In episode 7 of the Conscious Breathing podcast, Katia Trost from integral-evolution joins us to discuss her unique strategies to overcome trauma. She’s a licensed naturopath and trauma therapist in Germany. She started out specializing in hormones and metabolism. Right now she’s more interested in healthy development of individuals and society and turned independent researcher, teacher and online entrepreneur. 

Katia has a very comprehensive all level and integral approach to trauma which includes breathwork and CO2 therapeutic interventions. 

• Trauma source of hormonal imbalances
• Talks about what is trauma
• How trauma can create stagnation and disassociation during development
  • Misjudging situations
  • Withdrawing
  • Survival terror
  • Perceive things as life or death
• Where is trauma stored?
• Talk therapy and somatic bodywork
• Breathing and bonding for trauma therapy
• Importance of carbon dioxide (CO2) in epigenetics
  • Trauma in the wound and CO2 levels
• How and why to get extra CO2 into the body
• How Katia uses BodyStream
• Reprogramming CO2 on a subconscious level
• How CO2 can affect epigenetic programming
• Overmethylators vs undermethylators
• Stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline
• Addition and childhood trauma
• Integrating the split parts of personality dissaccociated from trauma
• Start with nutrition and then the neurological system and proprioception
• Sexual abuse
• Standing on one leg neurological assessment
• Retracing movements of your little child
• How trauma can lead to competitiveness in adulthood
• Release of trauma is not necessarily healing of the trauma
• Taking responsiblity of the lonely inner child
• Healing of trauma means there is no more activation of the trauma when the trigger is present
• Trauma is a an iatrogenic disease
• Prozac is for undermethylators
• Morphological fields Rupert Sheldrake
• Group therapy
• Fire breathing
• Breathing techniques for trauma therapy
• Hyperventilating
• collective-evolution.com

Episode 7: Integral Approach to Treating Trauma Using Breathing and CO2 with Katia Trost

Published: May 3, 2022

Podcast Transcript

Katia 0:00
Then I got back to CO2 and I learned that if you’re in the womb, and you have a higher level of CO2 in the womb, if your mom has good metabolism and all that, the negative imprints, which, trauma are negative imprints. The baby will get that. I understood that if a baby has enough CO2, it’s easier for the baby to kind of reset into a healthier state. Most developmental trauma happens within your first three years, and I’m talking about the year in the womb, or nine months in the womb as well. I said okay, we get three years of trauma. Then we spend 40, 50 years working it off. Of course, I want to try to get people to produce more CO2 naturally. That’s important, but it’s kind of the hen and the egg thing. People are traumatized. They don’t produce enough CO2. Then they don’t get rid of their trauma because they’re so stressed. We need to break that cycle. How do we break that cycle? We need to get CO2 into our bodies another way than by producing it ourselves.

Steven 1:22
Welcome to the Conscious Breathing podcast. I have Katia Trost. She’s a licensed naturopath and trauma therapist in Germany. She started out specializing in hormones and metabolism. Right now she’s more interested in healthy development of individuals and society and turned independent researcher, teacher and online entrepreneur. Welcome to the podcast Katia.

Katia 1:48
Well, thank you so much for having me. Hello, everybody.

Steven 1:52
Why don’t we breathe using the Relaxator now? The first tone we’ll do an exhale and on the next tone, we’ll do the inhale. We’ll do it for about 30 seconds . All right. Just kind of tell me a little bit more about your background. You said you started out, you’re a naturopathic doctor and therapist. You started off more in hormones and metabolism, and now you’re into more like trauma and personal development. Is that correct?

Katia 3:20
That’s exactly right. I mean, like so many people I had a problem with hormones. Nobody could help me. I was on birth control and then I wasn’t. I had a very bad hormonal problem and nobody could help me. I was still studying law and then I said, no, I need to take matters into my own hands. I really started researching how to regulate hormones and the metabolism, without actually taking any hormones, because I went through that period when I took natural hormones, and that didn’t work out, or caused side effects. I said no, I just won’t be satisfied with being a metabolic wreck below 30. I thought no, I don’t want to be that person. I need to find another solution. I worked and worked and worked on my own method. I created this method that helps people get to regulate their hormones naturally. That was very exciting. It helped me a lot, helped many people. Then I thought okay, I don’t want to stop here. Then I got into trauma and that trauma actually can be a big source of hormonal imbalances and that kind of stuff. Then I got into development and how important it is to grow personally, spiritually and then everything started evolving. I really look upon the body more as a body, mind unit. I wanted to know about all the aspects. All of that is important. Most important of all is how things work together. What are the preconditions in the body for me to evolve emotionally, spiritually, intellectually? What kinds of steps do I have to take? I think not many people look into this aspect that you do need to have a developed body. I’m not saying you need to be an athlete. I’m saying your brain needs to evolve in a certain way for you to be able to really live your potential. That’s what I’m super interested in right now.

Steven 5:36
Very interesting. I guess most of your clients right now, you help them with the whole body, with their trauma and do you take like a whole mind body approach to how, because, a lot of like disciplines they just focus on the mind, or they focus on the body, but you take a more integral approach to mind and body.

Katia 6:02
Yes.

Steven 6:03
That’s really great. I think we’re going to focus a little bit on trauma today. What is trauma? What happens to the individual one when trauma occurs?

Katia 6:20
Trauma is, let me say what it is not, because many people have this idea that trauma is just something bad happening. It’s not that. Trauma means that you will have something happening to you, and it doesn’t matter if it’s objectively bad or not. It will be too much for your emotional system, maybe mental system, to cope. In order for you to survive you will split it off. You know, you will just say, okay, I can’t deal with this. You will have some sort of abreaction, meaning that you will either fight. You want to fight. You want to flee. You want to submit. All of this is present. You want to survive the next five minutes, and you will not deal with what is actually happening to you. Then a dissociation happens. This dissociation does all the little package with the mental stuff going on, the emotional stuff going on, gets stored in your body, in your cells, in certain circuits, in the midbrain and the amygdala, some parts of the brain are involved. It’s like a loop. Anything that remotely reminds you of that situation will trigger the same physical response and will kind of want you split off something that is remotely related to what you’ve gone through. That is basically trauma. You lose touch with reality. You’re never in the here now, because you’re always projecting something into the current situation. I think it’s needless to say that you won’t be able to really live your potential, because there’s always something coming up. Certain parts of the personality that are split off, they will kind of, like a carousel, come up and go away. Very often people don’t have a conscious relationship to these parts. They will know that they’re different, but they will not consciously understand that there’s a very hurt part that is now acting instead of the adult personality. That’s trauma in a nutshell.

