Welcome to this episode of Messy Can’t Stop Her. I am your host, Judith Kambia Obatusa – J K O. Today, we will be learning from a very special guest about how to release trauma stored in our bodies and how to handle one effect of stored trauma – obesity, weight gain. Today’s guest Jessica Carter will be teaching us from her lived experience and also her expertise as a yoga teacher and nutrition coach who is also an author and the host of Your Metabolic Reset podcast. I am so excited to learn from her, I hope you are too. Let’s dive in
JKO: Thank you so much, Jessica for being here. Thank you so much. I'm really, really excited that I get this opportunity to learn from you hands on.
The whole idea behind our conversation is for anyone who is in her house to be able to apply something from our conversation. We don't want them to just listen to podcasts. We want them to apply something in their situation.
I was reading a little bit about the books that you've written. The one that I'm gonna be going to talk about is the one you've written for adults where you talk about how essential oils and yoga work together to help you release negative emotions and trauma that's residing in your body. That really spoke to me because of the book the Body Keeps the score.
It's really scientific that trauma sits in the body. So in this self-care series, Jessica, I would [00:01:00] love to have you talk a little bit about that.
Jessica: Thank you so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here. And I don't know if you know that the body keeps the score is what inspired this book. Did you even know that?
JKO: I didn't know that.
Jessica: Okay. I I didn't think we had discussed that.
So like absolutely. Seeing exactly what I was going for. So if anyone wants to read, the body keeps the score. It's incredible. The first half is very sciencey, and so if you kind of wanna scan the first half and get to the second half, that's where you can really apply the things that he's speaking about. in my opinion ,the first half is a little bit of a struggle if you don't like the sciencey stuff.
JKO: Yes, I have that challenge.
Jessica: It's worth it. What happened was I was reading this book at the same time I was doing my yoga teacher training. And it, it [00:02:00] was like all the puzzle pieces kind of came together. Let me explain a little bit. when we stored these trauma, we tend to store it in a certain area of the body and in yoga, we relate to those areas of the body with chakras. So, when I speak about a chakra, I'm really just talking about wherever you're storing that trauma. And the trauma could be childhood trauma or a car wreck or a dog attacking you. Like there's a, a wide variety of trauma and we don't even know that it's stored there, but when we don't address it, it stays.
And there's another book that I love, Feelings Buried Alive, never Die. It's really important that we take time to find that trauma and release it. And one of the ways he speaks about is speaking to a counselor. Sometimes it's easier to do it in a non-verbal way. Sometimes it's very hard to speak about [00:03:00] trauma, and I wanted people to have a way to do it at home privately with themselves, so, When I was just talking to people about going to yoga teacher training, they were like, oh my goodness, girl, all this stuff's gonna come out and you know, you're gonna be crying and we have places where you can go cry.
And I'm like, I don't wanna do all that in front of people. I better heal myself before I go to yoga teacher training. So I'm a very private healer. I'm not into doing that in front of everybody, and so I knew in the training that we would be working on one chakra a weekend,. The chakra one was the first weekend, so I knew to put certain oils on my feet, and so
that's when I really had the breakthrough. So I put certain oils on my second chakra and we did this hour and a half yoga session, and I was just crying. [00:04:00] And it wasn't, oh, I had trauma. I'm thinking about the trauma. I'm talking about the trauma. It was literally, this has been stored in my body for 30 years and it is releasing, and it was such a powerful experience.
I knew I had to find a way to share it with other people so that they could have that experience too.
JKO: I really appreciate that because, my passion, which led to me this podcast is helping women who are deep in the trenches of life either in a domestic violence situation or carrying over. they might have left the situation, but the situation hasn't left them, or they're going through a time of trouble with their children.
People go through challenges and they don't know the impact. The thing about this trauma, that's stored that we do not even realize at a point in life, something [00:05:00] triggers it and it turns into a huge problem. I'm going to use myself as an example.
About a year and a half ago, I, I had anxiety. The word anxiety was just nothing to me. Say you have anxiety. I just like, what are they talking about? What is anxiety? Is it not just a feeling? Until I had anxiety. I feel from my personal experience that depression is easier to manage than anxiety because I lived in terror.
