Sense of Soul - Overcoming Trauma and Addiction

Episode Date: March 5, 2021

Today we have with us
author and addiction & trauma specialist Kevin MacNevin Clark who after getting sober himself and having triumph over trauma, he found himself studying Kahlil Gibran’s book ���The Prophet.” Kevin was then inspired and wrote his own book, “The New Prophet.”  Kevin presents deep meditative truths through the use of thoughtful metaphors and imagery around feelings such as guilt, shame, diversity, collective trauma and more that are relevant to current times as people are becoming more in touch with their emotions. Kevin found deep purpose through his work in the behavioral health field, specializing in treating addiction and trauma. He founded Excelsior Addiction Services LLC in 2020 and resides in Virginia with his family, living by his guiding philosophy that there are no hopeless cases. To learn more please follow Kevin on Facebook and visit www.excelsioraddictionservices.com Check out The New Prophet By Kevin MacNevin Clark https://www.thenewprophet.org/ Or order his amazing book available now through Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Balboa Press. Please also visit www.mysenseofsoul.com and check out our amazing coaching workshops we offer  

Welcome to the Sense of Soul podcast. We are your hosts, Shanna and Mandy. Grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Today we have with us author Kevin McNevin-Clark. He found deep purpose through his work in the behavioral health field, specializing in treating addiction and trauma. He holds a degree in psychology and he has been on his own path of awakening since 2005, getting sober and entering recovery in 2006. Congratulations. He founded Excelsior Addiction Services in 2020 and resides in Virginia with his family, living by his guiding philosophy that there are no hopeless cases. The New Prophet is his first book, and he's already currently working on his second one. We are super excited to have you today.

Welcome, Kevin, to Sense of Soul, and thank you for taking time to just jam out and hang with us today. We appreciate you. Thanks for having me. Of course. I would love to hear a little bit about your story, you know, your experience, strength, and hope. Yeah, I mean, I started drinking when I was 13. I've been like a really emotionally sensitive person my whole life really big and loud feelings and you know there was adverse life experiences of course that kind of played into it but by the time drugs became available to me it was like the sky parted and the angels sang and I knew that this is something that I wanted the next next 10 years of my life, I spent kind of diving deeper and deeper into that oblivion and just getting really lost. What I kind of consider the wilderness

of spiritual sickness, you know, what it was like is what it's like for anybody. But for me, the progressive part was pretty rapid. I just felt like my soul was kind of slipping away, but I always had this like really healthy conscience at the same time, kind of even probably played into my shame story more because I just felt like extreme guilt for like wasting away my potential. It was like just that shame cycle just feeding itself. By the time I was 19, I was getting into legal troubles. By the time I was 21, that's 2005. That's when I had, what was my spiritual awakening? I was just at the darkest place I have ever been, darker than when I got sober, for sure. I just remember that deep feeling in me, that yearning to be loved and to go home, you know, and I had people that loved

me and I had a home to go to, but I was so disconnected from that. And again, like that's like the spiritual sickness to me. Hadn't slept or eaten food for probably four or five days or something. I was using all, you know, a whole myriad of drugs, kind of just playing pharmacy with myself. And I went into the woods behind my parents house, because for some reason, I thought this is where I need to go. And it was there that I saw a Boy Scout, right? And the Boy Scout told me like to get to where you need to go, you need to cross two rivers and be careful not to stray to too much of the side streams or you're going to get lost. And he

told me other stuff. But like, literally, that's all I remember. Start like thinking I'm supposed to go somewhere like a literal place. And you know, what ended up happening was, I got hot. So I took off my shirt, off my shoes I just I ended up naked pretty much what happened because when I got in the water my sweatpants came off and so I was just like you know 100% naked guy not in his right mind in the woods just really wanted to get back to a place that's you know not a physical place I guess eventually I realized like I'm not going to wherever I think I'm supposed to be going to. And I went and knocked on some, some guy's door and I asked for help and asked for a blanket

really. And he gave me one. And I knew I was like, I know you're going to go call the police and everything like that. And so he did. And I went to the hospital. I didn't accept any kind of help. I remember when I was leaving the hospital, one of the doctors told me, you know, to take it a day at a time. I don't know if I'd ever heard it before, but for whatever reason that like planted that seed with me, I had that, you know, it talks about in the literature that solemn oath we make. And I swear every cell of my body, man, I'm not going to use anymore. I'm done. But I had no idea like what I was up against or like how powerless I was or like the way like my addictive mind was working against me all the time. So I got out that day and I got high.

