LIFE AFTER DEATH: Hollyanna Vellichor on Escaping a Cult, Trauma, Chronic Pain & Finding Strength

SPEAKER_00 0:00

They call it the dark night of the soul. Have you heard that?

SPEAKER_02 0:03

No, never.

SPEAKER_00 0:04

So the dark night of the soul is a psychological terminology where the world as you know it and your reality, your belief system, your identity are literally burned to ashes and there's nothing left. And you are left in complete darkness. But one of the things I say to people is it's probably the most hopeful place that you can be because after the dark night of the soul is true enlightenment. It's there's there's only light the other side. And that's why I say like it was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and the best thing that ever happened to me. And and that's why like my life started after my death.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Holly's story doesn't begin with success, it begins with loss. She was born into a four-generation high-controlled religious cult, eventually making the unimaginable decision to leave. In doing so, she lost her marriage, her home, her business, her community, her identity, and even her relationship with her daughter. She found herself homeless with her son while living with complex PTSD and fibromyalgia. Most people will call at the end. She calls it the beginning. Today, she teaches what she calls biocoding, an approach centered around nervous system regulation, body awareness, and recovery. Today we're talking about cults, trauma, chronic pain, identity, resilience, neuroscience, and asking whether our bodies may actually be communicating with us long before our minds understand what's happening. Holly, welcome to welcome home, welcome to Ward. It's a pleasure to have you.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

Yes, ma'am. Thank you for being here. So let's begin with this. You often say your story began after your death, not your physical death, the death of a person you thought you were. That's one of the most powerful introductions I've heard. Take me back. Who died?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Well, that's a really good question. And one that I've been probably walking my way through since I left four years ago. This question of who was it who died and who is this? And in in a funny way, I actually refer to the the previous Holly as former Holly or the old Holly. And interestingly, I talk about her in the third person. Oh, like, oh, she was like this, she was like that. And it sounds strange to other people because it sounds a little bit like I'm divorcing myself from her or dissociating from her in order not to feel the pain. And in some ways, there might be an element of truth in that temporarily, just so I can get through. But I also do feel her pain. She was a very sensitive soul. She was a loving mother, she was creative and very romantic, very poetic, and really just someone in the born into the wrong environment because everything around her was where she needed gentleness, everything around her was harsh and judgmental and an oppressive.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

That's deep because I could I could hear the pain while you while you're uh talking about it. Most people think death means you know your heart stops, you stop breathing. You know, sometimes your identity dies when you're still breathing. And I've experienced moments where the life I built completely collapsed, you know. So you wake up one day and you realize I don't even know who I am anymore. You know? What was that moment like for you?

SPEAKER_00 3:58

Well, I when I think back to when I first got out, I I was just shell-shocked. And I I felt I I felt like I was dying. I really did. Um I couldn't I couldn't engage properly with the world around me. I was like a zombie just doing what I had to do the next step in front of me.

SPEAKER_03 4:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

I hadn't just lost everything. Like you said, I lost, you know, my home, my community, my my family, my place of business. I lost my daughter. I haven't haven't seen her since. And it I think the pain of that was it was too much, and it just broke me. It just broke me. And at that time, I I really was just I just felt like I was, yeah, just a zombie. I think that's the only word I can use to describe it. It's really hard to compare it to anything because there's nothing really to compare it to. And I wasn't just dealing with that loss as well. I'd grown up in a high control religious group that had told me what reality was for the first 40 years of my life. And when I got out, you know, that reality had crumbled, it had fallen down like a pack of cards. And I had to figure out what is it then? Because I knew what it wasn't, but I was in this place, they call it the dark night of the soul. Have you heard that?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

No, never.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

So the dark night of the soul is a psychological terminology where the world as you know it and your reality, your belief system, your identity are literally burned to ashes and there's nothing left. And you are left in complete darkness. But one of the things I say to people is it's probably the most hopeful place that you can be because after the dark night of the soul is true enlightenment. It's there's there's only light the other side. And that's why I say like it was the worst thing that ever happened to me and the best thing that ever happened to me. And and that's why like my life started after my death.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

I feel you deeply when you speak about that. And you just spoke about um you being born into a fourth-generation high control cult. For people who've never lived inside something like that, help us to understand it. What did a normal day look like? And you know, what did you believe about the outside world?

SPEAKER_00 6:20

In many ways, the religious group I was brought up in from the outside looked very benign and they looked very normal. Like just another church group who might look a bit weird, you know, and a bit like silly, you know, just from the outside. But from the inside there was a huge amount of control. So what you wear, what you watch on TV, who your friends are, whether you can do higher education, who you might date, who you might marry. There's you know, there's just so much that you have to consider. And especially for a woman, like you have even less of a voice and less of a say in things. So I remember being told, like, I remember asking a question when I was in part of this study group that I'd been I'd been sent to like this ministry school to go and learn how to be like a local missionary. And I remember them going through all of their material, and then I was sitting there writing down questions because I I'm one of those really unfortunate people that has a lot of questions, and they're usually the ones people don't want asked. And so I started asking a question and they said, We'll stop you there. You need to go home and ask your husband. And I said, But he didn't qualify for this school.

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

And they said, Well, it's not appropriate that you were asking questions here, you need to go home and ask your husband. And I was I remember, I remember sitting there, this wasn't actually probably this was probably in the lead up to me leaving. And I think sitting there and and hearing that, I just thought, I was so angry because I thought, why could I just I've got just as much right to think about these things, and how do you expect me to develop a strong faith if I can't ask reasonable questions that help develop my insight?