Steven 8:46
Okay, and I assume like trauma occurs, a lot of times trauma occurs when we’re a child. A person is not a stagnant individual. They’re developing their personality and their sense of identity. I guess as the person’s developing part of their personality becomes stagnated, while the rest of their personality grows. You were saying that the part that becomes this disassociated, that becomes unconscious, would that be considered like the shadow?

Katia 9:32
Definitely, I think it’s a very big part of it. I think if you consider trauma there’s mono trauma, say you were sexually abused when you were an adult or something. I wouldn’t necessarily say that that would cause a shadow. If you have a stable personality already, it would just be a trauma. It would be horrible, but it would just be a trauma, but I think if you have these parts splitting off while you grow up, then yes, it will cause a shadow, because certain parts of you will simply not evolve. They will just not become adult. They don’t have any point of reference. They don’t even know how it is not to be traumatized. These parts will be left behind and they are not part of your adult personality. Because they are split off, they will kind of just jump up on you when you least expect it. Yes, I would say that could be considered a shadow, the whole of those, the totality of those parts that are not under your control.

Steven 10:51
I know, we’ve talked about previously about the gap between your development and the stagnant parts. Can you talk a little bit more about that, the undeveloped parts and how that has an effect on your everyday life and all that?

Katia 11:10
Well again, you don’t have a grip on reality. You will always be misjudging situations. Either you react inappropriately, because you’re withdrawing, or maybe you’re acting aggressively, although there’s no need, but you certainly will not have total control over the situation. Let me put it like that. If you’re a healthy adult, you will reach a point that’s called emotional self-regulation. Emotional self-regulation basically means that you can assess the situation. You can say okay, what’s going on here? Is there anything I need to correct? And if yes, you’ll do it and then you’ll have a positive feedback loop. That’s normal. You’ll have that kind of assessment, but you will not be able to do that if there is maybe a one year old, who’s scared. That’s a split off personality part. If there’s like a 15 year old, who is ashamed, because maybe there was some situation when you were a teenager. All these parts are struggling inside you. First thing that’s happening is a lot of energy gets lost, because they all have different opinions. Maybe they all get scared and then poof, they just say okay, we’re just going to go into freeze here. We don’t even want to deal with that situation anymore. A lot of upheaval is going on inside you and it’s a huge distraction. That’s the first thing not to be underestimated. Then again, if you have a situation that needs adult handling and there’s a one year old, a three year old, and I don’t know, maybe a 10 year old or three 10 year olds and they are basically running the show, while the adult is not even present really in that situation, because it lost control over the situation. You will just not be able to handle things, because children have a very different mental development. So they don’t have the perspective of an adult. Like you said, I mean, when you’re a little child things are very threatening. From that perspective, the little child can say okay, that’s a threatening situation, but maybe tomorrow it’ll be better. It doesn’t have that notion of time, for example. If you lack that kind of perspective and children, they’re meant to have a one sided perspective, because adults are supposed to take care of them. They don’t need to make budget plans. They don’t need to understand that okay, if I eat too much today, that might be bad for me tomorrow. That’s what the parents are for, but if this kind of mental development in which children grow and mature, if that never happened and they run the show, it’s really hard to make conscious, good decisions. Even if you as an adult, you can be a rational person, if every time you get threatened, this part vanishes. Basically, you can’t make rational decisions. You’re mostly afraid, because survival terror is a very big topic for these frightened parts. They basically always think they’re dying. When they’re small, the brainstem, that’s what the brainstem knows, it wants immediate satisfaction. If it doesn’t get immediate satisfaction, it’s basically life threatening. Basically, if things go wrong, it’s always like okay, I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I’m going to die right now and it’s really hard to make decisions if your brainstem always hijacks your frontal cortex, which is supposedly able to make rational decisions. I hope I’m making myself clear here.

Steven 15:16
It makes sense. As adults things will seem, if you have that earlier trauma then those like little things that trigger it will seem like life or death situations. People around you might say, why are you so dramatic? Why are you reacting like this but a lot of it’s from like you said with the brainstem and the feeling like you’re going to die or this is like you’re going to die like life or death situation. Even in normal situations that a normal healthy adult would be able to handle just fine. Now, you said that trauma is stored in the body? Can you explain more about that, how it’s stored in the body? Do you mean like memories that are stored in the body or like just the reactions like that trigger you stored? Can you explain what you mean by that?

Katia 16:13
I mean, people fight amongst each other where exactly trauma is stored in the brain. Some people say it’s in the amygdala, which is our alarm central basically. If anything is threatening then your amygdala will go off and you’ll just be afraid. You’ll get activation and stuff like that. From the methodology that I come from, the person that I learned from, she said it’s in the midbrain. That’s just brain based. That’s something that can be proven so to say. That’s what research can prove. Now personally, being a trauma therapist, I can say that just from being a therapist that emotions or memories can really be stored in different parts of the body. For example, there are people who don’t have any sensation say on an arm. If you touch them there, it’s kind of like oh, I don’t know what that is. It doesn’t belong to me kind of thing. Very often, there’s something connected to that loss of sensitivity. If you actually go into that, in a trauma therapy session, you’ll notice that yes, there is something there. When I work with people in trauma therapy, I always ask them, where is your center of activation? Very few people say oh, I don’t know. They will tell you where is it located. If you start working around this you will see that it starts with an activation. People just feel restless. Then all of a sudden, shame will come up, which is kind of a protective reaction that is trying to buffer the actual fear, which is usually behind it or the rage. There are usually many layers of emotions that try to buffer the actual emotion that’s behind it. That’s most often survival terror, it’s rage. Your body will at the same time have these abreactions, like fight or flight or freeze, hide, submit. At the same time, your brain is trying to make sense of it. Your frontal cortex will kind of try to learn from it. Usually it gets these negative beliefs like I don’t exist or I don’t matter. I’m a loser. Everything bad that happens to me, I do deserve that, which is called the locus of control shift. There are these simultaneous things going on. There’s a release of hormones and neurotransmitters. Adrenaline and cortisol, as a hormone, they’re released. That causes a lot of trouble, because your body will get used to these high levels of stress hormones. There’s all this stuff going on simultaneously. That’s the problem. It’s not just one thing and all these things in my experience need to be tackled together. They need to be addressed together.

