This week on Highest Self Podcast I am bringing on Bela Divine who might know from Instagram or TikTok! She is a mentor, coach, + psycho-therapist in Mexico, and she specializes in inner child healing, the feminine, ancestral healing, and trauma healing which we dive into in this episode.
This conversation explores…
– Childhood traumas that we are unaware of
– Important steps to establish safety in your healing journey, the power of integration
– Tips to drop into a regulated state
– Working with somatics
– How to get closure
– Why trauma shows up in relationships
– Ancestral trauma/patterns and how to heal them
– How we each have navigated our own traumas
– And so much more around the healing journey
I invite you to come to a regulated state and take some deep breaths before dropping into this episode as we will be really peeling back the layers on sensitive topics. The more you create safety within your body the more you can dive into your shadows in a safe and expansive way that brings you joy and pleasure on the other side.
The only thing to fear is to feel, and the more we can feel the things we let go of the more we will blossom into our Highest Selves.
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Transcript
Episode #508: How To Heal From Trauma + Regulate Your Nervous System For Greater Love with Bela Divine
By Sahara Rose
[00:00] Sahara
Would you ever want to be someone’s friend who was not sure about you, who, kind of, ghosted you for a while, but then, would, like, show up and want to be your friend again? And it’s like, no, you would just be like “This is a weird friend and I’m not entertaining this”, but why do we entertain in romantic relationships?
It’s, like, interesting, it’s like we’re willing to withstand so much more and behavior we would never tolerate from a friend, if it’s a potential lover, because of, I think, that unknown, and also, often, especially if you’re a heteronormative, women didn’t feel as comfortable with their dads as they did with their moms. The dads were a bit further away and, kind of, cross-culturally, dads worked outside of the home, they were the ones who were working, exhausted at the end of the day, didn’t really have the same level of emotional capacity and time. So, I think a lot of us, it’s like, kind of, like, all women have some element of daddy issues, and all men have some element of mommy issues, too, of like “I want you to nurture me, I want you to be there for me, but if you’re there for me too much, I’m going to lose interest in you because, then, you become my mom”. So, it’s like, no one would identify as that, openly, they don’t put on their dating app “Hey, I got mommy and daddy issues”. But it’s like, every single person is going to be mirroring those unhealed aspects of themselves until they dive into their traumas.
And that’s why for me, in dating, it’s like, if you haven’t doven into the depths of your consciousness, like, I am not interested, because I know how much can be there.
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[01:31] Sahara
Welcome to The Highest Self Podcast, my name is Sahara Rose and this is a place where we take spirituality and make it grounded, fun, diverse, relatable, so it can actually serve the needs of today’s people.
[01:44] Sahara
For me, the spiritual journey is not about leaving your body, and ascending, and being perfect, and whatever, nirvana, but rather, it’s about being in your body, in community, with people, with life, and relationships, and our pain and suffering, as well as our joy and our sensuality, and just being our full spectrum selves. And that’s what my journey has been about, diving deeper into my dharma, my soul’s purpose, and that journey bringing me to areas of my life that I wasn’t looking at – my inner child, my ancestral healing, traumas I had overlooked. And the more that I can heal those aspects within myself, the more I open up on the other side with my gifts. You know, I stepped into being a DJ and now I’m touring festivals all around the world, I’ve written four books now, and created the Highest Self Institute, and so many different things. And really, it’s a result of me going into the depths of my soul and to the depths of my consciousness and finding those gems, as well as those painful things that I had been suppressing. And on the other side, it’s like you’re letting go of this weight and the balloon can soar higher, and higher, and higher.
[02:51] Sahara
So, for me, it’s about the spiral, going deep and coming up, and knowing that the spiritual journey is not linear, but it’s constantly growing and unraveling, and approaching it with a more feminine lens, rather than looking at it from this masculine rigid lens of like “Okay, I’m broken, I need to heal, then I’ll get better”, and its mindset, mind over matter, “If you have enough willpower, you can do anything! Just wake up an hour earlier and drop the excuses”, it’s like, if that were the case, then, like, every single person that read a personal development book should be happy, and they’re not.
In fact, some of these things make us even more rigid, which, then, leave us feeling burned out and then we feel like we can’t believe in ourselves, to follow through on the things we want to do, and then our self-confidence goes down low and it actually creates a spiral in the other direction.
[03:36] Sahara
So, for me, the spiritual journey is really embodiment. And I love bringing in teachers that are personal friends of mine, people that I’m inspired by, who are really walking this walk as well.
[03:45] Sahara
So, the person I’m bringing on today is Bela Divine. You might know her from Instagram, she is a mentor, a coach, a psychotherapist in Mexico, and she really specializes in inner child healing, the feminine, ancestral healing and trauma healing.
So, we’re going to be having a conversation on all these things and really looking at ways that we may have childhood traumas that we’re unaware of. And yes, there may be denser topics that come up in this conversation.
And so, if this is something you don’t want to dive into, then this isn’t the Episode for you. But my invitation, if you are someone that maybe feels like that there’s something there for you, that maybe you’re overlooking, is to come to a regulated state, breathe and approach this conversation in a way that feels good for you.
[04:27] Sahara
In my own journey, the more that I can create safety in my body, the more I can dive into my shadows, then the more wholeness, and then, on the other side, more joy and pleasure I can find.
[04:36] Sahara
So, I’m excited to bring this conversation with you because the healing journey isn’t always pretty, and sometimes it does require going into those really tough moments of our lives, but knowing that the only thing to fear is to feel, and the more that we can feel those things that we’re letting go off, the more that we can blossom on the other side.
[04:53] Sahara
So, welcome, Bela, to The Highest Self Podcast!
[04:55] Bela
Thank you so much! I’m so happy to be here with you!
[04:58] Sahara
The first question I’d love to ask you is, what makes you your highest self?