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and uh I've seen that a lot, like on these uh religious cult documentaries. I mean, that's the only time I've seen anything like that with Jehovah's Witnesses and That's the one. Really? Really, yeah. Really interesting. Uh yeah. I've been trying to dodge it for a while now. My uh mother is a Jehovah's Witness. I got a lot of good friends that are that's trying to get me to come to the Kingdom Hall, but I just see a lot of a lot of bad negativity. I seen the documentary on HBO, and but that's that's my view of it just from what I see on TV. But when you're born into it, you know, that's just life, and you don't know you're inside something abnormal, I could imagine. And uh Yeah, so when did you start first qu it was that the first time you began questioning it?

SPEAKER_00 9:03

I I always had a problem with it, I think, from a child, because I could see I could see things as they really were. And that can be a blessing and a curse, and it's certainly a curse if you're stuck in that environment. Because I remember being in a like one of their services, uh they call them meetings, and l someone's the speaker is saying something that I thought was ridiculous. Maybe something like how everybody outside should be destroyed, or something like that. And I'll be sitting there thinking, oh, that's that's awful. That's so unloving, that's so unchristlike, and looking around to see like, is anyone else as shocked as I am? And seeing everyone going, mmm, nodding along, like, oh yes, yes, yes. And I and I I felt like you know, like when you like invaders of the body snatchers, and you're trying to blend in, you don't want them to know that what you can see, like still like you're they're kind of coming towards you, like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Stay back, stay back.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:12

So you're trying to sort of blend in and keep my head down and not say too much that uh I found out later that I'm very neurodiverse. I didn't realize it. I thought I was just I don't know, I just I uh I don't know what I thought about myself, but I'd I'd be really quiet and then all of a sudden I'll just come out with something. Yeah, yeah, but you know, blah blah blah blah blah. And then and then think, oh, I've just given myself away, you know.

SPEAKER_03 10:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Well what I meant was Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

So it wasn't like leaving wasn't just changing churches or or halls. You lost your marriage, your family, friends, business, you know, community, everything.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

Everything, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

You know, did you know the price before you walked away? What was gonna happen?

SPEAKER_00 11:02

Yes, that the you one of the reasons why you don't walk away is because you know the price. A lot of people say to me, if you didn't agree with it and you didn't believe it, why did you stay? Why didn't you just leave? And it's because there's a really high price to pay. You you you're paying the price of your family. And so on the one hand, you can stay and keep your family, and on the other hand, you can be truthful and live unhypocritically and authentically, but you have to you have to pay the price of your family. And in some ways, I I you know, you this is a really difficult thing question to ponder on because I'll ask you this if someone said to you, What's more important, truth or your family? You can only have one, what would you choose?

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Oh my goodness. I would choose family all the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Right?

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

And that's and that's most definitely Yeah, and most people would, and most people do, which is why they stay. So what happens is you're put in a situation where you're forced to choose. You can either be truthful or you can keep your family. And that's that that's that's the choice you have to make.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

That's terrible.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

And a lot of people, you know, when you when you look at it that way, a lot of people would judge me extremely negatively because I knew I mean I didn't I haven't shunned my family, but the choice I made meant that I was shunned.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

Hmm. Did did did fear ever almost convince you to stay?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

There's a lot of fear uh growing up in a cult. There's a lot of fear of being in the cult, and there's a lot of fear leaving. So fear is a big part of of growing up in that environment because from a very early age, from very young child, you are taught that one day Armageddon is coming and like God's gonna send like fiery angels to destroy everyone.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:55

And they're all gonna die. And you're taught that you, as a Jehovah's Witness, you might survive. Not you will. They quote a scripture where it says, probably like probably you might survive. So even if you're a good Jehovah's Witness and you do everything that you're supposed to do, that's still not a guarantee. And they also like to emphasize ha persecution. So they they have a kind of like I call it now, I call it persecution porn, right? Because they kind of almost get off on the idea that they're being persecuted. So if you go to someone's door and you knock on their door and they're rude to you, they're taught to remember the scripture where Christ says, you know, they hated me, so they hate they'll hate you.

SPEAKER_03 13:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:42

So then that's proof. You know, like the persecution is proof of doctrine and it's the proof that we're right. And so they emphasize a lot of persecution. So if they if there's anything going on around the world, and goodness knows how much of it, how much of it is true and how much of it is exaggerated, I'm not sure. But they're if there's persecution going on, then they will go, oh that look, you see that we're next, you know. So they'll they'll give you examples of like, you know, like militant armies storming the kingdom halls, gunning everyone down, taking your children away, raping the women, and you're taught that's gonna happen to you, and you're gonna have to stand firm. And for a sensitive child, because I was very gentle, neurodiverse, right? So I'm gonna take everything like, oh, that's that's yeah, that's gonna happen, right?

SPEAKER_03 14:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

I was constant having constant nightmares that people were after me, and it caused huge amounts of PTSD. And then, you know, then there's the snitching where you're being watched constantly and they're encouraging each other to snitch. And you know, you don't have to be doing anything that bad, it could just be something like I used to be a dancer, and when I uh started to have therapy for the first time, I began dancing again for myself. And I did some little videos and I put them online, but they were thin nothing, I didn't promote them or anything, they're just for me, right? And someone found them and reported me to the elders, and then I was brought into their kind of internal court system to be questioned. What about yeah, about you know, brazen conduct. That was my charge. What's that yeah? Like ballet dance, like ballet dancing.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

Not even pole dancing or anything. I'm not nothing against pole dancing, but it's a great sport. That yeah, it was just like, you know, kind of as slightly avant garde, like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:34

This is I'm glad we're having this conversation because it's giving me a lot to think about. Because I'll I'm I was this close to saying, okay, let me let me go test it out, let me go see what it's about, let me go to the hall. And a a good friend of mine, he sends me, he's he's older, he's an older gentleman, he sends me scriptures every morning, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

Every morning, like nonstop. It doesn't, it doesn't stop, you know. Like, I appreciate it, you know, he's thinking about me and everything, but it's it's just a lot of pressure, you know. And when I tell my mom, you know, the documentary I seen on HBO about it, I'm like, you know, mom, look at this documentary, you know.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Will she let you talk about it?

