How to Regain Control of Your Life After Trauma with Ali Kates I Episode 5

Living in Alignment with Ale Wiecek Rojo

What’s trauma and how to heal trauma?

Trauma is a complex and deeply rooted experience that often lingers within individuals, impacting their mental and physical well-being. It is for that reason that we must feel empowered, to embark on a unique journey toward reclaiming our lives by understanding the intimate connection between trauma and the body.

We must realize that our body is an intricate repository of experiences that encode memories and emotions that the mind may forget or repress. Therefore, we must recognize the crucial role of the body in the healing process of our emotional pains and embrace the uniqueness of our healing journeys.

Ali Kates is an entrepreneur, certified Trauma Recovery Coach & Somatic Experience Practitioner specializing in caring for the mind and body. In May 2019, Ali's life was turned upside down. Three weeks before their wedding, she was diagnosed with late-stage chronic Lyme and multiple auto immunities. She was spinning. Before this diagnosis, at 22, Ali and her husband lost three people back-to-back to cancer, a hit and run, and a car accident. They went on to lose seven people in 2.5 years. These three deaths were back-to-back, bringing up all of her old pain from childhood that she had shoved down and saved for a rainy day. Thus, in her quest for a remedy to relieve the pain, she found a trauma recovery coach that taught her how to move the emotional charge out of the body. Not only that, she learns about her complex developmental trauma and C-PTSD that she was living with, but how she could find her strength and self again (post-traumatic growth).

In this episode with Ali Kates, we will discover the different components of therapy and trauma and how we can access various ways to heal our bodies. Understand that our trauma & emotional pain is not just about what happened to us but how it left our nervous system after the event. Today, she shares her own stories, experiences, and tricks centered around becoming the best you. Listen and be inspired to regain control of your life, and remember that it's okay sometimes to feel not okay. We all have some healing to do.

"Even though I have been through sexual trauma, physical trauma, and all these things health complications, I would never go back and say that I don't want this thing to happen because I've learned so much about myself." – Ali Kates

Topics Covered:

(00:00:00) Episode Snippet

(00:00:18) Acknowledging our guest, Ali Kates.

(00:01:27) Introduction

(00:03:34) Trauma Recovery Coach: Who is Ali Kates?

(00:05:11) Trauma lives in our bodies.

(00:06:19) Make your pain your purpose.

(00:07:11) What was going through your body during trauma healing?

(00:08:37) The Faces of Trauma

(00:10:19) The Victim Mentality

(00:11:34) Would you erase the trauma?

(00:13:38) Does talk therapy work?

(00:15:16) Top-down approaches

(00:16:45) Know what therapy works for you

(00:17:53) How to access anger healthily?

(00:19:40) Working with Trauma: Breath, Sound, and Movement

(00:20:27) Trauma Release Exercises

(00:21:21) Quick Reminder: Are you enjoying this episode? Does it help you in further living in alignment in your life? Follow the show, leave a rating and review to support and inspire people craving to live their true selves.

(00:22:14) Emotional Containers

(00:23:48) How can we help women entrepreneurs with their mental health?

(00:24:20) Acknowledging your emotions.

(00:25:27) Get into your body.

(00:26:32) How to do belly breathing?

(00:27:28) Body exercise

(00:27:56) Finding a hobby.

(00:31:30) How to make healing your identity?

(00:32:04) Affirmations: A sense of protection

(00:34:20) Your past does not define your future.

(00:35:05) I was fine until I wasn't.

(00:37:03) There is a benefit to our victim mentality journey.

(00:38:27) How is Ali's healing journey?

(00:39:53) Fill your cup while helping others.

(00:41:10) Where to connect with Ali Kates

(00:42:10) Ad: Thank you for tuning in to Living in Alignment. May our conversation, mindset, trauma healing, entrepreneurship, and self-awareness have inspired you to unleash your full potential, find your true purpose, and build the business and life of your dreams.

Key Takeaways:

"We can talk about trauma all we want, but it lives in our body. It doesn't live in our brain." – Ali Kates

"It broke me down to build me back up into this person who is helping others move through their emotional charge, trauma, and health conditions." – Ali Kates

"I've taken my pain, and it's become my purpose." – Ali Kates

"When you are moving your trauma out of the body, you are feeling these things that you've shoved down and saved for a rainy day." – Ali Kates

"I always had this mindset that I am a victim of my circumstance, and so I can't be anything better because of it." – Ali Kates

"I truly believe trauma is what happens, but your mindset and the identity that you create off the back of what happened is what takes you on your journey." – Ali Kates

"If you've had trauma, you have to have someone that knows how to work with trauma." – Ali Kates

"You have to become trauma-informed and know how to work with trauma and how to move it out of the body because you can talk about the things all that you want, but it lives in your body." – Ali Kates

"You would know if something is right for you by how it feels in your body." – Ali Kates

"When you work with trauma, you want three things, breath, sound, and movement." – Ali Kates

"Mental health can be impacted by being an entrepreneur when you have to wear so many hats, and you have no clue what you're doing and how to do it and what are the steps." – Ale Wiecek Rojo

"To get into your body is so profound for a lot of people because people live outside of their body, whether they live disassociated or they're just not in tune with it because maybe it hasn't been a safe space." – Ali Kates

"Identities could be almost a sense of protection." – Ale Wiecek Rojo

"I think you have to go through this feeling of being seen and heard." – Ali Kates

"My story is about trauma healing and how it has manifested physically. And it's not about all these horrible things have happened, it's about the fact that your past does not have to define your future or your present." – Ali Kates

"If I didn't go through those things and change my mindset and identity, I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you about it on a podcast and like running a coaching business." – Ali Kates

"The quick and dirty way to heal your stuff is to help other people heal." – Ali Kates

"The more that I can pour into myself, the more I can give too." – Ali Kates

You can watch the full episode on Youtube here

Full English Transcript

Resources mentioned

How we feel App

Dr Peter Levine

The Emboy Lab

Connect with Ali Kates:

Website: https://alikates.co/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alikates.co/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alikates.co

Twitter: https://twitter.com/alikatesco

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@alikates.co

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alikates/

Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-okay-to-not-be-okay-by-ali-kates/id1526973096

Connect with Ale Wiecek Rojo:

7 Questions to Your Purpose (Episode 2): https://alewiecekrojo.com/7questionstopurpose

FREE 7-Day to Alignment Challenge: https://alewiecekrojo.com/7dayschallenge to sign up.

Website: https://www.sqrone.com.au

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alewiecek

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/168135012857578

LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/alewiecek

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@alewiecek1597

1 on 1 sessions with Ale: https://calendly.com/alewiecek/lifestrategyjam?back=1&month=2023-06