[05:02] Bela
What makes me my highest self and what makes me feel connected to my higher self is probably my imagination, and then also movement, because when I’m moving my body, I’m honoring my energy and I can, kind of, move out anything that is my ego, really. Really, anything that’s preventing me from showing up in devotion to the divine, and to Source, and being used as an instrument for the divine, as opposed to, like, letting my petty human things that we all struggle with, kind of, take over. I think that’s what the higher self expression is for me.
[05:34] Sahara
I love that. And the imagination is such a part of the inner child, and I would really love to start the conversation there because a lot of the things that we experience in this lifetime are patterns that we have created in childhood, ways that we have made ourselves believe “If I act this way, if I hold my energy this way, if I hold my body in this way, then I will be safe”, but a lot of that is an illusion.
So, I’m curious, what are some signs that may be some suppressed childhood traumas that we are unaware of and how they can be showing up in our lives?
[06:04] Bela
So, actually, I think lack of imagination is probably one of the really big ones. If you struggle to tap into visualization or even your emotions, or to create a vision of your desired future, it’s likely because you didn’t have the freedom in childhood, or you didn’t have the safety to be able to explore those things.
I think another really big one is negativity bias. When you learn that life is hard at a young age, your mind is going to be looking for proof that that is how it is and, you know, what you focus on is who you end up becoming. So, that ends up becoming your reality and then you perceive all of life through this perspective of, you know, a wounded little child.
[06:49] Sahara
Absolutely. And it’s like these things are so normal for us and that’s why I think it’s important to note that trauma doesn’t necessarily have to be this big thing, it could just be – like, my mom was always late for picking me up, always. Persian people are just late, we have Persian standard time, I know Mexican’s have to. So, like, every day, like, I would wait like an hour outside school, waiting for her, but that was actually really traumatic for me as a kid, because I knew I couldn’t depend on my mom being there in time. And sometimes she would actually forget, like, she would forget that it was a half day, so it would be like, at 12:30, the school ended and then I’m there waiting until like 3:00pm, it would be a long time. So, I couldn’t really trust that I could depend on my mom picking me up on time, which was traumatic experience, that now, I’m almost, like, noticing when I’m doing, like, group things, especially with travel, I’m like “Can I actually trust that you will follow through?”, and when they don’t, I’m like “See, I can’t trust”.
[07:42] Bela
Gosh! Time is one of my highest values because there’s, like, nothing more valuable in life. I mean, it’s the only thing we’ll never get more of. And so, I hold that with you, and my mom was always late for things too, so I can totally relate.
But I think you bring up a really important point, which is this idea that a lot of childhood traumas get, kind of, overlooked, or a lot of people think they don’t have childhood trauma because their traumas might not seem big enough. But the reality is that trauma is defined by not the event that happened, but how much it continues to impact you.
I know that one of my traumas, from childhood, that was maybe small, or appeared small, was having a boy in middle school say to me “Eww, you don’t shave your legs”, and I went on to shave my legs from this place of like “Oh, I need to do this in order to be accepted or loved”, and that totally stuck with me for a long time, even though, even I was dismissing it as a small thing.
So, I think, you know, it can be as simple as like having been bullied in school, having moved around a lot, I mean, having immigrants as parents, even just feeling people looking at you different, speaking a different language, a learning disability. There are so many different things that can definitely lead us to become traumatized adults.
And the reality is that all trauma begins in childhood, so, pretty much all of the roots of our triggers and our unwanted behavior stems from when we were little.
[09:11] Sahara
Yes, it’s the big T and the small T traumas, and you know, big T being, like, something really big. So, can you differentiate the difference between those?
[09:20] Bela
Yes. I would say that a big T trauma are the things that you think of when you think of trauma. So, maybe you think of, like, having, you know, PTSD after being in war, or sexual trauma, or having been abused, or having, you know, been abandoned as a child. I think those are some of the ideas that come up around a big T trauma.
But small T traumas are more so little things, or things that we might dismiss as being little, that continue to have big impact.
[09:48] Sahara
And both can impact us, it’s just how it shows up in our memory. So, I want to talk about what is important for us to do before diving into our traumas, how we can regulate our nervous systems and our bodies to be in a safe space, and this concept of titration and how we can apply that?
[10:05] Bela
I love the concept of titration. But especially, when I think of what we have to do before we dive into trauma and what everybody needs to know, the first thing that comes to mind is establishing safety. Because if you don’t know how to create safety, especially within your body, you’re not going to benefit from the breathwork session or the 2h-long transformational journey. And I believe that all healing journeys should really incorporate safety, first, then experience and then integration.
So, you know, I think, for anyone who’s diving into their healing, make sure that when you’re finding a practitioner, or taking a course, or learning a new practice, that you first know how to establish safety for yourself, if your teacher’s not doing that for you. And then, also, make sure that you create space to integrate.
I think integration is where most people, kind, of fall off. People will just, kind of, think “Okay, you know what, I’ll just think about what happened and move on with my day”, but we usually integrate through the body, we usually integrate through, actually, allowing the emotions to flow through. And often times, after an experience, is when we’re, kind of, flooded with emotion and when we really need to slow down and honor our bodies through breath, through movement and through sound.
[11:18] Sahara
It’s so true. The integration, especially coming out of a medicine ceremony or a big cathartic release, it’s actually, I would say, even more important, because you might have a realization of something in the ceremony, in the therapy, etc., but it’s how you actually apply it into your life, and when those patterns come back. Because I see a lot of people, they’ll do ceremony to ceremony and the problem is still there, because they’re not really integrating it. But noticing “I’m in this situation again, being awake within that dream”, “Okay, here I am again, but now I have the awareness that this is a pattern, how am I going to respond differently?”
And sometimes we’re, like, waiting to be healed, as if being healed is this point that we reach, but it’s, you can just choose to show up in a different way right now, you can just choose that pattern to be done and that you’re going to respond in a different way, and so it is, and it’s done.
But if we’re waiting for, like, something to happen and then it’s, like, our default, it comes with practice, it comes with creating a new neuropathway and creating that safety, and then the body also responds because if we are realizing “I am safe when I speak my truth”, “Okay, here I am, in a situation, that my default might have been agreeing with the person, people-pleasing, I’m speaking my truth, I’m tuning into my body, I’m breathing, I’m creating safety”, there right there, you’re healing the trauma in real time.
