19 - Trauma is the Gateway Drug—with guest Maria Sorensen, MA, LAADC, SAP

Anne and Alison interview Maria Sorensen about her early substance misuse and how her recovery journey informs her work as a trauma and substance abuse therapist. Maria shares that she started abusing substances at age 10 and went into recovery at age 21. Alcoholics Anonymous, Adult Children of Alcoholics, and 12-Step communities were vital in her recovery. She talks about denial in her family and estrangement between family members as a result of that denial.

Maria Sorensen, MA, LAADC, SAP is a holistic and integrative psychotherapist. She is the co-founder of Healing Arts in North Kingstown, RI. She obtained her Master's degree in Holistic Counseling from Salve Regina University in 1996.

Maria specializes in trauma work and is certified in EMDR {eye movement desensitization reprocessing}. She received her training in trauma resolution using EMDR at the Child Trauma Institute. She is trained in Ego State Therapy and she is a certified clinical hypnotherapist. She completed Level One IFS training and she is an IFS Program Assistant. at the IFS Leadership Institute.

She is an addiction specialist who acquired her license with the State of Rhode Island as a Licensed Chemical Dependency Professional in 1995.  Maria is an independent professional family interventionist with a strong 12-step background. She is a fully qualified and trained Substance Abuse Professional (SAP) under the US Department of Transportation regulations.

Maria's Website.
Audio engineering by Josh Collins.
Theme music is "One Cloud is Lonely" by Proxima Parada.

Show Notes:

Transcript:

Alison Cebulla 0:06
All right, welcome.

Anne Sherry 0:11
I wanted to try it. I was gonna try to say at the same time as you,

Alison Cebulla 0:15
you know, what I realized about my dad is that he's such a good host. And I learned a lot of skills from him. Last night we were at his house, I had some friends in town and we all had dinner at my dad's house. And every person that arrived, even like little Henry's four years old, my dad said, Welcome, Henry, welcome to my house. It was so so sweet and amazing. And when Kevin, my boyfriend came and met me, he was a little later than the rest of us. And my dad goes, Hey, Kevin, thanks for coming. Thanks for being here.

Anne Sherry 0:44
It was just amazing. It's just like, how do you have that much brainpower to like be welcoming people and managing how you don't belong in the world? You know?

Alison Cebulla 0:57
I got this practice. Yeah, Laci urchins and friends. And I'm Alison,

Anne Sherry 1:03
and welcome, everyone.

Alison Cebulla 1:06
And yeah, thanks for listening. Welcome to our podcast. Thanks for being here. So glad you're here. Man.

Anne Sherry 1:13
I'm so glad each and every one of you. Oh, that's some Romper Room shit. Did you read? Did you ever watch Romper Room with the mirror? Okay, people. My latchkey people are late like seven days. It's like she held out this mirror and she would Oh, you mentioned that. Yeah, another Eisai. See Suzy and I see Daniel. And I see like she can see through the mirror and she just like goes through I don't know a billion names. And it's just like, we're seeing she was on December. She was like, I I know this latch key thing is in the works. And I'm gonna see these kids. I'm gonna pretend I used to think you could be seen like she really could see us in you know, at home. So anyways, I like that Romper Room lady.

Alison Cebulla 1:59
Probably means she did a great job if you really seen even through the screen.

Anne Sherry 2:04
Yeah. I'm afraid to Google her because she probably like died of opiate overdose or something. was wrong with that level of niceness? I don't know. I don't know. I look her up. Yeah.

Alison Cebulla 2:19
Okay. Well, how are you? How am

Anne Sherry 2:22
I You go first I think I'm good getting good my ass over to the YMCA pretty regularly with that very inspired by Alicia and sort of watching my mom not use her muscles. They those muscles just give out on you if you don't if you neglect your body. Anyway, so getting on a walk it finally coming to this like balance of what's enough. I like like to run over there. Listen to your podcast. 25 minutes of doing the machines. Get your ass out of there. Like a little bit. Yeah, so perfect. That's feeling pretty good. Well, we had a bunch of snow a lot of snow days, I had a little COVID they had some asynchronous learning days. Oh, this was one thing Tom and I were kicking ourselves. Oh, I hope I really, if any? I don't know. Go ahead and get this. Like Agus was supposed to do his work at home. And we we just kind of let go and trust it. They had two packets to do. And we were we just trusted him to do it. He didn't do it. You know? Or he was fuckin half assed the shit out of that. And you know, it comes time like, Okay, you got to turn the sand to get credit for the days and I look at it and I'm like, oh, fuck is this. There's nothing on here. And then he starts going. I didn't know. I did. And then I'm like, pissed at Tom because he's supposed to do it over and then Tom and I really turned inwards. And we're like, this is our neglectful the way we sort of were raised at that time. Figured it out. And I told him, I told him, not proud, but I'm just gonna admit it. I said, Just tell him you forgot it. And you can do it tonight. So Oh, wow. Should he have taken like Uber responsibility and been like, I didn't do it? Or my parents suck because they lie.

Sometimes. We try. Yeah, so we taught him to lie.

Alison Cebulla 4:23
I said, I love like when Laura was on our podcast, her episode about the great resignation and COVID and momming during COVID. She's like, I just told our teachers like we're not doing homework in this house. Yeah, like they don't work hard enough at school. You know, I mean, for certain grades a little gray.

Anne Sherry 4:39
I'm not sure. Yeah, that dude needs to be doing a little bit more. I don't have our mark, but the accelerated kids have homework or whatever the fuck you call them, which is I mean, the kids that can do more work smarter. I don't know. They make up some euphemism for it so that they're not. You don't feel like you have the quote? unquote Tomcat or something. I don't know. But he could do more. So But anyways, we had this big talk and we took responsibility for our part. And he said, Yeah, I'd probably could do more. So I guess moral of the story. Talk about it, like admit your mistakes. It

Alison Cebulla 5:16
was, you know, the moral of the story is lie. Oh,

Anne Sherry 5:20
okay. Yeah, just lie. Yeah, a lot of this stuff is bullshit. Just let

Alison Cebulla 5:25
kids have a snow just kidding. Do it.

Anne Sherry 5:28
You know, like, they went skiing. Because he's, so we went sledding so we did play a lot. But yeah, so that's how that's my week.

Unknown Speaker 5:42
Pretty good. Cue Anna.

Anne Sherry 5:43
Yeah. Wondering about parenting all that shit. How are you?

Alison Cebulla 5:49
I'm good today. Um, so I have been watching the what is the Kaiser can't get back. Yeah. The Beatles. Yeah, on Disney. There's a major Oh, good. And so my my realization and insight of the day is about that watching this helped me kind of see so basically, I just never got that into the Beatles. I was so obsessed with Steely Dan. That's like Steely Dan just obsessed, obsessed, obsessed. Like was joining like Steely Dan, group chat room.

Anne Sherry 6:27
baby sitters that used to listen to Steely Dan. He feels a little rapey or, you know, maybe a sexual abuser to me, so I'm about that smooth voice. I think it's something with babysitters. We had that. Listen to it. Okay, you have these sort of weird association with steely? Dan is amazing. Yeah,

Alison Cebulla 6:46
it's a band. It's not one guy. Right? It's a ban, but it is amazing. Okay. Um, but I'm sorry that you had some.

Anne Sherry 6:54
Some I know.

