Trauma and Childhood, coming back to the real self and a roadmap for healing.
Nunaisi 00:00
Hello and welcome to Rise. I am so so happy to have our speaker for today, her name is Puja Lepp, and she is a leading expert in emotional integration, trauma, healing, and embodied spirituality for the past 30 years. She is the founder of Primal Childhood Deconditioning, a seven-day personal development experience that offers life transformation through deep healing. Puja is very passionate about helping people to heal the wounds of the past, supporting them to live from their authentic selves while accepting our human nature in the light and the shadows.
By now she has facilitated more than 500 retreats and more than 15,000 one-on-one sessions with clients. With a passion for living an extraordinary life, she has lived the last 40 years immersed with gurus, teachers, geniuses, and experts in their fields of therapy, personal development, and spirituality. A few of them being Osho, John [Brethswo], Dr. [Genove Davidata], Bert Hellinger, Peter Levine, and Dr. Gabor. Welcome, welcome, Puja.
Puja Lepp 01:24
Thank you so much for inviting me for this summit. I think it’s so fantastic you’re putting that together, so thank you. I’m very happy to be here.
Nunaisi 01:35
Yeah. And before I want to hear your story, and I want to dive into your amazing topic, but I just want to put it out there that I personally have experienced Puja work back in 2012, in Pune, India, and that was life-changing. It was so powerful, I did my first primal workshop back in 2000 and it was life-changing. I could say before and after, in every possible way, that was the most intense growth that I’ve experienced back then and I wanted my husband to experience it, so I kicked his butt into Puja’s workshop, and it was an amazing, profound experience. And then, he did the seven days and then I joined him, and we did the other, going into the teenage years, together. So, I know that Puja is a magician, she is so skilled in what she does, and it’s really a life upgrade, doing her work. So, yeah, I just want to hear, Puja, how did you ended up doing what you’re doing and in doing this sacred work?
Puja Lepp 02:49
Yes, sure. I will tell you a little bit of my story. So, I’m born in Germany and raised in Germany, and then at the end of the 70s, beginning 80s, I started to study social psychology, and already then, at age 20, I was not really satisfied with the traditional way of psychotherapy, in the way it was taught. I felt there was something missing already then. So, therefore, I felt very drawn to the concept of what was called humanistic psychology, which is a more holistic approach already, that claims that, we as a human being, we can really develop our true potential, and therefore, experience our life with emotion and spiritual fulfillment, and that was the part which was missing for me in the traditional psychology. It was just about working with people in their so-called dysfunction, trying to heal them, and then you would dismiss them, again, in dysfunctional environments, and I felt, no, that’s not what I want to do, there must be something more.
So, then, still in Germany, I therefore then became part of what was called a humanistic psychology movement. It was a much movement which started in the US during the late 60s and it was something like, you could say, a counter-cultural rebellion against kind of mainstream traditional psychotherapy and religion. And then, this is when I started to do my first workshops for myself, which were also incredibly life-changing, it just opened up a whole new world for me, which felt very magical. And then, my inner search kind of led me to India at some point, it was also the time when many young Western people, basically, went to India in the search for meditation and spirituality. So, I then basically went to India and met a contemporary Indian mystic called Osho and that was in 1980, and already at that time, many kinds of well-educated psychotherapists from all over the world, trained in western psychotherapy methods, they already gathered around this controversial mystic, and explored kind of Eastern meditation methods.
So, in that way, that gave birth to a very unique experiment where maybe for the first time, you could say in history actually, the approach of Western psychology and Eastern mysticism shook hands. And then with Osho’s guidance, we developed many new ways of working with people and looking at the human psyche from a much [progressive] point, by bringing in therapy and spirituality together. And I saw that was the most powerful tool for transformation and that’s still something I use since 30 years, by now. And I’m feeling even more passionate about it right now, it’s a little bit, we live in very exciting times right now, with everything, what’s going on in our personal life, and of course, in the collective, in the world, and it’s a little bit I feel as if we have [inaudible 0:06:53]. Because this crisis, this collective crisis, it just brings up so many shadow elements for people, people feel that overwhelmed feel, the fear, the anxieties, depressions are on the rise, addictive behaviors, and it often left us feeling very raw and reactive, and imperfect. It seems like the crisis kind of highlights our unresolved trauma, so to speak.
