Blossom Your Awesome Podcast An Adventure Of A Lifetime With Don St. John

Blossom Your Awesome Podcast An Adventure Of A Lifetime With Don St. John

Don St. John is here with us. Don is a psychotherapist, teacher and author of the book Healing The Wounds Of Childhood And Culture: An Adventure Of A Lifetime


To learn more about Don and his work you can check him out at his site Paths Of Connection.

To see more of my work check me out here where I cover optimal health and wellness.

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https://blossomyourawesome.com/mindfulness-1

Where I write and cover mindfulness and other things to help you Blossom Your Awesome.

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Transcript

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Sue:
Hi there today on the show we have got Don St. John here with us. I am so honored and delighted to have you here. Welcome to the show.

Don St John:
The honor is mine, Sue. Thank you, I'm delighted to be here.

Sue:
Oh, so excited to have you here. Okay, so let's get into this, Dawn. You are a psychotherapist, a teacher, an author. You also are a teacher in a Christian ayahuasca church. That is so cool. So give us the backstory here. Also, I know you kind of have looked outside of the box at non-traditional clinical psychology and psychiatry for the work. Um, and the psychotherapy you do. So give us the backstory, why you went into this line of work.

Don St John:
In a sense, Sue, I didn't really have a choice. I had a very challenging background. The abuse was at the level of extreme. I almost died at birth. And then, as I like to say, it got worse after that. My mother, with whom I had a very complicated relationship. There was a lot of love never expressed, but felt. And at the same time, she had extremely poor impulse control and would fly off the handle and started swinging at me before I was a year old. And along with curses and the expressions of rage and breaking wooden spoons over my shoulders when I was a child. And, you know. And my father was an almost non-existent figure in the house. So that puts it in a nutshell. It summarizes a very, very difficult background. And I was destined for a miserable life. But by the grace of God and some wise choices on my part, you know... One morning, I was 20 years old, 19 or 20, I woke up in the back seat of my car, I'd been drinking all night, hooping, hollering, making a lot of noise, and I was bleeding from my throat at five o'clock in the morning in the back seat of my car, and a little voice in my head said, you need help. And... When I finally got home that day after a trip to the emergency room, I looked up a psychiatrist in the Yellow Pages who worked on Saturday, my day off. So that began what's been a 60-year journey with a whole lot of insights and changes and transformations. In my book, I call it an adventure of a lifetime.

Sue:
Mm-hmm. Yes, your book healing the wounds of childhood and culture and adventure of a lifetime now talk to us about this you know, I feel like So many times I mean we all have wounds and trauma So often they go unaddressed and we don't even realize that we're like carrying this trauma And then another trauma and we kind of layer these things How do we begin as adults to start the healing work and acknowledging the trauma and the wounds?

Don St John:
I think the first step you've just articulated, we all have wounds. It was a big insight for me because, you know, I thought of my situation similar to having some kind of disease that was terribly abnormal and, you know, that I had to fix to become normal. Over the decades, I realized we all have wounds. wounds. And the reason I like the title of your show, Sue, Blossoming You're Awesome, isn't just because of the vibe, you know, it does have a great vibe, but I think it also expresses what we're here to do. And in order to do that, you know, and there's some synonyms, you know, you can say to become our authentic self. to evolve psycho-spiritually, but that's what we're here to do, to blossom our awesome. And to do that, we have to recognize what you just said. We all have wounds, and there isn't this imaginary normal that we need to get to. See, there are... are many, many people who realize that they've been wounded, who are aware of at least some of the challenges that existed in their childhood, some of the traumas. And then there's perhaps an even larger number of people who know they're having problems, for example, in sustaining a very satisfying emotionally, sexually... intimate relationship, you know, and for example a marriage, but they don't know why they're having problems because they've always thought their childhood was normal. And then, you know, I can't tell you how many times somebody comes into my office and says,

Sue:
Thank

Don St John:
you

Sue:
you.

Don St John:
know, I had a pretty normal childhood. Oh yeah, my mother was depressed for two years after I was born. My father drank a lot. And, you know, he became another person when he drank, and they didn't like each other very, you know, and it goes on and on describing these situations, these conditions that create an environment that lacks safety, security, maybe even affection, so many ways that children get wounded.

Sue:
Mm hmm. You know, it's so interesting. I was having another conversation with a holistic therapist and it was really the first time I had this insight as I think most people do because we don't realize you know, abuse is kind of like we just think okay, physical abuse or you know, that's what we think of. We don't think of neglect. as a form of abuse or a lack of safety where it's like, okay, maybe there's moments where you don't feel totally safe as a child, but you don't think of that as a form of abuse. So that's just really interesting. And I'm sure you experienced that with adults where to them, what is normal is actually a very unhealthy, abusive situation.

Don St John:
Yeah, exactly. Neglect, for example. Okay, you can have gross neglect where a child... My phone on its own started playing music. Can you

Sue:
Oops,

Don St John:
hear that?

Sue:
I can still hear it. So I'm gonna pause for a second.

Don St John:
Thank

Sue:
Yep.

Don St John:
you all. Get that out of

Sue:
Okay,

Don St John:
here.

Sue:
no problem.

Don St John:
I am so sorry.

Sue:
No problem. And then also, you know, Dawn, what I'm going to say really quick is you're kind of out of the shot and I may want you to kind of lean more in. Yeah, because you were kind of I know you were leaning forward towards the mic, but

Don St John:
Yes.

Sue:
you were kind of going a little out of the shot. So just for

Don St John:
Oh,

Sue:
video purposes.

Don St John:
how's that?

Sue:
But yeah, that is perfect. And now so continuing where you were you were saying neglect will just take it from there.

Don St John:
That phone started on its own. It was six feet away from me and it started playing music. I don't understand it. Okay, I was talking about neglect and how, you know, there's obvious, gross neglect, neglect of physical needs, but there's also much, much more subtle neglect, neglect of our emotional needs, neglect of our needs for safety, for contact, for empathy. You know, there's a dynamic to that really expresses it. It's a conflict between authenticity and security in a relationship. Okay? If I'm authentic, if I let you see me, if I let you know what I'm feeling, what I'm really thinking, are you still gonna love me? That's the dilemma. Unless the parent is aware of that and can hold that and encourage the child's authentic self, his or her feelings and thoughts and imaginings, to be okay, that conflict gets set up and the child then attempts to mold themselves. to not lose that attachment, to not lose that security in the relationship.

Sue:
Hmm,

Don St John:
Does that make sense?

Sue:
it does. And now, you know, I want to touch on something, but I want to stay on this topic. You had mentioned something earlier, so I want to just kind of mark this. I want to talk to you about psycho spirituality, but we'll get into that a little later. Before I forget, I wanted to mention, I do want to touch on that, but now talk to us. So, you know, this idea of trauma and wounds. Can you help us understand the difference between the two and how they form and show up?

Don St John:
Well, the word trauma itself means wounds. And the reason I used wounds is because when people think of trauma, for example, I just read an article today in the Washington Post talking about a growing recognition that trauma is related to mental health. Okay. And when they talk about trauma, they tend to speak of big traumas, you know, abuse, for example, physical abuse, sexual abuse, catastrophes, social situations, the Holocaust, and all of that. And they tend not to recognize these more subtle layers. of trauma. These wounds, they're wounds. We can say that all traumas are wounds, maybe not all wounds are traumas. And the other thing that's important to understand about this too is that they are also opportunities. Every place we're wounded, every place there's been a trauma. there's lying within an opportunity to sculpt our own uniqueness. I think that requires an example for clarity. Let's say an individual has had a lot of trauma around sexuality and having a very satisfying sexual relationship and a long-term... Committed relation is a major challenge. And they've been unable to do it. Just doesn't work. It's either one or the other. They can either have good sex, but no commitment, or commitment, but no sex. Okay? Okay, what's the opportunity there? It's to learn how to converse about the most important thing. delicate things in our lives. It's about learning how to, you know, reveal our hearts and souls to another human being, to take off all the garments and show ourselves. to experiment, to discover what works for us, what doesn't work for us, to make it unique, to make it ours, see?

Sue:
Mm-hmm.

Don St John:
That wound, if it weren't there, you know, all that depth and richness may never have been mined, may never have been brought to life. Every trauma, if the trauma led to our inability, for example, if I had to stand up and tell you my name and address to six people in a classroom, I'd have been trembling in my twenties. Now give me 600 people and it's my playground. But I had to get through the profound shame that was there whenever I exposed myself like that.

Sue:
Mm

Don St John:
see those

Sue:
hmm. And

Don St John:
examples.

Sue:
yeah, that is a really amazing example and metaphor there. You know, it's interesting because it's like every trauma that doesn't get addressed kind of it's, it's like a layer, right? Or like a door, something we put up a little shield, and then another one and another one until we learn. to, like you said, converse. So essentially what you're saying is we need to be talking about the trauma. We need, if our feelings are hurt, really the way to heal is through expressing that

Don St John:
Yeah,

Sue:
vulnerability.

Don St John:
that's a big part of it for sure. I mean, that's a whole book, you know, how do we heal all this? Because we're affected at various layers of our being. You know, we're affected down to the tissues, down to the fluids of our body. And depending on the intensity of the trauma, its effects go deep. So... It's definitely talking about it. It's definitely understanding. It's understanding what beliefs we formulated as a result. One of the most pervasive beliefs that human beings form is that somehow they are not really worthy. Somehow they're not worthy of healing, they're not worthy of love, you know. And so those beliefs have to be brought. to the light, to the surface, to consciousness, so that we can then begin to challenge them and work with them. Also, those beliefs, those patterns, get structured in our very body. So for example, if there's a great deal of frustration in my childhood, but anger is absolutely prohibited, I'm apt to have my shoulders locked back and held in that position. And I can't voluntarily release it. It's going to take addressing it skillfully. And again, in my book, I share various approaches to doing that, but... It has to be addressed if we're going to fully heal that trauma, if we're going to fully bring ourselves fully into our lives.

Sue:
Mm-hmm. And now, you know, let me ask you a hypothetical scenario here, because I find through conversations with friends and people, you know, this idea that getting back to that idea of neglect and then this idea of unworthiness, right? So it's almost like at times, even as adults, when these feelings, wounds and things come up. We don't always feel worthy of empathy or compassion. So we just kind of, okay, I don't need to talk about it, or I'm not gonna share that, or that really hurt my feelings, but we just kind of move past stuff. Is that how those two kind of correlate?

Don St John:
That's how they work together. Exactly. Exactly that. I don't feel like I deserve your compassion. I don't feel like I deserve your care, your empathy, just because I'm standing here bleeding. Well, you know, that's what I deserve. I've been a bad person.

Sue:
And what if just, I know this is a longer conversation and

Don St John:
Yeah.

Sue:
probably requires a lot of therapy and work, right, to heal this, but if there was just one thing you could offer to the listeners, like some practical guidance there for, you know, the hypothetical scenario, someone says something hurtful or does something hurtful and you're kind of sitting in it, you wanna address it, you're fearful of addressing it, What are your thoughts on that? Or what's some practical guidance there? How do we manage that?

Don St John:
Okay, I'll answer you and I'll also say that you're correct. It does require a lot of work. And practical suggestions. One, recognize that it's a belief and it's not true. Number one, that notion I'm not worthy, that notion I'm really stupid, that notion I don't deserve to be loved. that notion if I get close to you, you're gonna hurt me. Okay? All of those, those notions are beliefs and not necessarily true. Okay? That's one. Two, act as if they're not true. Ask, ask for that helping hand. Ask for your friend to just hear you. Be there. Listen to you. So those two things are a start in that direction.

Sue:
Hmm. Wow. That's really it's such practical guidance and put in a way, you know, we don't you as a therapist, as a clinician, someone who does this, you can just see it for what it is, right? But when we never see things in that way, we never pause to consider. these other perspectives or try to come at it in a different way. So I love that guidance there. Thank you so much for that. Now, let me ask you, so like childhood trauma, what happens if we don't address these things?

Don St John:
Well, we see the world as it is today. So much, so much of what we lament about life in the world today. We can start with the violence in our country. So much violence everywhere you look. From shootings to Hollywood. We see just so much violence, polarization, the challenges in getting along with people who have different beliefs, different orientations. My God, just looking at the medical statistics, see so much. And again, in my book, I kind of show how. how the mechanisms by which these are related, but so much medical challenges, heart disease, for example, is related to childhood trauma. So that's, you know, and the inability, I mean, that's a big question, Sue. I mean, The shift that I'm proposing is a shift in our very understanding of why we're here. You know, we're here to blossom our awesome. You know, that's why we're here. And someone might say, doesn't that sound narcissistic? You know, my awesome. And the answer to that is it's just the opposite. Narcissism is blossoming my images, blossoming

Sue:
guys.

Don St John:
how I want you to see me. That's narcissism. Blossoming, you know, you're awesome. requires relationship. We don't exist outside of relationship. We belong in our relationships, whether they're family, spouse, partner, friends, community. We belong in those relationships. We blossom our awesome, but simultaneously blossoming those relationships. We belong to nature. We don't destroy it if we're blossoming our own. I hope you don't mind me using your title as much as I am.

Sue:
I love it. And you know what? I think we're in alignment here because your book, the title of your book is Healing the Wounds of Childhood and Culture, an Adventure of a Lifetime. I mean, there's like this dichotomy there where when one thinks of healing wounds, you don't think of it as an adventure. Right? But it actually, it speaks exactly to this idea of blossoming. You're awesome. Where it is all an adventure, right? And this idea of healing and becoming whole is a beautiful adventure. Um, so can you speak to us more about how people can begin to kind of perceive this idea of healing? as a more kind of how can we embrace that more?

Don St John:
Well, you know, there are three areas that I like to talk about. And the first is our sense of who we are, our sense of our identity. And in this process, that expands. That sense of who we really are will expand. on this journey. So instead of seeing things often as either or, we begin to see them as both and. Like I'm a male and you're a female. I can see that as an either or, or I can see that as there's a female part of me and a male part of you. And the more we can hold those two dimensions of self, those two dimensions of being, the fuller a sense of who we are, there's an expansion of our choices, of our possibilities to feel, to act, to dress, to speak. Okay? That's one. And that in of itself is a big adventure. Our sense of connection is another area. our connection to our body. Most human beings, you ask for what are the consequences of not recognizing how we've all been wounded. One of the huge consequences is most people are minimally connected to their body, to what's possible. in their body, to their ability. I'm 80 years old and you know I can move in ways that I never thought I'd be able to move even at 30. But it's more than move, it's to feel. Now my genetics brought me some other major arthritis you know. knee joint, shoulder joints, wrists. But much of the time, I won't say most, but much of the time at 80 I can walk around and feel kind of delicious being in this body. You know, when I started, I had a rough start. So, you know, I must say it is impressive to be able to say that at my age, given my beginnings. So that's connection to one's body, to one's psychology, one's depths, that connection to the various aspects of self, that connection to family and friends and nature. can continue to evolve. And the third area, Sue, is in the sense

Sue:
Yes.

Don St John:
of responsibility. I consider myself the author of my life. Or another way of saying it is that, you know, I feel like I'm 100% responsible and that God is 100% responsible. But I don't feel victimized by everything that happened to me. And there were some horrible things that happened. And I don't say that I caused them. I don't say, well, yeah, I was some level, I made them happen, blah, blah. Yeah, I was a year old, right? No, but from the very beginning, I was beginning to make meaning. beginning to

Sue:
Yeah.

Don St John:
formulate beliefs, a process that continues. And once I began to recognize that, I could begin to rewrite that script. And all of that led to me being here right

Sue:
Thank you.

Don St John:
now, speaking to you.

Sue:
Wow. And you know, this is so fascinating, this idea of making meaning in, you know, connection. Now, do you believe for you? It is it because you've healed the wounds? Or is this? How does you know, one just perceive it in this way, right as an adventure?

Don St John:
Hmm. That's a good question. You mean from perceiving it in some other way as, can you rephrase that? I'm looking for a good way to answer your question, but I'm not sure I fully understand it.

Sue:
Well, you know, from this, like you say, I'm not a victim, like I have these things happen to me, where is it be is there a way to see ourselves and the things that happen to us? Not as victims, because many people do and no judgment here, right? Not casting any judgment, not

Don St John:
Mm-hmm.

Sue:
trying to compare anyone's trauma to anyone else's. But this idea that, hey, I'm not a victim. And I'm making meaning of the things without being in a state of victimhood.

Don St John:
Hmm, I understand your question and it's, it's not an easy one to answer. But I can tell you a story that might be helpful. It was, the year was 1976 and I was married for about two years and I went off to a retreat that was focused on living from the heart center. In other words, living from love with a spiritually oriented retreat. And on the second day, the retreat, my wife called me, said she had to see me, drove two and a half hours. We sat down and she said, I'd like to have an open relationship. And I started, by the way. And I said, do you have anything else to say? She said, no. I said, OK. She drove 2 and 1 half hours back home. And I went crazy. I was absolutely enraged and in pain. Clearly the victim of her behavior. And the next morning, after receiving a lot of compassion in the evening, the next morning, the workshop leader, the retreat leader said, it's time to leave the emotional level behind and move into the heart or go home. And I thought he was absolutely insane. And I couldn't imagine it. I was bouncing off the walls. And he said, we had until, you know, the evening session to make a choice. And I was, I couldn't tell you how excruciating. a day that was. Until one moment, all of a sudden, for no reason, for no reason that I could understand, my heart just opened and I felt this outpouring of love. and You know, as I started telling this story, Sue, I didn't know how I was going to answer your question. But as I was telling it, the answer came to me. I think the answer is a spiritual surrender. You know, some level of understanding that a divine exists. There's some power beyond. our mind and body. By the way, I was still pissed off, I was still hurting, but they were in a completely different context. I could see my life was going to be great. That was where it shifted for me in that moment. Thank you.

Sue:
Oh my God, I love that. That's so beautiful. And you know what's interesting and coming to me right now from what you just shared is this idea of acceptance, right? Because there it's like going with the flow. When things happen to us, we can resist them. We can act out. We can be enraged. We can we have so many choices, right? But then, like you call it. spiritual surrender, which I think is so beautiful, because I believe in a higher power and there's so many things in life where I do take that approach and many people do of accepting. Like, okay, this has happened. It's whether it's divinely orchestrated, whatever it is, it's something that's outside of our control and there's just no power in resisting. So the most empowering thing to do is accept.

Don St John:
Absolutely. Yeah, I think that's very well put too.

Sue:
Yeah, which is, it can be a component of spiritual surrender, which kind of just takes it to this higher place, right? To be able to see it in that way. It's not only is it acceptance, it's almost bringing in this really beautiful element of, okay, this was, perhaps this was divinely orchestrated.

Don St John:
Yeah. How do I make lemonade with these lemons?

Sue:
Ha ha ha!

Don St John:
Thank you.

Sue:
Oh, I love that. Okay, so now, you know, talk to us about, I feel like I'm gonna have to have you back on the show and we spend a whole episode talking about the, cause I don't wanna just touch on this, but I'm so fascinated by the Christian ayahuasca thing. Like that is a conversation in and of itself. So if that's something you're open to, I would love to have you back on to, take a deep dive into that. But I want to talk to you about psycho spirituality. Can you define that for us? And then how does that work in terms of healing?

Don St John:
Well, in my book I divided the second part into four chapters, each describing what I consider a dimension of healing. But in reality, they're interrelated. So for me, for example, when I talk about the spiritual... I can begin with the concept of forgiveness. We carry, most of us tend to carry a lot of rancor, resentments, regrets, guilt in our hearts. And to forgive, to forgive ourselves, to forgive those that we perceive have hurt us. is an important step in opening our heart. And I think the opening of our heart is part of the spiritual process. You know, if you want to look at it from a Hindu perspective and think in terms of seven chakras or nine chakras, depending on who you're reading. to get up above what we could call money, food, and sex, and to open the heart and live more. It's the heart that can hold these paradoxes that we've talked about. It's the heart that can hold the polarity about being a male and a female at the same time. It's the heart that can see things in a perspective that the rational mind can't see the things. However, it requires work at the psychological level, you know, to clear the impediments. For example, earlier we spoke of that core belief of being worthwhile, not worthwhile. That has to be cleared. That has to be addressed. in order to open to a more elevated sense of who we are and what we're doing here. That's what I mean, psycho-spiritual. It's hard to separate.