Alison Cebulla 6:58
Some Molesey by Last Night by

Anne Sherry 7:01
babysitters that let us know. I'm very sorry, that was a little molestie to you. So okay,

Alison Cebulla 7:06
let us know. Let us know. Okay. Okay, so I just never got into the Beatles. So I just didn't I, you know, if they came on, I'd be like, well, I know. It's the Beatles. I know. They're good. I know. They're amazing. But I just I'm not I'm not relating to the music. I just never gonna do it. So, but watching the documentary and like intimately meeting each member of the Beatles, like, we put the record on today, and I was like, oh my god, now that I know these people from this eight hour intimate documentary, like reality show. We were joking. They invented the reality shows. Now I love their music. Like I actually love their music now. And so the songs

Anne Sherry 7:49
were just forming. I mean, they were forming the songs during that documentary, which I know

Alison Cebulla 7:54
but my son was like, if there's something that comes up where I'm like, Oh, I'm you know, like the Buddhists say like the Yum, yuck. We're constantly looking at things and going yum or yuck or yum or Yeah, and so like Steely Dan was yum for me. Yuck for you. But the Beatles The Beatles were a yuck for me. I always felt a little like yuck and and so but it really was a reminder that like oftentimes we can feel that when we just aren't familiar enough like I just had to get to know their music and their story Yeah, and who they were and now all of a sudden it's a yum you know and so that's just a nice reminder of like, Is this really a yuck or do you need to get to know this person store

Anne Sherry 8:33
grain? Yes I just was also list there's a podcast I'm listening to a little bit here like fucking canceled I think it's called it's Canadian podcast. And oh yeah,

Alison Cebulla 8:43
we're on spirituality.

Anne Sherry 8:45
They're super interesting but the the person that I caught just a little bit of it but I love what she said was about curiosity, like canceled culture is it's canceling curiosity. That sounds like that, you know, use curiosity to move towards before you do yum. Yuck. Or, right? Yeah, yeah, cause a cancel I guess. Yeah, but just you're canceling. Yeah, can't

Alison Cebulla 9:09
be there. Yeah, to

Anne Sherry 9:10
really sit with somebody story what might be their influences what's happening for you? But that does take time and care. As hard to do that. Sometimes. I think sometimes we're full up with I don't know it's broken ass world.

Alison Cebulla 9:26
Yeah. Get curious. This isn't an saying You always say that on every episode. Just get curious.

Anne Sherry 9:34
That's an ifs that's internal family systems. That's spiritual teachers that yes, I don't know everybody that's in the everybody's doing it. Get curious. Don't cancel just get care. Ask get

Alison Cebulla 9:46
curious. Okay, so today we're gonna get curious about trauma as a gateway drug. Yes. Yes. And with Maria Sorensen, and we're super super excited to interview you, Maria and learn. I mean, for me personally, the first time that I realized that trauma was the gateway drug, because if you've been listening to our podcast so far, and if you haven't been go back and listen all the other episodes, they're great, but if you've been listening so far, you'll have heard that I, you know, had an addiction to hard drugs, meth, coke, whatever, party drugs in my teenage years. But I didn't know that trauma was the gateway drug until I read gapper lattes book, in the realm of hungry ghosts. And reading that book was like light bulbs, light bulbs, light bulbs, light bulbs. I was like, really? You know?

Anne Sherry 10:38
Yeah, yeah. He he nails it. Yeah. If you don't have time to just just use Google him. He's got two hour long YouTube videos that are just meant mesmerizing with him on it.

Alison Cebulla 10:52
Yep, he's the best. So this is a topic that is always surprising to me, people that don't understand trauma informed substance misuse care. Hello, let's all get on the same page. Here. It's dropped. And it's not happening.

Anne Sherry 11:09
Yeah. And I think our systems are so not trauma informed. I was listening to another podcast. It's like all I do seems like but just growing up in the modern West. And anyways, not to go too deep into that, but just the about teenagers like that are having the way they get into the probation, one minor offense because they have trauma, and then they're in a probation environment, and they're gonna break probation. And then it's just this cycle, and it's leading to increased rates of suicide ideation and completion. It's just not trauma informed. And you know, the probation officers are saying, well, don't don't come before me then. And it's like, so they're also feeling so there's a helplessness being put in front of probation officers, which also have a helplessness because they're just doing what they're told and what they're told. So it needs to permeate all our systems. It's something we're just so mad at everybody. Our culture is like, I'm mad at you for doing what you did. So let's punish you usually to get punished. Yeah, so really, that's, you know, oh, they're gonna get away with something or I don't know. It's terrible. So I think again, I do think trauma informed it's in the schools it's it's making its way pretty much everyone bad it slowly. glacially but they're on the top you know, these trauma Bessel Vander Kolk book is a New York Times bestseller it's getting enhanced once you once you read it just makes so much sense that you kind of can't not see the world sort of from that and and develop some compassion.

Alison Cebulla 12:50
I'll never ever ever forget the exact moment that I first discovered Bessel vehicles work I was I was, I was like staining a set of cabinets for my mom, she's a property manager. So sometimes I help her repair her rentals. And that was the staining some cabinets being like, Am I just gonna do not that there's anything wrong with manual labor, and I love manual labor, but I was like, in my early 30s, like, Am I just gonna do manual labor my whole life like, Can I not hold a job or whatever. And I was listening to on being by Krista Tippett. And she was interviewing vessel. I know our favorite. And it was the first time I'd ever heard of aces. This was in 2017. Was him and I meet as a game. Yeah. Childhood Experiences everyone. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's

Anne Sherry 13:35
a game changer. The referrer I didn't realize how recent that was informing how we're doing policy and looking at stuff, right. I mean, Ace is, like, relative. I mean, when we can answer

Alison Cebulla 13:48
any answer any question, I'm doing science for this.

Anne Sherry 13:52
Okay. It's gonna say it's corner. Yeah, so

Alison Cebulla 13:55
the study was done in it was published in 1998 by doctors Felitti and Dr. and Dr. Anda, and so fucking late 1998 Well, yeah, I mean, recall, was working on PTSD as a diagnosis to put in the DSM, which didn't get in there until 1980.

Anne Sherry 14:18
Yeah, I mean, I just think of high school and just like a whole my, my older brother and a whole bouquet of these Lost Boys, mostly because I had a brother, but they're like, I could probably name eight of those kids that are dead. Yep. And I think they all had either ADHD or some some level of trauma that went untreated. And it's, it's pretty devastating. And then the families are traumatized by that trauma. Anyways, it goes on and on. So

Alison Cebulla 14:47
um, yeah, Nick Nicholas Kristof wrote that book about that exact thing where he realized that like half the kids that he used to ride the bus with are have passed away tightrope. Americans reaching for Hope he looks into his hometown of Yamhill Oregon.

Anne Sherry 15:03
I keep saying I need to do that with Spartanburg. But I'll just read his book because read his book. Yeah. I

Alison Cebulla 15:09
mean, it's him and his wife. Yeah. Cheryl woo done. And I went to the book tour right before everything, shut down everything and I still got to see them read parts of the book and answer questions in person in Boston. I missed my life so much just going to meet authors that you love. Do you don't I mean,

Anne Sherry 15:26
like, I do. And then part of me is like, Let's never go back. I'll just live in my little virtual reality.