SPEAKER_02 16:18

No, she shuts me down right there.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

That's what I shut down right there. You know, she wants me to run my household a certain way, like her husband. I'm the man of the house and and and I'm the head of the family, I should run it like this, I should run it like that, you know. But I'm just not into that, you know. I I believe in equality and in in a relationship, but she says I'm the man of the house, I should run like this, I should run like that. So um I'm glad we're having this conversation, it's a lot to think about. Yeah, you know, but if I question her on it, she'll shut me down. She don't want to hear it. You know, she doesn't want to talk to me. She, you know, everything, you know, it's like if I'm not in that bubble with them, if I'm not planning on being a Jehovah's Witness, or if I'm not a Jehovah's Witness, you know, they wash your hands of me. You know, they don't want nothing to do with you.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

That's true. So they yeah, it they have a very inside-outside mentality. It's not theirs as individuals. It's I I never talk about this as these are the individual people, right? It's some people are really, they really love it, and it's a real platform for their narcissism. But some people are just really sincere and they love God and they want to fight the Bible and they want to live a good life, and and and you know, why not? Right? But it's the organization, and the organization is terrified of outside influence, especially now with the internet and how widespread things are.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

So it's very difficult for them to hide now because before, like go back going back before the internet, they could kick someone out, say whatever they liked about it, really discredit the person who's gone, and keep things relatively stable on the inside. Now, you know, the information is so accessible that people can find things out themselves. You know, you can look up things like uh the Australian Royal Commission, and there was something similar in the UK where they were really delving into not just Jehovah's Witnesses, but different religions and how they were dealing with abuse in the congregation, whether it was being reported and dealt with effectively. And they found that the witnesses were one of the worst of all of the religious groups. They were the worst.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

And you know, you can watch their governing body, the governing body are the kind of top leaders, they don't have one cult leader, they have a group of them, and that's one way they get out of saying they're not a cult. We don't have one leader, right?

SPEAKER_03 18:48

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 18:49

We've got this group of them called the governing body who have appointed themselves as what they call the faithful slave. So they use a par a parable where Jesus talked about a faithful slave serving the master, and they say, That's us. He was talking about us. And you can hear them being interviewed in this pup it's a public court uh court case and lying. And you know they're lying. Like it's really easy to see that they're lying because you you because people know the doctrine, you understand the doctrine, and you know they're lying about the doctrine that you know about. So, you know, and they call they have a they have a terminology for that, which is spiritual warfare, which is where you're allowed to say anything so that that doesn't bring reproach back on the organization. So as long as you're protecting the organization, you can lie your head off, but don't lie to the elders. Then you'll be in trouble. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Right. My mother is absolutely not gonna watch this uh interview. She's really not gonna. I'm gonna tell her, I'm gonna point it to her, I'm gonna send it to her, and she's not gonna watch it.

SPEAKER_00 19:51

She won't watch it. They're taught to protect their faith. And this kind of thing is, you know, what they say about people like myself is that I'm a puppet of Satan, that I have a diseased mind, and my sole purpose and intention in life is to destroy their faith and lead them into destruction.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

And that's really quite a story, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 20:14

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

But I'm not, you know, I don't want to I I think, as I said, with the individuals themselves, they if a lot of them may have something that they find they can have faith and hope and a sense of moral values. I have nothing against religion in that way. In that way. I just think there's a difference between coercive control and you nourishing yourself with a sense of faith.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

Yes, ma'am. So let's change gears for a moment here. You became homeless with your son. That's every parent's nightmare. You know? What goes through your mind when you're trying to protect your child, you know, while you don't even know where you're going to sleep?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

The early days when I left were challenging. I remember I had I had a client who offered us to house sit for him for a month. And so I housed that for him, but I had no idea where we were going to go at the end of the month. And it was getting closer and closer to that time. And I remember I was just sat in in this health club where I'd been teaching, and I I was sitting down in the cafe, and one of the class members came past and she said, Are you you're all right, you don't look yourself. And I just burst into tears and came out with this whole story. I didn't have anywhere to go, I didn't know what I was gonna do, where I was gonna take him. And the local council had denied us any support. We couldn't get any legal aid, nothing. And she just reached into her handbag and pulled out some keys and she said, You're coming home with me. She had a tiny little one bed apartment not far away, and she said, You're welcome to stay here until you get yourself on your feet. I slept in her laundry room for nine months. Wow, yeah, so I was very grateful, very grateful. But you know, you you it was very restorative because growing up inside the I had believed the world was so bad outside, and I I just felt so down and so nihilistic by the time that I left because there was nothing left of my own sense of spirit to keep me going. And I suddenly realized there, you know, there's there's earth angels out here. There's people who are you know, tr truly loving people. I call them ferryman, you know. They just take you from one side to the other and then they drop you off and bid you farewell.

SPEAKER_02 22:28

I like that. So how did you're out there? Yeah, definitely. Oh yes, oh yes. So how did you keep your son emotionally grounded during this time?

SPEAKER_00 22:38

So during that time, the way that I dealt with it with my son was to be honest, and uh to say life's difficult sometimes, and we're going through a difficult period, but look how these people are being kind. Isn't that wonderful how they're being kind? You know, and that they'll there'll always be good people out there that if you're looking for them. And I was pretty pretty paralyzed myself with uh everything I had to do. I I had never been exposed to the the kind of things I had to do, all these legal forms and all sorting out these different bills and things because my ex-husband, he had kept a very tight control of all the finances. I wasn't allowed to look at anything. So I just had no ex- I just was I was like a I felt like a child who'd been thrust into this adult world and hadn't didn't have any sense of what I was supposed to do. And sometimes I'd be so paralyzed I wouldn't be able to even open my laptop. And I remember the first time I opened my laptop, and I I don't know, I filled out this like one page of this form. And I went home and I said to my son, Mama filled out the page. I did it. I filled out the page. Let's celebrate. We made nachos and watched a movie. And after that one day, I was like, huh, huh. And so I started to do that with everything. So every time I got over a little step, I would, I don't know, make us mock tales and we'd blow up some balloons or something. Just silly, just silly, silly things.