Steven 19:38
Okay, interesting. When someone comes to you to do a trauma therapy, do you do a combination of like talk therapy and also some type of like somatic body type work? Is that what you do, since the stress is stored in the body or what is your approach?

Katia 20:01
Yes, kind of. Okay. I do very little talk therapy, because I have learned that it’s not possible to talk about feelings and actually experience them usually. I mean, if you can do that you’re not traumatized, okay? I mean, that’s a healthy person but if you’re traumatized then just by talking about it, you won’t get there. What I do is I briefly mentioned it. I work according to the comprehensive resource model, but I’ve changed the method a little bit. What does that mean? It means that the highest goal with this method is to reconnect the adult part, because most people have an adult part, otherwise if you have DID they’re not, but most people do have an adult part. You will try to identify those child parts and you will build up a so called resource scaffold. You’ll breathe. Breathing is a big part of it, then you will train the connection, because that’s another thing that happens. It’s attachment disruption. If you’re traumatized you will lose the ability to attach to other people healthily. So how do we attach? We breathe together? We

Steven 21:20
What kind of breathing do you do?

Katia 21:23
Well, there are different ones. But this very basic breathing is just the notion of breathing together with another person. So if, you know, if you have a very small child, I know it with my nephew. When he was very small, he used to really come close to listen to my breath, and to listen to my heart. So during the night, he would just turn to me and put his little ear on my chest. Why? Because that’s bonding. That’s basic bonding. So feeling the skin, smelling the smell, you know, breathing together, just the notion of doing it together is very much a bonding thing. So that’s the basic thing. But when we do some breath work, we have different breaths. So there’s a more an activating breath, which is called the fire breath. Which, you know, it’s kind of, it sounds like a little dragon, you know, that’s very activating. So if you’re dealing with rage, you’ll use that kind of breath. Or if you just want to calm down, then you will just basically, you know, inhale through your nose, and exhale through your mouth, like slowly counting to the count of five, you know, that kind of thing. If you want to ground yourself, you would hold your breath, and you would just imagine, you would be grounding to, you know, Mother Earth kind of thing. So, depending on the need, you would use that for the client to be able to go through the emotions in a way that’s non, you know, re-traumatizing to actually be able to look at the part that certain actually get in touch with this part. And if all these emotions are processed, then yes, you can reconnect to that little scared little girl or boy, talk to them. And then when their story is told, when their his or their emotions are felt their thoughts are shared, then this part will integrate. And then there’s no more emotional charge, there is no more negative belief. And that’s the ideal. And so you keep working through all these parts until everything is integrated into a whole personality. So that’s the idea.

Steven 23:26
Okay, very interesting. One thing that connected us was the your interest in the BodyStream and also the Carbogen (Carbohaler) machine. So why don’t you just tell me a little bit of like, what CO2 What role that plays in healing of trauma and other health issues.

Katia 23:42
Yeah, I’m sorry, I nagged you so much about it. I wanted it so bad. That I got it. Sorry. Yeah. So I wanted it very badly. Okay, so, let me try to explain why I nagged as much about it. So there are two things that I think are super important about CO2. The first thing is that I understood very early when I tried to understand metabolism that a healthy person exhales more CO2 than a not healthy person. And that you know, before for example, thyroid measurements and tests and lab tests were invented. That was a way to actually measure thyroid output. I knew that. I also understood that if you burn sugar effectively, you’ll produce CO2, which in turn is very important to oxygenate the body. That was something I’ve known for a long time. I’ve always tried to build my therapy around what do I need to do to help the body produce CO2 naturally, which I think is very important. I’ve been working towards that and then I also learned, and that’s where the trauma bit comes in, that I’ve really started studying epigenetics. I’ll just say what it is because some people still don’t know it. We have our genes and the genes are very important of course. The genes will tell you what you are, like what kind of species, but they will not tell you how you are. 98% of all our traits, of our health, of what we like, of even psychological issues are epigenetic in nature. That means the way the genes are interpreted. It’s not the genes themselves that are the problem, but the way they are read. Are they turned on? Are they turned off? I got very interested in epigenetics, because I understood okay, many people have problems there and their metabolism doesn’t work well. Then I got back to CO2 and I learned that if you’re in the womb, and you have a higher level of CO2 in the womb, if your mom has good metabolism and all that, that the negative imprints which trauma are negative imprints as well as other bad epigenetic stuff.

Steven 26:35
From like previous generations you mean.

Katia 26:37
Previous generations or if your mom is starving for example or if I don’t know, your dad left your mom, all these things. The baby will get that. I understood that there is preliminary research, in terms of that if a baby has enough CO2, it’s easier for the baby to kind of reset into a healthier state. I know there’s not many research yet about that, but to me that was so revolutionary, and it makes sense to me because all my life I wondered. Okay, so most developmental trauma happens within your first three years. I’m talking about the year in the womb or the nine months in the womb as well. I’m saying, you’re in the womb. That is so important for basically you get most trauma there. I said okay, we get three years of trauma. Then we spend 40, 50 years working it off. I said, wait a minute. I mean, there must be something. There must be something to kind of, I just think it didn’t make sense to me. I thought, I can’t believe nature works that way. There’s something we’re missing here. That’s what I’m dedicating my time to, because I really want things to work.

Steven 28:09
If you have a lower CO2 then your genes are more solidified. Are you more set in stone I guess?

Katia 28:21
Yes, exactly. I thought okay, that’s a very interesting idea. Of course, I want to try to get people to produce more CO2 naturally. That’s important. It’s kind of the hen and the egg thing. People are traumatized. They don’t produce enough CO2 and then they don’t get rid of their trauma because they’re so stressed. Because stress is produced more in terms of stress hormones if your CO2 levels are not perfect and all these things. You get more estrogen and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I thought okay, there’s kind of the chicken and the egg or the chicken and the hen. I don’t know. You know that expression right? Don’t you?

Steven 29:00
Yes.

Katia 29:01
I thought okay, we need to break that cycle. How do we break that cycle? We need to get CO2 into our bodies another way than by producing it ourselves. Then I started researching into CO2 baths and I was like yes, okay. Okay, if it has to be we’ll do it, but not many people have a tub and all these things. Then I got into CO2 dry baths. Then I discovered your BodyStream and I thought that sounds nice. I need this. Then I got it. It was amazing because actually everybody around me snatched it up. I didn’t get to use it at first.