Alison Cebulla 15:33
So I want to go back so bad. Yeah. So just summarize before we, before we play our interview with Maria, but the ACEs study 1998 It was originally some weight loss doctors. Oh, yeah, they realized that their patients were not not losing the weight. Then they realized that they had been sexually abused in childhood, then they thought, let's study this more, came up with the 10 adverse childhood experiences and realize that the more aces you had, the more chance that you had later in life of having lots of different types of illnesses, not just mental illnesses, like substance misuse, but also like heart disease or you know, just regular old you know, autoimmune disorders that a lot of that so we'll post that in the show notes. But you got to you got to look and find your aces score and just, you know, start he'll start doing the healing. It's such a nice place to start doing healing work.

Anne Sherry 16:23
Yes, yep.

Alison Cebulla 16:25
So all right, here we go. Here's Maria.

Anne Sherry 16:38
Hi, everybody, we are so excited to be here with Maria Sorensen. Maria and I met through the internal family systems community we assisted in a training together and I was immediately hooked on your humor and knowledge and care for trauma. So I'll do a little bio and then we'll just launch in and as we do ask lots of questions, meander places and laugh and cry even maybe. So it's all welcome. Even though we Oh, y'all know let's just caveat feelings are gross, but they are welcome here. So yeah. So Maria Sorenson is a holistic and integrative psychotherapist, she's the co founder of healing arts in North Kingston Rhode Island. Maria specializes in trauma work is certified in EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization reprocessing

Alison Cebulla 17:38
and will have usually I knew that that's what EMDR said, I don't think I ever knew what it stood for, which

Anne Sherry 17:43
is why I can't do sensitives and you

Maria Sorensen 17:45
know, you know what she said, um, she said she would have never named it that. She didn't like the name either.

Anne Sherry 17:55
So let's see you also you complete level one, I have fast your program assistant. In the IFS community, you're in addictions. Maria is an addiction specialist. licensed in the state of Rhode Island. Maria respects the individuality and uniqueness of each person. depending on a person's needs, you're able to integrate holistic approaches such as the ifs and EMDR expressive arts. Wow, let's talk about that too. A coaching hypnosis. good bang for the buck if you're working with Maria for sure. And you began your own spiritual journey in recovery in 1976. And introduction to 12 Steps been committed to recovery, spirituality and self transformation. Anything else you want to add? You have such a lovely bio God

Maria Sorensen 18:54
needs and also I've done a lot of healing through Ayahuasca as well in the jungles, in the jungles of Peru. I've done a lot of my trauma work.

Anne Sherry 19:07
Now where never done Maria,

Maria Sorensen 19:10
done, but a good chunk of it.

Anne Sherry 19:12
I know I do think we come to these plateaus. I'm starting to realize that my own healing work I'm like, Okay, we're done. We're done. And as soon as I get attached to like, wow, I really feel like I've got it I've got like yourself on the back few crumbs like maybe and you just get slammed with something which is great. If he keeps us that'd be who wants to be done in a lot of ways so like dun dun. But anyways, so we've had, we have done an episode with Heather Smith. Episode Five I think on ifs and Psychedelica

Alison Cebulla 19:48
I think it's

Anne Sherry 19:50
Oh, man, I thought I was gonna just pull that. Your clothes. Oh my god. Anyways, okay,

Alison Cebulla 19:59
so Maria. Like how do you relate to the term latchkey? Kid? Were you a latchkey? Were you an urchin? Are you the friend of a latchkey?

Maria Sorensen 20:07
Well, I think I was just totally neglected. There was really no parenting in the 50s. You just like the thing was to just to get the hell out of the house, they always want to do a house out of the house. parents. My parents started working basically when we went to school. So um, my sister was actually in charge of the keys my little sister because we couldn't be trusted to have her own key. So she was into, we had to always wait for her to come home. She was like in first grade.

Anne Sherry 20:42
Wait a minute, how come? Your little sister was in charge of the kiddo?

Maria Sorensen 20:45
I have no idea. I know thing about my father looked at her he used to color Genie as an I Dream of Jeannie. And that she was like this, you know, magical child that, you know, couldn't do things that we couldn't do. I don't know if that's too much

Alison Cebulla 21:01
pressure on one child. I know that when parents do that to their kids, you know, yeah,

Maria Sorensen 21:07
I'm pleasant made us feel like pieces of shit. Like we were, you know, we couldn't do anything. Like we couldn't even have a key. We couldn't, there was so many things we weren't allowed to do. But the name of the game was get out of our face, go outside, go in your room, get away, you know, and have kids over after school. And supposedly my grandmother was watching us. But she she lived downstairs. Because that was pretty typical in New York to have your parent your grandparents living on the first floor. And you were expecting one of like a, you know, like plot of Italians live like that, you know? So, yeah. So that's how I would really, I mean, nobody ever knew where I was. And I kind of was always in trouble around the neighborhood. I was playing down the track that literally down the railroad tracks I could have been abducted ran over by a train. It was. You are like,

Anne Sherry 22:05
I can't even believe like time Yeah. Oh, gee, neglected, like that. Like intense? Yeah. Yeah. Do you think so?

Alison Cebulla 22:14
Like, do you think there's any merit to that too, though, because I just had some of my friends in town who have their own kids. And they're like, Wow, this is so different from even from when we were kids in the 90s, where we, we felt like we could wander around the neighborhood a little bit, not as much as the 50s. But we could want we could wander around and wreak a little bit of havoc and feel safe. But kids these days really don't. And so my friends who are parents are saying, you know, we kind of we kind of wish they could do that a little bit we'd like they just can't. So I don't know, Maria, do you think there's merit in in that or no,

Maria Sorensen 22:47
no, because I think it in a way it saved my life. Because it was good for me to get out of the house. Like I can't imagine being trapped with my family and COVID I can't imagine.

Anne Sherry 22:58
Good point.

Maria Sorensen 23:01
I was I was always out. I was really athletic. I was always riding my bike running playing games, I was always with other kids in the street. We always had all these street games to play. And we brought all our toys outside and have them on the on the stoop. And so there was a lot of interacting going on whether it was positive or negative was another story. But there was no also no one to protect us either. Totally bullying and from older kids in the neighborhood. Because there was no parental supervision. Like, I mean, the moms would just yell out the window for you to come home. That was the way they got you home in New York City. You know, like they just scream your name and you're supposed to hear it like a dog whistle. No, yeah. So it was like, like, I would say, Oh, the fifth late. Well, I was only five. So I mean, I guess mostly the 60s.