SPEAKER_03 24:00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Where I would say, Look what we did, look what we did. Like we're doing so well, aren't we? Yeah. And then, you know, some days I would fall to pieces because I just wouldn't know what to do next. And I would cry, and I would he would see me crying, and I would say, Yeah, mama's overwhelmed. I but you know, I'm gonna cry now, but then I'll sleep on it and I'll probably have a new plan tomorrow. And lo and behold, I usually did have a new plan the next day. Actually, thinking about it's making me quite emotional because I haven't thought a lot about that time.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

You're such a beautiful soul. I'm sitting here like, wow, you're you're strong, you know. And one of the things I admire about you is you don't describe yourself as a victim, you describe yourself as curious. You know, I read that, so where did that mindset come from?

SPEAKER_00 24:48

I think I always was like that. I was always really curious, child, and I was always fascinated by the world around me and how things worked and why someone said that or how they were like that. I was curious about people, I was very understanding about people as well. I grew up with a brother who had a very severe conduct disorder, and he was extremely violent. But my parents had taught us to try to be understanding and patient with him. I guess partly because so it didn't trigger him into some kind of violence towards us. But we had learned how to nav navigate him a little bit and be understanding, and that led me to be very curious about people who in some ways this is a negative quality I had to be very careful of later because you you're kind of walking into the mouth of a a a crocodile, like those are sharp teeth. What you know, he's smiling, he seems to be smiling, you know. Oh, the poor croc, maybe he just needs a hug, you know.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:42

But uh but on the other hand, you know, I did get to see a lot of nuance and that things are not black and white, and that there's a lot of complexity in the world, that someone who you know acts in a really heinous way can be incredibly funny and creative, and someone who i is you know maybe a little bit dodgy with how they behave can also be really kind to people and really helpful. So I learned you know, nuance, and that curiosity is probably the main factor that led me to where I am now and kept me going, I think.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Hmm, that's interesting. You know, curiosity is a strange response to suffering, but you know, most people they become bitter, you know, you became fascinated, you know. I love that. I love that mindset. So before all this, you were a competitive athlete, you know. Then later you developed uh fibromyalgia and complex PTSD. That's two different, you know, completely different bodies. What did that experience teach you?

SPEAKER_00 26:46

They taught me to be really patient. Yeah, but coming from being uh an athlete where I was extremely active and in many ways I had a lot of control over my body because I could I could demand that it did this thing and then train it to do that and then it would do that. To being sick was initially really frustrating, you know, because at the peak of when I was poorly, I couldn't even walk from one side of the room to the other. I couldn't take the children to the park on my own because I couldn't run around after them. So I'd be like just benched, you know, while they're running around. And I just felt like I was missing out on on life. And I thought, I can't stay here. I can't stay here. And I just was so determined that I'm I'm gonna get back to health again. I don't know how I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna do it.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

Hmm. As a veteran, you know, I've learned trauma changes the body, your sleep, your pain, memory changes, confidence, all that, right?

SPEAKER_00 27:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

What surprised you most about how trauma physically affected you?

SPEAKER_00 27:41

I think looking back, the thing that surprised me is how much I didn't realize I was traumatized.

SPEAKER_04 27:46

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

I thought that I was a difficult person and that I needed to be a better person. I needed to be less dysfunctional and more helpful and less reactive. Yeah. And I referred myself for counseling at one point. This is the first time I referred myself for counseling. Not because if not because I was depressed, not because I wanted to exit, but because I thought I'm such a burden on everyone and I need to stop being that, you know. And when I look at that person now, if I could have spoken to her now, I I really, really would like to tell her, no, no, no, no, you've got it wrong. You're in a terrible situation. Like this is awful. Like I was nine out of ten on the ACES score. Do you know what the ACES score is?

SPEAKER_02 28:30

No, no.

SPEAKER_00 28:31

It's the adverse childhood experience score.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

There's ten categories of adverse childhood experience. And on this study, they found that if you scored four or more, it increased your chance of developing a severe illness addiction or early death by around about 400%. I forget the number, so you might need to look that up, but it was it was really high, right? So I scored nine out of ten. Because I because I I kind of ticked so many boxes of with of risk, you know, with domestic violence and abuse, and there's just so many things that happen. And I'm surprised in some ways that I'm still here. Because I'm not exactly I wouldn't classify myself as someone who is excessively strong, you know, or excessively like robust, you know, I'm I'm gentle and sensitive.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

When did you what what age uh when did you take this test, the ACES test?