So, I think it’s even more obvious, right now, that there is just no time to waste any longer, you want to really strip away any old unhealthy behavior and defense mechanism that kind of blocked the connection to who we really are, and what we really want for ourselves in life. Why wait, the world needs healing, that’s what I always say, healing is not a wrong option now, we have to do it, we have to put ourselves on that road towards healing. And it starts with us, I deeply believe in the way we change the world is one person at a time, and so there is a certain urgency right now to do this, more than ever. And as I said, it fired me up even more, just go straight to who you are, in your essence. Of course, we have to work for all these layers of the conditioning, but we are not that conditioning, we are not that persona, we are so much more.
This is what I love about my work, helping people to discover more than that. So, my work, in general, it’s very rooted in early life issues, because I believe that our childhoods, the way we grew up, it has a profound impact on our adult life. So, let’s say what happened at age 7 or at age 10, it will still be coloring how [inaudible 0:09:28] at 20, 30, 40, or 50, or 60 years old. So, in a way, we never truly escaped the past, so to speak. Because it kind of influences our whole trajectory in life, including who we become professionally, how we make a living, whom we choose as partners of course. That’s where all your unfinished business with mother and father, [inaudible 0:10:02] it’s like, how we behave relationally and who we became sexually, it’s deeply influenced by what happened in our early life, during our childhood years, or in the changes we have to face every day, that’s where you find the past, too.
So, I think, emotionally speaking, we all have been hurt. In all those years, I haven’t met a single person without any hurts or blockages from childhood. I’m still looking for the [inaudible 0:10:47] but unfortunately, up to now, I haven’t really found it, I must say. This is not that we say the parents are bad, no, not at all, I think they deeply loved you to their ability, but we should remember, they themselves were probably so loaded with their own unprocessed emotions from their past. Because at that time, it wasn’t kind of in fashion that you do therapy, so all their own unprocessed stuff, from that place, they did their best, but it did affect us deeply, a depressed mother or a mother who’s emotionally not available, and an angry father, or addiction running in the family, this is all trauma. In the old days, we saw trauma as just only rape or war, or terrible incidents, no, it starts in the family by often emotionally unavailable parents, by abandonment, father leaves the family. All that is traumatizing for the child, this is where we need to look.
As I said, I haven’t met a person, ever, who doesn’t carry some unprocessed emotions from their childhood. And it’s actually only now that we become aware how much trauma is actually a collected phenomenon, only now that it comes up. And it’s time in order we look at that, that all the therapy we do, it’s trauma-informed, that we need to know about trauma, because it seems like we all suffer from trauma, why otherwise would there be depression, anxiety, suicide. I was just reading the other day, like the psychiatric wards for teenagers, it’s completely full, the waiting lists, this is heartbreaking, kids are in trouble. So, our parents, in a way, they just put their own grief, their own anger or shame, or unworthiness, it’s just from that place, it was passed on to us, and this is how all those traumas, it’s intergenerational, it gets passed on from one generation to the next. As we say, in the work, pain runs in the family, it’s given to the next generation, unless one is ready to face it and work through it. That’s the only way how we can stop it, until then, it just gets passed on. So, this is how we can stop the cycle that, basically, we work it through in ourselves, and that needs courage, and that needs incredible commitment. To put yourself on the road towards healing, it’s not an easy process, as you also experienced for yourself, it’s challenging. There are many times you want to give up and feel, oh my God, I’m not getting anywhere, will I ever be really fully happy, and all that. So, one of the things is also just never give up.
The most important thing is you put yourself on that road towards healing, this is what counts. It’s not a quick fix, 20, 30, 40 years of living maybe in denial with all those ego defenses around us, you cannot fix it in a short time. This is also something that we really learned now with the latest research in trauma science, it needs time, the recovery process does need time, and sometimes we also need to take a break from it, not to overwhelm us. Altogether, now you could say childhood really sets the stage for our life script. It’s a little bit like it’s our emotional DNA, so to speak, and then often those kind of image or scripts we create, as a child, you know, we take them into adulthood. And then, especially when we’re triggered in a situation, then moments of stress or crisis, they really run our lives up to 90% of the time then.
Nunaisi 16:03
Yeah, Puja, I could not agree more with what you said. I know, for myself, I know for my work with clients, childhood is such a precious time of shaping who we are, and I consider myself to be a conscious mother, I did a lot of work on myself before having kids. And for me, it was really a wish, a dream, a goal, to be a good mother. Well, good is not the right term even, because we’re all good mothers in heart, but to be a conscious mother, to really consider the implications of my behaviors, of my words, of my actions, of my role modeling. I mean, looking at my kids, they are amazing, so I think I’ve done a good work. Still human, so, to say that they won’t need therapy, I can’t say that, but definitely not as long as I needed it.