Anne Sherry 23:59
Yeah. Wow. And New York City was not I mean, I know New York City has lots and lots of neighborhoods. But I have talked with people who are by age that grew up in New York. I mean, like five year olds riding subways and people getting mugged or like it wasn't like it well

Maria Sorensen 24:17
you do grow up. You do grow up quicker. Do you know you you do ride the subways younger, you are on your own younger so yeah. And the idea that you could leave and go places is I think, I mean, not the way my daughter grew up, but

Anne Sherry 24:34
I was about to say because I did see on there that you have two daughters and a cup of

Maria Sorensen 24:40
water and I have my own biological daughter. She's 22

Anne Sherry 24:46
Okay, and did you because what we're sort of what Allison was saying I'm noticing with August my nine year old who I had quite late, but he really cannot. Like I we've got we they need to do some EMDR with something has lodged in there about if he doesn't see us like we were skiing, and Tom was just a little away from him August came down the mountain and didn't see where Tom was he had gone down to the left. August lost his shit. Like, right there like he's like if he goes from zero to 60 If he doesn't, and I think it's a bit COVID relate to something. Something's lodged in there. But he, you know, it's hard for him to stay at home, even us running to the store. And I think you I think legally in Buncombe County, you can leave a nine year old at home if you're running to the store or something. I don't know. I haven't done it. So nobody called DSS. So I don't know, I'm curious with your daughter, just the way that you grew up. And I've noticed sort of I want a kid that's a little more independent. And I get a little resentful that I he's around us

Maria Sorensen 25:56
all the time a child as well. Yeah. You know what she was? Well, so she's a very well, so she's, she's already independent. Yeah, he was the kind of kid that wanted a parent us. We would be like, We are the parents, honey. And she'd be like, Oh, that's what to do. Or she was a little bossy. She was a little bit more like, I think she got easy. I think she always felt like she should know things. And she should be more independent. Yeah, then. And I'm glad because I think I would have gone in the more as a parent, I think I've would have created more of a dependency, just because I didn't have any any guidance.

Anne Sherry 26:37
We talked about that going all the way to the other side. Yeah. So I think she

Maria Sorensen 26:41
helped balance me out with some really she's always had really good strong. Yeah, better than ours. For sure.

Anne Sherry 26:50
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. But even now,

Maria Sorensen 26:53
she's always telling us okay, that's enough. Like, I'm 22 now like, you need guys need to back off. I got this. So

Anne Sherry 26:59
you know, yeah, yeah. Yeah,

Maria Sorensen 27:02
she was an only child too. So that can I think we marry

Anne Sherry 27:05
adult only children have this. They're just a little more. Yeah, just have this adult quality to them. Yeah. And we were noticing on snow days, too. We're like, Oh, could I wish we could rent a kid or something? Because August is up at like, 630. Like, come on, we're going outside. And if you had two little ones, you could just like just like, that's all I had my coffee. So just and sort of moving along with that sort of the way that you grew up. And that trauma as being a gateway drug? Because you certainly are describing growing up with emotional neglect. It sounds like I don't know if there was

Alison Cebulla 27:46
your bio mentions that you began your own spiritual journey of recovery in 1976. So trauma is a gateway drug seems like it's also part of your own story. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about that.

Maria Sorensen 28:01
Right? So um, because there was really, I mean, my parents, if you would ask them, they thought they were strict. And they thought they were really on their game in terms of, I guess, punishment and discipline. And then I was in Catholic school. So that added more to the discipline story, which really ended up being abuse. But so when I was about starting about 10, or 11, I started sniffing glue. And so that was the beginning of

Alison Cebulla 28:35
my mean, exactly. Maybe for a listener who's not who's, who hasn't done that. What does that what did what does that look like? Well, it

Maria Sorensen 28:41
was just like, there was all different when I was growing up. I don't know if everyone was doing this, but a lot of any kids who are up to something bad were doing and anybody that wanted to escape whatever reality they were dealing with, but it's just putting any kind of inhalants in a bag or on a rag and inhaling it. It could be Krylon. It could be I mean, spray paint it could be got it got anything. Yeah. Got and then this makes you high. It makes you dream and makes you kind of unconscious. Like semi unconscious.

Alison Cebulla 29:17
Yep. So got it. Thanks for displaying

Anne Sherry 29:19
10 or 11.

Maria Sorensen 29:21
Yeah, that's what I started. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was really young. And so, yeah, so again, it's, it was all about being in these places in around town around my neighborhood that, you know, I just everything was happening, and I was just too much of a little kid to have any skills to say no, or to say, that doesn't feel like a good idea. I was in a lot of high risk situations, probably starting around 10.

Anne Sherry 29:55
Wow. That could have

Maria Sorensen 29:56
gone really bad, you

Anne Sherry 29:57
know? Yeah. And there's something You know about the belonging piece. So we were talking with Tyler about that just like you, when it doesn't necessarily feel like you belong to your family or a society or a society that cares, like, you're gonna look for belonging anywhere.

Maria Sorensen 30:14
And some acceptance, I think, to any approval at home, school was very stressful, no approval at school. And so this is kind of this is where drugs and alcohol came into, like creating an identity for myself, to be somebody, and also to escape the feelings I was feeling. Because I didn't have any skills to deal with them. And also to be able to have a have friends and be part of something. Yeah. I think all three.

Alison Cebulla 30:51
Yeah, that's relatable. I mean, I was using hard drugs in my teenage years. And so, you know, for sure, it was it was fulfilling that need, like, I just want to hang out, I want to feel like wow, for me, I wanted really wanted to feel at ease in my own body and mind, you know, and so if I could meet up with some friends hang out, which, you know, I guess looking back, I had some more social anxiety that I realized that if you have a drug there with you, it's like almost like a replacement for where that unease and anxiety. It's like, you're like, well, now we have something to do we have this ritual, we have something to focus on and makes us feel snotty. Sometimes it didn't even always make us feel good, depending on what we were doing. You know, it's kind of funny, right? Because that's the whole thing of that makes an addiction an addiction is that it's actually you actually feel worse. Right? Because it didn't.

Maria Sorensen 31:44
Whatever you were feeling, you know, yeah. Yeah, that's, I think it was altering whatever you were feeling, you know, whether it was like, you know, something bad a bad night where everybody got really drunk and really sick or somebody overdosed, or somebody had a bad LSD trip. Yeah, it was just whatever that was. Yeah, it was no guarantee we're gonna feel better, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah,

Anne Sherry 32:08
exactly. Feels like shit. So we gotta change it, right? And then that doesn't feel good. So let's find something else to change. And

Alison Cebulla 32:15
then you get I mean, this is the one thing that I love about the holistic psychologist on Instagram, she's super, super famous account, I don't like is that she always steals everyone's ideas and never attributes them. But what I do really like is some of her ideas are pretty good, where she talks about getting addicted to emotions. And her stuff was the first thing that made me realize, like, when you're in like a, like, really volatile relationship with someone, you're getting, like addicted to the chaos, and like the ups and downs of like, that emotional roller coaster of like, do they love me? Do they not? Are they screaming? Are they asking me forgive them and you get like, you get addicted to it. So I'm kind of hearing like, when you're saying like, someone you know, someone's has to go to the ER or someone has a bad trip. Like, you get addicted to the emotional rollercoaster of the drug experience. Yeah, the chaos. Yeah. And that's, that feels very

Maria Sorensen 33:10
chaos and crisis is kind of like what's familiar. I think what I was addicted to was the familiarity of credit crisis and chaos. So I was eating it with friends now. You know, got it.

Anne Sherry 33:23
Yeah. Yeah. Doing I can't do math on the fly. But like 20, early 20s. Were

Maria Sorensen 33:32
when I was 21. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 33:35
Yeah. Yeah. That's right. When Alison came to,

Alison Cebulla 33:38
that's how that's what I started my recovery to. Yeah. 20 Yeah. So it was nice to start healing that early. Night, you know, Yeah. Kind of jumpstart it everything you know,

Maria Sorensen 33:56
exactly. A life. Yeah. For me, it's like, you know, people say that they would have like, you know, like alcohol and drugs took so much away from them that they, you know, they lost so much but for me, it was like my life never began. Until I got sober and clean. There was nothing to lose. I didn't have a car or a family or a life or write anything. You know, my life just could not begin with drugs. I didn't have an education yet. I didn't have a job a real job. So I didn't relate to all the losses that I heard about in AAA so I started to realize oh, wow, like I just didn't have anything to lose because I couldn't even build the life. Till Yeah, that's so

Alison Cebulla 34:42
interesting. And I wanted to kind of circle back again to your childhood just because before we started recording, you were telling us a little bit about the emotional environment of your childhood that included having to keep quiet about your your ethnic or cultural All background and I'm super curious to hear more about that. So.