Steven 29:54
Oh no. We have to send you another one.

Katia 29:55
I was like well, maybe but now we kind of have an agreement here, but before I even used it they used it. My colleague who used it, I think second. She had thick legs. She just had kind of swollen legs and she went into the BodyStream and they were gone. They didn’t return. That’s a while ago. I mean, she’s still using it of course, but the legs didn’t come back. Another colleague who was here. She was visiting. She said oh, I want to go into that. Okay and at first, she was like that’s weird. I don’t want to be here. That’s something I discovered too. She was so stressed she didn’t know the calm. She felt threatened by the calm, but then she thought oh no, I love that. She could get into it more.

Steven 30:52
Find out that people are very, very common there. A lot of people fall asleep actually.

Katia 30:57
Yes, exactly. I just said okay, okay. It’s not threatening and I’m going to go into that. She was very red in the face. She had just some red patches, just like weird red patches. They are so much better. If they’re actually visible, I’m not even sure, but so that was that. I was bound to go on a holiday. I couldn’t actually use it really. They were just like oh yes, we’re using your CO2-thing. I’m like, okay. I’m happy you like it. Then I came back and I started using it. I mean, I love it. I must say that I know that my energy levels are very good. I can test these things. I know that I naturally produce a lot of CO2, but life is stressful. Life has become more stressful over the last couple of years. There are days where I’m just like oh, my goodness. I’m so stressed. I really need something here. Then I definitely use it and I can absolutely feel the difference. I use it as basically as a supplement. I try to get into it at least twice a week. Oh, I noticed something. The little spider veins that I had on my ankles, they’re basically gone. I’ve had them since I was seven or so. It’s something that runs in the family. My dad has them. They’re barely visible. I could definitely feel something here. My colleagues and some other people said that it really is shaking things up trauma wise. They know it’s really moving things. They can’t really put their finger on it. It’s not like they go into the BodyStream and then oh, my goodness. I’m healed. It’s not like that. It’s like loosening up things. That’s the feedback that I can give you with the BodyStream.

Steven 33:04
Okay. I actually got a message from, I’m just going to read it to you, regarding I had interviewed someone that believes that the BodyStream, he has done research that CO2 affects the fascia and that memory is, like you were talking about. The subconscious, memories are stored in the body. He thought that his experience was that CO2 released, like expanded when you’re stressed or if you have trauma, and there’s a trigger that kind of contracts the muscles or contracts the fascia in the area. He believed that CO2 doesn’t just leave it. He has done research that CO2 actually helps expand the fascia and helps be able to release memories and stuff like that from trauma. I was telling that to a colleague and she said, “he’s describing exactly the experience I had with the BodyStream, the reprogramming at the subconscious level. I remember saying to everyone, it was more effective than 30 years of spoken therapy would have been. It gives me goosebumps hearing him put it into words.” Exactly what you’re saying of healing trauma through the body and using CO2.

Katia 34:29
Yes.

Steven 34:31
Why do you think, do you have any ideas of why CO2 might affect the fluidity or flexibility of the genes and can you differentiate one more time between epigenetics and genes?

Katia 34:49
We have our genes. We have our genes and most people have perfect genes. They don’t have like Down Syndrome for example. If you have that kind of disease, then yes, you have a genetic problem, but most people are okay with their genes, but 98% of all diseases, of all habits, of the way your metabolism works it’s an epigenetic programming. That means that some parts of your genes are turned off and some are turned on. The way this programming changes is by environmental insults. That means that either from inside your body or from outside your body, there will be some kind of challenge and your body will adapt. In fact, it’s an adaptation. The problem with adaptation is always, okay, I zoom in to a problem. For example, if I’m threatened by whatever and I need to run, I will contract. Okay, that’s good. That’s a good thing. The question is, can I let go afterwards. Most people can’t. They can only zoom in. They become very narrow minded, literally, because that’s what stress hormones do. They will, for example, if you have been in utero and your mom was starving, your metabolism will adjust to that, which is a good thing. Again, it’s a good thing. However, when the starvation period is over, it doesn’t mean that that starvation mode will be gone. That’s a big problem with epigenetics. Nobody really knows so far what are the mechanisms to undo epigenetic changes? I’m very interested in that. Personally, that’s of course, my personal opinion. I find that yes, trauma therapy is incredibly helpful. Some supplements, if you actually know how the survival mechanism gets stuck in the body, some supplements are very helpful. Homeopathy, in my experience is very helpful if you know what you’re doing.

Steven 37:01
Are there any supplements that you recommend?

Katia 37:05
Yes and no, because they need to be given in a certain order. I don’t feel comfortable talking about this, because then people would go, not because I want to just be protective about it, because people will run out. That’s in my opinion a misconception. They will run out and they will say oh yes, I’ll just buy these supplements. No, you need to be at certain stages in your development. Even if your metabolism, so your metabolism is ready to process the things that you’re giving to the body. That’s where CO2 comes in, because it speeds up that process so much. I think that CO2 is basically like a well, it enhances oxygenation and oxygen enhances life. If you have more energy in the body, that’s the first thing you need to, whatever you want to do in life, to prosper. Whatever you want to do, you need energy. Okay, you need more oxygen. You can, in my experience, you can really change things with that. Again, I think the CO2 connection and I’d love to get my hands on more research. If you have more research for me, I’d love to have it. So far, it’s more my experience that I just think that with CO2, it’s some things happen spontaneously because the circulation, you have more circulation. The lymphatic system is stimulated, which is very hard to do with supplements or anything else. It’s very hard to get to the lymphatic system. CO2 can do that. Basically by detoxing alone, just by taking out the junk of the body, yes, your body will go into a kind of a self-healing thing. That’s one effect. I think that CO2 also, by undoing that rigidity of the flip on or flip off of the genes, they’re just not set in stone so much anymore. You’ll get more control over what’s happening in your life and you’ll be able to change it in an easier fashion. I’m not saying that it’ll happen spontaneously. I personally believe that you’ll still need probably some consciousness training or there has to be an intention behind it or in some cases trauma therapy, but you’ll definitely need an intention behind it. It’s not going to be completely spontaneous, but it will kind of loosen it up or to say make it easier and just more…less rigid. That’s my impression. I know that’s kind of a soft thing that I’m saying, but that’s what I observe.