I feel that I’m a living example of exactly that, of how I took myself, fairly young, because I’ve been through so much trauma, because I knew that I was a mess, if I would not go through trauma, I would either end up a drug addict or, I don’t know, not in not in a glamorous place, I knew that. And so, I consciously took myself and did the work from my early 20s, I’m now in my mid-40s, so that’s how long I worked on myself, and it’s still a work in progress, it’s still unpacking from- it’s like a spiral, every time you get a new AHA, anew revelation, a new peeling of a layer that was still there as a defense, as an armor.
But I’m living proof of how healing is possible. Because from where I came and to where I am now, and to see how I have saved my next generation and generations to come, by doing the work, and I see it on my children and how well balanced, and so amazing they are, I know it’s possible, but I had to do the work. And is it easy? No. It’s simple but it’s not easy. The work is actually simple, there is not a lot of complexity to it, it’s really about feeling, processing, and feeling safe, bringing that element of safety and acceptance, and we have to do for our inner child to fill in the gaps that we have not received from our parents. And I know that you are a master in what you’re doing, so I’m going to let you carry on speaking about your childhood deconditioning and your work, because it’s really so much value there.
Puja Lepp 19:16
Yes. I just want to say something about being a parent, what I always say to parents, when they are in my workshops, they realize, oh my god, I really passed it already onto my children, and then they feel kind of guilty for it, But the thing is, what the most important thing is the moment you start healing yourself, it does have an effect on the children, they will feel it, that’s what I always say to them, they will feel it even if they don’t know that you do it. It does have an effect because we’re also bonded in the family, and that’s the biggest gift you can basically give to your children, is you healing yourself, or you come into terms with your past.
Nunaisi 20:05
Absolutely.
Puja Lepp 20:08
Yeah, great. So, yes, I have developed like a system, which is basically the basis of my whole teachings, and also in my workshops, and we call it a road map for healing. So, just let me basically share my screen. So, as you can see, there are something like three layers, or we can call it like, you want to imagine you stand in the center of a large kind of circle, which is then divided into an outer layer, a middle layer, and the pure. So, that outer layer, as you can see, we call it the layer of protection, or sometimes we also call it the layer of the ego defenses, our survival patterns we developed.
What is an ego defense? Ego defense, basically, is something what we develop during childhood, and it was always an answer to some dysfunction in the family. So, it’s in a way, a psychological coping strategy, which we then use in the ups and downs of life, especially when we feel kind of threatened, vulnerable, or facing some uncomfortable feelings and situations. Therefore, we use them in our personal and interpersonal relationships, of course. So, as I said, they develop during childhood, you’re not born with an ego defense, you’re not born with that shield you had to create around yourself in order to not getting hurt. So, therefore, we develop those defense mechanisms because, once, basically, we went into- you have to imagine, there’s this little child, let’s say you’re eight years old, and you have a raging father, just imagine that, you’re little, there’s this big father. So, to handle father’s anger, for example, is impossible for the child at that stage, the brain is not fully developed at this point, your psyche is not fully developed, so how are you going to deal with that? It’s impossible. So, what you need to do is you have to repress it, you have to repress your feelings, because you’re not made for being able to handle that. So, let’s say, you repressed it through creating some body tension in your body, or you stopped breathing, what we then call the shallow breath. And just for a moment, right now, just tensing up your body, stop breathing, and then tell me how much you still feel, right? Not much. Or we started to basically go into numbness in our body, this is then when we can’t feel ourselves. How often I ask people, so what do you feel? “I can feel myself, I feel numb in my body”. That’s the dissociation we’re talking about in trauma work. You literally kind of check out, this is often when children then kind of parade some fantasy worlds where it’s just better than where they are. And then later, those ego defenses, they don’t just basically stop because you’re grown up, they always kick in when you actually feel, in some way, your vulnerability is threatened, so to speak. And then, we can do it through many different ways, we start rationalizing things, “it’s all fine, it’s not that bad”, we minimize. Sometimes, in workshops, people say, “My childhood was wonderful”. Yes, maybe, I can see other people, they kind of suffered trauma but my childhood was fine, and then, if you dig a little bit deeper, okay, I had an alcoholic father, I was growing up with a mother who was depressed, how can it be a happy childhood? We minimize as a way to protect ourselves to feel the pain. Or sometimes, especially when we’re triggered in our relationships, we sometimes then fall into a state of repression, we then rather collapse and basically go back to an earlier part in our lives, and then act out a bit in a childish way, pouting, you have a fight with your boyfriend, and then you just walk out, sleep on the couch, and bang the door, this is called repression. Or we just go simply in denial about what happened. Let’s say my husband would come home every night at 12 o’clock, because he works until 12 o’clock, and I would still say, everything is fine, he’s just busy, I would completely deny that maybe then my husband would have a work addiction, for example. Of course, addictions is one of the number one ego defenses, because addiction is always you try to find a solution to handle your overwhelm, your feelings.