Terror, I go to bed terrified. My heart is beating physically. Things were happening to me because of anxiety, and it was at that point I began to think to myself there, I've always thought that there was more to me, and I was just turning 50, and I knew that my life had been very tough, too many challenges, but I was determined that when I turned 50, I [00:06:00] wasn't going to be the woman I was prior to 50.
And one thing about life is when you start searching, They say when the student is ready, the teacher will come. It's actually quoted in the book, in the body keeps the score, and I began to see things come up on my newsfeed, on my feed on social media. That's when I read the Body Keeps the Score.
He describes what's going on in your brain, how your body feels, why anxiety is the way it is, why there are so many expressions, or lemme say, manifestations of stored trauma. This is important to me because a woman who is in depression, in a domestic violence situation, Who is not able to leave?
Wherever you are and you're listening and you are in this space, this is why we're having this conversation. No matter the trauma, there can be ongoing trauma.
I don't have to wait till I totally break down. So when I broke down [00:07:00] one and a half years ago, I was on an eight month medical leave from work because when I got to work something happened that triggered this thing that had been dormant in my life. All the trauma that I've been going through that I thought I, a strong woman, I became, I was floored.
And that's why Jessica's book is so important and having Jessica talk about this stuff. Jessica, she's not just an author, she's a yoga teacher.
She has over about over 600 hours of yoga training and she does very creative forms of yoga, and she has patented some yoga practices. She has her trademark system on yoga. So, I would love for you to share a little bit about what [00:08:00] you talk about in your yoga book where we talk about how you stabilize your life and release negative emotions. Talk a little bit about it for some of us that are listening so we can apply some of these things. And then of course the best way to apply is to get the book, listen to Jessica and apply. I'll put the link to that in the show notes too.
Jessica: Thank you.
So it's really in the book, it lists some emotions that I call negative, and there aren't really any negative emotions. Mm-hmm. But the title just got so long. I, I still almost think about changing the title to releasing emotions that are no longer serving us. But it's just so long. That's longer. But it's longer.
But any emotion we don't have to really say is negative. It's just a signal that we want to work on something. And so when we're feeling an emotion and we're like, oh, I just don't wanna feel this way. [00:09:00] Anymore. This is an emotion I want to release. You would actually just look up that emotion in the book and hopefully it's there, or find the one that's the most similar to what you're feeling.
And then what it has is the essential oil that's specific for that emotion, and this is what really blows my mind. Every essential oil has an emotional side and it has a physical side. But the reason that's true is because when we leave
emotions alone or stuff them down, because those aren't appropriate emotions, that's when it gets stored in the. And so every time we have an emotion, we want to go ahead and experience and say, you know what? It was perfectly fine to have that emotion that was real, that was authentic. That's not bad, that's not negative, but I'm ready to work through that and release it.
Then you would pick out that essential oil that's next to the, the feeling word and it'll tell you [00:10:00] exactly where to apply it, and then some
So that you can kind of stretch through it and work it out of the body so it doesn't stay stored there.
JKO: Jessica is also a certified nutrition coach.
One of the things that stored trauma does is it can be manifested in obesity because we are pushing our emotions down and eating.
Some of us, we're using food to comfort ourselves. So we have people, people who your constant thought is about your next meal and your mouth is always wanting something. I know this from personal experience and I know there's many times shame associated with it, and someone who is a slim person might leave this and, oh, bad people. But if you are in my shoes, I'm going to encourage you to let go of the shame because life is in stages [00:11:00] and one never stays in one stage forever, except if they want to.
Hmm. And I don't. And that's why I'm, I'm going to ask Jessica some questions and if you're in my shoes, I'd love for you to listen so that you two can take advantage of this coaching . Jessica is a coach and she's got very, very limited space in her coaching appointments schedule. So Jessica, I am a woman who has gone through a lot of trauma in her life and I have now become morbidly obese.
And recently, I was advised to start a medication that's super expensive for me to shoot into my body. Into my body. So it's, it's, it's a, a syringe, Jesus, when you put it in your body, I don't know how often, but you're supposed to do it and it's supposed to help[00:12:00] to deal with the cravings, but it's easy to medicate. I don't want to be medicated. I don't want to medicate my way out of something that's, how long am I going to shoot that thing into my body?