[12:33] Bela
Yeah, that’s such an important point because, I think, a lot of times when people are newer, or even intermediate, in the healing journey, there’s this tendency to get addicted to healing, and there’s this tendency to, like, keep diving deeper into the wounds, and to think that going deeper into your trauma means more healing. But the reality is, healing trauma also gets to be fun, and healing trauma, the principles, the tools, that you learn, gets to be applied in the real-life moments, when you choose to show up differently. I like to call those powerplay moments.
And I notice, even as a facilitator who knows all the concepts and who does all of the somatic practices, when I go out in the real world and someone triggers me, those are the moments when it’s like “Oh, okay, am I going to put this into practice?”, and it’s a micro second, like, choice, and yet it can be the most difficult thing to do.
[13:24] Sahara
And it’s so beautiful when you witness yourself responding to a situation that normally would have triggered you in a different way, you’re like “Ahh, I’ve grown, I’ve healed, here I am”, and it feels so freaking good, and, like, witnessing, like “Wow, had this happened to me one year ago, I would’ve responded in this way, and now I’m, like, in peace”. And it’s like, that is when the growth journey is so worth it.
So, I want to talk about something that a lot of people who’ve experienced any kind of traumatic memory, whether it’s from childhood or more recent, it could be from a break-up, it could be from a friendship break-up, divorce, sometimes you have flashbacks. Maybe those flashbacks are a sad memory that happened or even a happy memory that happened, and you’re, like, going down memory lane again, or you’re thinking about when that person broke up with you, when that thing happened. How can we deal with these flashbacks? It almost feels like, all of a sudden, you’ve disassociated and you’ve, like, gone back into that reality and then you’re starting to feel the same anger, or sadness, or whatever it is, because your body thinks you’re in that state. So, how can we bring ourselves back to the present moment when that happens?
[14:24] Bela
I would say that the first thing that is the most supportive to know is, like, how your nervous system works. And I’m not talking all of the technical terms because I think that everybody – there’s Polyvagal Theory, and that can be so scientific in so many big words that I can lose a lot of people, so, I’ve taken to teaching the nervous system in a different way where I like to teach people to imagine that your nervous system is like this wave and the way has three parts – the charge, where you get triggered; there’s the peak tension point, where you’re like “Oh, my gosh, I’m about to snap”, and maybe you do snap; and then there’s discharge. And each one of those phases requires something different to help you move through.
So, when you’re getting charged up or when you’re in peak tension, interrupting with a sensory tool to being you back into your body and out of the mind, because the mind is what gets you stuck in the story and gets you stuck in the thoughts spiral and sends you into the flashback, and sends you back into that experience, it helps your body remember that you’re in the present moment, you’re not there. So, like, holding ice cubes – I keep sour candies in my purse, and essential oils, and just little easy things like that. Because when you’re in that flashback state, you don’t have the capacity to listen to a meditation or to do an hour-long practice or anything like that, so you need something simple.
And then, once you’ve broken that state with whatever sensory tool you use, and maybe your breath, just like a simple, simple breath or a technique to bring you back, even just inhaling and out and counting 1, 2, it could be so simple, whatever works for you. And then, afterwards, once you start to discharge, that’s when you really have more space to begin working with somatics and to, like, get into your body and to let the emotions, kind of, be processes. But just feeling into where in the wave you are, I think, is a supportive metaphor.
[16:10] Sahara
And that’s such great advice because it’s like, when you’re, like, in your peak and someone’s like “Take a few deep breaths”, it’s like, that’s the last thing you want to do in that moment. But when you are in a more regulated state, that’s when you can do the embodiment practices. And I feel like these practices also build up your nervous system’s capacity over time, but it’s like, if I’m in this frantic state, I’m not going to be like “To the window”, it’s not the time for it, you know. But maybe, right then, I want to rage, I want to stomp, I want to punch a pillow, I want to scream, because that energy needs to be released.
And I think it’s so important too, like, to have safe spaces. That’s the one thing I noticed in myself, like, I never had a space, I think most of us never had a space, as a child, to be loud, to scream, to grunt, it was always like “You’re crying, be quiet! You’re yelling…”.
Yeah, so, I noticed in myself, when I started stepping into more of a somatic approach, I would feel like, even if I was alone, I shouldn’t be loud, what if someone hears me, what if I scare someone else by me being loud.
So, what advice do you have for people who have a hard time, actually, feeling their emotions?
[17:17] Bela
That’s a great question. I think that, if you struggle to feel your emotions and you’ve never really had a safe space where you can, finding community is absolutely important and, also, little, tiny baby steps. So, like, whether it’s singing in the shower and just learning to feel okay, making a little bit of sound, or challenging yourself to sing, when you’re in the car, or just a simple movement such as, like, shaking your body, or seeing what it sounds like to yell into a pillow, preferably. Just because you know that when you scream into a pillow, it’s a little more controlled, so you’re not going to disrupt anybody. But just beginning to test your power and beginning to test that expression of your emotion.
I also really recommend trying things that you’re not good at and being a beginner, and coaching yourself through it, essentially, and just being really kind to yourself. Like, I love going to dance classes where I’m the worst person because, one, it tests my ego and I get to feel my feelings, and I get to, kind of, practice saying “Oh, okay, I feel like I’m the worst person in here and I’m going to be so kind to myself and I’m going to let my inner child have fun, regardless of how good I am at this”.
[18:30] Sahara
I love, also, going to those dance classes! And I notice, for example, when I started my pole dance journey, I was like “This isn’t for me, there’s no way I can climb up this freaking firefighter pole thing, I’m not even an upper body strong person whatsoever”, and every single time I went to the class, halfway through, I would be like “You know what, I’m going to leave”. Like, I wanted to leave, but I’m like “Okay, I’m not going to leave in the middle of a class, let me stick through it”, and by the end, even if I got one trick, I would be so proud of myself and it was so worth it, it was so worth the whole hour of being frustrated, for that one moment of having the trick.