I deeply believe a child who’s fully loved never turns into an addict, why would they? At the core of any addiction is a hurt child, very simple. And as a society, we are addicted more than ever. Sometimes, I say, addiction is a little bit, like, you look for love in all the wrong places, or simply through protection. It’s like, let’s say I had some trouble with my boss at work, and then I come home, and just let out my anger on the children or on my wife, or my husband, that would be protection, or conversion is like the whole psychosomatic diseases. Let’s say you’re actually very angry, but then you subitize it, and you would rather get a headache or back pain, than really feeling the emotion of your anger, for example. So, all those layers of protection, just to understand we’re not born with those, they do develop during childhood and they’re always an attempt of the child to deal with overwhelm, which he cannot handle, given the development of its brain and psyche.
We basically developed those ego defenses without judging it. It was very intelligent we did that, then, because it helped us literally to survive, but the problem is that we continue using those defense mechanisms, especially when we’re triggered, and whenever we, in our own ego defense, what I always say is, it kind of invites then the other one also to come from their ego defense, defense invites defense. While being vulnerable, you give something like a permission slip to the other to do the same, so important not to touch those. Yeah, they were absolute necessary, I like the way [inaudible 0:29:01] puts it, he says, they were good friends then in the childhood, but now as an adult, they become a bit stupid friends. Because they know basically bring us the love we’re longing for, if we stuck in our shield, how can you be vulnerable? How can you be open? Impossible. So, I always say, let’s become the person behind that shield, sometimes the shield is up to here, some a little bit lower, but we all seem to develop that shield around us so we can function. Not just in the family, even on a bigger scale, at school, in society, in general, more or less. Makes sense, or is it just some psychological blahdy blah?
Nunaisi 29:58
No, it makes absolute sense. And yeah, this is, as you said, a survival mechanism, we all have it in some way, shape or form, and it’s really about cracking through it and filling those gaps, filling the feelings that we could not feel at the time that were too overwhelming or not acceptable, or we have not been given the tools. And now, as adults, we meet ourselves in those places and we can work through that, so we can melt those armors, those coping mechanisms that we used as children. So, absolutely, yeah.
Puja Lepp 30:39
You’re spot on, because that basically guides us immediately to the second layer. So, what is behind the layer of protection and ego defenses, is our pain, it’s basically our unmet needs, the layer of [inaudible 0:30:57] go to what you’re hiding there. So, what we say is, whenever a need of the child is not fulfilled, could be a need for recognition, a need for being held, a need for being encouraged, whenever that need is not fulfilled, the child, it’s again, too overwhelming, so the child basically represses those feelings, has to. And then, our unmet needs then turn into our hurt child, so to say, it turns into shame, “I’m not worthy to be loved”, it turns into grief, it turns into fear, into panic, into unworthiness, into anger. That’s all behind the layer of the protection
That second layer, we also call it the layer of the hurt child. And in the original state or in the pure state, the layer of feelings inside of us is actually, you could say, a free-flowing energy and feeling, a child responding to its world through emotions and feelings. That’s the pure state, but through not having our needs fully fulfilled, it turns into the layer of the hurt child. And when we work on that second layer, this is so important, and I cannot emphasize enough on it, we have to do it with lots of compassion and kindness. It’s already such a difficult area to be in and operate with, if you add any kind of pressure on this, it’s impossible to allow yourself to go to this layer of feelings, then you just go right back into the layer of control, which is the layer of protection. So, therefore, I think you mentioned it already before, we have to create a very safe container for honest feeling expression. And that’s also where we have to go slow, because all those emotions held there, they basically need to be processed through, we have to feel them. This is where I say, you can’t heal what you can’t feel, or in other words, by deeply processing those feelings, allowing the pain, feeling it, feeling the grief, feeling the rage, the anger, in a safe container, of course, this is what brings us healing.
Healing always needs to be an embodied experience. We cannot just talk about those feelings. By talking about it, it never reaches the feeling brain inside of us, our limbic system, where all those feelings are stored. And the nature of our feeling brain is, actually, you don’t have a perception of time, so whenever you’re triggered in one of your old traumas, you become that eight-year-old one, that 10-year-old one, that 11-year-old one, because when you’re triggered in one of your old traumas, you don’t know it’s 2021 and I’m an adult. You request right back to the time when the trauma happens during that time and that goes on automatic. The little bit, like, we have developed through that some pathways in our brain, which then go in those pain loops on automatic. So, working on that second layer is so important and there is no way around. And this is often also where, in some spiritual community, the spiritual bypassing happens, when it goes straight to the light, and without basically descending into their own shadow world, because working with that second layer is you descend in your own shadow world. And everything that’s held there wants to come to the surface because it wants to be processed through. So, no way around, everything around that is spiritual bypassing, very simple.
Nunaisi 36:09
Absolutely. I so agree with you, I’ve made that spiritual bypassing myself as well, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. And what I want to add on to that as well is that, and I’m talking from a parent’s point of view, because I had to do a lot of work when I had my kids, I did not know that they will bring up my pain. And that’s what happens, children, because we carry, through epigenetics, exactly the pain that the parents carry, and as children, they bring it up, so it’s really difficult for parents that have not done work on themselves, to hold that safe container for the child to process their emotions. And all children, they’re born with an emotional regulating system, and it’s activated, as you said, they’re living their life according to their feelings and emotions, and you can watch children and see how quickly they can cry, and then they can move into laughter, and then again crying, and tantruming. They’re very connected to their emotions, but as parents, because it’s pressing and triggering our buttons, we kind of gave them the idea of some emotions are good and some emotions are bad. And so, praising for good emotions, and then sometimes even punishing for the expression of so-called bad emotions, and that has completely messed up our emotional regulation system. Right?
Puja Lepp 37:46
Absolutely. It seems like each child kind of creates these two lists. The first list is all the things and activities I have to do, what brings me love and attention, and a sense of belonging. Let’s say, if I’m smart, this is when I will be loved, if I’m a good child, I will be loved, if I’m the quiet child, I will be laughed. And then, basically, we learn we have to behave in a certain way, so we belong to the system, because our need to belong to the system is [inaudible 0:38:25] biological drive, [inaudible 0:38:30] works with that. How big that need is in us, that you want to belong to the system, and therefore, of course, you also adapt to any ways which bring us or guarantees us that attention and belonging. [inaudible 0:38:49] second list, which are all the things which may lead to the fear of rejection of love, because it’s something our parents don’t like. Maybe if I’m too loud, maybe I’m not allowed to show my anger, or I’m not allowed to be messy, or I’m not allowed to be sexual. This is everything then which we have to repress, this is what creates our shadows, so to speak.
That’s what we’re dealing with, once we start working, taking off the layer of protection. And when we do that work, what is very important is you need to know what you do, because if you take off the layer of protection in people, when they hit that second layer, it’s not just a layer of a pure little child, there it holds an emotional charge, and people then are flooded with their trauma, so to speak, and the feelings which were not expressed at that time. So, as a service or facilitator, or [coach? 0:40:01], you need to know about those things, that’s where I sometimes get a big [inaudible 0:40:08] I see some people working deeply with this emotion, childhood wounds, but then once basically all that stuff comes to the surface, then some people don’t really know how to deal with it. And then you’re re-traumatizing people, very simple, because if you take down those layers of protection too fast, people are too overwhelmed and then they cannot regulate any longer.
This is all [proved? 0:40:36] now to the latest research in trauma therapy. The therapy in the 70s, 80s, was much more kind of rough, we would take down the layer of protection nearly a bit violently, certain breathing exercises or [inaudible 0:40:56], and then, of course, it creates a big energy, but it just fries your brain because your nervous system cannot regulate. Now, with all that knowledge, how trauma works, it’s so important to go slow here, always to the extent that your client can regulate what they’re experiencing, and don’t get too overwhelmed by it.
However, the good news is once we’re experiencing those feelings of our inner child, and the pain of our unmet needs, it takes us out of that layer of control, and it puts us back into our heart. Because it’s by deeply, deeply processing our emotions, it will always take us deeper into ourselves. And then, naturally, it opens the door to what we then call our core of our being, you can call it meditation, we can call it core, we can call it being, we can call it essence. It’s like a young, brilliant student of Freud, he calls it the divine child in us, the innocence, or you could also call it, depending a little bit from which school you’re coming, you can also call it the real view, as opposed to layer of protection, is the [false? 0:42:34] self.
That core or the essence is actually the most evolved part of ourselves. It’s the part in us where we live in a state of harmony with ourselves in life. It’s the place which all the [inaudible 0:42:58] throughout all the ages described as a state of being one in a state of no separation with existence, or we can call it meditation, it’s just different labels for the same, and this is where we come from. When you’re born, you’re full of essence, as you rightly said, a child, it’s fully connected with existence, there is a total trust into existence. Children are incredibly trusting people. So, it’s the real self and once we return to that home, so to speak, it’s the place where our chattering mind finally stops, and we also drop any identification we have, I’m a therapist, I’m a doctor, I’m this, I’m that, this is just identifications, this is not who you are, it’s just the different hats we’re wearing at times. The real home is our core, our essence, and that’s basically the journey that we want to return to this place. Because Osha once said to me, the only way to live is being vulnerable and open with no defenses, that’s the only way to live. Something like this he said and I remember it was really striking me when he said that, and I really understood, yes, this is so true. Because this is who we are at core, at core we are vulnerable, at the core, we don’t know when we take our last breath in our lives, we are that vulnerable. And then we pretend we have everything under control, nothing can basically hurt me or disturb me, or hit me, this is insane.
In a way, this is our last home. This is where, each time, during childhood, when we experience our needs not being fulfilled, and we are basically kicked out of that place of essence, or as Dr. Mathej, he says, like, this creates the rupture to the self, trauma creates that disrupter, then we can’t trust ourselves anymore. Because this [inaudible 0:45:44] in our core, in our essence, this is when we trust life and this is when we trust our inner voice, the trauma, we are separated from that inner voice. So, that must be the journey from personality, that outer layer creates the persona, so to speak. And when we look at the word persona, it has Greek roots, and it means actually wearing a mask. In ancient [inaudible 0:46:14], they were wearing masks, that was the persona, so to speak. Because sometimes, we mix these things up and we think, wow, I have such a cool personality. The personality is not who you are, the personality is the mask you developed in order to deal with this function. When you realize your individuality, this is in the core.
So, in order to reach that core and live from [inaudible 0:46:46] your real self, we have to work for that second layer, there is just no way around. I have met people, they say, “Oh, I only meditate, I don’t need to do therapy or personal development. I just solve it with meditation”. Unfortunately, I must say, don’t get me wrong, I’m a meditator since 40 years, I love meditation, but to heal your trauma, it needs therapeutic intervention. Meditation is not a tool to heal your trauma, meditation is to ground yourself again, in being in essence. So, people who say, “No, I only meditate”, I think you can meditate until you turn blue in your face, it doesn’t [inaudible 0:47:33] layer. [inaudible 0:47:37] “I can control my breath, I can control the way I observe my thoughts”, and then it just creates another layer of control.
So, unfortunately, there is no shortcut. So, we have to work through that layer of the feelings, the layer of the hurt child, but it brings us incredible freedom, connection, [inaudible 0:48:03] and live from that place. So, that’s the journey, we sometimes also call it the hero’s journey, because [inaudible 0:48:12] fight all those monsters and ghosts from the past, but you want to reach home. And we never left, that’s the truth, we actually never left, there is always a place in us which always stayed healthy, and to reach that place and have the experience of essence, it often comes by grace. Maybe in nature, all of a sudden, you’re mesmerized, and you feel that connection to the amazing nature, or in the arm of your Beloved, you feel like, wow, it’s a deep, deep relaxation and trust in life. We all have memory of those, of this state in there. Because this is who we are, so how can we not have memories of who we are?
But that’s the journey. So, I always say, shake, share, shift. Shake off the past, share yourself in community because we can only heal in community, and therefore then shift into new awareness, which is then the core to being the essence. So, that’s a bit what I call a roadmap for healing and you can apply it to any form of therapy. This is what you deal with, it doesn’t matter, let’s say you’re a yoga teacher and you work through the body armoring, yet what comes to the surface is the second layer. In any work you do, the moment you take down people’s layer of protection, they’re faced with their pain they’re holding in there. So, I think it’s also good to understand it a little bit. Although, intellectually, when we put ourselves on the road towards healing, what are the layers, what we are going to encounter and face during the journey? It’s helpful for people, I teach that model always on day one in my retreats, and then people, “Aha, aha, aha”, then we go into a sharing that people basically then, say, okay, they look at their own layer of protection, because the thing is, it’s not easy to work with the layer of protection, this is where we become so defensive, [inaudible 0:50:30] me, in denial? “Nah, no, no, no, no, no”. This is where we hold a lot of our blind spots because it once helped us to survive. So, to shake up that layer, sometimes, in the process, in retreats or in sessions, when you get challenged on that layer of protection, it seems like as if our personality kicks in even stronger, “don’t you dare take away my ego defense, which was my survival, I’m going to hold on to it as if it would be gold, as if it would protect gold”. But again, I just want to repeat that there is no judgment around having those ego defenses, they were necessary to deal with the situation in your family, when you were growing up.
Nunaisi 51:24
And we all have them, right? We all have them in some way, or shape, or form. It’s just, as you said, you have not met anyone that have not been through trauma. I’m with you on that one. I also have not met anyone, so we all have it, so no judgment there, whatsoever.
Puja Lepp 51:46
I have not been raised by enlightened parents. None of us, probably.
Nunaisi 51:52
None of us. And I said, even my children, that I consider myself to be a conscious mother, I’m still human, I still have my flaws. And so, yeah, we’re all in the same place, we’re all going through the same process, here.
Puja Lepp 52:13
As parents, we eff up, we just do it at times. A friend of mine, he said, since his son is born, so every month he puts a certain amount of money on a bank account, he created a bank account for his son, so that they can do therapy, because he knows he will eff up, at times. Then, I always say, “Okay, just send it to me, I will never run out of work”. I think everybody should know about this.
Nunaisi 52:45
Exactly. And the good news is that it can happen, so it’s not a death sentence. It’s not a life sentence. We can all break through all those layers of protection, feel our feelings, integrate it, and come back into our integrated self in the essence of our being.
Puja Lepp 53:08
Yes. And, it’s no fun to be around people who are so reactive, so defensive about anything. I think it’s not fun to be with such people. And how much fun is it to be around somebody who is in contact with his healthy child again, and life becomes so interesting, and so crazy, and wild, and mysterious, again. So, for me, that was the answer of bringing the Western approach of psychology together with meditation, spirituality. And basically, that combination is incredibly powerful, that was what I was searching for already at the age of 20. I felt like, there it must be more, it can’t be, you know?
Nunaisi 54:00
Absolutely. Even in my own journey, I started by going to psychologists because that’s kind of the norm, at that time was almost the only option that anyone knew. And I went from one psychologist to the other, to the other, to the other. And I thought this is really just a waste of my time and energy, and even money. And at one point, I started studying psychology, and then I dropped it for the same exact reasons, and only when I found that integrative, holistic approach of embodied therapy, that I actually saw the real transformation, the real shift. So, yeah, absolutely, 100%.
Puja Lepp 54:46
Yes. And another, if you just take away this from this teaching, you never want to make a decision when you’re triggered. You never want to make a decision about your relationship, about your life, when you’re in your ego defenses, that are not good decisions we do. So, it’s very reactive out of that [inaudible 0:55:10] going to leave, no mask. You know? Like, no. When you’re triggered, this is what one of my teachers always said, when I started to act out, because acting out means being on the layer of protection. Basically, he would always say that, okay, now it’s time to get on the floor and feel your stuff, the feeling is the healing, very simple.
Nunaisi 55:37
And even tantrum, right? As children do it so naturally, tantrum it’s actually a way to release pent-up emotions, it’s a physical way to get them out of the body, right? And how many of us are stopping tantrums in children, thinking, “Oh, how rude they are” or “how unbehaved”, “they’re not behaving well”. Meantime, it’s a built-in mechanism to really get that out of the body. Yeah, Pooja, this was enlightening and was so beautifully presented, and really make visual sense to understand the process that we are going through, and thank you for sharing that. We are reaching the end of this conversation and I know that you have a beautiful gift to share with our audience, so maybe go ahead and tell us what it is.
Puja Lepp 56:39
Absolutely. Basically, as I said, healing is an embodied experience, and healing we need to pick compassion and friendliness towards ourselves, that you can work with those difficult feelings, there’s no way around. So, therefore, I would just like to guide you into a little embodied meditation, so to speak. So, you can just close your eyes, take a deep breath, there has been a lot of input right now, so just let it go again for now. And just take a moment to sense your body as you’re sitting here, sensing your body again means taking any attachments out, just let yourself feel you know where you feel connected in your body, and also let yourself feel the places where you might feel frozen, not attachment, just notice it.
