and, and talk with her or get to know what was going on in her life. It's scary for a lot of people and what's helpful is the mentality of moving forward and just saying like, let's just survive. Let's get it done. Then it's counterintuitive to do it that way, isn't it? Because then they'll start to say, okay, well I have this anxiety , I don't know where it came from, or I don't wanna know where it came from. I know it's been there for a while, I just need a script for that. That's like kind of the easy way out, right? So the hardest part I would say is really getting into that self-exploration, the shadow work of just like, what are my fears?
Ruth Tessema: (37:16)
What are my insecurities? What are the things that I've adapted from growing up? Maladaptive patterns from my parents who had the skills and awareness that they had, but maybe parented me differently? Or what did I learn from these traumatic events that happened that maybe I've held onto and stored in my body? You know, really getting into that self-discovery. So as we talk about boundaries, you'll notice like some people have really porous ones and some people have very rigid ones and, and some people have pretty healthy, safe, reasonable boundaries. Everybody is different. But what I like about boundary work is this ability to really understand yourself a little bit more, to be that reparented part of you. Like to be someone who can like finally give you the, you know, go through the ropes that works for you, like really give you some guidance like, okay, you know, that may have worked for the people that were taking care of you back in the day, but that didn't work for you when you were six, didn't work for you when you were nine or 10 or 12.
Ruth Tessema: (38:29)
And now we get to do some of that nitty gritty work where we get to recreate like, what are the rules or instructions I like to say on how people have relationships with you, instructions and rules, expectations, you know, needs, desires, uh, that help you have safe relationships with yourself. So there's that spirituality part of the holisticness, right? And then how to have relationships with other people. So you gotta be able to learn how to teach it to people. And that's also uncomfortable, that's a hard part. You gotta be able to reteach it. You have to be able to be consistent with it. And you also have to make sure that it fits your needs. Like, you know, the poorest boundaries might be someone who comes from a household where, you know, their needs never really met, uh, mattered or, you know, their needs really mattered based off of their parents' piece.
Ruth Tessema: (39:30)
You know, you gotta be kind of quiet, you know, so that you don't stress out your parents, you know, you wanna go play outside, but your parents, you know, need you to help, help with this, and so just do it, you know? But there are unmet needs there, and that's just a little, like a little example, but gosh, there could be so much more that give you information about why your, your boundaries are so loose and porous right now, you know, um, or rigid. And when they're very rigid boundaries, they're very strict. I'm noticing, and I used to be there too, recovering people pleasers, you know, growing up and they start to explore boundaries, but they're recovering people pleasers, like I mentioned, like they used to have very porous boundaries. Now growing up they're like, oh, I could say no. Like, I'm gonna say no to everything.
Ruth Tessema: (40:21)
I'm gonna cut people out as soon as they start to, you know, you know, tell me something that I don't like or give me a sense of like unsafety vibes, you know, so I'm gonna cut them out. And so that tends to happen, and I think that's a pretty natural thing to go through, like to have very porous and then go to, to rigid boundaries. But what we end up doing is like trying to make sure we circle back and come back to a nice medium, a nice, healthy, safe kind of equilibrium type of boundary, you know, because then you can receive help and you'll learn how to delegate, and then you'll be able to say no to certain things that, you know, you don't want to but feel okay about it. And you'll be able to kind of just have like more of a sense of self. You'll be able to just be balanced and, and have community. Community is important, like I said, like with the holisticness of it all. We wanna be able to be with people. And so it's not really, you know, cut everyone else out, but you might need to do that in your healing journey. But then sooner or later you're gonna have to kind of wheel it back to a nice safe middle ground where you can be part of community and understand what safe community is, and then just really, really give yourself what you need,
Ari O'Donovan: (41:45)
That whole conversation. That could be an episode by itself, , that really could, 'cause there's so much that goes into that. It's kind of like a, a Russian doll type of thing where you've got like layers, like there's a little doll in each other, doll, there's like a bunch of 'em. There's like five or six of 'em in one thing. And each former size is a prerequisite for the next size up. So they all make up one big doll though. So if you remove one of them, then you're missing a part of the overall doll. So you need all the pieces, you need every single doll included in that set, even though when you have it all put together, you can't see the other dolls. You just see the one on the outside. But they're all right there. And you have to understand the stages of yourself, the stages of your own development in some sort of, to me, a prerequisite type of fashion.
Ari O'Donovan: (42:43)
You have to understand the former to get to the next thing. The former is a prerequisite for the next level of understanding of who you are, why you do what you do, why you think like you do, why you have ways that you need to heal. And I think without that, you're really just coming up short for yourself. And it's gonna show up later when you're like, why isn't all the work that I've been doing really helping? And it's like, it's not a problem with your therapist . It's a problem with you not being ready to do that hard work, that heavy lift.
Ruth Tessema: (43:20)
Absolutely. Yeah. That readiness to do the heavy lifting rather than like expecting the someone that you're paying will kind of fix all your problems. Yeah, that's part of why it's so hard because some people don't wanna face that, that they have to actually, yeah, you'll be guided and held through it, the process, but you are the one that has the agency and choice to do the healing for your internal world, you know, and some suggestions and you kind of do some of the homework and you kind of do some of the self-exploration and, and all that. But again, it goes back to how ready you are to do this type of work. And maybe I'm making it sound kind of scary, but once you kind of get through that hump of, you know, oh, it's me, I'm the hero. Like I'm the one that's doing all this. Oh man, it is like such an amazing, rewarding feeling and it just continues to evolve and get better and better as you start to, you know, get older and you age.
Ari O'Donovan: (44:25)
Thanks for listening to this episode. Okay. Bring the community info without the community. Appreciate you showing up. If you wanna reach out, hit us up on ig at boosting our voices, or at our website, boost oregon.org. Keep doing great things. Keep uplifting one another and we'll do the same. See you next time.