And now, over time, I can climb the pole, go upside down, spin on the pole, like, do all these things, because I kept meeting myself in this discomfort and this discomfort, and it was like shadow work for me. All the stories that would come up, because how we do anything is how we do everything. So, it’s like, are you that person who… You know, I have a friend, that she’s like “I don’t want to go to a dance class because I don’t want to be the worst person”, so it’s like, so what else in your life are you not trying because you don’t want to be the worst person? And then, when you can step into that, then that’s how we continue to grow.
On the subject of making sounds, I have found being in my car is the best place, because when I’m driving, it’s almost like the first five minutes in my car are always going to be, like, grunting, screaming, like, whatever the emotion is, and I’m like, actually am excited for it because I know I can just be loud, I don’t have to worry about it. And then I’m, like, playing my Whiz Kid music and I’m vibing and stuff, because I let my inner Kali Ma out, at the beginning of the car ride. And if you don’t give that part of it a voice, it actually becomes like this toxic energy in your being, it’s like that passive aggressive energy, it’s that underlying tension and anger. And I notice that the angriest people, like the ones who snap really easily and they’re always on edge and you’re always on eggshells around them, they’re actually the ones who have never felt their anger, they’ve never fully felt it. So, it’s like this simmering teapot that’s, like, seeping out, a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit there. Instead, if you just took off the lid and screamed, and cried, and grunted, and felt, then it’s like “Ahh, I don’t need to be so defensive, I don’t need to be a Karen anymore”.
[20:30] Bela
Yeah, yeah, you’ve got to, like, sit with your own shit, for lack of a better way of saying it. You’ve got to shit with your own shit because if you don’t, it’s going to show up as reactivity towards other people, and that’s not fair to the people in your life. And you can’t show up as your highest self if you are not addressing the shadow aspect.
I think so many people in the spiritual world, they get into this mindset of like “I have to be all love and light anymore”. I love my shadow, I love expressing my shadow because…
[21:02] Sahara
Oh, she’s sexy.
[21:03] Bela
Yeah, exactly. Like, I’m so connected to the dark feminine because when I express that part of me, there’s the dimension that, kind of, like, colors in the light and paints this beautiful whole human. And I think, even in the beginning of my spiritual and healing journey, I was like “I have to be pure, I have to be perfect”, and that’s exhausting. So, you know, I just think that’s so important.
[21:27] Sahara
I mean, I have found that my trauma has made me sexier, to be honest, because it’s made me more real, more just, like, alive, heart open, like, full spectrum, fearless, fucking bad bitch energy that I would not have had without it.
So, it’s like, if we can actually look at how we can transmute those really painful things. For me, it was going through my divorce at the end of 2022, which was, like, such a dark night of the soul, like hitting the darkest levels of pain I’ve ever experienced in my life, and coming on the other side of, like, my most liberated version ever before. It’s like, that’s that duality right there, like, you can’t have the Lakshmi, the Saraswathi, the beautiful, radiant, sumptuous Goddess without the Kali Ma, without the Durga, without the Sekhmet, which are, like, more of those dark feminine rage ones. And that’s actually what makes the Goddess so beautiful, is that she’s not just one thing.
[22:23] Bela
It’s all about the range, baby. Like, it really is about tapping into the lows and not making them wrong. I think that’s one of the biggest things that I try to teach people, is like, your emotions, your anger, your rage, your shame, your jealousy, whatever it is, there’s nothing wrong with your emotions, they’re always trying to push you deeper into alignment, they’re always trying to show you or teach you something to align you with your higher self. They’re little messengers from the higher self.
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[24:09] Sahara
So, I want to talk about going into negative thought spirals. Here’s what I sometimes struggle with, that balance between I’m thinking about different potential things that might happen, which, I think our egos do that for protection of like “Well, let me see all the possibilities that could happen”, and sometimes that helps us find clarity, it helps us make decisions and see the pros and cons, and we make our lists and all the things. But often, it leads us just to more anxiety because then we find more things that we’re not sure about and we become very, very overwhelmed and then we’re like “Oh my god, like, I don’t know what to do”, and we just end up just feeling confused and very disembodied.
So, if we’re noticing we’re getting into this, like, loop, especially, we’re, like, repeating the same thoughts, how can we get out of it?
[24:50] Bela
Yeah, so, that’s a great question. The first thing you should do, if you find yourself spiraling, and I think the key to knowing if you’re in a negative thought spiral is, do you feel like you’re moving lower and lower when it comes to your energy levels, when it comes to how you’re feeling. Are you draining yourself, are you getting sadder or madder, or whatever it is? Because that’s when you have your first flag that it’s time to do something.
But the most important thing to know is that your mind cannot fix your emotions because the emotions are the language of the body and your thoughts are the language of the mind. But your thoughts are going to look for anything that they can, to validate what your mind is already thinking, your mind, kind of, has an agenda. And so, if you’re stuck in this thought loop, you’re just going to keep looking for every example in your history of when you were wronged, or why you should feel sad, or why your life sucks. So, if you want to be able to go through that, you have to create a space for that sadness.
And I, personally, when I get triggered, I like to ask myself when was the first time I felt this way, because I think that helps me to actually get to the root of the trigger and the root of the thought spiral, and not stay there for very long but just say “Okay, and what does that version of me need to be okay?”, and I’ll usually do that after I move the emotions out of my body. I mean, I think the flow of when you do what, changes intuitively. But you know, if you’re feeling a lot of rage because, as a child, you weren’t heard and you feel unheard because someone was interrupting you the other day. You’ve got to get that rage out and then you’ve got to let yourself be heard by you, you’ve got to make sure to meet that need of your child self and then you can respond from an empowered place instead of reacting and projecting, and, you know, acting even more childlike.