Maria Sorensen 35:05
So my father was Italian, and he came over from Italy right after World War Two. And my mother came over from Cuba, pretty much around the same time in the 40s. They met. And my family, my, my father's family was very racist. And we, and he, they want him to marry someone Italian. And he happened to fall in love with my mother. So who was

Alison Cebulla 35:36
like West Side Story.

Maria Sorensen 35:41
And then they, so then they just kind of like found a way for my mother to like, totally deny who she was. My mother is a trauma survivor anyway, so that was a far place for her to go to just deny who she was, well, to kind of compartmentalize. Okay, well, my family lives in Yonkers. And when I'm with these people, I can do this. And when I'm there, I can do that. So there was a lot of compartmentalizing that my mother did, and denial of her own heritage and her own, weren't allowed to really own being Cuban. Or tell anybody.

Anne Sherry 36:19
That must have been so confusing as

Maria Sorensen 36:24
you work. Everybody says, What are you? And that means? What nationality? Are you? It doesn't because we're all Americans that. So it wasn't to just say I'm an American, but it was to say I was my father's from Italy. My mother's from Cuba, my father's from Ireland. So that's what people met, because there was so many first generation Americans in in New York, and still are. So we always it was a very common thing to say that so tell lie. And it wasn't like I was living in Michigan, you know, in some small town where everybody was white, or everybody was whatever, get everybody was from a different country.

Alison Cebulla 37:04
That is the New York experience. Yeah.

Maria Sorensen 37:07
So people expected you to not be from here or from your parents to not be from here, or at least your grandparents were not from here. So yeah, so it was very confusing. And also, it set up a pattern for, you know, not being able to talk to Spanish kids, not being able to be kids who might who even were Italian, but maybe they were Sicilian. And my grandmother didn't think they were white enough.

Alison Cebulla 37:37
Are you kidding?

Maria Sorensen 37:38
Are you kidding? Yeah. So there was this thing about being white. They never used the word white. What did they use the word dark?

Alison Cebulla 37:48
Okay, use the word dark.

Maria Sorensen 37:49
Oh, yeah, he's dark. He looks like a well, they would say it not in a derogatory way. But they would say like, they look black to them. Yes. Yeah. He's Italian grandma. He's no, no, he's not Italian. No, no, no. And that be like, so yeah. So you had a watch skin color. And my mother didn't want people to think they were our relatives. I had friends from Colombia. Wow. He was like, oh, bring them around here. I don't want anybody to think that they're my people. So it was just like that. So

Alison Cebulla 38:26
like, what do you think she was afraid of?

Maria Sorensen 38:29
Hmm. Well, I think she was afraid of being exposed for who she was, you know, like her own shame.

Alison Cebulla 38:36
I've just been told my demeanor. Well, also,

Maria Sorensen 38:39
my grandmother used to go to the hospital. This isn't funny, but my grandmother used to go to the hospital. And she used to say she wanted to see like, how dark we were when we were born. Yeah. Wow.

Anne Sherry 38:52
I mean, I'm some level I mean, it's that fitting into America, like, that's how you become you know, that the

Maria Sorensen 39:01
but even like, Irish people were Irish enough. If you were Talion, you were you weren't still weren't Irish, if you were, the Italians were you're not Italian enough. So there was there was different degrees of how they were treated when they got here. And to be like biracial, or however you want to call it being Spanish and Italian. So Spanish people didn't really accept us as because we didn't speak Spanish. And Italian kids didn't think we were fully Italian. And then the Irish kids just call this every name in the book, honestly, and that was what my neighborhood was made up. Okay.

Anne Sherry 39:42
So it was really hard to just be

Maria Sorensen 39:44
me. Yeah, it was like you had to keep like to be yourself. Yeah.

Anne Sherry 39:48
Now that original that Yeah,

Maria Sorensen 39:51
like that doesn't even count in the Catholics and the Jews, because there was also New York is very Jewish. Yeah. And I want to tell like school, and the nuns were telling us not to play with or associated with anybody that wasn't a Christian.

Alison Cebulla 40:06
So Oh,

Anne Sherry 40:07
Holy is a full time job. Like No wonder you were huffing. No wonder

Maria Sorensen 40:16
I was shooting heroin by the time fucking.

Anne Sherry 40:18
Yeah. Yeah, I've done that.

Maria Sorensen 40:23
Bring in African Americans. I mean, that was another whole thing. So, yeah, so the pressure of I guess being an American was the number one pressure speaking English fitting in. And being kind of ashamed of where you came from, and only wanting to be where you are now, you know, like here in America. My father used to say that a lot. If I ever wrote a book, that's how I'd started your American English. What's your problem? What you would say? What? You could do anything you want here, for God's sakes?

Anne Sherry 41:03
Yeah, not a lot of tenderness around having emotions or feelings, or I'm hurt by that or I know.

Maria Sorensen 41:11
You talk about emotional neglect. It was like, you couldn't be vulnerable in any of these situations, whether it was or whether it was hurts

Alison Cebulla 41:21
my heart hurts my heart.

Maria Sorensen 41:25
Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing, where the shame wall comes in from disease, inability to be vulnerable, to be my especially I'm a Pisces, so I was over there talking about helping people feeding the poor. I was like this little Pisces being going, we have to do something. They're hungry in Africa. My dad would be like, shut up, like who can? God helps those that help themselves?

Anne Sherry 41:56
Yeah. Strap bootstraps. Yeah,

Maria Sorensen 41:59
yes, yes. Yes. You know, we helped ourselves. We came here. We got here. It was just that. You know?

Anne Sherry 42:06
Wow. Yeah. So why did you choose to go?

Alison Cebulla 42:13
Why did your family members come to the US? I feel like we This isn't talked about enough. Is that a lot of times European? Or your, you know, Dad came from Italy. Your mom came from Cuba? Why did they leave their home country?

Maria Sorensen 42:30
Well, I think I've looked this up a lot, because I love history. After World War Two, Italy was pretty messed up from the Nazis. It was pretty much while it was overtaken by the Nazis at 1.2. But so it was in their best interest to leave. So they they did have some land there. They were farmers, like my grandmother was and grandfather were farmers. My grandfather was already here. He kind of escaped during another war to get here. So he was already here. So you know, it's like that whole thing about my grandmother wanted to reunite her children with her father, with their father, and have a better life, you know, than they would have in war torn Italy at that time. And then my mother. So this was pre Castro. So my mother, I think she just wanted to get away from her brothers. She was grew up with no mother. Her mother abandoned her. She lived with all of these really hostile, macho, abusive brothers that were in the Cuban army. And, you know, she was physically sexually emotionally abused, treated like little slave in their homes. Her

Alison Cebulla 43:51
mother? Yeah. My heart.

