Ep. 22- Meditation and Betrayal Trauma, Ryan Raleigh LCMHC

Becky and Autumn sit down with Ryan Raleigh, Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor. Ryan shares his personal and professional journey and insights about meditation.  He describes meditation as the process of "looking inward" at your body sensations, thoughts, images floating by, and what is happening all around you. Ryan says he is particularly interested in how meditation can heal trauma and reminds us that trauma is stored in our bodies, not just our brains. Because of this, we can often feel like our body is betraying us and letting us down. However, Ryan shares that our bodies are actually trying to protect us. He says that meditation can help the rumination, invasive thoughts, and triggers associated with betrayal trauma. Kindness to ourselves, Ryan shares, is of paramount importance: "If we were to shame our reaction and our trigger, we stick ourselves in place. But if we are to be kind, we can move through that." Ryan ends the podcast with a powerful guided meditation and reminds us that, "Restoration was always meant to happen".