I got drunk the next day. Two weeks later, I was asking my mom to take me there instead of like going in the back of a police car. Then I was ready to accept psychiatric help or therapists or whatever, but I still wasn't like trying to go to 12 step rooms because I knew that's where alcohol went to die. And that kind of, you know, it was the only thing kind of holding me together, or so I thought. So over the next year and a half, I really got to watch the way my mind worked against me. You know, I tried just beer and weed. Couldn't live with my parents anymore

because they're like, listen, if you're not going to like do anything about this, you got to go. And I went, I lived in Radford, Virginia, which is a party school. It's like a cesspool really. Oh no. I was like in the deepest depression of my life after the event that happened. Shortly after I got there, there was a big bowl of Southern Comfort and there were straws and I got one and I blacked out and I came to locked in a room by myself with cocaine. And like at that point, I just like don't care about anything. I just hit like the fucking point kind of self-destruction. So then, you know, like I said, then I moved back to Northern Virginia again and I lived with the guy who actually sold me my first bag of weed. I moved in with him. And after about, yeah, after

about six months, the police came and they knocked down my door and that saved my life essentially. And I got, you know, December 14th, 2006 is when I got sober. That's when I went to jail and, you know, my family, they came to visit me through the glass. I was facing up to 40 years in prison. And I was like, whoa, this is like a long time for this stuff. They're not playing around. I saw how broken they were. And they probably looked at me like that a lot of times before. But my vision was always so clouded that I couldn't see it.

So when I saw that hurt in them, something inside of me broke. And again, to refer back to the literature that you know, it's like the chink in the armor of the ego that allows in the sunlight of the spirit. I think that's kind of what happened there. And that's when I went back to the dorm where I'm living with like 30 other guys. And they called for the weekly AA meeting. I asked the guy, Hey, where are you going? And this is one of the three men that saved my life. There's three wise men that came into my life and they saved my life all at the exact right time. And Keith, he was one of them. This is a guy who in a blackout blown off half his face with a shotgun. He's who I did my first fifth step with and like really showed me I'm not alone. He was just like

this loving guy. He'd already been down the road for a couple of years. He'd already been in recovery before. He was working with a sponsor on the outside. He invited me to the meeting. I said, no, that's cool. Maybe next week. And he came back. He gave me the book, Came to Believe. And I read that book and I've never had to read it again since. And I crawled into the meetings instead of being like kicked in or pushed in or whatever before.

And first I just projected my own inner reality onto everyone around me. And it was just a bunch of angry people in there. That's all I saw. Then I started to see the lightness that like the volunteers kind of brought in and I decided I did want that and one of those volunteers was Jim Jim and Keith have both passed away clean and sober Jim with like over 40 years sobriety he was a world war ii vet and he was just like dripping with wisdom and he was like the grandfather figure that I probably always needed and he taught me a lot like couldn't open a door with a closed fist I remember that was like the first lesson he ever taught me I went into treatment I did six months of treatment and

that's where I met the third guy and that was Carl Street my counselor he gave me a safe space you know and I was able to like trust a man again and just like genuinely showed up with compassion and inspired me to be a therapist. Those three guys saved my life. And that's what it was like. That's what happened. And what's like now, I mean, I'm free. I love myself. Got a beautiful family, started a successful business. I wrote a pretty awesome book. I think I'm free and I love myself. Those are like the two biggest things. And I know who I am. Congratulations. I'm about to cry. I have two questions. So what's up with you alcoholics always taking off your damn shoes. Mandy,

I swear to God, whenever she'd be drinking, she didn't have no shoes on and then second of all the boy that you saw in the woods was he by himself i mean did he just show up out of nowhere yeah yeah i crossed over like the creek that i always played him when i was a kid and uh he was just standing there it wasn't like voices you hear or shadows you see it was like this person i actually had a conversation with did you know him no i don't i don't think i did my mom thinks it was a spirit guide you know yeah that was my thought too when you were telling the story yeah for sure and then why do we take off our shoes well my dad he used to always tell me to take off my shoes he would show up like pick me up for my friend's houses like in the middle of winter with no shoes on like drive his jeep

barefoot like come to the door with no shoes on i remember thinking of him saying that but like when i was running through the woods with no shoes on i really felt like i could feel the beat of the earth and my sponsor like who i've been working with over the years today he's like someone who if he suggests something to me i do it and one time i remember he told me it's like take off your shoes and go stand out in the grass and i did it you know so i mean I think it's just great it's a good way to ground yourself too so it is maybe unconsciously we know that you know I think that yeah my mom said from the day I was born I never liked shoes that I would walk out to my car in the winter time with no shoes on whenever I could get away without shoes I would I've just never liked them you know, I listened to your story and I don't even flinch.