Steven 39:58
Okay. The rigidity is something as we age, our genes become more rigid. Have you done any research on like the effects of CO2 on methylation of DNA and things of that nature?

Katia 40:13
Yeah, not directly. Not because I’m not interested in that. I actually have a pile of stuff that I want to read about it, because I’ve been dealing with other stuff, but I have a training as somebody who has gotten into methylation a lot. Overmethylators and undermethylators. So far, I’ve been treating that with supplements and it works.

Steven 40:39
What are the issues of overmethylation versus undermethylation?

Katia 40:44
According to Dr. Walsh, there are some people who see it a little different, but I’m a Walsh practitioner. An overmethylator basically is somebody who is too little connected to the genes. You’ve probably seen the genes coiling. They’re kind of in a double helix. In order to be read by the body, they need to uncoil. If they uncoil too much basically then you are an overmethylator.

Steven 41:21
In terms of like rigidity of the DNA would an overmethylator be, does that correlate?

Katia 41:32
You can’t say that the overmethylator is more or less rigid. You have some advantages and some disadvantages. What people say undermethylators are known for, they are very driven because they lack dopamine. They’re always after the dopamine rush. That of course will change a personality, while overmethylators have too much dopamine and too much serotonin. They’re often very nice people, but they don’t have an edge. Overmethylators for example, they react very sensitively to copper. They will have an estrogen problem. They’ll have more adrenaline so they often can’t sleep. You can’t say it’s either one or the other, but, and here’s the big but, supposedly, you can’t really change the imprints. So far our research says you can counterbalance the effects of the imprint by giving supplements, but you cannot change the imprints. That’s the official canon.

Steven 42:49
Can you give me an example of a…or go ahead. Go ahead.

Katia 42:53
I mean, for example being an overmethylator and producing too much dopamine. They say okay, you can you can give a supplement, for example, niacinamide. You’ll feel better, because your body will be able to digest the dopamine more for example, but if you don’t take the niacinamide anymore your body will still produce the dopamine because that’s an imprint.

Steven 43:19
You can never change that.

Katia 43:21
Exactly. You can never change that because it’s in utero. You can’t change it. That’s the official canon.

Steven 43:27
Then what about like stress hormones too like cortisol, adrenaline is that an imprint as well from early hood, in uterine trauma?

Katia 43:35
Yes. It’s not necessarily connected to methylation though. That could be your mom’s amygdala pumping in the cortisol, basically, not directly but indirectly. However, what I wanted to say is that we have seen some preliminary stuff from people who used to be over/undermethylators and their methylation has changed. Of course, I can’t say oh yes, that’s a double blind placebo blah, blah, blah study, but I can tell you this anecdote and I can say about myself that the supplements that I used to need, as somebody who is an overmethylator, I don’t need these supplements anymore to that extent. If the imprint was set in stone that wouldn’t change that as dramatically as it did. Also my psyche doesn’t react badly if I leave away the supplements. There are some supplements like zinc that I really need but that’s another epigenetic problem. I have a blood type. I have blood type A and they need a lot of zinc. That’s a little bit of a different thing, but I used to take huge amounts of folic acid to function well. I don’t need that anymore. I’m pretty sure and again, this is just my opinion, we need to observe that more that if your metabolism gets better and better you’ll produce more CO2 among other things. That will undo these things if there’s a conscious drive to work on things, because I worked a lot on myself psychologically, emotionally. I think that goes together. It’s not just the CO2, but I think that combination allows you to steer your destiny basically in a different way. It’s not like okay, you’ve been born with that. Live with it, die with it, kind of thing. That’s what I think, but again, it’s preliminary stuff. I would love to read more about it. I haven’t been able to, but that’s what I’ve discovered so far.

Okay and so you think that CO2 helps undo the…whether you’re an overmethylator or undermethylator?

It definitely does. Not just that, because there are other epigenetic changes that may not be completely tied to overmethylation for example, so yes.

Steven 46:27
A lot of people who’ve had like they say like addiction in adulthood is a lot of times tied to childhood trauma. Is that related to methylation, because I know dopamine plays a big part in addiction and the reward system and whatnot?

Katia 46:47
People say that, Dr. Walsh says that if you’re an undermethylator there’s a higher chance for you to develop addictions definitely. It doesn’t mean that you will, but there’s just a higher chance, while overmethylators usually don’t have so much of a problem with addiction so yes, that’s true. Personally, I wouldn’t say that methylation is everything, because again, there’s trauma stored in the body. It’s not always connected to methylation. I think there are many factors coming together, but of course, if you had a bad childhood, if you have lots of split off little parts and you’re an undermethylator, chances are pretty high that you will have some sort of problem with addiction, which doesn’t mean that you’ll be an alcoholic, but you could overwork. Very typical. Very ambitious, very ambitious people are undermethylators. They’ll overwork and they will pretend oh no, I’m fine. They’re oh no, I’m fine. No, no, no, I’m fine. Just leave me alone. That’s very typical.

Steven 48:05
Okay, interesting. Part of your approach, you talked about when people come to you with trauma is the first step is breathing together. Then can you explain more of your approach to trauma and reintegrating all these different split off parts of the personality to create this wholeness and this divide between certain parts of yourself are maybe overdeveloped and certain parts of yourself underdeveloped, and kind of bringing that together and developing that unintegrated parts. But first of all just talk more about your, like, when someone comes to you with trauma, what your approach is and what you do first and if you have like a system of what you do.

Katia 48:51
To be honest, I wouldn’t start with trauma therapy, because I believe that if your metabolism is super messed up, it’s really hard. I mean, for the CO2, for other factors if you’re full of stress hormones…

Steven 49:06
Did you find out that people with trauma usually have a messed up metabolism?

Katia 49:10
Always. I mean, I would say that most people have a messed up metabolism and some of them are traumatized.

Steven 49:19
First you start off with like nutrition basically.

Katia 49:23
Exactly. I start with nutrition, then I have a look at the nervous system and when I say that I’m not talking about the psychological part. I’m talking about the neurological part. That’s a whole other topic. I look at their neurological system. If their sensory system, if their sense of balance, if their proprioception, the way they perceive themselves, if that is okay, which often it isn’t. If it isn’t, I have people do that first, to get the wiring in place first. Then I start trauma therapy, because it’s much easier.

Steven 50:02
Can you give me an example of that, the testing the nervous system.