Jessica: I wanna say I'm not against medicine and I think we do need it sometimes. Yes. But I think there's usually something we can try. First
JKO: My big challenge is I've tried things and they haven't worked. That's why I've been in medical weight management program for over a year and I haven't succeeded.
I've tried these things and the doctors no longer know what to do now, so they've now decided that let's go help you because this particular medication does something to your cortisol. It reduces that cause that's one of the things that helps you, makes, crave all kinds of things. My own is food. Some people have other things, but this is particular for the food [00:13:00] appetites. Because I know you're not a doctor, you're a nutrition coach and you have personal experience, I always love people who have personal experience.
Cause they know some of my challenges. They've felt some of it. Could you like coach me through this situation? I know that medicine has impact. Can I try something else before I put myself under the, they say the surgeon scalpel, or under the syringe of this medication.
Maybe talk me through something that I could try and how long .
Jessica: Sure. So what I would do first with a client, and I, I think you've probably done this since you've worked with a medical professional, but this is where I would start, is I would want someone to journal everything they eat for the first three-ish days, but without judgment, without shame.
Literally knowing this is just gonna be data. Just as you look at a math problem, you wouldn't get [00:14:00] emotional about a math problem. So just to be honest with yourself, wow, I didn't know I was doing this. Oh, I thought I was eating more broccoli. I was really surprised to learn this just for the data. And I think that's a great place for someone to start and just kind of be honest with yourself.
Okay. This is where I wanna be. And the next step, I wouldn't say, you can't have that anymore, you can't eat this anymore. Because as soon as you tell yourself you can't have that, that's all you think about. And so if it's chocolate or dessert or potatoes or bread, all of a sudden, That's consuming your mind and you're thinking about it all the time.
I used to, cuz I have done the no carb thing, and let me just say that the reason people lose a lot of weight quickly on a low carb is it's carbohydrate. And so you're no longer. Pouring [00:15:00] the water with a carbohydrate. And so it's just water loss and that's why it comes back so fast. When we add carbs back, it's, we lost the water and then we keep the the water again.
So it's not a long term fix. Cutting carbohydrates. Now if someone has, you know, blood sugar issues and a doctor has asked them to do that, that's a different situation. I'm talking about just restricting a diet for ourselves. Mm-hmm. And so what I have found in this past year of weight loss is when I look at what I was eating mm-hmm.
What is something else that I still really love that I could switch out? Here and there. So for example, I was eating hummus. Hummus is great for you, and I was eating hummus with carrots except for I would switch to tortilla chips every once in a while and. When I looked at tortilla chips, am I really getting any nutrition from there?
It's getting a [00:16:00] lot of salt from there. It's high calorie. I'm not necessarily one who counts calories, so I don't wanna come across as that, but it was really easy for me to be like, you know what? You love the carrots and you love the hummus. Let's just stick with carrots and hummus. And when you go to a Mexican restaurant, that's when you have the tortilla.
Yeah, so anywhere in there where you can make a swap or add something like, oh my gosh, I didn't know I was eating this. If I keep eating this and keep eating this, but add a side salad, I want think about adding things to it. So I don't want to think about really taking things away. Mm-hmm. What can you add to your diet that's gonna give you more vitamins and minerals and all those nutrients?
And when our body is fed well and we get all those vitamins and nutrients and minerals, it doesn't think about food as much because [00:17:00] it feels like you've actually fed it. When we eat those empty things without vitamins and nutrients, it doesn't even feel fed because it hasn't gotten what it.
JKO: Awesome.
Jessica: So I can start with those two steps.
JKO: Okay. I like the fact that you have now shifted my thinking about why recording the first three days is important. It's not to punish me. Like someone like me, I don't really like paper. Something else people do, they take pictures of the food, so you know what you took. But I even take picture of every little tiny snack, which my mouth that's in constant motion will take. Like I run to the cupboard and take how many granola bars in a day by the time you count it.
You know, so that kind of thing. So it's very good. It's not a punishment. I know for someone like me, it's scary to have to face. It's just the same way when they say, for you to learn how to budget, go [00:18:00] check your income and how much you're spending, just track it for some time.
It's always very scary. I want to see how to be more courageous. So that terror that makes you unable to face your life, like track your food, what are the things we can do to surmount that terror, that is a normal part of most humans when you tell them to go track your food?