And that's what happens to us when, you know, we're in recovery because we hear stories all the time. And we're just not shocked because I could totally see myself getting butt naked and running through the woods and ending up knocking on someone's door. I mean, I was there. I think one of the last times I drank, I tried beating up like nine paramedics like we are completely out of our mind yeah it's easy to happen yeah when did you read the prophet and why did that book inspire you to write the new prophet early in the recovery I read a lot of stuff and I did a lot I think I've always probably been what you would consider a seeker even before I started using drugs I think that was part of the seeking

and I was going to the used bookstore that's this giant used bookstore in Manassas where I live I think I was buying a Dr. Dyer book probably on inspiration see like the prophet it's a black book with golden boss lettering on the side I didn't even know what it was even though like my mom knew what it was clearly and a lot of people knew what it was but something about it like spoke to me so i picked it up because it was like probably like a dollar 50 or something you know and i read it there was stuff in it that landed with me enough because i wanted to read it again later and usually i I don't read books twice. It gave me that much to where I wanted to study it. So every Tuesday I meet with a group of guys that I've met through recovery and we pretty much get vulnerable with each other, check in with each other and

study different books. Some of them are more experiential, like The Presence Process by Michael Brown. Right now we're finally like going through the 12 steps Russell Brand's book with each other you know we went through the Dow first which was that took like almost two years I think because we're taking a little bit at a time and like really going over it in depth so yeah and then the prophet I think was after the Dow and it was after we studied it again immediately I started picking up a lot more than I had the first time. Even once I read like the introduction to it, I started just like seeing a lot deeper into the metaphors. Can you kind of explain to the listeners what that book is kind of about?

Yeah. So written by Khalil Gibran, Lebanese American poet published in 1928. I think he wrote it in 1923. It is a book about this dude and he's about to get on a ship to go home. And I took that as a metaphor for death when I read it the second time. I don't know if he meant it that way or not. He's about to get on the ship and all these people from the city of Orphalese come up and they like a merchant's like, tell me about buying and selling because he'd pretty much been this sage who'd been like observing them for a while. And they, like a merchant, tell me about buying and selling because he'd pretty much been this sage who'd been observing them for a while. And they really wanted to kind of gather his wisdom from him before he departed. Each excerpt in there is on marriage, which actually I had read at my wedding, on children, on buying and selling, on prison. So it's all these major parts of of our life and it's a deeper spiritual

wisdom he uses a lot of like imagery and metaphor in order to kind of like carry that message i saw that the director of lion's king actually made this a movie did Yeah. I didn't know that. Yeah. It's a kid's movie. It's a cartoon. Oh, maybe I did hear that. I saw like a clip of it and I was like, oh my gosh, this is beautiful. So yeah, I can't wait to show my kids. Yeah. That's awesome. I know. So what makes your book different? So my book, it's a counselor on his deathbed. I just go straight for like this guy's actually dying. And his son, it's the conversation between him and his son. So it's a shah and Ezekiel. And Ezekiel's gathering the wisdom for the town because they all kind of wanted to like get it from his dad he knew his dad just wanted to be with like him like in his like final days um because he'd spent like his life like in service to other people too so it's just this back and forth between the father and the son and the topics are much more uh i guess you would say like emotionally evolved topics or stuff that's more modernized it's things that are people are

talking about now that they weren't necessarily talking about at least not in nearly the same way back then so it's more of the inner human experience than like the outer human experience i guess so just like the emotional part i talk about it in the book i wrote i mentioned like the age of ego crumbling. And that's where I am very hopeful that that is where we are. And that we're coming to like a more emotionally aware culture globally. Amen. Yeah. That was one of our, you know, very first episodes was soul versus ego. Yeah. Because I don't even think some of our world knows the difference. I love how you say that the age of the ego crumbling. Yeah. That's, that's awesome. I'm going to ask you to do something.

If it's uncomfortable for you, please say no. Do you have your book there in front of you? Could you maybe just like let the universe guide you or, you know, open it up and maybe read a part that you want to share totally let's see so what is therapy it is said it is a series of getting lost and finding yourself when healing trauma if the body is hot dive head first into the pool and begin swimming but if the body is hot, dive headfirst into the pool and begin swimming. But if the body is cold, wade into the water, feet first. When you're near the depths, it is time to swim. For some wounds

will turn the body numb, whereas some wounds set sensation afire. In therapy, a safe place must be provided. Ask permission before examining wounds. True healing addresses the wound itself, though often symptoms of the hurt must be treated first to determine its origin. Two tools you must have are empathy and compassion, but do not use pliers when the job is calling for a drill. The therapist shows the person seeking counsel where the weak spots in his walls are and helps that person develop the strength necessary to break down those very walls, for they must come down from the inside. The therapist, by invitation, travels with his client into the darkest places of the mind,

shining a light and providing a map so that the client can himself find his way out of the darkness. Therapy is an art, the art of piecing back together pottery that has been shattered, in some cases into many minuscule fragments, each sharp, beautiful, but razor sharp. The vase must be restored in order to hold flowers again. The skilled therapist is a mind mechanic. He knows which gears perform what functions, and there is an assortment of tools for different repairs. The greatest tool is no tool at all. It is simple human connection, empathy.