Katia 50:06
Yes, for example if like say, you want to stand on one leg. Okay, you just stand on one leg. You think okay, that’s fine. I can do this and then you close your eyes. Most people will start wobbling. Why is that? Because their sense of balance, their vestibular apparatus, which is like in the inner ear, is not developed properly. They need their eyes to basically stand upright. Okay, that works. It’s a great compensation, however, it’s a big strain on the eyes because you’re lacking information. In order to be safe in the world, and I’m talking from a very basic level, you need to think GPS. What do you need? You need three things to be safe. It’s like a satellite. A satellite needs three information. It’s proprioception. Is it cold in the room? Is it hot in the room? You need the sense of balance and you need vision. If one of these three senses are lacking, the other two will compensate. They will constantly make up for it and that’s very stressful. If something is very demanding, your system will shut down, because it knows that it isn’t completely equipped to deal with the sensory inputs. Many people have that problem. That’s just a little thing. For example, people are driving and most people don’t really understand that driving is a very complex thing. It’s super stressful. Your nervous system needs to be very good to do that. For example, I wasn’t able to use the back mirror, because my brain wasn’t able to translate that information. This is how it looks backwards. I really would have to look backwards to do things. I didn’t realize that, but that’s a huge stress on the body because it can’t actually know where it is. If you have that kind of neurologic insecurity, basically. It’s a sort of insecurity. Your body literally doesn’t know where’s up, where’s down? Is it hot here? Is it cold? I’m exaggerating a little, but for some people it’s as bad as that. If you have that, it’s really hard to work on trauma therapy, because trauma therapy will need the body as a feedback system. If this feedback system is not in place in the first place, it’s even harder to overcome trauma. I developed this multi-step approach. I look at that. When that is working well…

Steven 52:51
Would that be like being out of touch with your body, like being more in your head? Is that kind of what it is?

Katia 52:58
Yes and no. If you touch a little kid, if you just touch it, it’ll notice that it’s being touched, but only when it’s seven years old it will be able to tell you, you touched me here. For example on the finger. When it’s younger, it will probably tell you the region where it was touched. What makes your brain understand that hey, okay, this is my finger. Somebody touched me here. The finger of that person touching me was cold or warm. This inner map of the body has not been there in the beginning. It’s a learning process.

Steven 53:39
Okay, so if some child was sexually abused when they are under seven years old, would they be able to know that they were violated in that way, not being able to tell where they were touched on their body?

Katia 53:53
Sometimes yes. It’s a big problem, especially if you’re talking about sexual abuse. In my experience, sexual abuse can only be treated, first, you need to treat the developmental trauma, so the adult person can actually really understand what happened to the child. In my experience it’s very hard to heal sexual abuse on the go because exactly what you said. The child is not equipped to deal with that kind of information. It just can’t. It’s completely overwhelmed. It just knows it’s horrible. This is wrong. It doesn’t understand the sex part, but later, if you actually become an adult and all your parts of the brain are functional then yes, you can deal with the actual sexual abuse and understand okay, where did it happen? What did it do to me? How did it hurt my own sexuality, because a child doesn’t understand oh, this is hurting my sexuality. It’s just like this is horrible. Yes, this is a very important thing that you said, yes.

Steven 55:04
I’ve tried that before. I’ve stood on one leg and I closed my eyes and I tend to fall down. Does that mean that my self, certain parts of my self, they’re not integrated properly or what is that? If I practice that, if I practice standing in one leg, does that help me integrate?

Katia 55:26
No. That’s the problem. This is an assessment. Standing on one leg is an assessment. You need to start basically before you can even walk. Actually walking is something you do it when you’re about one year old. You won’t be able to stand on one leg. That’s something that you’ll be able to do at about seven, kind of. You need to go back all the steps from the real beginning. Basically, when you come out of the womb you know you won’t even be able to hold your head properly. What you need to do is to go back and retrace all the steps. There’s a certain program to do that. To retrace all these steps so your body neurologically matures into the system of a one year old. I know it sounds very bad. Basically, you need the neuromotor maturity of a one year old and then you can go to the integration of a seven year old and then you have more of a bilateral integration. Only when you’re evolving more into a teenager then your both brain parts will integrate more. Then your frontal cortex is completely mature at about 21. If all of that, if that development went well and for many people it did not. I actually don’t know anybody where it really went super well. Of course, there are different degrees but astonishingly many people, if you actually look at the level of how their brain is actually developed, it’s amazing how well these people can function, but you can also know that they need to keep it together. If they get stressed, they fall apart, whether they want it or not, because their sensory system is completely overwhelmed. I’ve been through it. I know how it feels.

Steven 57:26
You talked about your approaches to focus on nutrition and then the nervous system. What are some other ways that you can explain the nervous system or what needs to be done with that in trauma therapy?

Katia 57:42
This part with the neurological stuff that’s not a trauma therapy. That’s more a movement program. You need to retrace certain movements that little children do. Then if you do them long enough, and slowly enough, your brain will catch on and understand. Okay, now we know how to hold our heads. Now we know how to creep. Now we know how to stand. That’s a movement program and a lot of psychological stuff happens while you do that. I have people not take it seriously. You send them home with just this little exercise. They think oh yes, I’m a good athlete. I can do this. They start doing it. They get completely overwhelmed, because their trauma comes up. That’s where you need to jump in with trauma therapy and say okay, so all these memories can now be processed. Then these child parts start popping up. You need to identify them and say, and personally what I do is, I don’t just randomly work with them. I start with what I call is personal autonomy, which is about the time when you’re three to four years old. That is the first time you will say I or me. You will recognize yourself in the mirror. That’s when you basically really want to go away from mom. You don’t want to be in symbiosis anymore. In my opinion, that’s a very important part to work on first. Before you actually go into your time in the womb, because you need that kind of autonomy to understand. Hey, I am really my own person. I’m not mom. I’m not dad either. I am me. When you worked on that part and you worked on all the heard parts connected to that topic. Then yes, then I start in the womb and I go back to conception. I basically ask people how was your conception? How did your parents get along? I don’t want any details but I say, were they happy? Were they drunk? A lot of times they were drunk. How did you feel? I swear, everybody so far could tell me what was going on. What happened when your mom discovered that you were there? What happened when you attached to her through your umbilical cord in the fifth week, in utero, which is a very important time. A lot of trauma is usually around that, the connection to mom, because you get unfiltered what she was feeling, whether she was conscious about it or not. You got the whole shebang. When you connect to mom, you’re expecting nurture. You just want to connect. You want to know your mom. You want to say hey, I’m here. Oftentimes, what you get is so horrible that you get into a freeze state and you stay there. In the fifth week, in utero, you develop a freeze reaction. Neurologically you will be able to freeze. You get this stuff from mom that’s not good. Then you go into freeze and oftentimes you kind of stay there. That’s something that I work on a lot, again, when mom discovers that you’re there. Birth, very important. How was it to come into the world? Was there a nice person hugging you or were you just in a cold room being bathed and jabbed with whatever. It’s really important to work on all these things. Then of course, how was your child care, how were your primary caretakers to you and all these things. There are certain milestones that I work on.