Maria Sorensen 43:56
Yeah. So her sister was like, let's get the hell out of here. And got on the plane.

Alison Cebulla 44:02
I mean, this is the story, you know, because and, you know, when we interviewed Alicia, and we're talking to her about black, African American trauma, is that you and I kind of talked and we said, we need to talk a little bit more about white historical trauma, that, you know, what is the trauma that Europeans brought over, that made us so violent and angry and terrible, and needing to take it out on other people? And this is the heart of it, you know, like, war torn, you know, and, and

Maria Sorensen 44:34
what was amazing to me is like, they just went through like World War Two. And when I was growing up in New York, it was still so much prejudice and so much hate. Yeah, like, I mean,

Anne Sherry 44:45
but isn't that an expression of trauma? Right? unresolved trauma is like, Oh, we learned that sighs there is no right. There's no room for vulnerability or tenderness or curiosity or slowing down or seeing, like, what is this doing to us all? You're still surviving. Yeah, it's I just have this image almost of like all these rivulets coming into whatever this the American ocean or something. It's just all this toxic you know, like not the people but they're carrying these just tremendous burdens of violence. I mean, it's it's war all the way down. Yes, yeah, yeah.

Maria Sorensen 45:23
And then a lot of immigrants came over from Europe and went right into the war. Yeah, no, they

Anne Sherry 45:28
served no yes, yes, that's right.

Maria Sorensen 45:31
Yeah. So so it's kind of where they were put to work in like really horrible jobs. But a lot of them went into the military and were promised American citizenship through the military. So there was more trauma, like they came in, they had nothing and now it's like, here's the gun, go fight a war. So my dad also was one of those people. He went into Korea, then there was the Korean War. So he never really got away from the war. No, not at all. I think that was his trauma growing up in Italy during World War Two, you know, that traumatic,

Alison Cebulla 46:09
more one. Yeah, one more war.

Anne Sherry 46:13
We've talked a fair amount on here about this, that healing path of like getting so at some point, you're just devastatingly angry at your parents. So a lot of us are big when you you when you start to tap into some of that vulnerability. But then moving into like, just what we're talking about that whole structural trauma that they came from, and they didn't have a chance really to be. So I don't know if you can, I don't know speak to that a little bit or finding ways that you sort of doing that inner healing but also and I don't know, like, Legacy unburdening around your parents and

Maria Sorensen 46:49
well for me, in the beginning, I took everything on as my fault. My whole family dynamic. Yeah. And then when I and even when I got sober and clean at 21, I took full responsibility for my addiction. So it wasn't until the early 80s When a COA came around,

Alison Cebulla 47:12
and we were doing children of alcoholics. Yeah,

Maria Sorensen 47:15
that I started to realize that I had a trauma back. I mean, I literally said this to someone when I was 28. Someone said to me, okay, honey, okay. Someone said something to me, like, you know, it sounds like your parents might have been alcoholics. And I said, No, they're immigrants. I grew up with immigrants. Like I thought that was a reason why I was just like, because people would say, like, my parents are from the old country, what the other side. So I thought that was like, a reason why I didn't get things or like, why never called the trauma until the night. That's when I got bored in the 90s. But, um, yeah, so that was the beginning of my healing journey, not so much from my addiction, because I did a lot of work on that. But from my childhood trauma, when I started to realize my parents were alcoholics, and that what I was calling discipline all these years was really abuse and neglects. And that they were really very ill equipped as parents. And mostly because they were uneducated. They came from another country, they were here to survive, so they were more in survival mode. So you know, as I grew up in the program, I and in my own healing, I realized so many more things about them. And, you know, like, my, my scope got bigger and bigger, I was more expand, so I could see them better. But I don't think it ever the relationship I think, with my parents, it's not like you know, like a fairy tale like we all lived happily ever after either. My father died of alcoholism, my mother died of alcoholism, a stroke. Really, my sisters are really damaged and have a lot of trauma that they've never treated. So well is strange. So, because of the things I found out about my family, I really, I really can't be with them. And I wouldn't want my daughter to ever be around them. Wow.

Anne Sherry 49:28
So it's a ton of grief in that, you know, getting comfortable with grief work. We have previous guests. Tamra Hannah has taken us through some of that, that that's I think, I mean, to really get through this healing you you must be able to get okay with grieving and which means getting okay with the vulnerability and the feelings. It's like so I don't I maybe you could speak to this trauma as a gateway drug sort of. Yes. We're seeing how that you get into drugs with all the trauma of course to check into everything. But then like, what's the path coming out? Just for listeners that are learning?

Maria Sorensen 50:07
You mean the healing? Healing process?

Anne Sherry 50:09
Yeah,

Maria Sorensen 50:10
yeah. So for me, it was, well, for me, it was first going into rehab. Then it was coming into Alcoholics Anonymous and start a new work program asking for help getting humbled surrendering. And then I, in being in therapy, pretty much my whole adult life on and off. And I think the spiritual component has always been there for me looking for answers outside myself. And being in nature through art, and meditation, prayer, plant medicines, I think they've all contributed, oh, having self care, because I was in the field of when I was in the human service field when I was in my 20s, when I first graduated, and I had no boundaries. And I had all this unresolved trauma that I didn't even know about, and I needed to leave the field to go do some of that work. And then I came back in my 30s, I came back to the field with the idea that I can help people without hurting myself

Anne Sherry 51:22
without Suge No,

Maria Sorensen 51:25
without, without being at risk to me and giving everything you know, to how to say no, how to have self care, how to stay in my own healing process. That's been like really important to me as it for me being a therapist

Anne Sherry 51:41
is really good. That metaphor of putting your own oxygen mask on first before you're gonna you know, when you're on a plane. therapists use that one a lot, but I think it's really helpful. Yeah, visual that you do. You got to do that first. If you're good.

Alison Cebulla 51:57
I like that analogy almost implies like, you could just reach out and put it on, and now you're good to go. What it really looks like, is saying no, over and over and fucking over again. And you know, no, I'm not gonna do that for you. No, I'm not going to work late. No, I don't like the way you're talking to me. No, I'm not gonna hang out with my family members. Yeah, no, I'm not gonna. Yeah, yeah, it's, it's hard.

Anne Sherry 52:22
So I think I hear you too, Maria, saying there's no quick fixes here. This is a lifelong process. We know, this

Maria Sorensen 52:29
helped me a lot. When I surrendered to that I was sober nine years. So it was in my early 30s, or maybe late 20s. And I really realized that like, there was no destination. And there, I wasn't done really important. Yeah. And I felt this really big relief inside that like, yeah, that I don't have to keep on working so hard to get there. But that I am there really, in the process, you know, that process. And I think that helped a lot. And now I tell myself, because I'm 66. I tell myself, like, I say, Well, maybe I'll do it next lifetime. Things that have gone, I think the next lifetime was too good to be because if you have like, I'm not avoiding it, but it's almost like, I may not get done with all of it in this lifetime, whatever it is, whether it's career wise, or learning because I love to learn, I think learning saved my life, going back to school saved my life. So just and just being like a lifetime learner and being fascinated by the planet and people and what makes people tick and what how, just everything, and I love science, I love art. So just just learning I think saved my life to that I was that I was open minded, you know, to learn that I was humble enough to learn. And I think sometimes when I see in my clients, that they don't have that humility, to learn to be the student or to allow the teacher and I know asking for help. And not being able to ask for help is a trauma response that I have

Anne Sherry 54:17
literally. Yeah, totally. And,

Alison Cebulla 54:20
and then it's like such a barrier. I mean, so I've I've done the plant medicine, Ayahuasca a couple times. And I also worked as a use of coach people one on one I haven't recently, but it's interesting, because for certain people, I'd be like, I don't know, maybe you should just go do some hallucinogens or something. Because there was like such a block there. You know, to seeing your own stuff. I have you seen that? Have you experienced that for yourself? Yeah. In myself. Yeah. Or Yeah. Or in any patients or you know,

Maria Sorensen 54:57
yeah. Sometimes like yeah, like so. Um, time my sisters for sure. I mean, that they don't really feel they grew up with trauma. They don't really see my parents that way I would describe their childhood like the opposite of what I said. I mean, literally, like, my dad literally died of alcoholism, he had cirrhosis of the liver. I don't think he can get any more syrup. You know. And, and my sisters, were saying at the funeral, Maria talks about Daddy like he's an alcoholic or something.