[26:37] Sahara
Yes! I love that question of “When is the first time I felt that way?” And there’s this tool I learned, called The Spiral, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it before? Yeah, it’s like this Australian tool that someone taught me in Bali. And basically, it’s, you go into whatever it is that’s bothering you, you feel where it is in your body, and it has this whole chart of these different, like, Chinese medicine elements, and then underneath it, you do this muscle testing thing, there’s, like, all of these different organs related to it. So, is it spleen, is it kidney, is it liver? And then you ask yourself “When is the first time I felt that way?”, and whatever memory comes up, and then you feel that thing and you emote it. And often, you go back to that point of view.
So, for example, for me, when I did it last year, there was like this feeling of, like, rejection, of like “I’m never going to find a guy. No guy is ever going to like me”, and I’m like, when did I first feel that way, and it took me back to 7th grade. I, 7th grade, I had a crush on this boy, I’m not going to say his name in case he listens to this Podcast, so he doesn’t – okay, I’ll say his name, his name was Kellan, he’s probably never going to listen to this Podcast. But he didn’t like me back and I was so upset about it and I just had it in my head of like “He’s never going to like me, and I’m not pretty enough”, and, like, all the stories. And then, I could feel, like, that energy was still living in me now, like, 20 years later, I want to say. And that voice just wanted to feel loved, and wanted to feel chosen, and wanted to feel beautiful. And so, her pattern, when she didn’t feel that way, was to go back to the hurt 12-year-old girl.
So, then, when I, like, gave her a voice and I let her feel and express, and she was just, like, so miserable, and I just let myself embody that. Then she was heard and now she’s no longer running in the background of my life. And now, I know, it’s like, rejection is just protection and redirection and, like, why would you try to be, like, winning someone over, that can’t even see you, like, what, kind of, relationship dynamic would you even be stepping into? My inner 12-year-old girl didn’t understand that.
And we have these versions of us still making decisions in our lives, and it’s only until we go back and we give them center stage and let them say their part and feel their feels, they keep controlling our lives.
[28:45] Bela
Absolutely! The closure piece is so, so important and we really do – I mean, until we go back and give these younger versions of ourselves the closure that they need, which can feel so silly and it’s so humbling in moments, and sometimes a little awkward and embarrassing. But when we actually do that, we end up showing up so much more empowered than we even thought possible, and especially in love. I feel like, in love, in any relationships, dynamics, dating, that’s where my shadows have come out the most throughout my entire life, that’s where I’m really like “Okay, like, that’s really still alive for me”.
[29:25] Sahara
Yeah. Why is it that, in love, it brings up all of our traumas and wounds? Do you think it’s, like, our soul chose that person to mirror those traumas back to us or do you just think those traumas are alive with us, that, no matter who we’re with, they’re just going to show up?
[29:40] Bela
I think that it ultimately comes back to what we experienced witnessing our parents in love, and those patterns tend to continue playing out. And so, we kind of break the karmic loops that our parents didn’t fix, especially when there’s a lot of secrets in family lineages, things will just keep popping up (that’s definitely been my experience).
I feel like when two people intersect, it’s like a car accident at an intersection and the pieces, like, land in different places every time. And the purpose of it is like, can you, kind of, put yourself back together even stronger? Your traumas intercept and you’re going to bring each other to the point of having to face whatever it is that is unresolved within you.
So, I don’t know, I don’t know if it’s our subconscious, or if it’s our souls, and ultimately, those things are probably more connected than we even know, but yeah.
[30:29] Sahara
Yeah. I mean, there’s so many philosophies, right? Like, there’s the karmic relationship that they talk about that you guys came into each other’s lives to help clear the karma, so you’re going to bring up my karmic wounds, I’m going to bring up yours. A lot of ancestral stuff that comes up, I’ve definitely experienced that in my life. And I think, because that person feels so familiar to us, both on a subconscious and conscious level, that that’s where the attraction comes from, but it brings up all of that trauma. But I do believe, ultimately, it’s for it to be healed, and cleared, and transmuted, if you learn the lesson. If not, you just keep attracting the same person in a different body and you keep looping through the same cycles.
And then, people talk about the twin flame where they say it’s like “One soul split into two bodies”, which, again, that I have not experienced that, it’s not something I personally subscribe to. And I do think people often use this term to just mask a trauma-bonded relationship where they’re like “It’s my twin flame, so that’s why they’re bringing up all my traumas and shadows, but God wants us together”, and it’s like, would it be this hard if God wanted you together? And it’s like, maybe you are – again, I don’t think any two people are meant to be together, I do think it does come to a choice, at the end of the day. And I think that we can often spiritualize traumatic things to make us feel like there is a greater sight to this. And, on the other end of that, there is an undeniable connection between two people, and I do think it’s something that’s godly and divine. And I think any relationship is going to bring up your trauma because it’s in you, and different people are just going to bring up different aspects of your trauma. So, some person might bring up your abandonment wound, some people might bring up your trust issues, some people might bring up you’re not important enough thing, but those things were all you baby, like, they were all living in you. It’s just like every single friendship, it brings up a different side of yourself.
[32:14] Bela
It’s a mirror. And that’s what a relationship should be, ultimately. It should – think, if you’re not growing with another person, you shouldn’t be with them, that’s the point at which your work together is done, personally.
[32:24] Sahara
Yeah, and I think that we have different soulmates in our lives for different lessons and reasons, and some of them might be a very short chapter, of like, you learn the lesson in one day and it’s like, you were just meant to exchange those codes and that’s it. Some people, it might be a month, a year, ten years, a lifetime, it really just depends up to you.
And ultimately, exactly, I think love is such a coveted emotion, it’s like the highest vibration possible, and it’s sometimes a drug, you know, we’re, like, addicted to that feeling. So, I think it’s like, almost like by design that we want that love so badly that we’re willing to go through those traumatic memories, and the childhood stuff, and the abandonment issues, and all of that, because we want to be back in love, if we take that path of healing for love. Or we can blame everything on that and be like “Well, I this, this, that, and it’s that person’s fault”, and continue to fight. And so, it’s like, do you rise in love or fall in love, that’s up to you.
[33:21] Bela
Yeah, that’s a really beautiful way of putting it. My partner always says, he’s like “We have to choose to rise in love”, and I think that’s so important.