From this place of sensing your body, also take a moment to feel your breath. And again, without changing it, just be with it the way it comes in and leaves your body, again. As I said, when we start approaching our shadows or traumas, we need to bring kindness, friendliness, and compassion to those unintegrated parts of ourselves so we can work with it. So, therefore, I just invite you to place your right hand over your heart for a moment, and then again, just feel the connection between your hand and your chest, and just by tuning into your heart, you’re actually already activating the intelligence of your heart. Then, often our breath slows down and then you want to say to yourself, internally, in there, there are many moments of difficulties I might face in my life right now, maybe trouble, frustrations about what’s going on, what’s in the world, an epidemic and everything else, climate change. So, if I’m feeling pain, I acknowledge that my shadow my trauma creates, it’s about feeling it, but whenever I’m facing my pain, I show myself love, kindness, and friendliness. It’s so important because we are so used to torturing ourselves. So, now, just do the opposite, bring kindness, friendliness towards yourself. With this, just open to the possibility right now, and the whole day, and this week, and this whole month, of just bringing more kindness to yourself and the experience you’re having, moment by moment. Especially in those times when you feel unsafe or disconnected, or maybe you feel very lonely at times, or fearful, just the possibility of meeting these parts and ourselves with compassion and kindness. It’s like as if we’re honoring the difficulty, at times, of the healing parts or the spiritual parts, and just how much it often asks us just to bring some kindness to ourselves.
As I said in the beginning, it’s not an easy path, it’s a road towards healing, and that needs kindness and friendliness, not judging ourselves and putting ourselves down, what we’re so used to. So, just open up to that possibility that you bring friendliness towards yourself, and then, in a moment, at the count of three, when I first tell you the way we’re going to do it, we’re going to breathe in deeply. Don’t do it yet, just demonstrating it, you breathe in deeply, and then when you breathe out, you just make the sound out loud, and you just let go. But then in a moment, at the count of three, we all together, everybody on this call, now we deeply breathe in, all together and we make a sound as we breathe out loud. And then, just take a moment to feel the connection we all have, even if it’s just through cyberspace, we are connected, each and one of the people here on this call, you can feel it through the connection in your own heart. And remember, that’s how we’re going to heal the world, one person at a time, and it starts with you always. And then, just let yourself come back, you can open your eyes again, you can go on with your day today, the rest of your day.
Nunaisi 1:03:37
Oh, thank you, Puja. That was amazing, thank you.
Puja Lepp 1:03:42
Thank you so much for having me and inviting me, having this time together. I enjoyed it very much. I feel very connected, right now.
Nunaisi 1:03:55
Yeah, exactly.
Puja Lepp 1:03:58
All my love to you, to your husband, to [inaudible 1:04:01], and to your children.
Nunaisi 1:04:03
Thank you so much, Puja. And tell me, if people want to learn more about you, follow your work, hop onto your workshops, what’s the best way?
Puja Lepp 1:04:13
Best way is you basically check our website, that’s www.pujalepp.com, P-U-J-A-L-E-P-P-.com You can also send me a direct email to puja@pujalepp.com. I work online, we have a next retreat coming in November, the Primal Child Deconditioning, we just finished one, we had people from all over the world, even from Mexico, Caribbean islands, all over, European, incredible diversity, just the way how I love it. So, yeah, just check the website and get in contact with us.
Nunaisi 1:04:54
Great. We’re going to have your website listed here on this page and thank you so much for being here, I really value your work. As I said, I’ve experienced it firsthand, and I know how powerful it is, and thank you for doing your sacred mission here on Earth.
Puja Lepp 1:05:13
Yes, it’s bigger than me. I’m going to do it until I take my last breath.
Nunaisi 1:05:17
Exactly. I feel the same.
Puja Lepp 1:05:21
It’s a lifestyle.
Nunaisi 1:05:23
Exactly. And when your mission drives you, then you just show up and you’re just an instrument in the divine hands.
Puja Lepp 1:05:30
Yes, that’s how I see it, too. Thank you say much. [inaudible 1:05:37] stay tuned.
Nunaisi 1:05:38
Thank you so much. Blessings your way and until the next time we meet, everyone. Ciao.
Puja Lepp 1:05:45
Everybody, yes, bye-bye. Ciao.
FREE GIFT: Primal- Childhood Deconditioning eBook, A roadmap for healing trauma
FREE Inner-Child Healing Meditation 🧘 A Guided meditation to heal your child within
Claim your FREE GIFT here
Watch the Video:
Listen to the Podcast:
Please share all your comments, insights, takeaways, questions in the comments below.
If you feel called to heal your trauma, grab your copy of the Transform Trauma Summit
Transformational Healing Blog: https://nunaisi.com/blog/
Watch more healing related videos: https://nunaisi.com/media/
Listen to other transformation podcast episodes: https://nunaisi.com/podcast/