Alison Cebulla 55:35
You've got to be kidding me.

Anne Sherry 55:36
Wow. Yeah, the protection because what we just heard too, from you there is this like, I don't just enough. I don't know what brings the awareness or the ability to this this lifetime is this part of the healing journey. I don't know if your sisters have children or whatever. But I've become so acutely aware of just how long this arc of healing can take. And I, what I got to that, that, like my stopped beating my parents up because I and also feeling some deep grief for gosh, they got as far as they could, like really becoming aware of everything, the time that they were born, the influences that they had, what's happening now my brother being the way that he was, was, you know, just all the things that go into it. So, yeah, brings you to some level of compassion, but that ability to just I don't know what wakes, what what is the right combination to have that curiosity? I remember that I look at it. Yeah.

Maria Sorensen 56:43
Yeah, I remember that one day when I was about 20. And I had just shot dope. And I was on a rooftop with this kid, Bobby Murphy. He's dead now died of AIDS. I was saying to him, I was having like a spiritual awakening. I was saying to him, like, I really can't do this anymore. This is really boring. I just can't chase a bag of dope around town. And I got it. I got to do. You didn't know what I was talking about. But for me, I knew I was going to be an addict. I knew it. And I also when I got clean, I knew it was the end of it. That was for me. I never looked back. I love day. I love the people. They helped me so much. And I let them and I never really thought oh, my life was more fun or more interesting or more without no it was it sucked itself really went to jail. You almost got killed. It was it's it wasn't hard for me to put my story together and say this is really not a good trajectory to go on down. So I thought when I got a like, this is my chance, man. These people want to teach me they want to help me. They're spiritual. They're honest. They're loving. They're compassionate. Like, I just felt like I was kind of like, they were like my angels. They're my first portal of shamans. They're my portal. They said, walk through this portal with us. And I was like, Oh, my God. And once I walked through that portal, I never I was in another world. I couldn't relate to that other portal anymore

Anne Sherry 58:22
out, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Well,

Maria Sorensen 58:24
I do know, I do get it that. But that was from me. I mean, I know that for at 21. That if I didn't make that decision, I would not be here today. Yeah, that's what I believe, honestly.

Alison Cebulla 58:39
But how did you end up in the a room to begin with what? What enabled you to seek out recovery as a 21 year old?

Maria Sorensen 58:50
Well, I had gone I was already in rehab place. I was already in jail once I did a sentence

Alison Cebulla 58:56
got it. So there was some punishment repercussions happening to your okay.

Maria Sorensen 59:02
So how I got to AAA was really by accident. It wasn't seeking it out. I was I was homeless. I was living with this family. And they said, you know, we have some friends that are in the program. And I was like, yeah, and they're like, We think you should talk to them. And I talked to them and I thought they were the weirdest two people I ever met. And one had really long hair and the other California and she had like a she was just handing me like a bowl of grapes. I just thought they were so weird. And he kept calm at the organization. So I thought he was talking about the mob. And I said all my Why's the mafia. This guy on the organizational take care of you. He was in his 70s 60s in Georgia. He died shortly after that. But um, he so they just presented it to me like hey, like you got nowhere else to go. You're in Rhode Island. Now you can go back to New York and go back to the shit life you came from, and keep doing what you're doing. Or you can come into the program and we'll help you. Now it's like, Oh, okay. And then I went to a meeting. So I didn't want to go seeking it out. But I knew I did say to my friend, like, he said, Where are we going? And I said, I don't know. We'll know. When we get there. We're being directed. So I felt directed to the program. Wow, I felt like I was being brought there.

Anne Sherry 1:00:34
Wow, this is a hell of a story. But so some of the modalities then that, Alison, I refer people to EMDR. And but you we had talked to just, and you kind of gave the list, but just it sounds like go ahead and get started, like, see yourself as valuable. And this never ends, you know, the healing journey never ends, there isn't somewhere we're trying to get to that you're already a worthy human being. And so I don't that's just some of the treatment pieces that you use, or as a therapist as a therapist now. Yeah, well,

Maria Sorensen 1:01:17
okay. Well, you know, I fell in love with ifs, right, fast. Yeah, I love EMDR. I mean, I feel like it really helped me. In my journey, it helped me a lot. And so I got trained in it. And I feel like I can see a lot of shifts happening for people pretty quickly with EMDR. Especially if they have like one trauma, like, let's say they don't don't like to fly in an airplane, or they had a car accident. It works really well for them. And for some of the more complex trauma, like childhood trauma, it takes a little bit longer than that, you know?

Alison Cebulla 1:01:57
Why do you think that is?

Maria Sorensen 1:01:59
Well, because you have more things to process, you know, you have, like, if it's a car accident, maybe that could be done in two or three sessions. But if it's chronic, physical abuse that happened over years, it's a little bit harder to, to process through all of that. It's just more for the system. You know,

Alison Cebulla 1:02:20
have you seen good results? Like if someone's listening right now, and they're like, I've been curious about EMDR? I just not sure how to get started or what it even is, you see that it works? or Yes,

Maria Sorensen 1:02:29
I would if you are a trauma survivor, or have anxiety or if you want to really work on anything, you two, I think right now, if I was looking for a therapist, I will look for a therapist who did EMDR and IFS for both,

Anne Sherry 1:02:46
which is internal family systems. I know we mentioned it throughout. Yeah, yeah. Because both

Maria Sorensen 1:02:51
of them are evidence based. And both of them are like kind of the state of the art, which is what Bessel van der Kolk or any of the top trauma people would recommend. And I also highly recommend expressive arts too, because I think that art heals. And, and I don't just mean drawing, but you know, movement, psychodrama, you know, writing stories, any kind of creative expression. And I think so if you are a trauma survivor, and you're listening to the show right now, to just try to get back in touch with your own creative expression. To start there. If you don't do anything, start to make make things again and buy some paints. And I have a client who I just told them to go to Michael's he used to paint when he was little. And he goes, I don't even know why I stopped. I go Yeah, but you have to paint. Something that we get to do. It's something we have to do. It's like our whole system wants us to do that, that we want to compete with

Anne Sherry 1:03:55
and to create. I love it. And then the school systems as the first thing that will go right. Yeah, right. Okay. Right on the arts. Right.