Yeah, I think, also, you know, we tend to pursue relationships that remind us of what’s familiar, of what we saw play out within our own families, and that can, almost, be more attractive. I know that for a lot of the relationships that I had, which we really toxic, when I was younger, I was, like, just playing out my parent’s divorce story. And when I finally got into a really, healthy, good relationship – my partner grew up with really loving parents, and so, he’s really good at loving, in a way that, like, sometimes, in moments, it’s been so, like, chill, and beautiful, and civil, that I’m like, I’ve had to work through a lot of my minds, almost looking for problems, or almost looking for that familiarity because it has been totally unfamiliar to me.
And I think that’s something people need to consider, especially when they’re thinking about the twin flame thing, is like, ultimately, like, love that’s good for you, if you hadn’t experienced it before, is going to be completely unchartered territory. And sometimes it’s not even going to be, like, what feels best in the moment.
[34:31] Sahara
Totally. And our nervous systems, if they are used to being in this, like, wired, like, uncertain state, and we enter a really stable relationship, we’re like “Well, this is boring. You know, like, I’m used to some element of the unknown, the chase, something to make me feel”, we’re addicted to the drama of it. And then, so, if we enter into a stable relationship, we often self-sabotage it because we’re just like “Well, this can’t be what love is, it’s just too calm for me”. And once we’re able to create that safety, that calmness, in our own nervous systems, then we’re no longer attracted to the up, and down, and chaotic people. But I find, often, we choose the person who mirrors those unhealed traumas of like “You’re too busy for me, so I’m going to be obsessed with you until you have enough time for me, because my dad was too busy for me, so if I can get your attention, that means I’m important, just as if I got his attention, I would be important”. And then, there you are, trying to fight for someone’s attention and then it’s like, you feel high when you get it and you feel broken when you don’t, and you’re just repeating that inner child that felt that way.
[35:30] Bela
I’ve also heard that, specifically, successful, powerful women who are, like, used to succeeding and winning, tend to go for unavailable men, or men who are wishy-washy, or men who are, like, for lack of a better term, beneath them, or who aren’t putting in the work, because they are used to being able to succeed or be able to win someone over. And so, that can be like, a really, like, intense and toxic challenge.
And so, I think, you know, it’s important to recognize that even though in some areas of your life, you might have absolutely everything together, the shadows can show up in really sneaky ways, especially in relationships.
[36:07] Sahara
Totally! And I think it’s like, would you ever want to be someone’s friend who was not sure about you, who, kind of, ghosted you for a while but then would, like, show up and want to be your friend again? No, you would just be like “This is a weird friend and I’m not entertaining this”, but why do we entertain in romantic relationships?
It’s, like, interesting, it’s like we’re willing to withstand so much more and behavior we would never tolerate from a friend, if it’s a potential lover, because of, I think, that unknown, and also, often, especially if you’re a heteronormative, women didn’t feel as comfortable with their dads as they did with their moms. The dads were a bit further away and, kind of, cross-culturally, dads worked outside of home, they were the ones who were working, exhausted at the end of the day, didn’t really have the same level of emotional capacity and time. So, I think a lot of us, it’s like, kind of, like, all women have some element of daddy issues, and all men have some element of mommy issues, too, of like “I want you to nurture me, I want you to be there for me, but if you’re there for me too much, I’m going to lose interest in you because, then, you become my mom”. So, it’s like, no one would identify as that, openly, they don’t put on their dating app “Hey, I got mommy and daddy issues”. But it’s like, every single person is going to be mirroring those unhealed aspects of themselves until they dive into their traumas.
And that’s why for me, in dating, it’s like, if you haven’t doven into the depths of your consciousness, like, I am not interested, because I know how much can be there. If you say you have zero trauma, biggest red flag, because it just means you haven’t doven into it yet.
So, I would much rather be with someone who’s aware of their traumas than someone who thinks they don’t have any.
[37:41] Bela
Absolutely! I think my three biggest criteria in relationships, well, the most important one I’ll share with you is, willing to work on yourself. Like, you have to be growing on your own, and I’m not going to be the person to push you to do that because I will outgrow you, because I’m going to keep growing, so you’ve got to be doing that too, it’s so important.
And something else to touch on, that you were just sharing about. Family Constellations is one of the modalities that I studied and trained in. And it’s really interesting because women tend to follow, and of course, these are generalizations, so it may not apply to you. But women usually tend to follow the karmic patterns of their mothers and the lineage of the women, and men tend to follow the patterns of their fathers. And so, one really good piece of dating advice is, ask people about their parents, ask people what their parents are like and about their relationship with their parents, but specifically, like, what did the man that you’re dating (if you’re dating a man) learn from their father. And that will tell you so much about that person.
[38:41] Sahara
That has been spot on in my experience, both in myself in previous relationships. And sometimes you’re like “I never want to be like my dad”, or “I never want to be like my mom”, but unless you actively do healing work around that, you’re going to become that. Them annoying you, even you hating them, sometimes it actually makes it worse.
You know, I had an ex that was like “My dad is a womanizer and I never want to be like that because I saw how upset it made him”, and then, long behold, just became that, you know, because he hadn’t worked on that shadow. So, I think it’s like, holding the rage is not enough and actually, sometimes, that creates more tension, which draws you to that thing, because what you resist, persists.
[39:24] Bela
Yeah. And the deepest thing that we’re here to heal, karmically, in terms of trauma, in my opinion and in my experience, in my own life, and just with my clients, is the ancestral piece. Because when you’re born into this human reality, you’re born into a family for a reason, you spend so much time around these people, or not enough time around these people, specifically because those are the lessons that you were here to learn, and they’re also patterns that usually perpetuate for many generations.
So, it’s not just you, it’s this, like, heaviness that started a long time ago, and the best way to work on breaking it, in my opinion, is through ritual and through initiation. Initiation meaning, like, active pursuit of your growth.
But I think one of the biggest things that, culturally, we have lost, is this idea of, like, elders to look up to, and elders who teach us, and initiatory rites of passage, whether it’s through ceremony, or women’s circles, or community, or whatever it may be, right? And so, people seek it out in this, like, addicted to healing kind of way.