Jessica: Yeah. I know, it is scary, and I think I'm gonna go with an affirmation here. This was important to me this past year because I was a Yoyo Dieter from probably 26 till 40, and then I was just like, I don't care anymore.
I'm just gonna be what I'm gonna be. And then I accidentally saw my weight at the doctor and I was like, okay, that's not healthy, and health is my top priority. So I knew I had to change it, but I had to do it [00:19:00] differently. This time I could not beat myself into submission anymore. And so what I did, Anytime I was stepping on a scale or anytime I wanted to be honest with myself.
So maybe the journaling is, I would say to myself, I love myself where I am. I love myself where I was. I love myself where I'm going.
JKO: Oh, I like that.
Jessica: And if that's too much, try something similar. Awesome. And so anytime I was looking at any type of. I love myself where I am. I love myself where I was. I love myself where I'm going.
JKO: I love it.
I heard that mantra of yours in. Jessica is also a podcaster. Sorry I'm not giving you all about Jessica at one Go.
Your Metabolic Reset is the name of her podcast, and I'm going to also put that in the show notes, her latest [00:20:00] episode on November 3rd or fourth. That's the episode is about this story. This what she just shared here about her weight loss journey. So that mantra came in really handy.
So having a personal affirmation, I listen a lot to Joel Osteen and why many people listen to Joel Osteen is because when you listen to Joel Osteen 's messages, you leave motivated and he always says, we should say, have an affirmation. So this is not an airy, fairy concept.
Joyce Meyer said it. And it's scientifically proven that when you speak out the words, your ears hear it, your brain registers it, and it helps you believe it more. But when you say, I'm going to think about it in my heart. Mm-hmm. Not [00:21:00] working. So when you say those three words, when.
Affirm yourself that way. What happens to you? How do you feel?
Jessica: It took a little while to change. It took a little while. Mm-hmm. I was very disappointed in myself when I accidentally was on my weight at the doctor. And, but I had just read a book that was saying, if you don't love yourself where you are now, you're not going to love yourself where you're going anyway.
So part of the work is loving yourself right where you are. And so I really took that to heart and it, I don't think it took me as long as I thought it was gonna take. But I would say I repeated it quite often and then I, I did, I was like, this is just a number. This is just data that's showing that we are on the path to health, not necessarily the path to weight loss, even though that was part of it, but I just kept telling myself, we're [00:22:00] on the path to better health and.
Path to better health. You can still love yourself where you are and when you look back, you can still love that person who ended up there. Something happened and the body signaled, Hey, I need some help. We're not at our optimal health. Can you help me? Like my body was asking, can you help me? And I was like, I love you body and I'm here to help you and let, let's go on this journey and I'm gonna love you the entire.
JKO: I love that because when you talk about that, being able to talk to yourself, we always want the microwave method of getting things done. That's why am falling under the syringe to help me lose weight fast. But there was something the doctor said.
Even when you are taking this, you still have to eat healthy. You still have to have to add practices, change your [00:23:00] lifestyle, but now you have support. So those affirmations are like that extra support. That does not mean that the terror is going to run away forever. Like Jessica has said, we do it repeatedly, repeatedly, and we do it every day.
Every time you listen to Joel Osteen 's message he starts with the affirmation in, in church, every Sunday, and they have it on their website, they have it on their podcast, that affirmation. So you keep affirming and you can change the affirmation. You can change it. It doesn't have to be this one, but there's something about this affirmation that Jessica uses.
Why self-love is so important. I looked at myself. I'm much, much, much bigger than I've ever been in my life, but I look back at my life and I [00:24:00] was never happy with my weight, even when I was a size eight. So I, I was a size eight and I did not like myself.
Every time I saw myself, I saw myself, I'm not good ,fat. Now that I am rounded and a ball, I love myself more. I see myself and I say, I did it. You, you're so beautiful. But when I was a size eight, I never saw. So it's very important that we do the affirmations and I'm now going to take us back a little bit to yoga because how does that help you with that process of learning to accept yourself?
Jessica: So the, the part about yoga that really fits in and don't feel like you have to do yoga to make this successful, but I do kind of wanna just touch on it a little bit. Yoga is about turning inward and listening to your body and [00:25:00] then loving yourself where you are. So if one day you do a balance pose and it's like the most perfect balance pose.