It is one human being creating space for the other and being human. The intuitive counselor is a blindfolded archer. As a blindfolded archer, I shoot confidently. I sense the bullseye before releasing the arrow from the bow. I let go, surrendering to the creative flow of the universe, the arrowhead pulled by divine guidance. I take off my blindfold in time to see the target hit. I watch the unraveling of awakening from the inside out,

the physical jolt as the somatic system integrates the hidden memory. Cognition engines out of use fire up, and as they do, you see shock in the face of the target, bewilderment. They begin their feeble attempt to explain that for which words will not suffice. Before too much easily understood can be spoken, enter the waterworks. True beauty is when they set their weapons to the side, and with the fences fully down, the floodgates of suppressed pain open up. An exodus of tears flows, sobbing, feeling for healing. Their inner child is acknowledged, truly seen, and given safe passage to join them in the present moment. This is the healing magic, the wizardship of intuitive counseling.

The intuitive counselor teaches the student to the mastery of the present moment. Wow, I love that part, Kevin. That is beautiful. Thanks. Thank you for sharing that. No problem. Thanks for letting me share it.

Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I tried to write the whole book pretty much. Have you ever, you've heard of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron? She's in recovery too. I have not. So it I tried to write the whole book pretty much. Have you ever, you've heard of The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron? She's in recovery too. I have not. So it's a 12-week process. It's the spiritual path to creativity and to unblock your creative self,

which is a lot of inner child stuff, really. But you write every day. So for the first seven weeks of that process, I wrote this book. And the idea is you don't think, you just write. You just follow the pen. It was pretty cool because I didn't have to do too much actual thinking which might have taken away from it probably gosh and that's so hard to do because I know for myself my ego gets in the way a lot yeah in editing that's when like my ego starts to come up for me it was a lot about how much do I trust myself and know this is

exactly the way I want it to be said even if it's not like the way this person's taken the English language you know perceived yeah when you were younger did you write were you shocked at yourself when you wrote this were you like holy shit where is this coming from like I'm freaking amazing I wrote when I was younger I mean I think my dad he's got writer and my uncle does my brother so pretty much like brother is who I always considered to be the writer. That was actually one of like the things my sensor or my like inner critic held me back because I always thought, well, my brother's just like amazing writer. So I'm not really like a writer. But I wrote poetry when I was younger and was pleased after the fact that I wrote it

when I would read it. And I'd be like, this is actually is actually good like objectively this is good stuff your mom must be so incredibly proud of you she was you know you mentioned yeah you mentioned earlier that she said spirit guide so your mom I'm assuming and I could be wrong was open spiritually. Yeah my mom was great I mean because like I said I had anger issues as a kid just my emotions just ran rampant and she taught me stuff like deep breathing all the stuff that came back later in life she taught me to draw my feelings there's this really funny story when I was probably like four and she was in the kitchen making dinner and I was drawing my anger at this like kids table in the other. And then she just heard me say, Mom, how do you spell bitch? I was just probably just red and black crayons everywhere.

Why do you think you had so much anger as a young kid? I did. I kind of did too. I don't know. I would think I was born angry almost, you know, me too. Maybe it came from like a past life sort of thing. Maybe that's it. I don't know. Shanna last night had sent me some chapters out of the book. And if I was going to be totally honest, at first I was a little shocked. Holy shit. This man is in his feelings. Like this is, you know, and I'd seen a picture of you. And of course my ego has this idea of what you're going to be like. And I'm like, you know, you've got this very manly man. And then this beautiful, like poetic page she sent me. And I was like, this is why I love recovery. Because you see that happen with so many men, especially who feel like they are not supposed to show their feelings. And so it's just beautiful for so many different reasons. Yeah, it's been a process

learning how to be okay. Because even my dad would tell me it's okay to for so many different reasons. Yeah, it's been a process learning how to be okay. Because even my dad would tell me it's okay to cry in front of people. But what he would show me, a man like holding back his tears, like when really sad stuff was happening. So I learned like what he showed me, not what he told me. It has been a journey. But that's where like emotional sensitivity turns out to actually be a gift. And when I hear that people are like reading the book, finding themselves in it and like crying because like they're able to like identify with the feeling

stuff so well then I know I did my job yeah so do you feel like you're an empath son is that yeah I would I mean I don't call myself an empath but I think my therapist would say that I am she always talks about how much empathy I have yeah and you know one of the things that I found being an empath when I was able to break down those walls and when I was able to really truly sense my soul hence our podcast name yeah I felt free I felt fucking free free from the world's conditions free from any drugs or prescription medicines or anybody else's holds that they had on me I literally felt like I broke those chains and it was just such a freedom yeah and that's I think soul and emotions have a lot to do with each other because I mean sometimes when I'm explaining like spirituality or to people that that word is the major turnoff to it's like well think of it as