Steven 1:01:31
You go progressively, like historically through the life starting with the womb and then their early years. That’s related to the nervous system part of the therapy, I guess.

Katia 1:01:46
Well, yes. I establish their ability of a one year old nervous system first. That’s the minimum setting that I think we need, but then when the trauma therapy progresses, your system will start rebooting. By releasing those trauma parts you will further evolve into, let’s say, progressive stages of development. I can literally say that some people for example, like, say they’re business owners. They’ve been traumatized and then at some point they will get very competitive. Then I understand, okay, they’re getting into their teenage years now. So far they wouldn’t be able to establish prices for example. They would never get the money they should get, the fees, or whatever. Now they say, no, wait a minute. I want something here and that’s when I know they’re getting into their teenage years. You’ve mentioned the spiral dynamics stuff. It’s correlated to orange in my view. I know they’re getting into their personal orange with everything that’s connected to it. Then when they’re going through that then they will go into a stage where they’ll just start worrying about different things and not being as competitive. It’s a natural thing that happens if you’re actually well developed. If you work in trauma therapy, all these things will work together in order for your brain to just live through all these necessary stages like your rage stage, your obedience stage. It’s important to know how to be obedient. It’s important also to say no and to have a rage stage. If you go through all these stages and they’re okay, they can be like they are, then, when you’re about 21, all will come together. You will have that at your disposal. You will make rational decisions about what is okay now. Sometimes it’s okay to say no, and even kill. Sometimes it’s okay and necessary if somebody wants to kill you. At other times, it’s important to understand well, there’s a hierarchy here. It’s good that I’m a part of society and all these things. Sometimes, if you have a business, you need to be competitive sometimes. It’s good to understand when is that a healthy thing to do and when should I do what. That to me is an adult. Not things just jumping up on you and you’re just throwing tantrums and then just being obedient, because you don’t know what to do or being completely oh, let’s meditate. Somebody wants to like bash your head and you’re like oh, let’s just talk. I’m not sure. To have that sort of flexibility, that is what I want to go through. Go through and go to. That’s why the epigenetic part comes in so much too.

Steven 1:04:56
Okay, interesting. You said there’s a release of the trauma or something. That implies that something was stuck. If something is released in trauma, does that mean it’s healed from that point or what does the release do in the healing of trauma?

Katia 1:05:14
It’s very important in my opinion and experience to understand that the abreaction of emotions, say there’s some rage connected to the trauma. That rage gets released. That release of the rage is not the healing of the trauma. The healing of the trauma means that there is no more activation around that topic so I can take responsibility for this lonely child, who maybe was abused, who wasn’t taken care of, and I, as an adult, will be the parent of that child. I will not expect anybody else to take care of this little child, which is me. I will take up the responsibility. If and when that child gets the attention that it always wanted it heals. It will feel good. You will breathe together with the child as if it were there. If it’s a three year old, you would pick it up. You would hug it. You would talk to him or her. You would say everything’s okay honey. You can tell me what’s wrong. If you do that with yourself with that part, it will understand that it’s not in the past anymore. It will heal and it will integrate and will stop to exist basically.

Steven 1:06:38
Does the release mean like the unconscious becoming conscious? Is that kind of like something that was unconscious that gets released into the conscious awareness? Is that kind of what it is a little bit or it gets released in the body where you start having those conscious awareness of those feelings from that?

Katia 1:06:54
Yes. By getting this consciousness, it will not keep you from being in the moment anymore. I think that’s the most important part. I mean yes, there’s this release. There’s this consciousness. Emotions get released but the most important part is that when I’m in the here now, this little child will not project his or her fears, or his or her perspective, into my life so I can objectively in a way see what’s going on. Do I even like the person? I don’t need to stay with a partner just to stay with a partner. No, I will look at this partner and say, do I even like that person? Is that a good person for me? I don’t need so much attention anymore because I can self-regulate. I think that’s the real gift.

Steven 1:07:56
When it’s unconscious, it’s kind of controlling your actions outside of your awareness and keeping you out of the present moment. Okay, I see. I guess wasn’t it Carl Jung that said, the main part of therapy is the unconscious becoming conscious, or something like that?

Katia 1:08:15
Yes, and there’s another thing. For example, let’s say, most people they’re not good at experiencing joy. Okay. It’s like it’s so hard for them to really just be happy. That’s another thing. It’s like this quality within yourself. Pleasure, joy, happiness, even desire, I’m not just talking sexual desire. I’m talking just oh, I want this. I really want this. I like this. It’s like the negative emotion, so called negative emotions. When you don’t want to experience them, you simultaneously shut off the good emotions as well, which means that you don’t get to experience joy for example, or pleasure,, or desire while these negative emotions are there. Because they’re so threatening, you’d rather not feel the bad emotions and not have the good emotions as well. You’ll have that kind of bad deal. It’s a very foul deal but it’s less threatening. Again, this is the perspective of a very little child. If that threat is gone and if you understand no, that’s gone. It was horrible. Yes, I know it. It’s not in my body anymore, then simultaneously, these suppressed emotions they just resurface and they open up any more. It’s like a channel that all of a sudden finds expression again. That of course is also a gift.

Steven 1:09:56
Right, okay. Again, when someone comes to you with trauma you do the nutritional approaches, you do the nervous system approach. Is there any other levels above that, or any other layers that you use in your therapy approaches?