SPEAKER_00 29:30

Yeah, it wasn't until much later in life, I think I'd gone for trauma therapy. So not counseling, I'd actually gone later for trauma therapy. And because I'd been referred and then I I started to look into it a little bit more, and I came across because I'm I'm a researcher, I I read everything. While everyone else is out partying, I'd be sat up at night reading medical research papers on the nervous system and making notes or reading books on neuroplasticity. Like that's where my head's been for another.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

I love that, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:05

I'm a nerd.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

I'm a nerd.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

Yeah. And so when you know, when I came across it and looked at this study, I was like, well, that's interesting. Because I was like, that's that's I meet that one. And I meet I meet that category. And I meet oh, and I meet that one. There was only one on there that I didn't meet, like I forget what it is.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 30:25

But I was like, like, that's all of them really. And I forgot about it after that. Because I I was still like thinking, Oh yeah, like, oh wasn't it wasn't it crazy like that time that my our brother rounded us up at gunpoint? Like, or like, oh, wasn't it crazy when this happened? Like, normal? Do you know what I mean? Normal. And I remember saying to my trauma therapist something like that, oh well you know, you know when your brother puts a pillow over your face and suffocates you, like you know when they do that. And he was like, no. And I was like, Yeah, yeah, you know when he does that, or like when he holds you under the water until you can't breathe, like that, like that. And he was like, No.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

And it just was like normal for you.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Yeah, normal. But the thing is, b just because it's normal doesn't mean that it doesn't affect your nervous system. What it means is that is how your nervous system has been shaped since you're early. So it doesn't mean it hasn't affected you, it means that I can probably hold quite a lot of material that is uh difficult. And that probably makes me very, you know, as I am, a very good trauma and somatic therapist because people can tell me things and I'm able to hear it and listen to it and hold it without without crumbling. But it doesn't mean that it doesn't affect you. And I think that's what I didn't realize. And in terms of the fibromyalgia and the PTSD, they're not they're not two things. It's just a it's just a collection of symptoms of one thing. We give that two labels, C PTSD and fibromyalgia, it's really just the one thing. And what it is, is the body is completely overloaded and it's trying to cope with the overload, it's trying to adapt to the situation it's in. The body has one directive, and the one directive is very simple and it's continued. The body has very simple needs, and it prioritizes energy management within that because if you think about what we are, and by the way, this is probably my most fundamental uh question that I ask myself when I ask clients, what are you? Not who are you, what are you? And what you are at the core is a collection of particles. You're being held together by forces and energy, and those particles maintain some persistence. So the idea of James continues. So here you are, you're still here, right? And you don't look like a newborn baby, but the idea of you is continued. And why is that? It's because we've those particles have been sharing information, and so then we have this persistence of form, but that's hugely energetically expensive, that's very costly. You can understand why humans don't last that long, it's a very unstable state of affairs because we're not a solid object, we're you know, we're we're a dynamic system, we're constantly in flux. You might think of yourself more like the stock market, you know, a collection of different companies that are kind of varying like that. And you're gonna be changing moment to moment. If I look at you now and in five minutes, the idea of James has changed slightly.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

My head is spinning over here.

SPEAKER_00 33:20

Yeah. So when you think about that, think about the energy it takes to can to have that persist. This is no small thing, this is huge, right? And we we take it for granted. We're like, oh yeah, yeah. I woke up this morning, right? That's incredible, incredible. And because my body has this directive and it's doing it really well, my body's done an amazing job. I know that for a fact, because I'm still here, right? So it's done this fantastic job of keeping me here. But part of the way that it kept me here was to shut the system down a bit because it's using far too much energy on other things. So it has to use that energy on managing the stress, the risk, you know, all of this load that's put upon the body. Plus the fact, you know, what do you do when you're horribly stressed? You don't sleep so well. Uh I had nightmares every night, I barely slept. I I probably drank too much because I was trying to cope. I wasn't an alcoholic, but there was probably more alcohol than my body would like to would have liked to have coped with. Probably didn't eat that well, you know. A lot of the time I was underweight because I was so stressed. That's a horrible amount of load. So that what's the body gonna do? It's gonna say, okay, well, I'm having to redirect all this energy here, here, and here. Boom. Shut the system down, power down. And that's what fibromyalgia is. It's a full it's like a stop sign. No, no, stop.

SPEAKER_02 34:36

Yeah, I was I was reading about it. It's like people are still trying to understand it. And I've I've read like most people I've seen this YouTube video question whether it's even real. But I've I've uh heard about this like forever now. Like, why do you question if it's even real? Like, obviously it's a diagnosis. And like, so what was that like living with it? Did anybody ever question, like, oh, she made she's making this up?

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Or you know I I love it when people say that. When people say it's just this or I don't think it exists or it's not real, I go, what do you mean by real? What what do you mean just? You know, I want to know what they mean. So usually they can't answer that. And what they're referring to is something to do with the label and the what that label is attached to, or is it, for example, all in your head, right? Now, sometimes doctors will say this uh the pain's all in your head. And in many ways that's true because what it is is wiring in the brain. So if you look at acute pain versus chronic pain. So do you know the difference between the two?

SPEAKER_02 35:43

Acute pain and chronic pain.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:46

I would know. Well, it sounds like the same thing to me.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Yeah, so acute pain, you crack your shin on the coffee table, right? And boy, does it hurt.

SPEAKER_04 35:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

And then it swells up a little bit, you've got a bruise, you've broken some capillaries. Your body's gonna it's gonna do things. It's gonna set set up a little action plan. So it will send lymph there and that looks like swelling, right? And the lymphocytes are there to just in case there's anything, it needs any infection or anything like that, needs to sort out, pad it out a little bit to protect it. Um, it will start repairing any broken capillaries, clear up any blood that's pooled and break it down, take it away, and uh if it will fire off pain signals. And part of that is to say, careful, be careful, right? Don't go banging it with a hammer now. And once it's repaired, there's like the the more it repairs, the more the pain comes down, the pain is gone once it's done, right? So there's no more pain in your shin. You can poke it and it doesn't hurt anymore. That's acute pain. So it's pain at the sight related to the injury. Now, let's say for let's say, for example, you tear a ligament in your shoulder and it's a partial tear, maybe that takes about eight weeks to heal. And so you're expecting some soreness to progressively get better across the eight weeks, maybe three months if it's a bit more tricky, right? But three years down the line there's still pain. Is that caused by the injury?

SPEAKER_02 36:59

You're talking about chronic pain?

SPEAKER_00 37:00

Yes, chronic pain, yeah. So the pain now, is that caused by the injury?

SPEAKER_02 37:05

I would think that's caused by something mental.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Yeah. So the pain's no longer at the site of the injury because the injury's repaired.

SPEAKER_03 37:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

Often I get people say to me, clients, will say, Oh, well, I you know, I've got an injury here where I tore a ligament. I go, okay, when did you do that? Oh, three years ago. I said, you don't have an injury. You don't have a torn legament. So is it all up here? That would be repaired. Yeah. So what all up here means, or just in your head, or all in your head, is is a confusing term because it sounds dismissive, but what it actually is is a learned pattern pathway, right? So it's a learned pattern. The sensation is real, the experience is real. Right. The cause is not a torn ligament, the cause is something else. So when we're addressing chronic pain, there is no point in addressing the shoulder.

SPEAKER_02 37:52

Hmm. This is very insightful.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

And it's the same with well, fibromyalgia is a bit more complex because I talk about fibromyalgia in terms of load versus resource. The body's overloaded, it's a big shutdown. That's partial, that's partly true. But the other part of it is to do with how stress affects, how chronic stress affects the signaling in the body over time. So it can actually degenerate the the the actual architecture of cells. So if you think about how cells are organized and, you know, even down to things like which direction fibers are laid and helical structures within the cell, and the helical structure helps with effective signaling. If that's destroyed or broken in some way, the signaling becomes very glitchy. And so when we get glitchy signaling, you start getting strange random sensations around the body. So there's it's it's a little bit more complex with fibromyalgia than merely that's a learned pathway. That's a more simple chronic pain. And fibromyalgia, we're looking at more of a combination of factors that can take a little bit longer. I can address chronic pain in the shoulder within a few sessions, and fibromyalgia probably takes a bit longer because you're not just having to rebuild safety within the nervous system and stability within the person and addressing load versus resource, you're also waiting for uh the actual structure of cells to be repaired.

SPEAKER_02 39:13

Amazing. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 39:16

But by the way, this is wildly underestimated in the medical industry. And they do not address it. They address, they they'll throw medication at it for symptoms. But all that is is like there'll be different symptoms, and this is similar with other chronic in illnesses. You'll have different symptoms, so you'll have one doctor address this symptom, one doctor address this one, one this one. And I say it's like branches of the tree, right? And you've got a different doctor addressing a different branch, but all branches lead to the same roots, and nobody's looking at the roots.

SPEAKER_02 39:47

Oh wow, wow. That you wow. I could just say, wow, that's amazing. That's a lot to uh take in right there. Because I think I'm suffering from a little bit of fibromyalgia. I'll save that for another time. Let's talk about biocoding.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

So biocoding came about partly through my own lived experience because I always say I'm my own first research project. You know, I I was the the both the the scientist and this and the participant and and the result of my own study. And I've also got thousands of hours worth of uh you know experience with clients. And biocoding is really it's really come about by me being able to externalize and teach what I naturally and intuitively do with clients. So when a client was with me, I would be observing and watching them, hearing them talk, they'd be talking to me. And as they're talking, their body will and I think, why is their shoulder twitching? What's their foot saying there? Oh look, their foot's disagreeing with what they're saying. You know, so I'm tracking what the client is saying with their words, but I'm also tracking the conversation with the body is having as well. And what you'd find is like the client would be saying something, and the body would be going, no.

SPEAKER_02 41:02

So you're writing all this down at the same time, or you just Yeah, I'd make notes afterwards.

SPEAKER_00 41:07

You know, I'd I I'd make all these like uh just absent-minded notes where I would say the clients twirled their hand like this, and then their hand paused for a bit, then an insight landed, and they stopped, and then boom. And I'll just put the note to one side. Later, I started to catalogue a lot of my notes and realize there's actually a pattern. And there's a pattern across clients of how the body speaks to the point where you can read the body like it's speaking in sentences. So if you think of one movement as a word, and then a sequence of movements like a sentence, and then what would happen is the body would uh say that sentence a few times until it feels complete, I think is a good word, and it would punctuate that sentence with a full stop, which was usually a yawn or a sigh, and then the client would relax. Now that was really interesting, and I figured out a way to do this deliberately with clients to trigger them into a state by providing the right environment and opportunity where you could get the client to just sit back a bit and allow the body to come forward and have its conversation, and these conversations turned out to be so reparative. And after sessions, clients would tell me, Oh, I've I've come off that medication, I didn't I didn't need it anymore. I the pain's gone. Or they would say, I I slept really well that night, or my libido came back, or I suddenly said no to someone. I've never said no to someone in my life, and yeah, it was it was really fascinating. It it's still there's still a lot to learn. And I'm being taught every day by my own body and by clients' bodies. I'm still learning. I don't think I'll ever stop learning. I think it will be till definitely till the day I die, and then I'm gonna learn something else.

SPEAKER_02 42:50

Definitely. So do you do this in person and remotely?

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Yeah, a lot of it I do remotely.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 42:57

Because I have some clients that are abroad, and the the program that I look at is it combines a holistic view of the person. So it's not just like, oh, here's this one treatment fix. I'm looking at the roots of the tree and what what environment does this tree need to be in, what soil does this need to have? You know, how much light, how much water? And we're looking at the client as an individual, trying to help them to find structure within their week because I found the best way to help a nervous system feel safe is to let it know what's coming next. So things like making sure you get up at the same time every day, eating at regular times, eating foods that are easy to digest and nutritious, making sure you are hydrated, so water plus electrolytes so the body can signal effectively. And you know, just implementing more lifestyle medicine protocols to keep the body to give the body what it needs to manage the load versus the resource. And then we look at things like limiting beliefs and any kind of blocks that might get in the way of recovery alongside the movement practice um with the biocoding therapy itself with where we are we get the body talking.

SPEAKER_02 44:09

So this ties into nervous system regulation?

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:14

And okay, because that I'm that's big become popular a popular phrase because my son is autistic and I heard I've heard his uh therapists use that a lot and his doctors use that a lot. His system, his nervous system, he needs, you know, he's he's not being regulated or, you know, he needs to uh regulate that I'm I'm hearing that a lot.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

You know what do you understand about the term co-regulation?

SPEAKER_02 44:43

Code regulation?

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Co-regulation because it's actually really important with autism.

SPEAKER_02 44:49

Really? I've never heard co-regulation before.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

Okay. So uh co-regulation is fundamental to anyone's recovery. And once you understand about co-regulation you understand a lot more about your own interactions not just with your son who's autistic but also with just general people around you. So have you ever walked into like a a yoga class or a meditation class or to see a therapist or something? And as soon as you walk in the room you go I feel really calm around this person. No I can't say that I have no I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

I've never met anybody like that. I would love to because I'll be around them all the time.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Wouldn't you yeah yeah have you ever been in a room where you walked in and you you just thought oh god you know this person is making me feel stressed and they're not doing all the time all the time okay all the time yes ma'am okay so Holly I don't I don't really like people to be around people is is it's just it's just uh I'm working on it I'm working on it you know so I'm gonna I'm gonna teach you something that I teach my clients about co-regulation so when we meet someone who if we do meet someone who we walk in and oh I just feel really calm this person's making me feel like everything's okay. What's happening in that instance is they have a robust nervous system and they have usually a high heart rate variability and that high heart rate variability is an indicator of their positive resilience in dealing with stress right so they they are able to manage stress effectively having a low heart rate variability means that you're not managing stress very well. So because they're quite strong in their own sense of uh their own nervous system you can be anxious but it doesn't make them anxious because their nervous system is dominant let's say so I'm calm and I'm saying everything's okay everything's okay and that person can relax around me because they're like she's got this so what they're responding to is not my words they're responding to my own heart and there was an interesting study by the Heart Math Institute that demonstrated this where they found that one person's heart could influence another person's heart without anyone saying a word and you can influence people's heart rate variability. So if you can learn stress tolerance so a gradual exposure to stresses where you are able to tolerate it and approach it with a sense of curiosity and like yeah this feels uncomfortable but I'm actually okay. Over time you start building a sense of resilience to stress and so you're less reactive. So when something happens like I don't know you're stuck in traffic you're not like immediately oh my god you know you're like this is annoying right and then what happens is then you set the tone for the people around you you become the yoga teacher the therapist the meditation coach right you become that I want you to think about this way this is even easier right let's say you foster an a dog that has been very neglected and abused right and you bring them home and they're just hiding in the corner in the bathroom what do you do with that dog?

SPEAKER_02 48:03

I try to comfort that dog you know I I try to you know give them his space a little bit you know yes good give them their space yeah bring treats and let them you know just observe them and let them you know come to me after a while. Yes that's right so what you do is you stay calm you don't take their behavior personally oh they don't love me you know you just you sit in the corner in the opposite corner there's a treat on the floor next to you you're not looking at them you just you're in your mind you're saying we're good I'm okay you're okay maybe you do that 20 times throughout the week and eventually you know the dog comes creeping over and it takes the treat and runs off right eventually if you keep maintaining that approach with that dog what would happen to the dog he'll start to trust me yeah and then start to co-regulate with you right right yeah so you're modeling regulation to the dog and the same with your son what you want to do is model regulation so you want in your mind to say we're all good like he can be having a tantrum that's okay sometimes we get frustrated we get frustrated but your tantrum is yours and I'm here and we're all we're all good I'll be here I'm waiting here with my treat right I'm sitting here with my treat you know I'll let you come to me thank you for that thank you for that that that just really calm me and and you know it's like patience you know just have patience and because what I do I try to just you know I do uh I do sit there and wait for him to calm down and I tell him it's okay and I try to observe and I'm trying to figure out what's setting them off you know what's his triggers and and everything like that and I can't for the life of me figure out you know all his triggers. I know some of his triggers but sometimes he'll just melt down you know yeah he'll be sitting there and just flip out.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

In some ways when you're doing that so when you're when you're trying to figure out what's wrong what's wrong what's happening inside you while you're trying to figure that out it's like anxiety almost and worry. Yes and then if you can't figure it out then what?

SPEAKER_02 50:16

If I can't figure it out I kind of get sad. Yeah or frustrated right mostly sadness though I mostly get sad because I I feel like I can't help yeah yeah it's sad it feels sad but there'll be some frustration there as well so then that's the tone that you're setting.

SPEAKER_00 50:32

So it's like energy he could feel my energy yeah like imagine that's like that's the tone of the room because you he's going to be reflecting and modeling how you are but you have to be the the model so if you in some ways if you let go of the idea of what caused the trigger like what was it and just accept where you are oh here we are right right right right there's no to be honest is when you're in the thick of something like that there's no point in trying to figure things out anyway. It's really just right it's just about stability providing stability.

SPEAKER_03 51:05

Right.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

And so if you let go of the idea of figuring out what caused it and just say oh here we are and I'm here I'm just gonna sit here. I'm not leaving you like good. We get frustrated sometimes. Right, right I tell you some I training my puppy to be a therapy dog for my clients and one of the main parts of her training is learning how to be calm. And some of my clients come in they're upset or they're anxious or they're sick and she has to stay completely calm regardless of what any of the clients are doing. And so the majority of the training with her it wasn't like oh poor and you know big and it wasn't anything like that. It was about regulating the nervous system for herself so that her nervous system is strong enough where she's not bothered by other people's mental mistakes.

SPEAKER_02 51:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 51:54

Yes and so when she would get frustrated you know as a small pup as small puppies do I allowed her to be frustrated I didn't tell her no or don't do this or don't do that. I just waited and I would just wait until she figured out what it was I was looking for and then I would instantly reward her.