this like spiritual fitness is essentially the same thing as like emotional stability because when people are talking about oh i wasn't spiritually fit today i was getting angry in traffic you know they're really just you know they're talking about emotional dysregulation so i think there's like a very strong connection between emotional sensitivity and our souls and like that's what connects us all right that empathy I mean that's like if I hurt me I hurt you if I help you I help me if I help me I help you so yeah um Shanna and, you know, are big on teaching people what an empath is. But you're right, a lot of people get stuck on that vocabulary and those different words, and we don't want people to just like feel like they need to label themselves, it's just more about teaching them the tools that they can get to protect themselves, and we always go back to self lovelove, which is one of the things

that you mentioned. What does self-love mean to you? And how did you get there? Like, and how would you, how would you describe to someone that was sitting in front of you as you as their therapist, what's that first step in self-love? First step. Let's see. I mean, yeah, I guess the first step is really allowing. I mean, for me, I guess opening up to receiving love from other people is a big part of it. And because I wasn't able to give that to myself at first, by any means. And just like, you know, like, sometimes we need people to love us until we can love ourselves. I think forgiveness is a huge part of it. And I think the most important part of forgiveness is allowing myself to feel unresolved hurts, you know, integrating trauma as a part of like forgiveness of self and others, like that freedom that you guys are talking about. I think self love, I think forgiveness leads to self love. And I think self love and forgiveness translate to freedom.love I think forgiveness leads to self-love and I think self-love and forgiveness translate to freedom and I think when you get there you just want to give that to everybody

and show everybody that I don't know yeah yeah I remember when I felt it I wanted everyone to know everyone to experience it I was like holy shit if i can do it anybody can so everybody needs to get on this well yeah you're comfortable in your own skin again you don't care what anybody else thinks you know who you know your truth and you stand in it uh nothing shakes your integrity like if someone tells you to do something and you're already like in self-love and self-governed then it wouldn't matter if it's the wrong thing you're just not going to do you're not capable of doing it yep and that's so true thank you for putting words to that because i always try to explain to people like once you have integrity and you know your intentions are in the right place no one can shake you you know now don't get me wrong sometimes i

have demons come back that say um you know i'm crazy crazy or I'm not enough, but it's easier to pull myself out of those dark places because I have that self-love now. Yeah. You can see through it. It's a little more transparent of an illusion than it was before. But you know, you said something that sometimes we need to let others love us until we can love ourselves. That is true. I mean, isn't that why we're all here on earth together? We just sat here and said, oh, I don't need anyone else to love me because I just can love myself through life. You know, that's not going to work.

We're here to have that human connection. Yeah. We're here to give it away just as much as we are to give it to ourselves. 100%. We need each other. And I mean, that's why it's so important that I believe that there's no hopeless cases, because like you said, my mom, that was probably like the biggest thing she gave me. She never stopped believing in who I am. You know, even though I was like a turned into like a career criminal, it's like totally like way off the path of like who I am.

You know, she knew I wasn't the monster that I had become convinced to believing that I was, you know, and I needed people like that, you know, otherwise I probably would have gone like, you know, back to like a crossing a line that I may not have been able to return from. Yeah. You know, it's funny. It's, it's I was going to say funny, but not funny. It's it's the same for me. My, you know, I was on the streets in Vegas. I had just gotten out of a detox and I had nowhere to go. And I had no phone, no money, no license. I ended up going into a sober living home for like two days. And I called my father and he said, I still believe in you. And he drove from Colorado to Vegas to pick me up. And that road trip home changed my life. You know, my dad's very dry,

but his messages were like, see that mountain right there babe one day you're gonna be standing on top of it I mean just little things like that the whole road trip home and he was at that time one of the few people that still believed I could get out of the darkness that I had created yeah thank god you had him literally i died once when i was drunk too i blew a 0.57 and they had to resuscitate me i don't remember that one gee yeah how do you even survive that right miracles that's why a miracle can always happen they're always happening everything i use that quote in my book the einstein quote though nothing's a miracle or so everything's a miracle and i tie it into the whole a principle of don't quit before the next miracle so if you believe nothing's a miracle, though everything's a miracle. And then I tie it into the whole AA principle of don't quit before the next miracle. So if you believe everything's a miracle,

then like you never quit and you just persevere through whatever. Ooh, that's going to be a sticky note on my wall. Yeah. It's in the perseverance part. You know, at the beginning of the podcast, you said, while you were telling your story, you said that the skies opened up and that the sky parted and the angels sang. And at first I cringed when you said that, because I'm like, no, that was more like the sky parted and the like demons sang. But that's also part of when you go into AA rooms and they say, I'm a grateful alcoholic. When you first get there, you're like,

fuck you. There's nothing to be grateful about. about I don't even I can't even comprehend that you just said that but really maybe the angels were singing for you because look where it has taken you now I don't uh wish that anything had happened differently from the abuse to anything obviously it'd be nice if I didn't have to have suffered through some of the stuff I did. But I think I needed to in order to get to where I am. Like, I really believe that. And I believe that it helps me help other people and gives me like a strong ability to help other people because I just I've been all the dark places your mind can go. And I found a way out of it. Yeah, I don't believe that anyone's hopeless at all. I think that's a major error and judgment