[40:28] Sahara
It’s so true. And that’s what we’re completely missing in our society because healing doesn’t just have to be talking about the thing that happened, in fact, that doesn’t actually heal it. But it’s to decide “I’m going to be the one that changes my lineage”, and I think it’s so important,
You know, there are a lot of women circles out there, but then men’s work is really, really needed, because a lot of these men are, you know, facing these shadows in really shadowy ways, you know, addiction to porn, to smoking, the jewel, to drugs, video games. I think the masculine is really hurting right now, as a collective. And the feminine, our gift is that we support each other and we’re really, collectively, rising right now. And I find that a lot of us women are having a harder time finding the men because there hasn’t been as big and as quick of a divine masculine movement as there has been with feminine. I’m seeing it’s coming online and it’s happening now, which is so exciting, but we’re in deep need of that.
I’m seeing a lot of powerful, conscious, aware women are like “No, I’m not going to put up with this anymore”, and are leaving. I’m seeing so many people are leaving relationships and I think that, sometimes, the only way the masculine learns too, is like, sometimes they need to realize “I’m going to lose the thing that I want the most in life, which love, which is the attention of this woman and the nurturing and all the things that she provides in my life”, because the feminine is such a muse for the masculine. And sometimes it’s only in our absence that they’re catalyzed to change.
[41:59] Bela
Yeah. I think, it’s partially because, I heard this quote, I don’t know where it came from, that women, we spend time with each other, face to face, whereas men spend time with each other shoulder to shoulder. We’re, like, connecting to the heart, looking at each other’s eyes and, like, really being with each other. And so, for a lot of the masculine, when they taste that for the first time in relationship. And my partner works with men, he’s a men’s coach and mentor, and almost all of his male clients come to him when a girlfriend is either like “If you don’t do the work, I’m leaving you”, or they have already left them. And I think that, you know, that’s why, coming back to this idea that the best thing you can look for in a relationship is someone who’s willing to put in the work to grow.
Actually, Mia Magik, a friend of ours, she said that you can’t resent that you have to be his teacher. And that’s been my experience, I mean, the partner that I’m with, he’s done a lot of inner work, but it was like, I might have shown him to the water, but he was the one who would drink and he’s the one who, kind of, continued the journey. And that’s one hundred percent what I look for.
[42:59] Sahara
So, was he spiritual before you met him, and how did you guys meet?
[43:02] Bela
Yeah. So, we met at a warehouse party, so, just randomly, in passing.
[43:07] Sahara
In Mexico?
[43:08] Bela
No, we had met in Philadelphia, and we just, kind of, were magnetized to each other. I mean, if there’s a twin flame story, it’s probably ours. We’re both half Mexican, from the same region, we were born on each other’s parent’s birthdays, like, a lot of really weird synchronicities. And neither of us wanted a relationship, we were just, kind of, like “Wow”, and we just spent a lot of time talking, like, nothing physical even happening, and, kind of, went on this journey to help complete some ancestral karma for him. His father didn’t have a headstone yet and so we were, like, sent on this adventure to Spain to talk to his grandpa and get his headstone. And the relationship just, kind of, flourished after that. So, I think he was actually pretty jaded from losing his father at a really young age, but I came into his life and was like “There’s no such thing as a random universe, everything has a reason and spirituality is real”. And it was really cool because I got to witness that become his reality. He was a little resistant, but he was open. And I think as soon as he saw that magic in life for himself, he took it upon himself to seek out, specifically, those initiations, those rites of passage. Like, he did a dark retreat and he’s really been doing work that, like, personally, I’m not called to. Like, I love the sun too much, you will not catch me in complete darkness for more than 24 hours, probably. But you know, getting to witness that in the masculine has been very healing and I do trust that there are other good men out there doing the work as well.
[44:33] Sahara
Yeah. They say women are the leaders in love. And sometimes we’re, like, waiting for this man to have it all figured out, and to say the right things, and to know our bodies better than we ourselves, and to take us to this place of the unknown that we can…and it’s like, that happens through building trust, and building trust requires communication, which also means there’s going to be some rejections happening, some failures happening, like, no one nails these things on the first time, some uncomfortable moments that you have to get through those discomforts in order to, then, co-create the relationship that you both want. And I think, exactly, it’s a willingness on both parts.
And for a lot of us, women, we are waiting for that perfect person, so then we’re just, like, waiting, like, forever, right? And it’s like, looking at someone, and it’s not even – it’s, like, kind of potential in a way, because it’s, like, you can see his openness and his willingness, but you weren’t like “Okay, I’m going to change this guy, I’m going to change his outfit, I’m going to change this, I’m going to change that”, but rather, you’re like “I feel connected to him, I can feel his depth, maybe he doesn’t know the jargon, right, maybe he hasn’t done the things I have done, but I’m going to lead by example and lead him in love”, and then that love took him on his own path, which looks different from yours.
[45:47] Bela
Exactly, yeah.
[45:49] Bela
It’s so beautiful. And I have full trust that a lot of men right now are rising and are feeling that call. And you know, we can’t do this, just women, or just men, or just non-binary, we need everyone together, rising.
And there just have been such deep traumas around feminine and masculine dynamics that, I would say, this is probably, like, the biggest place where trauma lives. It’s like, look in your relationship, look at what you’re not looking at, the lies, the secrets, the patterns. And yeah, it’s generational, I mean, I know in my lineage, forced child marriage for every woman in my family, that’s just, there was no such thing as a love marriage in Iran. And you know, for a while, I was like “Oh my God, I can’t believe my grandpa forced my grandma to marry her, that’s so messed up”, but then I even had compassion to, well, in that time, in Iran, that’s just what society was like, there was no questioning of that, it doesn’t mean he was a bad person. It’s just, everyone’s operating from what they were told to do, you know, they were operating from the best they can. And then, once I was able to find more compassion, that I found more compassion for men, in general, and I could see them as these, like, beautiful little boys that just want to be told that they’re doing a good job and they, like, want our approval so badly. And when we can see them as that, we, like, lose that like “All men are this and all men are that”, and instead, like, first of all, there’s no all men or all women, everyone’s different, but everyone is just a little boy and a little girl who’s hurt, who wants love, who’s doing what they believe will get them there.