Maria Sorensen 1:04:03
You know, it was beautiful during COVID Me and my daughter, we just made art projects together. It was so cool. You know, we just played and we we did art blindfolded, I mean anything like just to be able to, to just get that expression out dance, dancing it out is also great putting on music and just dancing this shit out of your body is another great thing you Yes, you know,

Anne Sherry 1:04:30
me when I hear is like it's a way to spend time with yourself and actually invest in yourself and say, I'm worthy. This body is worthy. My creativity is worthy. Where's what takes you away from all that is just tons of experiences of nobody being interested in what you're doing or saying or thinking or feeling or not being able to be I mean, war torn coming from war torn countries. There's no time for all that stuff. So and I We

Maria Sorensen 1:05:01
totally go in nature because trees heal you and nature heals you. So go in the forest, go to the beach, sit on the ocean, whatever your whatever you have time and nature. Totally Yes,

Anne Sherry 1:05:16
yes.

Maria Sorensen 1:05:18
I also think that like as a Holistic Therapist, psychotherapist is that to look at the whole world as my healing everything, everything I do, what I watch what I listen to, whether I work out or not, whether my time and nature creating, that everything can become part of my healing, it's a whole different way of being in the world. How I think how I, what I, how I use my words, everything can be part of your healing process. It's not just one thing, a lot of people just yoga, or I'm gonna go to therapy, or I'm just gonna be a painter do it all do is

Anne Sherry 1:06:01
love it? No, yeah, that's what, no prescription right? There's no like, because I think that a lot of the thinking, sometimes it's like, when I become this, or when I can develop a meditation practice, or what what I hear you saying is like, the fact that you do meditate, the fact that you don't meditate, the fact that you did it for this amount of time, or that, like, if you make space for all of it, then what was that saying that I had at the end of the training? Like? Something about nothing sacred at all matter? The I have to cut? Yeah. It's such a good,

Alison Cebulla 1:06:37
but I wanted to ask about ifs and what drew you to ifs internal family systems, and specifically, as it relates to healing addiction, and, and Trump, you know, trauma addiction issues? What is it about ifs, so great? Well,

Maria Sorensen 1:06:56
I think that I learned in the program, how to think about my disease as an alcoholic and an addict, as a part. So they'd say things like, well, that's what your disease will tell you to do. Or that's what your disease wants you to do. God got it. Yeah. So So I, I understood that I had a part of me that want that was self destructive, that wanted to die that wanted to drink. And I also now had a recovery part that wanted to go to the meeting, and wanted to sit with my friends and talk about recovery and work the steps and have a sponsor and do the right thing. So but they told me to always be aware of this addict part, and how, how it was kind of could sabotage my life. Yeah. So that's kind of to me, that was the beginning of parts work for me. And then I got into Gestalt, which was parts work, it was working with your parts talking to your other part your and trying to find or some type of a resolution with your part. And so when I found ifs, I thought it was brilliant. I thought it pulled all of that together for me, that we would create parts to protect ourselves, and that we would exile parts that we didn't want anything to do with or it wasn't safe for us to be that and I thought it was brilliant. And so I wanted to learn more about it. So I took, I started reading about it. And then I took the training. And I just said, this is me, this is what I want to do in this lifetime. Now.

Anne Sherry 1:08:46
I think a lot of stories would be because it's a very common story. When people have had lots of modalities, they come to ifs. And I know it's not the only way, but it's a really, really good way. But we allow them to their best say, and clients say, Holy shit, this makes a lot of sense. Yeah. Yeah. And that it's really, I mean, it really is just kind of a spiritual way of like doing really good spiritual practice. But it's the steps to be able to do it rather than like, just go sit on a rock, and it'll come to you eventually, you know.

Maria Sorensen 1:09:20
Yeah. And I think that as a therapist, I really liked the idea that I wasn't going to be the only person to hold self energy in the room.

Anne Sherry 1:09:29
Yeah, it is very freeing as a therapist. Yes, yeah.

Maria Sorensen 1:09:35
Yeah. So I thought that was beautiful. And I love the fact too, that it doesn't pathologize

Anne Sherry 1:09:40
Yeah, yeah. I found my quotes. I found my quote. Okay. Okay, I think encapsulate what you were talking about. So this was from the so would one of the emperors of China ask the boat Bodhidharma, the Zen master who brought Zen from India to China, what enlightenment was his answer was lots of space now. thinking holy. And then. So I love that quote, lots of space, nothing holy. So all of it matters all of it. Yeah, there's the way that I read that. And then Teresa of Avila, I love this quote, Every part of the journey isn't is of importance to the whole. So everything matters. So those are two, two quotes. I live by these days. Yeah, so I think Maria will wind down fate.

Alison Cebulla 1:10:28
What are some? What are some things that that have been inspiring to you lately? Or what are you living living by lately?

Maria Sorensen 1:10:37
Let me see what's inspiring to me. I think that you know, I don't know right now, I don't know. I think I think like, I've been listening to a lot of astrology. And I've listened to, and I've been playing with a lot of my tarot cards, and I have a beautiful goddess deck, that's very inspiring. So I think those are things right now that I'm that are in my life that I really appreciate. Got it. Got it. Another thing you can do is just throw cards every day, just buy an Oracle deck, and just look at the cards, there are so many beautiful decks to look at. It's like, it's like, you can't just listen to your own head. You know, even try to fly. Yeah, Lee try to find the answer just in their head. So it's like Einstein said, you can't find the solution to the problem with the same thinking that caused the problem. So stop it, you know? Yes. So we don't need to think more. But we need to be more and do more and not sink more. Because I think that's what drives people crazy to be.

Anne Sherry 1:11:53
If it's ifs, you have to ask yourself, Who is thinking, which part of me is thinking right now? Right? Yeah, because really, truly that experience of self is is a presence, it is experience.

Maria Sorensen 1:12:03
Yeah. And, and, and those parts are not going to get you better the overthinker the analytical part. It's like, I think that recognizing that there are just parts that are protecting me from getting to the, like, the deeper stuff, so I could stay in my head so I can figure it out. And it's like, it's not a complete process. We need to talk to each other. And we need to write and we need to create and we need to go in nature. We need to do all those things. So we can be in the world you know,

Anne Sherry 1:12:36
be curious, right?

Maria Sorensen 1:12:38
Be very curious. Very,

Anne Sherry 1:12:41
it is your friend. Yes.

Alison Cebulla 1:12:43
Yes. Well, Maria, thank you so so fast, Maria.

Anne Sherry 1:12:50
More of you. Let's be let's be friends, but let's like be real friends. Yeah, okay. Nashville. Yeah, I'd love to.

Alison Cebulla 1:13:01
Yeah. All right for you. But Maria, I really appreciated that, you know, the diving into your family story. And we had another immigrant story episode with Yin talking about her Chinese immigrant parents and so this was such a nice other look at that, you know, the European immigration and all the trauma there. So you know, this is stuff that is endlessly fascinating to me. So thank you for for diving in there and sharing so much of your family story, and your and your personal story of recovery. Thanks,

Anne Sherry 1:13:37
who was fast?

Maria Sorensen 1:13:38
I think we got a lot in.

Anne Sherry 1:13:40
I think we did too. I feel like we could go another hour or so. But yeah, feel free to return.

Maria Sorensen 1:13:47
Okay, anytime in. Thank you. All right. Bye. Okay. Bye Maria.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai