Triena: Hey, Trina
Muhammad: us going. Yeah. Good. Um, I guess picking it up from where we left off. Yeah. And what we were thinking about was, Hey, what if we had these conversations right. With people and let’s start with ourselves. I mean, what we’re looking to do is have these conversations about how we have gone through our experiences and all the things that we’ve learned.
Muhammad: But the difference is is that while we continue to grow and thrive in our state, that we’re in right now, we’re also very aware that you know what, as much as we go through that, we could face it the next minute. And so when we look at and try to talk to people and have conversations with them about what they did, right?
Muhammad: There’s this assumption in there that I think we want to, uh, we want to really take a closer look at it, which I think I, I disagree with with which it’s a, it’s a misconception that because they’ve been through it, they now are not vulnerable anymore. And if they know everything they’re enlightened.
Muhammad: Whereas in fact, the truth is, is a much more humble state, right? And with, with knowing that with expressing it that way, perhaps the people that seem to be stuck at these points realize that, you know, really those people aren’t that special. I think that’s a big piece that’s missing
Triena: is a huge piece that’s missing because I feel we’re.
Triena: We’re socialized to not view ourselves as powerful as we actually are and harness our own internal capacity to thrive. And our strength we’re always told we have to look for it externally, you know?
Muhammad: Yeah. I always used to feel when I was kind of like at that point at those lower points, those earlier stages, right.
Muhammad: When I would look up to somewhere or someone or some discussion, there was this gap kinda that I felt existed. It was like, there was no bridge for that. And I was like, I guess I don’t have that talent. Or I don’t have that know-how or I’m not that skilled or worthy or whatever, right. Call it the fear, the fear of success itself.
Muhammad: Right. Until I came to S to realize that actually I’m not different. I’m not very different from these ones. The reason I, I thought this or I was taught, this was because again, there was this, this fallacy that they did everything right. They never did anything.
Triena: They had opportunities and support. I didn’t have correct.
Muhammad: And as a result, or they’re more special in some ways, and something’s wrong with me and you see how like that
Triena: you’re deprecating kind of narrative buries people down.
Muhammad: Right. We could actually. Talk through something like that, where we’ve actually had experiences where we’ve had that same, what did you call it?
Muhammad: Self, self responsibility. Right. But what, what were you doing to ourselves when we were in debt? Right. So when you started doing that to ourselves, you’ve done it, I’ve done it. And sometimes we’ve learned to do it. Right.
Triena: And you manifest more of the same when you do
Muhammad: that. Right. So I would love to take a closer look at that.
Muhammad: I do it sometimes just out of conversation when we’re talking to people about, Hey, don’t worry, I did this. Right. And this is what I learned. Yeah. And
Triena: you know, what of it is not, um, known. Right. So, and I don’t really, I haven’t really been well versed in watching people who’ve achieved great success or reading biographies.
Triena: I’ve just, it just hasn’t been a thing for me. Um, but I haven’t seen some of them and I do. You know, it’s a lot of bravado I find, right? There’s some good tools and good information there. Don’t get me wrong, but it’s a lot of bravado and it’s humility that, um, people need because the humility is the baseline for everyone’s connection.
Triena: Right? Humility is the baseline for everyone’s strength because when you can be humble and look at yourself objectively through the lens of like, Oh, I’m really great at this. Or I really could improve over here, you know, sitting with that neutrality, lets you know that you’re always in a perpetual state of learning and creating.
Triena: Right. And so I think that’s the, the gap and, and then, and then it’s, and this is the thing it’s going to ebb and flow, right? You’re going to gather your strength and your skills and you’re going to Excel in this little pond you’re in and then guess what? You’re going to jump into a Lake and all of a sudden you’re like, Oh no, it’s so much bigger.
Triena: I, I, you know, I can’t swim across this Lake. It’s used, I’m used to my little pond, but what people forget is that the strength you have in the pond. It’s still there. And just as vigorous in the Lake, it just looks differently now because you’re swimming in new waters. And again, you’re going to acclimate and you’re going to build, and you’re going to strengthen, then you’re going to grow an ocean.
Triena: And like, that’s just, that’s just the way it goes. Um, okay. We’ll, we’ll get really defeated. How about
Muhammad: we, we build that bridge or we get rid of that gap. Yeah. Yeah.
Muhammad: You know, how many times has this happened? Right. Um, and there’s so many examples, right. But one thing that we recently talked about, um, and Hey, you can go or I can go, it doesn’t really matter.
Muhammad: I feel like either, you know, like we help each other. That’s the point of this, this specific conversation, um, is that I feel I’ve been through those kinds of moments where there’s a lot of self doubt and either it’s it’s self-inflicted or, you know, we learned it from somewhere,
Triena: um, a combination of
Muhammad: the, both.
Muhammad: Usually it’s a combination and what happens is it’s a, it it’s a creep. I call it, it creeps in it. Doesn’t just, it doesn’t sound like the lights on and the lights off, it just dims. Right. So I figured if we can start at a certain point where it was dark enough, let’s just say, if we’re using the analogy of lighting, right.
Muhammad: So it was dark enough. And then we realize, Oh my God, it’s pretty dark. And then from there we start saying, how did it, how did it get here? Where did I go wrong? So we, we start from that moment, we go back, that’s the depth of the darkness. Yeah. We get to that point. We’re like, okay, it’s dark here. Yeah. It was wrong.
Muhammad: Some tells us something’s wrong. And then we like the Y Y w how did I get here? Why did I get here? And then there’s like that, that analysis that we do. Right. And then there’s a, okay, so these are my next steps. Yeah. Now sometimes we do that on our own, and sometimes we get help along the way. So I just thought we could take a look at like any one of those.
Muhammad: And you, you shared with me this, uh, your own sort of experience that you had. And even though you’re a professional in walking people through their own challenges that they have, what I really appreciate about what you have said is that even you, as a professional have had to face your own. You know, abyss.
Muhammad: Yeah, of
Triena: course.
Muhammad: Well, this is the thing you say, like, of course I have, and it’s kind of like, you wear like a badge, right? I look at it like a badge, quite frankly, whereas others see it as like this sort of thing that they want to throw away.
Triena: Yeah. I see it as I have my BSW, my RSW my MSW. These are my, you know, my official letters, but then I have all of these other life experiences, right.
Triena: That have bequeath me so much knowledge that if I hadn’t gone through that and felt it and moved through it and reconciled and forgiven and incorporated and integrated all of these things, I wouldn’t be the letters over here. How could you possibly write? So to me, there’s a duality there that people need to appreciate.