to think that anyone could be because I just know how, I mean, statistically I should be hopeless for sure. They used to do a global assessment of functioning. When I first met my psychiatrist, she said I was a five out of a hundred. I was like, that's bad. And I was so cute. Nobody in Northern Virginia would even see me. I had to go all the way to DC to see a psychiatrist I know if like I can get better than I really believe anybody can it can be hard because I worked with severe mental illness and that's that's difficult but you just have to change your expectations of like what progress looks like sometimes and take a step back further from the picture so that you can actually see it. Because

sometimes when you're standing up really close to it, it looks like nothing's changing at all. That's a strong message right there. Thank you for that. I needed to hear that today. Yeah. Well, that's what I learned when I was working with him because it was a lot different than working in an addiction treatment where somebody can have a light bulb moment and like their whole life change. You know, if you're dealing with someone who's had schizophrenia for a long time it's like the goal is to keep them like okay like are they showering more than they used to be or are they staying out of the hospital you know that kind of stuff and you start to see like are they smiling more you know anything but I couldn't see it like had to really step back but it's there you know, anything, but I couldn't see it, like, had to really step back, but it's there,

you know. And I think that goes with anyone that's trying to change, that sometimes we might put all these expectations on how far we think they're, they should progress in their shift and in their change, and that's not for us to judge, and we And maybe sometimes we need to step back and realize that, you know, it's those small victories. You're so, like, relaxed and cool. You know, I was reading your stuff and reading your reviews. A lot of people have made that comment about you. And I think it's great. I don't want to feel like you're judged by somebody who's like, so tell me, how did this happen?

You know, you're like, hey, I've been there. And just sticking to who you are your experience as your vulnerability and then sharing it and helping others I think it's awesome so glad that you finally opened up a place can you tell us about this place yeah well right now it's just uh I do outpatient counseling so it's just individual and group counseling for people and you know still struggling with addiction or an early recovery. I also work at a rehab, you know, for a little bit more. If someone's been more of an intense situation, that's what we're kind of dealing with over there.

That's Recovery Unplugged. We use music a lot. It's like their tagline, music is our medicine. I've worked there for a few years, but I kind of like working for myself. So I'm doing more of that as time goes on. It's just easier to stay true to who I am, if that makes sense. So Excelsior Addiction Services, we do, I mean, like I said, individual counseling, group counseling. I'm a certified trauma professional. So I believe that's like a big part of it. I started working in addiction and I was like, you can't treat addiction without

treating trauma. I can get them to go to meetings maybe. But like sometimes people are coming in and like demons are jumping out of the box and it's almost like bordering on irresponsible if I don't have some kind of trauma informed care. Cause I can't just be like, well, put it back in the box. You know, it's like, well, let's work with it for a little bit. And then maybe we can put it back in the box. It was interesting when I went to my therapist, she pointed out that because I had these huge traumatic events happen in my life, like near death experiences that I had like this misconception of what trauma could actually really be. She, you know, when she made me do my trauma timeline, she was like, do you not see all this trauma that you had when you were younger? And

I'm like, that's not trauma. What are you talking about? She's like, because you're comparing it to like dying. And so she reminded me, you know, people's trauma all looks different. And who are we to judge each other's trauma, right? Like trauma for me could be as big as a near death experience, but trauma to someone else could be something like a car accident. Yeah. Trauma is just kind of one of those things that's all over the scale. Yeah.

I think a lot of people have misconceptions about that. They think if they weren't like, didn't suffer some like extreme abuse or something or, you know, intense neglect, then they didn't have trauma in their lives. But I mean, an example for me that I'd never considered trauma until I had a massage therapist that told me it was trauma. Cause I definitely believe in massage therapy too, as a way of like being in your body and, and healing trauma really because it's someone like giving you loving touch to your body and that's just where the trauma stored so I have this scar on my neck because when I was two I had like all these cysts in my neck

and I never considered that like them cutting open my neck and like sticking a camera and reaching their hand in there was traumatic at all I just didn't even think of it maybe that's why i was angry well in you two edmr right yeah another thing is ifs yeah internal family systems okay essentially it's like so there's everybody's got exiled parts uh managers which kind of helps keep the exile part exiled that could be like my tough guy persona or something like that you know the exile part could be like my emotional self or my seven-year-old self or something and you know then like the firefighter which could be self-harm or addiction that like comes out creates a big scene gets the exile part back into exile so it works really well especially with clients that have more personality disorders I've seen, like, because they're really fractured parts of themselves. And sometimes they even have names

for these different parts of themselves. So it can be really helpful to identify these different parts because if they show up in the session, then I know which part I'm actually working with, because it's not as simple as, oh, John just came into my session. So I'm working with John, but which part of John is it? You know, and I think it's really helpful. And I think everyone has them. Just sometimes it's more glaringly obvious. So wait, is it like the masks you wear? It's similar. Sometimes that exercise can be helpful in identifying some of them for sure. Okay. Yeah. And I guess it is kind of like the mask you wear. I do this one exercise where I have clients sit in three chairs in a group and one chair is the criticizer.