SPEAKER_03 52:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 52:13

So once she figured it out herself I would let her get through the frustration I would let her figure it out and then immediately reward her for doing that and now consequently I mean I can take her anywhere anyone can be like anything and she is just calm.

SPEAKER_02 52:30

Can I can I ship you my golden doodle and can we just get that out of the way right now like express or something. Because you're you're you're amazing and one thing I found interesting you say the body often communicates before the conscious mind understands give us a give give give us an a real example. Can you say the first part of the question again because yes you you say the body often communicates before the conscious mind understands. Yes like I want like give us a real example of it of it.

SPEAKER_00 53:06

I'll give you one of my own I went for some hypnotherapy recently for myself and while I was laying down the the therapist had asked me a question uh and it was something to do with like like positive receiving positive uh affirmations or something like that. And I said I said oh I I don't know like I knew where to put negative things I knew how to internalize negativity and I didn't know how to internalize positivity towards myself and I said I really have nowhere to put that did you see that yeah you're look well I I don't want to keep you forever I could talk to you forever. Here goes did you see that where the body like that's what I did oh bless him but did you see what what I did now my I said I really have nowhere to put that and the therapist very good therapist so he said did you see what where your body gestures and I went there my body knew exactly where to put that it just there was a space there it just you know it was uh you you know like a file that probably you know hadn't been properly installed you know it was there though and so then we could go into that space and work out you know how the body how the body would internalize that in that space it was really interesting and I've seen this countless times for my own clients where the body will like when you're searching for something what is it that thing oh yeah it's that and I always think this one is a really funny one because we do this intuitively right and I always think it looks like an antenna trying to find signal where is it where is it it's there wow and then we know what it is right right the oh man Holly I want I want I want to have you on here forever.

SPEAKER_02 54:41

I know you got other things to do but while we're winding down I want to challenge your work a little some people will will you know they will hear biocoding and immediately say you know there's no evidence you know that's pseudoscience or whatever. This is just another wellness trend you know how do you respond to that?

SPEAKER_00 55:02

I think that's okay for them to say that it is a novel therapy and it's a practitioner developed therapy and I'm the I'm the practitioner and I've developed this therapy through lived experience and phenomenology. And because it's a novel therapy which means new that means it hasn't gone through things like research studies and testing and that's how therapies begin. So when you look at things like somatic experiencing Feldenkrais EMDR they all began exactly the same way. And so if those therapists were put off by the idea that they hadn't yet got the credibility, we wouldn't have those wonderful therapies. And so I'm happy for people to feel that way about it. What I would say is that when I make observations I'm immediately checking them against what does the existing science say on this matter? And sometimes there isn't anything anyone has said, which is why it's a novel therapy. But often it aligns with existing research and expands upon it. What I haven't found yet is anything that contradicts existing science. So I haven't found like if I've meant if I've come up with an observation and then it said well this science says otherwise I haven't found anything yet but that's something that I continually check. One thing I would say is if you want to climb Everest hire a guide that has already climbed Everest. Yes you know you can have therapists who have spent a tremendous amount of time researching and learning existing modalities and it's all theory in in their mind. And where my experience is coming from is lived experience. You know I've climbed Everest. I've I I've worked out you know which are the best ways and methods to do that. I've experimented on myself I have you know observed thousands of other climbers that I've taken up there and I just have to keep going with that.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

You know I'm gonna keep learning that you know there's gonna be things if you if you have the same conversation with me in a year's time I'm gonna say I didn't know that then I'm really excited that I've learned that now right I'll tell you what I'm I've been to your website I love your website I'm gonna b book my uh consultation you know soon so like soon as I get off of here with you and I look forward to that I've learned a lot from you today but I have one more question final question I promise everything we've talked about today the cult the homelessness the trauma the chronic pain the rebuilding if one person watching this is on the verge of giving up what's the one thing you want them to remember?

SPEAKER_00 57:52

You if I could say anything to that person who is on the verge of giving up it would be you are capable of so much more than you realize and it's only when you are really thrown into the fire that you realize what you are made of and you know we we talk about having huge amounts of pressure and it's pressure that creates a diamond.

SPEAKER_02 58:14

Yes I love that and one of the favorite things one of my favorite things you said earlier was losing everything was the best thing that ever happened to me.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

You know most people don't understand that won't understand that until until they survived it you know so thank you for reminding people that sometimes the end of end of one life is just you know the beginning of another you know yeah my I'll tell you what my son says so my son when we were going through this time we it started when he was nine years old he's nearly 13 now and when he was going through this time he really identified with the mythical creature of the phoenix and he has a little phoenix necklace and he was really interesting really identified with it and the reason is is because the phoenix when it reaches the end of its cycle burns itself to ashes so that the new phoenix can rise from the ashes I love that that's that's his symbol for how he's internalized the experience and I think that's a a very beautiful one.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

That's interesting. I'm part of a group actually a large group here in San Diego called the Phoenix it's all about healing they throw like healing events runs and barbecues and everything like that. You know yeah I love it. So that's very interesting. And Holly this has been one of the most fascinating conversations we've had on war. You know whether someone agrees with every idea discussed today or not I hope they leave asking better questions about themselves and you know their bodies and what recovery really means. You know please tell everyone where they can learn more about biocoding your work and everything you're building.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:02

So you can go to www dot hollyannavelicor dot com and I'm also on Substack you can find there's not that many Hollyanavellicors if you look it up. Right right right I'm on Instagram as well but I I publish some articles and things on Substack.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:17

Okay cool. And I'll I'll have it in the description guys look down in the dis in the description find her links and everything and I encourage people to really you know do what I'm doing book a consultation Holly thinks or just ask a question you know be curious