Triena: And, um, you know, I think I was having this conversation. It was with my mom. She was up recently helping me out. And I think we talked about this, I’m not sure, but, um, we were just talking about the different traumas in my life and what’s happened. And my parents were just really starting to be aware of this now.
Triena: Like, like my dad actually texts. He’s like, wow, your childhood was really shitty. Yeah. I’m like, it really was. So when looking at, um, this, through this conversation with my mom through the perspective of sexual abuse, she’s like, Oh God, I wish that just wouldn’t have happened. I wish that didn’t happen to you.
Triena: And we could just take that away. And then your life would be so much better. And I said, I wouldn’t take it away for anything. And she was just so uncomfortable with that statement because it’s taught me so many things about myself. Right, right. I understand my boundaries. I understand my triggers differently.
Triena: I understand. Um, You know, my relationship with my body very differently. And then, so that is a personal personal level, but then also in a professional level, what I was investigating, the primary cases I investigate, I had baby cases and sexual abuse cases. Those are my primary cases. And, you know, very early on in my career, like within a year and a half of starting in child welfare, I was testifying in a trial where, uh, from a disclosure I received from a child who, um, was sexually assaulted by their father.
Triena: And he was actually convicted, like that is not common in, in that practice. So I was able to like harness what my, um, what I would feel or what I would need or things I would like to have known as a child living through that experience and apply that knowledge to these letters over here in the application of skills in the front line.
Triena: So I was able to like harness that really quickly. And use that knowledge and that isn’t stuff that they taught me, you know, doing my Ontario risk assessment training. Right.
Muhammad: Right. And, you know, the, the, sometimes the risk and actually call it reliving or talking about it again, I wonder. And I’m not the professional, but sometimes what people have cautioned me about in having this conversation with others is they may not have completely recovered.
Muhammad: Right. So if you take them there again, they might get stuck this time. And I thought about that a lot. But then when I looked at my own experiences, I kind of approach it the same sort of way I go, hold on a second. Nope. I’m going to go through it again. And I’ve probably played this in my head a thousand times.
Muhammad: And sometimes I do come out of it feeling a little bit. Maybe the word is angry, you know, like, there’s this, like I was a victim of on at this point and there was this like a, I want justice. Um, And so, but every time I play it, I get another little nugget let’s call it or an insight. So I don’t feel that there’s, to me, uh, yes, there’s a danger.
Muhammad: Yeah. There is a
Triena: danger. And the thing is, is what we’re talking about is not just belief systems, right? So there’s belief systems attached to this, but we’re talking about trauma, right? So when we talk about trauma, trauma looks different for everyone. Every and trauma is a lifelong process, right? It really is.
Triena: It’s a lifelong process of self responsibility doing the shadow work, keeping things in check. But I do agree with you because the more wherever they are on their spectrum of, of addressing their trauma, um, that it just gives you so much more knowledge. And the more you sit. In the, the, the discomfort, the actual pain and the visceral responses and the, the horrors of the things you’ve, you’ve witnessed and gone through and experienced.
Triena: It’s like the water it’s like, you just acclimate to the waters and you, and you can swim in it. Yeah.
Muhammad: when you just said you acclimate right there. That’s what I want to talk about. That moment of acclimation. So for example, how I would actually do it, or I had to say to myself is going, come on, stop feeling sorry for yourself.
Muhammad: Right. That’s the beginning of the acclimation, because that’s like going from, okay, you gotta do
Triena: something about
Muhammad: this. Yeah. This is now on me right there. So you see how we, we brush over that? Like, yeah, you gotta acclimate. Whoa. How did you acclimate again? And how many times did you have to try and not get it right.
Muhammad: And try and try and try different things that you did. Do you
Triena: remember those things? Yeah, I do remember those things.
Muhammad: So like, if you were to give like a, what would you recall?
Triena: Okay. So the first I, cause I didn’t start to, I didn’t articulate this until I became a parent. Right. So, um, when my son was eight, once I went home, no, he wasn’t even eight months old.
Triena: I would say he was like five or six months old. Okay. I mean he’s in his high chair. I was just bringing him some blueberries and just so simple, just such an innocuous thing, but that’s how trauma works. Right. You’re just triggered and you don’t know why. And I don’t know what triggered me in that moment still, but I was definitely triggered.
Triena: So it was bringing in blueberries. I set them on his high chair and then all of a sudden just dropped to the ground. I could, I just, I just fell to the ground. The abuse hit me. All of these flood of sexual abuse memories kept coming into my head and I couldn’t get myself off the ground. Like I physically couldn’t get off the ground.
Triena: My body was so heavy and I was becoming dysregulated because I was scared. And then he was looking down on me and started to cry because he could see what was happening. He was about five, six months old, six months. And so, um, and this all happened. It was a matter of like minutes. It wasn’t very long cause I could, I could see the clock out of my peripheral, but it was like a shift.
Triena: And so I just had this like visual of like. Oh, this is what this trauma feels like. And, and like, I could sit in this for years. Like I could see, I could see me being, um, incapacitated for years sitting in that despair and how debilitating it really could be because I couldn’t get off the ground. And then I just looked up at him and I’m like, you’ve got to make a choice.
Triena: And like you have to stand up and face this, or you’re going to be on this ground for a long, long time. And that’s what I did. And then I just stood up and then I booked a counselor. I phoned the police. I phoned children’s day and I confronted my uncle. I just like went down the list of things. And so, and then, you know, and then you go into counseling and you go out of counseling and you go into therapies, you have to constantly dig and integrate, right.
Triena: It’s not, it’s not pretty, it’s not linear, it’s an emotional process. But once you go through and you get through, um, you know, there’s some really great, um, therapeutic modalities to get the, the mind body connection going. And when you tap into where your trauma lies in your body, um, you really. Really tap into, you know, like sole purpose, your spirit or whatever, you, you know, your inner self, there’s, all these different words for it.
Triena: Right. So
Muhammad: something that doesn’t add up to me, because I don’t actually remember all of this, uh, that you just mentioned you, I, I’m not making the connection yet. So you’re, you’re, you’re, you’re bringing blueberries to your five, six month old son. Yeah. You, you fall down to the ground and then you just talked about something to do with abuse and having to take therapy.
Muhammad: Like, I don’t understand how or that, how that all connected. And how does that, how do you connect all of that? How did that unravel
Triena: for me? The way my brain works, I just knew what I needed to do. It just came to me. It just came to me and I guess my experiential knowledge too, I knew what I needed to do as a social worker, to be able to clear that
Muhammad: out.