That's your harsh inner critic, your deficiency story, your shame-based story, that kind of thing. Then you switch chairs to the criticized. That's like the seat of emotional awareness. This is the way it makes me feel. And then you switch to the compassionate observer. And that's like, you know, meeting it with a kind reality check. So I have this one client after he switched to the second chair he started crying and he hadn't

cried in 10 years right and the day before i think they were doing stuff with like family dynamics and he had a messed up family dynamic sad stuff and so the next day he was having like 10 out of 10 cravings all day and it was obviously why why, because it was like, okay, this exile park got out in group and it was like the firefighters were like, yo, we can't have this. This is not cool. Yeah. So connecting what triggers you to maybe what brought up some emotions. I love how it doesn't seem like you're doing this by the book or anything. You have chosen like some really unique things to practice with, like implementing Dr. happened is she's like the psychologist. I don't even know if she's still alive, but she was like 80 something, I think, when she published the book with like 30 plus years sober. But she got sober. It saved her life. But then all these other issues started cropping up. And it was almost like taking the 12

steps. And if you've been around for a while, it's a lot of stuff you've already thought about and makes sense. But she's specifically talking about it in this way and her directions are crystal clear on like how to work a four step and you're supposed to do it with a clinician and that can be really helpful especially because not everybody's on board but i'm going to go out and get a sponsor right away or maybe they've gone through it with a sponsor and they're still like acting out you know on these other addictive behaviors something i've actually done with a therapist as well after having gone through like five other fifth steps and it benefited me pretty profoundly. So I can speak to its efficacy. So I've done EMDR also and I loved it. It really helps my muscle memory and my body disconnect.

My asthma attacks with rain, my brain and my body correlated the two. If it's going to rain, then I'm going to die. And I was really shocked really shocked I hardly did any sessions I think I did like five or four like magic blows me away it's so crazy and when people try to ask me what it is or how I do it I'm like I don't know I have no idea I just sit there and all I know is that it's cured yeah so tell So tell us about it, Kevin. Like what, what happens there? It's, it is amazing. I've seen people go through like pretty severe traumas in a half hour session and then try and pull it up again later, like on purpose to see if they'll get bothered and like nothing, they get nothing from it. You know, it's really cool. I mean, it works different for different people. One guy, it was like the death of his parents and he was there for both of them.

And each time it was like, first the parent parents and he was there for both of them and each time it was like first the parent disappeared out of the bed they were in in the room then the other family members disappeared out of the room the second time through um you know through the visual like the visualization of the memory then he's just staring at the carpet and in the memory then it's like that's it it's like totally desensitized and it's now just a neutralized memory no longer like creating anxiety every day so what does the session look like just for our listeners? Since we're talking about some people might be like, what the hell are they talking about? Eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing. So you use bilateral stimulation. Say you were like

tapping on like your legs. You just alternate tapping. If it's's alternating sides they've found out that it slows down the cognitive processing so when traumatic memories get stuck in your amygdala and your hippocampus so like you're re-feeling it like if something happened to me as a child and i get triggered on that memory i'm feeling like a scared kid even though i could fully defend myself as a grown man i'm reacting from 15 years ago, not in the present reacting. So what it does is helps you to no longer react from 15 years ago and respond in the present because as you reprocess the memory, it goes just into your cerebellum where it's supposed to be hanging out there. It's like you don't get rid of the memory, but it no longer invades your personal space

anymore. Some people use actual physical tapping. Some people use the finger going back and forth in front of the eyes or lights alternating but I like using the the vibrating one because then they can actually like close their eyes and really drop down into the felt perception of like their body and the memory and I think it's just easier to integrate it and just yeah that's what I used because I'd be too distracted I think with my eyes open no I had to close my eyes and

I had headphones on and it was interesting because when she was taking me you know back and to be honest she didn't do a lot of guidance she wasn't like Mandy let's go back to the day you had an asthma attack she would kind of set a scene and just let me go and I was shocked at some of the memories that came up that even and I was 18 years old when I had this asthma attack that's what's cool about inner child work or trauma work it's like you get access just like when you numb emotions you know you numb pain you numb joy when you numb out unhappy memories or block out unhappy memories you block out like the happy ones too so it's like all of a sudden somebody has access to their childhood again and they haven't you know for all of their adult life you know what i've never thought about that you're right like if you're in this stage of your life

where you're gonna block out the trauma piece that's sad because you are gonna block out the good too that's that sucks yeah did you have someone in your family named betty yeah that was my grammy she's been here since the very beginning look i wrote it down i wrote down lots of things because i had this like spirit with me this entire time oh my god i have to find it so now i can tell you everything it said she died at the beginning of my addiction she's part of my safe place when i when i tell people to safe places my grammy she's there. And her Gilligan looking hat and her wiry white hair and her wise kind smile and her red knit sweater. Yeah, my Grammy is definitely part of that. Oh, my God.

That's so crazy from the very beginning. But I didn't want to freak you out. So I wasn't like, hey, by the way, Kevin, someone dead is with me named Betty. Yeah, that's what she went by, Betty. She's awesome. Wait, I just have to show you this. This is hilarious. This is what I look like when I podcast because I take notes so look at that I saw you writing wow oh my goodness that looks like that's a lot going on there okay so here was my notes at

the beginning so I had she was a she has a big influence on you her name was is Betty um she is coming from the spiritual world but she was also spiritual here very soft-spoken loves you is with you every day supporting you very proud of you something about a bow and arrow a stream and flowers I feel like she's telling me she really connects with you through nature and that's your place yeah Andy did you write that bow and arrow thing before after he read that I wrote it at the very beginning of the podcast before he ever read the therapy thing yeah wow can't wait to tell my mom well I feel like she's always with me for real yeah that's so awesome I love it I love when you know when I get it's just so validating about the afterlife and the

world we're in and how supported we are. So yeah, that's a chapter in my new book is mentors dead or alive, preferably dead and alive. And because I have like, I have spirit guides for different things. You know, I'm like my mother-in-law is like my family spirit guide. And I have an ego spirit guide because that can be a problem for me. So I got a few, you know, a whole team. Explain that. What's the, what do you mean an ego spirit guide so my first mentor in the field I think struggled a lot with that stuff and just whenever like I'm kind of in this space of like I need to slow down or you know strengthen my boundaries or practice humility just like something he says comes I've even dreamed about him sometimes and like I can't

remember what but he I had one dream where he said something to me and just extremely helped like that's when i knew for sure because before i would like kind of think of him or a bird might fly up and i'd be like huh you know you just kind of get these feelings they turn into knowings after a while and when they're knowing then it's good this has been a lot of fun i really like you guys you guys are just tell us about your next book coming up oh the next one it's gonna be something to do with coming into alignment with your truth like the conscious heart i'm gonna go kind of like a lot of young and a lot of roomy alternating like i have like a there's like 11 chapters and each chapter has four sections it's gonna be more experiential you know so there'll be like a journal prompt for one

section and inner activity something you do with somebody else for another into practice so like how does it show up in your daily life and then like a special kind of assignment the other section so it's going to be it's kind of like a lot of stuff i've been working on the last couple of years probably mirror work and um you know healing trauma i could tell you guys all the chapters of this but it sounds pretty cool so you might you want to hear it? Yeah, let's hear it. All right. It came to me like in like another creative outpouring one day.

And I was like, oh man, this is going to be better than the first book. The first book is just to set the table. And so I think like it's almost important that Khalil Gibran inspired it because it'll, some people will be like, oh, I'll read this just because I like the prophet and see what this is all about. I think it's all happened the way it's supposed to, obviously. So chapter one is mirror work, finding the way in the house of mirrors you live in. Chapter two, shining a light into the shadows, accepting your secret self. Chapter three, the pathway of forgiveness from

trauma to triumph. Chapter four, knowing knowings, signs, clarity and intentions. Chapter five, mentors, dead or alive alive preferably dead and alive chapter six return to gut trusting your instincts chapter seven the magic of intuition tapping into the power of presence chapter eight honoring your highest self raising your frequency through a life saturated in meaning chapter nine authentic humility discovering unshakable confidence chapter 10 your friends are your future matching vibrations and manifesting dreams. Chapter 11, knocking down walls, giving yourself permission to feel everything.

Sounds good, right? Yeah. Yeah, sounds amazing. Oh my gosh. For real. And now it's time for break that shit down. All right, I'm gonna break that shit down all right i'm gonna break that shit down love yourself and the only reason you need to is because you're lovable that's it it's the only reason that's it you can get it on uh amazon obviously the new profit you can get it through my website

excelsior addiction services i have an page, which has a link to my Square site. If you're in the US and you want to sign copy or something, or just want to buy directly from me and you can get it from Bobo Press. So there's a few places, but Amazon's probably where most people are going to go because it's the easiest. All right. Well, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a pleasure. It's nice to meet you. And when you get that second book out, let's have you on again. Totally. I'll let you guys know. It'll be a little bit, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm excited for it. And thank you for blessing me with Betty's spirit today. She's very sweet. I know that like made my whole year easily. Already the rest of the year,

it's gonna be hard to top that. Well, good, because she loves you deeply. All right. Thank you so much. Thanks for being with us today. We hope you will come back next week. If you like what you hear, don't forget to rate like, and subscribe. Thank you. We rise to lift you up. Thanks for listening.