[47:18] Bela
Yeah, absolutely. I always say, when you have conflict with your family, even in adults, you’re like “They should know better, they’re an adult”, I just try to look at my parents and be like “They’re 5-year-olds, they don’t know better, I’m just going to treat them like a 5-year-old that doesn’t know better”, and that’s been super helpful.
[47:35] Sahara
So, can you speak a little bit about Family Constellations work and how we can start diving into that?
[47:40] Bela
Oh my gosh! So, this is the perfect bridge because I got into Family Constellations after I had my first Family Constellation with my longest-term mentor. She was visiting in town to see her guru and we went out to dinner and she pulled out her shamanic wheel and she did a constellation. It’s kind of the way she teaches – she was a direct student of Burt Hellinger, the creator of Family Constellations, but she also brings indigenous wisdom in, she’s also Native Mexican. So, we did this beautiful Constellation for this belief that I really held, like, the heaviest karma I had, which is “Love will never last for me”. And I met my partner the next day! And I was like “Okay, like, what is this witchcraft, I must participate, I must learn how to do this?”, and I started training in it.
Family Constellations, essentially, allow us to tap into what is called The Knowing Field, which is the field where all energetic information of our family lineage exists. And whether you’re using in-person representatives, like, physical people or objects, or you’re recreating it with pieces of paper, or on a shamanic wheel, essentially what you’re doing is, you’re bringing the energy dynamic forward in space where you can see it and where you can create energetic corrections, where there are imbalances. Because, essentially, when something is left is unaddressed, hidden under the rug, or a pattern is not broken, it will be passed down onto someone else, and it’s not their fault.
So, if you are repeating a pattern, a lot of the times it has nothing to do with you, it’s just that it has now become your responsibility to take care of. That’s why it’s so important to liberate yourself from those patterns because, you know, until I did, I was replaying my mom’s scenarios in love over, and over, and over again, and it’s not like she ever taught me anything negative about love, through witnessing her experiences in it, I just, kind of, internalized “Oh, that’s how it is”. And for me, it was literally, you know, it’s one session, I always like to say that it can accelerate healing, like, it could be the equivalent of, like, twenty therapy sessions in one, just because of how profound the shifts are. And we can physically feel the energy of the people that we’re working with. So, even if you didn’t know a family member, information can come through and it’s just really profound.
[49:52] Sahara
So good! I did Family Constellations and I actually got my mom, and dad, and brother to all do their own sessions too, which was so beautiful because they’ve never really done therapy. I just told my dad, I was like “You’re just going to talk about yourself and your family”, which he loves talking about. So, he agreed to do it and he was like “I noticed that my dad this…”, and it was so beautiful to witness them, like, notice their patterns with their dads.
And I had this thing with my dad, that I told him, I was like “I feel like that you weren’t really there for me as a child, like, emotionally”, and he’s like “Well, I didn’t have a dad”, and it just gave me some perspective of like, he’s right, you know, he had no role model of what a father is like because his father was sick and then died when he was very young. So, if you have no role model, like, how am I expecting him to be the dad from Full House who’s, like, picking me up, and having deep conversations with me, and helping me with guy problems, when he’s never even had a father figure, you know. And it, like, gives you so much more compassion because you realize they all really are doing the best that they can. And a lot of our parents are just literally operating with, like, no manual, no example, and often, are moving to a new country where the standards of fatherhood and motherhood are very different. In many countries, the father is not even involved in the child’s life, there’s no concept of this. It’s like, a father works and he provides, that’s the father’s role. Whereas, this very modern and very western interpretation is, the dad is home and the dad is talking to people and emotionally there, and I think that’s beautiful, but I was, like, pegging my standards of my life to why didn’t my relationship with my dad look like that, that’s what the white families on tv have, so I must have a broken childhood, but rather, if I went to Iran, I would just pretty much have quite a normal father experience.
So, it’s interesting how, even, the standards we put ourselves to, can create, what we perceive, as a trauma in our minds.
[51:41] Bela
Yeah, I had the same experience with my own dad, and honestly, that was one of the biggest sources of my self-inflicted traumas, which is something that I never see people talk about, but it’s so important, because, sure, there are the things that happen to us, and those can be very traumatic, I definitely have quite a few traumatic experiences in my life, but it’s almost as if the self-inflicted traumas that came as a result, when I started, kind of, recreating these self-sabotaging patterns, or putting myself in dangerous situations in my teenage years. Those almost stick a little harder because, you know, then there’s this aspect of, like, blame and, like “Oh, I chose to put myself in that situation”, even if you didn’t know better, right? And a lot of the times that’s what our parents are doing too, it’s just putting themselves in these situations because they never had an example.
[52:26] Sahara
So true! Well, thank you so much for sharing all of this. And where can listeners connect with you further?
[52:30] Bela
Yeah, absolutely. So, you guys can check me out on Instagram, my username is Bela Divine, or at my website, beladivine.com. Thank you so much for joining us for this Episode!
[52:40] Sahara
And thank you so much for tuning in. And if you loved this Episode, please share it on your social, it helps create a more conscious world. We need to have more conversations like this, it’s going to elevate your friendships, your relationship, just your overall community, and like attracts like.
[52:53] Sahara
And if you leave a review for this Podcast on the iTunes Store, I will send you a free gift, which is my Womb Meditation. So, this is a meditation to connect to your sacred womb space, the home of your divine feminine and receive her answers. So, leave a review and take a screenshot, and email it over to me at [email protected], you can find that link and all the information that we talked about in the show notes.
Thank you so much for tuning in, I’ll see you in the next one!
Episode#508: How To Heal From Trauma + Regulate Your Nervous System For Greater Love with Bela Divine
By Sahara Rose