Then you love yourself there.
The next day you can't even seem to get up on one foot. You still love yourself exactly where you are cuz you showed up exactly where you were and you're like, wow. I just love you so much for showing, thank you for listening to me. This is what my body's saying. Thank you for listening to me and giving me what I what I needed.
Even though you're probably having a bit of an off day, you still showed up for. And it just completely changes the mindset to listening to the body and giving it what it needs. And your best is good enough for your body every time. It's just so grateful you showed up for it.
JKO: I love it.
I don't really know a [00:26:00] lot about yoga, so I want to ask, do you have, is there breath work?
Jessica: So it is about connecting the movement with the breath, and I was a breath holder for. I guess I'm still probably a breath. Like I'll find myself like, how long has it been since you took a breath? And I'm like, take this huge breath. Like, we were just holding your breath for like 10.
What were you doing? And so that's what drew me to yoga. The first time I did yoga, it was seriously the breath. I was like, you know, breathing is amazing. It feels really good to breathe. Like it was like mind blowing to me. So that's really why I stayed with it was like, wow, breathing feels great.
JKO: Yeah. Like that. Like that because the body keeps the score. Totally. You know? About that breathing,
Jessica: it talks a lot about breath and you know, all, all religions have [00:27:00] that breath thread through it. And in the Bible it was breathing life into us. And so breath is life, breath is our energy, and connecting with your breath is connecting to our higher power.
To me, it took a long time for me to get there from, oh, Oh, I like breathing too. I'm connecting to my higher power when I'm taking deep breaths, but it, it is the opposite ends of that spectrum. Breathing good. I'm now closer to God through through breath.
Wow.
JKO: That will sock me in.
Anything that would bring me closer to God. Hi. I wanna do, and just so you know, this is not, again, airy fairy, because anytime we talk about yoga and all those things, people think, oh, please, they come again. And I was one of those people, I used to think that when they talk about meditation, it's getting into the a negative spirit, rem, blah, blah, blah.
Until it helped me. That's how [00:28:00] I got out of the anxiety.
Jessica: Well, you know, and if people are struggling with that, you can call it prayer. And even in the Bible it says prayer and meditation, you know? So it's okay to connect it in your brain to make it feel good in your body. It's okay to call that prayer.
JKO: The person who taught me about meditation said it wasn't about chanting. It wasn't what people thought. You just say, oh yeah, something like that. It was mostly the breath work. It started with the breath, breath, breath. And when I read, the Body Keeps the Score. The first part that scientific is really talking about.
How breathing calms. Your brain. It tells your brain, I am safe. The anxiety is I am not safe all the time. I am not safe. Even when nothing is happening around me, inside me, I am not safe. But when I [00:29:00] learn to breathe, I began to feel calm. My life was calmer, and I always talk about something.
Listen to your heart. I, let's talk about listening to your heart, because your heart is your very own g p s mm-hmm. For you to navigate the journey of your life. But how can I listen to my heart when I'm anxious, when I'm worried, when I'm scared?
Next week, we will continue our conversation with Jessica as she tells us how the power of being present can transform our lives and improve our mental or what I call mind health,
Thank you for being part of this episode of Messy Can’t Stop Her. I hope you found Jessica’s tips on releasing trauma in our bodies and dealing its manifestation as obesity valuable and workable into your daily routine. I know that I did!
Remember, healing is a continuous process, and it's important to prioritize self-love, self-care and self-compassion as you navigate your own healing path.
Please take what you can incorporate easily into your own wellness practices; start with the low hanging fruit so that you do not get overwhelmed. Do let us know how you do. If you’d like to reach out to Jessica about her coaching services, I’ve put a link to her contact in the show notes.
Please don’t forget to subscribe to our podcast to stay updated on new episodes; also share it with those who will benefit from it and leave us a review if you found this content helpful. Thank you for being a part of our podcast sisterhood. For more intimate conversations and the love covering of the sisterhood, please accept my personal invitation to our Messy Can’t Stop Her Sisterhood Facebook group.
Remember to take care of yourself and prioritize your well-being. If you do this, messy won’t stop you.
Thank you so much for listening and see you next time!