Sue:
So there's something I'm missing here, like the spiritual component. You know, really quick, I just this is so beautiful what you just said about opening the heart and this idea of forgiveness. It was just so amazing. But the spiritual component to that, how do those correlate?

Don St John:
At, and here's my comprehension. So at our deepest level, we're spirits. I do this little meditation. We don't have time to do it now, but I'll just say it so you can practice it and your listeners can practice it. Sit down, quiet yourself for a couple of minutes, and then sense yourself as flesh and bones. Just feel your flesh and your bones. Pretty easy for most people to do. Do it for a couple of three minutes. Just sit with that sense that you're flesh and bones. Then take a breath or two, come out of that, and now begin to sense yourself as fluid. We know that the body is approximately, give or take, 70% fluid. Blood, lymph, cerebral, spinal fluid. more or less 70% fluid. Sit and sense yourself. Imagine, just imagine that you're just liquid inside the skin. Just liquid, and you know, liquid just swirls and waves and undulates, and you're just liquid. Okay, with me?

Sue:
Hmm?

Don St John:
Then let that go. The third and final part is now experience yourself as space. From an atomic perspective, the atoms that comprise our body were mostly space. See if you can sense yourself as space. No difference inside, outside. It's continuous throughout. Just space. Get a sense of that spaciousness.

Sue:
Mm-hmm. It's

Don St John:
Okay.

Sue:
that. Wow, I think I think you just explained it. Yeah, it's

Don St John:
Yeah,

Sue:
kinda like

Don St John:
I think so.

Sue:
a-

Don St John:
I mean, you have to think about it. You have to think about what would it mean to develop qualities that are more associated with fluidity, resilience, for example. What's more resilient than water? What's more powerful than water? What's more receptive than water? What's more spacious

Sue:
Mm-hmm.

Don St John:
than space? See where...

Sue:
Wow, yeah, and you know, that just opens up, I mean, the universe essentially to us, right? It allows us to access everything in that

Don St John:
Yeah.

Sue:
space. Wow. Oh my goodness. Okay, so a couple of things, Don. I cannot believe we have been here 45 minutes having this incredibly insightful conversation. So a couple of things here in closing. One, I just first of all, I'm going to have links to all of your stuff for people. I would love to have you back on. So we'll talk about that if that's something you're open to.

Don St John:
Oh, absolutely. I really enjoy this. I like talking.

Sue:
Well, you're one hell of a talker and you've got some insights and wisdom for us. And I know people are going to have so many incredible insights and takeaways from what you've shared here. You've shared so much just empowering profundity with us. I really, really mean that. So I just am so honored and touched to have had this time with you. And That just means so much to me. You've been so awesome.

Don St John:
Thank you, thank you Sue. I enjoyed it. It's delightful. I could sense our connection. Where are you physically?

Sue:
I am in Northern California and so we're not done yet. I've got one last question for you though.

Don St John:
Okay.

Sue:
Okay, and then we'll have this conversation. But if there were one message, your hope for everybody in closing, what would that message be that you would like to leave everyone?

Don St John:
Mmm... one last message. The word love keeps coming to mind. And yeah,

Sue:
Yeah.

Don St John:
it's this. It's one of the biggest rewards on this journey, on this adventure, what I call an adventure of a lifetime. There's so much more real, palpable, felt love available. to us. Go for it.

Sue:
Oh, I love it. That is such a powerful, amazing close. Don, you've been so awesome. I just thank you so much.

Don St John:
Oh, you're so welcome. Love to come back. You tell me when.

Sue:
I will thank you so much.

Don St John:
Okay.