Muhammad: So you discovered at that point in time, Like the blueberries had nothing to do.
Triena: I don’t know. So this is the thing about traumas. Like you can trigger a traumatic memory through sensories, usually sensory stimulus. It’s a very grounded in like your taste, your smells since textures. It obviously took you
Muhammad: to someplace
Triena: took me there.
Triena: And what was that place? It was the moment where I was five years old and I was being sexually abused. It took me right to that trauma and that trauma kept me on the ground. Okay. Yeah. Sorry. I thought that I didn’t
Muhammad: realize this. Oh, I didn’t see the connection.
Triena: And I did not understand that. And so trauma is, it could be the most innocent thing trigger that, like I remember once I was in a session with this young man and when he was, you know, very depressed, very suicidal, And I was like, just, you know, going over things to try to get movement into his life again.
Triena: And, um, you know, I said, well, what about competitive swimming? And then he, I could just feel it. He didn’t say anything. His face didn’t change. Like nothing visual non-verbal champion. I could feel it. And then I’m just like, what, what happened? He’s like, what do you mean what happened? I’m like, I just felt something I said I just was talking about, um, Competitive swimming.
Triena: And I said, I just felt like I just, this pain in my heart. And he said, and then he ran through the story of how he had a trauma related to competitive swimming. So when I said that word, right, it just brought him back to his trauma. Right. So he was able to identify what it was that I, that those words brought him back.
Triena: But in that moment, I didn’t know if it was the blueberries. It could have been the sunlight. It could have been the pink color. It could have been a smell. Right. I don’t know
Muhammad: what brought me back. Where was it? Took you back there? So now I’ve had this happen to me as well. Like you’re you’ve and it’s similar.
Muhammad: It’s not like I’m serving, it’s not the same scenario, but for me it was always, I reached these points. Like, I feel like I’m just at the edge of this. Glorious moment, almost like about the crush to cross the finish line on something for me, I’m about to cross the finish line. Did you know what would happen is I would fall down and I couldn’t understand why this has happening.
Muhammad: And it was not just that I would fall down. I would literally stop moving and I’m thinking there, I did it again. And then there, I did it again and then not, and that, by the way, it wasn’t just my not moving. It was me looking at it going, I’m not going to make it right, because I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t understand why I kept saying this to myself.
Muhammad: I was like, wait a second. I got all the way here. I passed all of these hurdles. All I got to do is step across the finish line and I’m not stepping across the finish line. Why am I not doing this? And I’m myself. My problem was I couldn’t connect it to anything. I didn’t know what it was. Yeah. Yeah. That was my problem.
Muhammad: I couldn’t understand because this kept happening again and again, at different points. I’m about to cross the finish line on something is how my ex expression right now, the contexts are all very different, but then I’m about to cross the finish line or something. And I just won’t, I won’t cross again.
Muhammad: And I was thinking what, and while I was not crossing so many other times, I didn’t realize that I wasn’t crossing. I was just thinking there was something
Triena: circumstances.
Muhammad: Yeah, it was beyond me, but ultimately it happened enough times that I started looking at you or the one common denominator. That’s where I started noticing.
Muhammad: I was like, wait, it happened here. It happened here. It happened here. In your case, it happened at one point and you were able to make the connection, everything changes once you’re able to make the connection. Cause then you got to go. That’s what I got to go deal with. So you made that connection at that time.
Muhammad: I got a question for you. Is that the first time it happened to you
Triena: that you got to that point? Um, Yeah. Okay. That was
Muhammad: the first time. Are there other times that you kind of felt yourself starting to fall a hundred
Triena: percent? You always live with the awareness of it and the body,
Muhammad: right. And at this time you’re a mom, right?
Muhammad: Exactly. As time went on,
Triena: but you still carry it very real, like in a very different way than I carry it. Now, now it’s not activated, but at those times it was very activated
Muhammad: before. So that was like the greatest level of activation. You saw a hundred
Triena: percent cause they couldn’t
Muhammad: get off the ground. Did you see it building up to that point from other moments or did it just go from nothing to this?
Muhammad: I guess switch. Okay. So you’re telling me from the time you were five and had gone through this trauma. You talked it away and that was it. It never crept up again,
Triena: creep up for me personally. Like I could taste things and smell things
Muhammad: specific now. So like, I want to start from like, say, say five, and then maybe we’re going to kind of accelerate the rate.
Muhammad: Right. But here you are, like, when you said that, like when did you start noticing. And something tasted different or
Triena: whatever. I don’t want to get really explicit, but I knew the taste of certain things connected to sexual activity. And I could just be like walking around in my day. And then the taste comes into my mouth or I tasted, or if I was engaging in sexual activity, then I’d be transported back.
Triena: So sometimes you’re engaging in sexual activity. Sometimes you’re just a smell or a scent just comes back into your brain. And it’s like, you’re there in that moment. But the sentence is even happening in the, in the world that you’re in. Like it’s not, you’re not like right around it. It’s like being able to smell, you know, roses and the roses are like four rooms over.
Triena: There’s no physical way. You could actually smell it, but you still have that really
Muhammad: going on inside of you. You’re continuing to grow as a person was a
Triena: competitive gymnastics, all of them on a roll. So it’s like,
Muhammad: yeah, you’re on your way something, but there’s this thing.
Triena: I also had the duality to, right. I was a super high achiever, but I also was like into, like, I was like such a dare devil and took all these calculated risks or some of them just like stupid risks.
Triena: Right. Right. Some of you you’re always, there was that duality in my experience. And it’s how you were
Muhammad: carrying this
Triena: trauma. And so like you develop maladaptive and adaptive coping mechanisms and that was just one trauma. I’ve had multiple, right.
Muhammad: When you say adaptive and maladaptive, give me an example.
Triena: So. An adaptive strategy during we’re smarter
Muhammad: than we realize. Right. A lot of people and you just, that you’re even smarter because you understand the technique now, but so tell me, so give me examples of adaptive and maladaptive
Triena: to have strategy for that. Um, for that sexual assault, when I was younger would be to like zone out, go into my head, create a space and just kind of like tune out of my body a little bit.
Triena: Right. That’s a very adaptive response.
Muhammad: Just, you would sit down and go do this. It
Triena: just happens naturally. The brain does it do to you kind of prompt you. Yeah, he does it naturally to protect you. Everyone has this capacity when something is too overwhelming for us, we can, we can put it in a little box and just kind of, yeah.
Triena: Disassociate, right. It’s a, this association. So in that, um, in that context, it’s very adaptive, right? Cause that’s like a survival skill when that’s happening. Right. Cause you can’t control what’s happening to you, but you can control your response. Right? So you develop this adaptive, um, skill, but then later on that same adaptive skill, it becomes hardwired into your brain.
Triena: And so we all have this, whether it be experiences or traumas. And so these adaptive skills become hardwired, but then they sometimes become maladaptive in our life. So while this disassociation or compartmentalizing, um, became adaptive in that context, it became maladaptive later in life, particularly like when let’s see, I became sexually active.
Triena: This is just one second. Right. That’s what I
Muhammad: wanted to know. I want to
Triena: see like, like okay. And adaptive to maladaptive, so become sexually active and I could never find my voice. I could never say no, I don’t want to do that. Or, um, I would just retreat into my head. Anytime I would engage in any kind of sexual activity and disassociate, right.
Triena: Because that’s what I did with sex or sexual activity during assaults when I was younger. Right. So that was an adaptive strategy. But in the context of healthy reciprocal relationships, that’s a very maladaptive thing to do because you’re not connecting with your partner. You’re not seeing what your needs are, your needs aren’t getting met, or your comfort level might not be expressed.
Triena: You might be engaging in things that are not comfortable, but
Muhammad: you can’t. And while you were going through this maladaptive and adaptive behavior, did you, at that time make the connection? Were you even aware? Would you say not initially,
Triena: of course, there’s this thing, no one talks about this stuff. Right, right. Because it’ll be happening. It’s happening to all of us. We
Muhammad: all have
Triena: it. Right. Because these conversations are very full Paul. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Particularly around like sexual abuse, no one wants to talk about sexual abuse. Right.
Triena: But it’s like one of the most prevalent things
Muhammad: or even abusive, any sort of abuse. Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. And that’s even more prevalent, like how abusive, you know, certain environments or relationships can be. There’s just no shortage of it. And here are people then walking through life, not realizing that we are now at these, what I would call near my finish lines and not getting across and I’m not able to make.
Muhammad: Right. And so when you look at. Look. So you had this moment coming back to the blueberries, I’m going to call it the blueberry incident. That’s when you knew,
Triena: I knew I’ve always known. That’s knew if I didn’t deal with this, I would be on that floor. So I knew that, and I looked up at my son and I’m like, your mother now you got to like, get rid of this shit because he’s the priority.
Triena: And you can’t barf this negativity onto this little boy’s life. So I find that interesting because I’m not responsible for what happened to me. I’m not responsible for that abuse, but I am responsible for how it manifests in my life and how I receive and perceive information and how I carry myself in my relationship.
Triena: So it was a self responsibility
Muhammad: moment. Well, that’s interesting because I was just about to ask you, speaking of responsibility, And, and I’m just, again, this is from a complete layman’s point of view, all these other times, there wasn’t a sun that you had to look at and say, if I don’t get my shit together right before it was just you, and now there’s this other sort of, um, you know, this other person, who’s got a lot of meaning or this other sort of responsibility that we have.
Muhammad: And all of a sudden it was like this commitment that we had to, that, that
Triena: superseded a commitment to self. Do you think that had anything to do with it? That’s that’s trauma as well. Right? So that’s also a trauma response in the sense that someone else’s needs are more important than my own, but I knew that, but I didn’t give a shit because it motivated me to get off the floor.
Triena: Right. And so what I did is I just kept that awareness and I’m like, okay, I got, um, I got to unpack this because at that moment, Um, not that I was suicidal or didn’t care about myself or I wasn’t depressed. It wasn’t anything like that. Right. But I had more care and love and vigor to do well for my son than I did for myself.
Triena: Right. And so that’s also a trauma response. My needs are less, your, those are more, I’ll put my needs down and so forth. But, um, interesting.
Muhammad: Cause that’s similar to what happened here. Uh, in, in my case it was the same sort of motivation, right. And one of the things we, we try to talk about is, you know, being enabled, empowered, but then being motivated.
Muhammad: Right. What’s my, why, you know, and I was thinking your father, now you got these kids who, you know, depend on you somehow that pushed. And it was like, it gave me a reason. And even if it meant it wasn’t that myself that I was doing this for, I was doing it for them. It’s still, it was leverage. And I think that’s something that we can, you can, you can take a closer look at because everybody can maybe find that leverage.
Muhammad: Is that what you would
Triena: call it? That motivates something that connects them. So like when you’re looking at things through, um, when you do assist training, assist is applied suicide intervention skills training. So when you’re doing assist training, when you’re trying to literally talk someone off the roof, it’s about what are they connected to?
Triena: Okay. Right. What motivates them to stay alive? What motivates you to work through visits this discomfort? And so it’s the connection that’s key. And so w a suicidal person or a person in the depths of despair of whatever, their experiences that they’re going through, that motivation and that connection, isn’t gonna come from the South because you’re so depleted at that point.
Triena: So, you know, but to see lines, to connect to people,
Muhammad: because usually on the way to that point, to that abyss point. Yeah. You know, how you talked about getting this, something that you connected to usually, and I found that I was cutting my connections to the things that would actually be my motivators later.
Muhammad: And that’s what created the despair. Now, ultimately from that not suicidal, I was completely disconnected from all my motivations. Yeah, and I was the one cutting them. I also realized, and in fact, what I also realized is even these, these elements of abuse that were around me were part of an ecosystem that I was responsible for creating right.
Muhammad: Almost to keep me there. And then when I finally realized that this is my creation, then it’s like, wait, if I can create it, then I can create something else. Um,
Triena: we’re willing participants in our own incarceration. So every step of our way we meet these informed. Decisions that set up our structures of our life, but are not resonating with who we are as people.
Muhammad: So you finally got to this point of owning it and saying, I’m going to, I have to do something for whatever the reasons are. And then after that point, it looks like, you know, okay, I’m going to do this, whether it talk to somebody or do something, but right up until that point, it was like, I felt, I don’t know, I’m putting it under the carpet on the rug,
Triena: under the rug until there
Muhammad: was just no more rug,
Triena: no more rug the rug
Muhammad: underneath our feet, literally.
Muhammad: And we’re finding ourselves on the floor. Yeah. Um, I think that’s to me like where the real, um, the aha moments, what do they call those? Anyway, those epiphanies, right? They take place. Right? Because up until that moment, I, I didn’t know why I, or I didn’t know why. And it just wasn’t enough to go and do something about it.
Muhammad: Um, you and I feel like sometimes got lucky because a lot of times when we fall down there, we just stay down there and it can actually happen. Like you got a little bit of tenacity in you. Yeah. You were a competitive, you said. Yeah. So you had this competitive,
Muhammad: like, you know, you got the attitude. Yeah. You got a little fire. Yeah, I guess that’s interesting. I’m an area. So it’s a hard head, like, you know, like people say that, so I got a little bit of attitude. Yeah. My name is Mohammad Ali. I was named after this guy. He was like, yeah. Super attitude. Right. So I, that, that attitude we had as much as it’s, um, it can be a weakness in some ways it became, you know, a tool for us that we can pull out.
Muhammad: And I, I w I worry about situations where people didn’t have that. So I’ll come back to that another time. What, what do you do when you, you know, what you don’t, but I don’t want you to get into that. Cause that’s, it was a
Triena: resiliency factors and everyone’s resiliency factors look
different.
Muhammad: Right.
Muhammad: Resiliency kind of that’s it. So that’s what picked you back up? Um, how hard was it though for you? I mean, after that moment, it’s not like, okay, it’s in roses after that, you still had to
Triena: go. Yeah, I still did it, but like, I don’t know. I just, and again, this is part of like the disassociation too. You can just like.
Triena: And it’s like, maybe like an alpha kind of personality too. I’m just like, I’m going to deal with this and I’m going to get it done. And I did, I went, I literally,
Muhammad: did you think, for example, that it was like, Oh, that was a one-time thing?
Triena: No, I knew it. I’ve gone back to therapy at different points over the law.
Triena: My son’s 18 now. So I’ve gone back and done different work, like stuff percolates, right. And surfaces still. Right. So what were the discoveries
Muhammad: that you that’s cool? That you’ve his he’s 18 now. He was like five months old. So you did different sort of sessions. Um, walk us through like some of the discoveries like that you can share
Triena: it, right?
Triena: Yeah. So at the beginning it was just really about. Um, it was really just about identifying what happened to me saying it out loud. Cause I’d never said it out loud to anyone. Um, that was the first and first time first. Yeah, the very first sessions is the first time I ever actually, when I got myself off the floor, I phoned my boss at CAS.
Triena: I worked at children’s aid at the time time, and I told her what had just had happened to me. And I said, I’m going to go to counseling. And what do you think? Like, what do you think I should do? Like or who do, who should I go to? And she wasn’t surprised because her feedback, I can’t remember her verbatim, but her feedback was Trina.
Triena: I’m not surprised. Look at the investigations you do and how well you do them. She knew by the nature of my work, I had insight. And also from the fact that like, I’d work crazy overtime, like have seen no amount of overtime. Right. So, um, So she was the first person I said it to. Then I went to counseling, then really unpack the whole story of what it looked like and into the grooming and so forth and how long it went on for.
Triena: Um,
Muhammad: so these are
Triena: these, these are different sessions, different sessions. I did it for about three months. I went once a week for three months. And then, um, at the end of that three months, I confronted my uncle who was the perpetrator of the abuse. Um, I had a friend sitting in a coffee shop in the peripheral that he didn’t know just to make sure I was okay.
Muhammad: So you got to kind of plan the logistics on this, right? Um, these are not accidental, small little details. They’re they’re
Triena: important. Yeah.
Muhammad: Like a lot of times we do this, we plan. We then execute. And that’s the kind of stuff that I want to share
Triena: details of the growth,
Muhammad: because in there is where I think sometimes I’ve made missteps maybe in the past you’ve even made me try to confront or you’ve tried to correct. But those are the details that were not present.
Muhammad: Right. There was no safety net, for example, when you were setting it up the first time, so then you didn’t end up doing it right. Unknowingly. Right. So go on. You were saying
Triena: so, yeah, I was just, um, set up for him to meet me at a local restaurant. My friend was there. She knew what was up within just three months within three months.
Triena: And, um, yeah, confronted him, told him like one memory in great detail. Um, And he didn’t and this is the beauty of it. He didn’t say no. And he didn’t say yes, he just said, Trina, if you believe that happened, I’m sorry. You know, you’re, you’re going through this. And so I’m just like that, to me, that was affirmation because coming from working, um, a lot within the field, I know, um, you know, he, wasn’t going to make an inculpatory statement, but an innocent person would deny not that I had any, I knew he did it, you know, innocent people will be like, are you insane?
Triena: Are you kidding me? You know, whatever. So the fact that he, it was just, that was validating for me in that sense. Right. Um,
Muhammad: that’s the interesting thing is that, um, quite often when others are doing the same sort of thing, And they’re trying to approach it the same way they don’t get that, um, confession.
Muhammad: Right. And because they didn’t get it. I think that’s what we seek is we’re like, Hey, I want you to understand that’d be accountable as well. Yeah. But you don’t need that.
Triena: Don’t need it. Yeah. And you know, I did it just because I felt like that was something I need to do. I have a massive family, a lot of people didn’t talk to me after that.
Triena: I was, you know, ostracized and still am, which is fine. Um, you know, and that’s the thing. Like you have to shift into forgiveness because it’s not forgiveness for them. It’s forgiveness for yourself because if you can’t forgive. It just harbors resentment, and it’s like a cancer in your body. So I had to have that conversation with him to say, you know what?
Triena: I forgive you for this. Cause I, I do understand, I know some of his story. Um, and I do understand why he does the things he does. And I don’t know if he does them still, but, um, You know, I understood his perspective as the abuser as well, but
Muhammad: do you think, um, you just talked to Kenny, you just skipped over this part here.
Muhammad: I look over and go, hold on forgiveness. No, the being ostracized by the family and that’s sometimes a risk, right? That’s sometimes a priceless for some people too high to pay. And so somebody will say, Hey, you know what? I will deal with this family member. And that’s often where it happens by the way, right.
Muhammad: It happens right close to
Triena: close to. It’s not the guy in the trench coat, walk in the park and can flash and people, there are people who are connected to you, the people that have, um,
Muhammad: how are the other people that are connected to these, to these people that are also connected to you? And if you rock that boat, God forbid you break all these ties.
Muhammad: So just keep the peace, right. And that makes the situation so much worse as well.
Triena: For the 10 for the person who’s the victim.
Muhammad: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that’s sometimes even something that could prolong, you’re getting to this.
Triena: It totally could. And I kind of like, and this is the thing with me with theory therapy.
Triena: I kind of leapfrog over things because I can get through a lot of stuff on my own, like through meditation and reflection and just really, you know, practicing gratitude and really holding myself accountable for my actions. Because a lot
Muhammad: of times for those who go through this, and again, I will speak also from my own experience.
Muhammad: Is that when that reaction comes from the family or from the ones nearby, it seems to be taken as like, that was my, that was a misstep. Well,
Triena: yeah, cause it’s interpreted as what it is. Right. It’s it’s shutting down the victim, right. Because people are so uncomfortable with the truth that you’re speaking.
Triena: They would rather, you be quiet. Then for them to face that reality because the disruption, it causes within themselves and their relationship with the perpetrator and also within the family structure. Right. So, um,
Muhammad: I didn’t have another blueberry moment. I
Triena: couldn’t, it wasn’t worth it to me. It wasn’t worth it.
Triena: So blueberry, you know, it’s sad at times, you know, cause you know, you’d think people would keep you in their circle, but you know, that’s their journey and that’s a reflection of them. That’s not a reflection of me. Um, you know, you just send them love from a distance because they will matriculate back.
Triena: Like I remember in the last couple of years, my dad’s just even come to because this was his sibling. And um, and so I guess, okay, so Evan’s 18, about three years. So Evan was 50. So 15 years after I told my parents that this had happened, um, Uh, he up in the first five to eight years, I can’t remember how long it was a long time.
Triena: He would still go on motorcycle trips with this uncle. He would stay with him, go to these picnic, like all of these different activities, where there were still really engaging. And my friends were so mad. They’re like, how can you even talk to your dad after you told them what he did to you? He still hanging out with your uncle.
Triena: Like, you know, I’m so pissed off and so mad for you. And I’m like,
Muhammad: not family members. These are people.
Triena: I have friends that care for me. Right. And they’re like, your dad is still hanging out with this guy, his brother who did this to you. And you told him this, I’m like, yeah, I get it. But like, I’m okay. Like he is him.
Triena: I’m me. I’m okay. No matter what,
Muhammad: that had no effect on you in terms of siding with the other
Triena: side, An hour. And then I went through this wave. Right. And I’m like, and then I, and then as I rode that wave of discomfort and anger and you know, like raging and then I just wrote it meditated and I’m like, okay, that’s his journey, not mine.
Muhammad: You meditated. Okay. So it didn’t, you just get through this. Cause if you don’t take some of these things,
Triena: you have to take steps to sit back and sit with it. Right.
Muhammad: Let’s talk about that meditating that you would do. Like when did you decide, Hey, where are you doing it all the time? When did you decide, okay, this is what I want to do because it’s a huge, it’s a huge story at
Triena: that time.
Triena: At that time, I was actively meditating and not as much as I am now. Um, but I would see more when I was in discomfort than, than anything else. So now it’s more of a habit that I do it. Good or bad. I always that’s my product. Right. Then it was when my system is so overwhelmed and I have so many emotions and I’m just like really, you know, the Scorpio version of myself,
Muhammad: person meditating while
Triena: harder.
Triena: Right. And so, you know, and then I’m like, that’s my dad’s journey. And I had to, you know, I had to look at it from his perspective. This is his brother, you know, there’s a level of cognitive dissonance that happens for people that can’t, they can’t negotiate the horror that you’re telling them what the person that they see.
Triena: Right. Because, you know, he was kind and he was generous and this is my perpetrator, my abuser, you know, he was all of these things, but that’s what groomers do. Right. They are these enticing fun to be around people. Right. So people can’t. You know, they have that cognitive dissonance, they can’t compare the two, they can’t exist at the same time.
Triena: Right. They have to be existing and pro polarity for them, not in one entity as one person. So I’m just like, dad’s going to figure it out. And then about three years ago, he finally, that’s when he started to get angry because he’s like, you’re never invited to the family picnic and it’s been going on. I’m like, dude, and the family piggy for 15 years, like all of a sudden he’s like, you’re going to, if family picking them, like I’m okay.
Triena: I’m like, and so he was having that reaction to it. Right. So that was his journey in reaction to my abuse. Right.
Muhammad: So, so after having gone through. All of this. Right. And having come through it. And you talked about, it’s not something that just happened overnight. Like you work at it, you work
Triena: at it.
Muhammad: Did you find that there were times that as you were going forward and this happens to me too.
Muhammad: Sometimes it’s like, I feel like I’m going forward. You know, you’re making progress. You can tell your feelings, your thoughts are different. Confidence picks up all these things happen. Things started working out differently, but then sometimes we fall back again. Does that ever happen where you, like, you felt, you felt like you felt
Triena: within the context of this experience?
Triena: Um,
Triena: I don’t really see it as falling back. I never, I never, like those words don’t really come to me. I would see it as I got to pay attention to this a little bit more right now. Right. I see this percolating a different issue for me potentially, or, or if I wanted to rule things out, manifests. So for me with the chronic pain journey, right.
Triena: Appear that way. Right. So there’s a huge, you know, this is common knowledge is huge schools of research about how the body, um, will hold traumatic experiences and the myofascial tissue. And it actually, there’s an epigenetic component of cross-generational trauma. So trauma has the capacity to change our genetic profile.
Triena: So I’m very aware of these things. I read about these things all the time. So going through my experience with chronic pain and chronic migraines, I’m like, ha that was a pretty significant indicators. Right. And plus, when you look at the ACEs score, like the adverse childhood experiences, my score seven of the 10, I don’t even know what that means.
Triena: So. It’s a, it’s a trauma, just a quick and dirty little assessment tool because what happens? It’s not diagnostic, but it’s just a clinical tool. So there’s 10 questions and each question is worth one point, Mike. So mine was seven out of 10. And so
Muhammad: tell me how happy you were
Triena: there as a kid, is that it tells you about adverse experiences in your childhood.
Triena: So, um, are your parents divorced? Were you sexually assaulted? Has anyone, is there been violence in your home? Has anyone had an addiction? Uh, has anyone been incarcerated and is
Muhammad: like 10 better or is one better?
Triena: One zero is optimal. Optimal. Okay. Zero is like we’ve had no adverse experiences through this.
Triena: This lens. This is perspective. Okay. So you’re seven. That’s like, hi. Yeah. So, um, when you’re looking at that, you also have to compound it and balance it with your, your resiliency factors as well. Um, which I was also very resourceful at. I was very resourceful at attaching. I knew the right people to attach myself to outside of my family.
Triena: I just, I just understood that as a child, I, I, I just knew how to, what was it
Muhammad: about these people that told you that this is where I need to. Okay.
Triena: So I’m going to go back to, I’ll go to that, but I’m going to finish the ACEs score. So is it important because if you have these experience, the research used to say five years, but now it’s coming up more seven years with brain development, right?
Triena: So if you’re, if you have several adverse experiences under the age of five or under the age of seven now, That that will, hard-wire your brain and your behaviors a certain way. So if you came out of, you know, a very stable, very comfortable, highly nurtured household, um, for your first seven years of your life and didn’t experience any trauma, the chances are later in life when traumatic things, because they happen to all of us when they do occur, you’re going to have a more solid foundation to navigate that because you have a very secure attachment to start from, right.
Triena: You’re really grounded. So a lot, most of my, not all, but a good chunk of my adverse experiences happened in those seven years. So when that happens, it hardwires your brain differently. It hardwires your fight flight flee responses. It changes your, like we spoke about before your adaptive and maladaptive.
Triena: Right? So that’s how that manifests. Okay, circling back to your other question. What was it? Yeah. How
Muhammad: did you know about these people? What is it
Triena: about them? Oh, I have a sense. I can, I can just, I can just feel people who, which is weird for a person who’s been abused, but I do feel people who can be helpful to me.
Triena: Well, if you know the
Muhammad: people that can be hurtful, it can also tell you, right.
Triena: Don’t you think? And you’re right. The duality. Right, right. The duality of it. And so I always would have like, like I would do it
Muhammad: by saying like, that one looks like the opposite of this person. So therefore, is
Triena: that what you’d like?
Triena: I don’t remember that, that linear kind of thought process, but like, I just keep it simple, so I didn’t have it. And like, I moved out really young, but, but you got a feeling from these people. Yeah. And so I would attach myself to families. Like I would rent a room. I can easily go get my own apartment at 16 when I moved out or 15.
Triena: But, um, Well, CAS wouldn’t have, let me at 15. So when I turned 16, but, um, but I would attach myself to families and I would rent rooms off of my friend’s parents. So I would always have like a familial structure around me, even though I was kind of like freewheeling it on my own. But you were
Muhammad: building these kinds of tribes, this kind of support.
Muhammad: We talked about the village, right
Triena: village. Interesting. So I had,
Muhammad: while you were doing that, did you know that you were doing this or you were just seeking it out? Like in tactical ways?
Triena: I didn’t do it cognitively. Like I wasn’t very conscious of it. Yeah. Yeah. It became turned out to be huge. What does conscious to be now that I think back because, um, a lot of wild things happened in high school and I came from an area, went to three high schools with the area, went to high school, most, a lot of drugs, a lot of partying, a lot of truancy.
Triena: And I didn’t want my apartment because I be by myself. I didn’t want an apartment and I was in to be a Haven for drop-ins. Right. I didn’t want that because I knew I needed to study and work and all that kind of stuff. So I think I was very aware of that. So I did attach myself to families with that awareness of, from that perspective.
Muhammad: So where are you today, like with, uh, like how, how do you, as you look kind of like through all of this, right. And, um, you know, at some point in time you talked about your supervisor telling you again, no wonder, you know, this is, these are the kind of cases that you’re taking. Do you now, um, as you look back on all this, I mean, there’s a lot, right?
Muhammad: Obviously they get that, you’re looking back on, look at what you are today though. I mean, look at what you’re able to do for Evans, right? For others who are going through these sort of, um, would you say that you’d even be anywhere as. Again, I don’t know what the technical word would be for it, but you know, as effective as you are today, um, had you not really seen it too, like that.
Muhammad: That level of proximity to, to the trauma, you know, as you’re helping people go through trauma, uh, I find that, um, like for me it was in business, right? Like for me, it was like, I kept falling down, kept falling down. And now when I see people falling down in business, you talk to people on a personal level, you know, I see I talk to people on a business level and I think, yeah, Hey, Oh, that, Oh yeah.
Muhammad: You know, don’t worry, it gets worse. And then it gets better. That’s what I say. And we laugh it off and off we go, but deep down inside, you know that you’re not joking about it. It, it can get pretty bad, but don’t worry, you know, there’s a way out of this and you’re perfectly capable, right. The way you are right now to get through it.
Muhammad: You just need a few tips and then you work from there. Right. She’s so much more effective now.
Triena: Yeah. Like I think, well, I think there’s a lot of people in helping professions that haven’t been through the traumatic experiences that I have that. Would be just as helpful and skilled or more skilled than I would be.
Triena: Right. I, I do believe there is that segment, but I feel like, you know, I don’t do self-disclosure when I’m working with right. Because it’s not about me, it’s about them. Of course. Um, but I do you have these moments where you’re like, Oh, okay, well, this is like, with my experience, this is where I would have probed a little differently or would have would would’ve appreciated this line of questioning or this line, this link, this type of engagement.
Triena: And so I use that information to navigate, but there’s no disclosure attached to it. Right. But I think that the thing of it is with, with what my experiences have been, and this is a risk with anyone in any health, professional, and myself included is if I’m not aware of my trauma and I’m not looking at it regularly, and I’m not.
Triena: Aware of how it is manifesting in my actions and interactions with others may be my clients or my family members, friends, whoever I’m working with. But most importantly, for this conversation, my clients, because that’s, that’s who I I’m their helper, right. If I’m not aware of my trauma, then I could be traumatizing them.
Triena: So it comes to the responsibility, like it’s that self responsibility where I need to perpetually be doing this kind of like, you know, cleansing and checking and rebalancing and figuring out where I am and that self accountability, because, you know, we all have trauma and it comes out in different ways.
Triena: And so when you’re in a helping profession, you have to be very aware of what you’re bringing to the table and why you’re bringing certain things to the table. So something as innocuous, as billing. You know, if you have discomfort and this was an issue for me initially is, you know, discomfort with billing people, you know, you don’t like, I don’t like charging for what I do because it’s a passion, but I got to eat.
Triena: Right. So, um, you know, and I was really hesitant. This person was, you know, grossly arrears in, in their account with me. And I contributed to like, I consented to this, like it was a conversation, but now it was like we needed to be dealt with. Right. And, um, I just, there was a hesitancy there. And so I had to sit with that for a while.
Triena: I’m like, why am I hesitant? Why, why? Like I’ve provided a service, right. We have a contract, right. Where’s the disconnect. Right, right, right. And it was, so you had to, I had to work through like, where’s that coming from? Right. And, and the trauma associated with money. Right. So then I’m like, then I had to like come into the conversation first and at the meeting, because I knew if I didn’t address that the very beginning of the meeting and left it to the very end after the end of the session and just said, Oh, by the way, let’s clean up the arrears.
Triena: That’s putting my needs first, not his needs first. Right. Because that’s an uncomfortable situation for me to have that discussion. Right. And it’s easier for me to do at the end when it’s quick and dirty and like, Oh, I got another client in five minutes. You got to go. So just write me a check. No, I have, I had to put it at the beginning because that’s, I’m there for him.
Triena: And I don’t like my needs don’t matter necessarily, like for lack of a better word in that moment. Right. So.
Muhammad: So there are so many people who, as I said, there’s no shortage of examples where people go through cases of abuse. Um, there could have been like other parallel lives for you, like other paths, you going to take it and you not done certain things.
Muhammad: Sometimes,
Triena: sometimes I was on both paths, the good and the bad. So I would say muesli, an
Muhammad: interesting, that’s an interesting thought because we’re constantly journeying anyway. So that’s like, again, you, sometimes we shift lanes, right? Um, but here you are and you’re doing great. And you know, there are all these others that are that maybe either weren’t aware of the other, you know, th that other parallel, that other lane, right.
Muhammad: They, they, they can’t make that shift. They’re not making that shift for whatever reason either. They don’t have the, the tribe. Uh, they don’t have the motivators, or they’re not aware of their motivators. Um, there’s so many sort of things that kind of hold people in that position. Um,
Triena: and all enough all or nothing thinking.
Muhammad: Okay. So how do, what, what, what do you say to that person to get them to take that next? So steps, it could be, it could be one or two things that you’re looking to go, Hey. Yeah. These are probably one of the biggest things that were holding me and the fist right there is what I would, I would start thinking about doing differently.
Muhammad: I mean, insanity is doing the same thing over and over, right. So what is that thing? What is that one or two things that people could take away from that
Triena: to try
Muhammad: to get them, if you were to go back to Trina, not at the time of the blueberries before that, right? Cause you, you want to say like that to you as blueberries, you falling down in front of your five, five month old, somebody else.
Muhammad: That’s another moment. Right. And you’re, you’re able at that moment to say, pick up the phone and see the time and see all these things, but for others.
Triena: Well, I can totally see in that moment, how people are low, they can get lost into it.
Muhammad: I could see, I could just hit a reset button and take a time. And that’s
Triena: where I have some kind of resiliency factor that just kicks in.
Triena: I have some kind of, as you see
Muhammad: people kind of building up to that moment, what could be done I guess is my question is if you were to talk to Trina before that moment going, Hey, you didn’t have to get to this point here. Here’s a thought here’s one or two things that you could do that you think about that could, like you said, leapfrog you past that moment.
Muhammad: You don’t have to wait till then.
Triena: And this is, so I do hear what you’re saying, but I see it from two different perspectives. I see it from the perspective of trauma. And I see it through the perspective of just going through life challenges that are really shooting. How do you get up from that? So, um, from the perspective of trauma is.
Triena: Yeah. Earlier intervention can be helpful from a clinical perspective, but I never said anything. So my loss of connection happened long before the abuse happened, because I didn’t feel safe enough to even say anything to my parents. I never told them. Right. So when you’re looking at it, dealing with traumas, you know, we tend to look at things in a very linear fashion trauma.
Triena: Isn’t linear, it’s messy, it’s sporadic, it’s, you know, sneaky and squirrely and meandering. And it’s a lifelong journey, right? We’re always reflecting and keeping things in check and just seeing where things are at. Right? So to, to say there’s one kind of trajectory to, to, um, unfold. That is, you can’t really put that approach because it’s so unique to every person and every person has their own resiliency factors and strengths and readiness to come to the table to face these realities.
Triena: Right. And then, so when you’re looking at it from the perspective of, um, Just hitting milestones that are really hard and where you’re getting into the darkness and the dirt of life, and just like remove trauma from the equation. I think from that perspective, I think knowing your essence, knowing who you are, what your values are, what your beliefs are, and really getting a foundational grounding in that and being told that it’s okay, like.
Triena: We have this such adverse reaction to anything that’s uncomfortable or painful in life. And we’re not taught that, you know, with pain, like coming back to what we talked about earlier with the, the analogy of the butterfly with, with growth comes struggle. Right? And, um, we’re not taught that we’re taught, like let’s, let’s Sue things.
Triena: Let’s take an Advil. Let’s, you know, let’s take the easy way. Like, Oh, you got money. You, you got this big handed to you. Like we, you know, pointing externally all the time. But I think if we are taught earlier to look internally to connect with ourselves, to meditate and really, really align with what, um, aligned or sorry, really manifest what aligns with us, I think were taught those capacities earlier on and how to take care of ourselves properly and how to communicate effectively.
Triena: And how do you have relationship? I think those are the pivotal things I think would have been super helpful because I think we all learn those things. Whether we’re unpacking trauma or not.
Muhammad: Right. And keep communicating. Yeah. You know, somebody said it the other day we were talking about, you know, you can’t help, uh, fill up with another person’s cup unless your cup is full or something like that.
Muhammad: Somebody was talking about.
Triena: Yeah. Yeah. It’s like the airplane. Put your mask on first.
Muhammad: Right. That, and I got two moments myself where it really felt the cup was completely empty. And then I had to, and now I keep telling myself, the one thing I tell myself is like, I’m going to get to those moments again, where I’m going to feel the cup is empty.
Muhammad: And on that day, remind yourself that actually you have, you have a lot in that cup that’s worth fighting for, because we forget or we lose sight of right. And sometimes we feel like it’s external to us. We got to go get something.
Muhammad: There’s not enough inside of us. That, that, that we’re not capable enough or that we’re
Triena: not worth it.
Triena: The negative self-talk comes in, the ego comes in
Muhammad: and it gets you through. Yeah. You know what I got to say? Um, you know, when you have that, I think will be very helpful when we’re meeting and talking to other people and having conversations is that, you know, you, sometimes you shout out these, like these terminologies that I’m looking at it going, wow, that’s just like you so understand this.
Muhammad: And I can’t decipher whether you understand it because you’ve been through it both. Yeah. I think that’s what makes you so great at it. Uh, so thank you, you know, just for sitting here, chatting with me about it and I can, I can just see us, uh, quite often sitting together with somebody else and just being able to, you know, walk people through.
Muhammad: Yeah. Um, it’s going to be a little bit uncomfortable for people, but I really appreciate that. You’re willing to do something that I think is very uncomfortable for people to do. And you’re proving this is, I think the biggest thing that I admire about you is that some would look at it as uncomfortable.
Muhammad: Some of it looks, some of them look at as, as risky. You look at it as truth. Yeah. I love that. It’s true. Thank you so much. And we’re going to do this again. Let’s do it again. All right. Sounds like a plan. I have some other ideas we’re going to talk about.
Muhammad: And I think, I don’t know. That sounds like a wrap.