Katia 1:10:17
Yes, and that’s something. I’ll try to explain it. I call it iatrogenic disease, which is a technical term. What I mean by that is that if you take some, any sort of medication. It doesn’t matter what. It will change your body, which is supposed to happen. Say I take an anti-acid. Okay, I think my stomach’s producing too much acid. I take an anti-acid like a whatever it’s called and my body understands okay, I’m not supposed to produce as much acid. Okay, I got it. The body adapts. Some part of that is epigenetic. It’s not clearly researched yet how exactly it happens, but there is some research that yes, there are also epigenetic changes. Like say, if you take an aspirin. Okay and you say okay, I’m taking aspirin. You will feel less pain. Your body will understand. Okay pain, we don’t want pain. Pain, no, no. No pain or body temperature. Aspirin lowers body temperature. If you take lots of aspirin, your body will understand okay, we’re not supposed to have a higher body temperature. Understood, thank you. Just because you stop taking the medication doesn’t mean that afterwards your body will get back to the state it was before. That in my opinion and experience is a very severe thing. I experienced that with birth control. I went on birth control. I had this horrible experience. I went off it as I never want to take this again. The symptoms persisted for years. I thought there must be something that is keeping that in place. Then I started researching into that and then I started researching the old homeopath. They observed that many, many years ago and they observed it with many medications and they observed it with vaccines as well. I’m talking about general vaccine here. They said wow, this is so interesting. They sometimes call it vaccinosis, because they were observing these effects. They said yes, okay. We have some positive effects here from back then it was smallpox. It was a very different way of vaccinating people. By skin, you would just infuse a little bit of the smallpox powder into the skin. They said yes, okay. We can see that. There’s that, however, the immune system kind of gets stuck on it. It really says oh, there’s a big threat. Okay, smallpox, smallpox, smallpox. We get it. We get it, but then it wouldn’t be able to take care of other things in the immune system. They said, it’s kind of like getting focused on one thing and not being able to let go of it anymore. I started researching into that. I could completely relate to what I was experiencing with my birth control stuff. I really understood that and I didn’t have a solution for it at first. I just understood okay, there’s a big problem. It’s very unfortunate, because a lot of people have it. Then I started to really research into homeopathy and I developed my own method how to deal with that. Then I started to work off certain layers of stuff, like, who hasn’t taken a cortisone thing ever? Everybody has, and cortisone for example is the thing that, if you take it, usually the adrenals will shut down a little bit. They won’t be able to regulate as well as before. That’s one layer I always take away. I always say okay, let’s get rid of the cortisone layer. Let’s get rid of the birth control layer. Let’s get rid of the thyroid med layer. Let’s get rid of the psych med layer because, for example, I’ll just say it. When I was about 20, I took Prozac. I turned into a zombie which now I know. An overmethylator is not supposed to, it’s an iffy topic anyways, but especially for an overmethylator, it’s contraindicated.

Steven 1:14:25
Prozac is for undermethylators. It works good.

Katia 1:14:28
If at all it’s for undermethylators, but for overmethylators they already have enough serotonin. They don’t need another. I didn’t know that back then, but my doctor didn’t know that back then. I took it and I turned into a zombie. I really had a very bad personality change. I got rid of them one and a half years later. However, what I didn’t understand, and I’ll just say it out loud, it changed my libido for good. For a long time, I didn’t realize that because I took it at such a young age that I just thought okay, that’s the way I am. That’s just how it is. Then I bumped into research and there was a lot about Prozac really having this epigenetic effect. There are some women who took Prozac for three days long time ago and they never had an orgasm again. Never. It’s well known. You can look it up at Wikipedia. I’m not making this up. It wasn’t as bad for me, but then I realized okay, there’s something here. I tried to work on that kind of thing. Then I said, there’s a layer here of psych meds that I need to get rid of. When that went out of my body, yes, I had a more healthy, just a healthy response to men. Just like how it was expected to be. If I like a guy, I would respond. If not, I wouldn’t. It’s like healthy.

Steven 1:16:05
Did you find that birth control had a similar effect on libido?

Katia 1:16:09
Yes, it completely took away my libido, like completely, like completely. Then I had worked that out.

Steven 1:16:19
That’s why it works.

Katia 1:16:22
There was still something there. I understood oh, my goodness. I’ve taken Prozac all these years ago. I think there’s something here and actually it’s in the, it’s in the what is it? Is it the prescription thing? The side effects list. Do you know what I mean? It’s loss of libido and then I found this research. I’m like oh my goodness. What’s going on here? I started to try to find solutions for that and now I apply this kind of solution of course, for my clients as well.

Steven 1:16:53
These like habits, the way your body reacts, I’ve heard you talk in the past about morphological fields. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Katia 1:17:04
Yes. That, of course, is something that Rupert Sheldrake coined the term. I have this opinion that we are not just the body, that we react to subtle energies. I mean, how does the one year old, or not even one year old, little child know next thing I’m going to do is to lift my head. How does the little child know? I think that there is a field out there of energy and information. I’m talking about information and that will connect to the genes. It will say, okay, now it’s time little baby to lift up your head. Actually Rupert Sheldrake talks about this. I believe that this kind of field is available to anybody. It’s just that if you’re traumatized, you won’t be able to find that beginning point of the field, sort of to say. You won’t be able to connect to that field and you will be stuck in a field that is more suitable for earlier parts of development. Does that make any sense?

Steven 1:18:13
Yes.

Katia 1:18:16
Just tell me if I’m just talking gibberish. What I’m trying to say is that there is basically a connection between our genes and that’s the epigenetic part. They get triggered by information that is not necessarily only in the genes, but that is kind of a field that’s around us and that we connect to that field just as much as we connect to our genes. I think that’s the best way I can put it.

Steven 1:18:51
Rupert Sheldrake, he talks about the habits of nature, the habits of like, gravity’s like a habit or like different laws of nature. Is that is that the morphological field, the kind of like the habits, or is that something else?

Katia 1:19:04
Yes. I think that’s it. He talks explicitly about…and I forgot the name. I don’t know how he called it but he said, for example, a bee. If you destroy the little home of the bee. It will come back and it will know exactly how to repair it. It will start at exactly this point where it needs to be started. It will undo the damage. It will deconstruct what’s wrong, and it will know exactly how to construct this. How does it know that? There’s even a little kind of a ghost sentence. There’s a beginning sentence in the field. We have something like that when genes are read. There’s also a beginning sentence. I think those two are connected. There’s some sort of, the genes are some sort of antenna in a way. I know it sounds very esoteric, but genes are some sort of antenna that connects to that beginning field of that particular habits so to say, that then certain developmental steps are triggered or just information is changed. It’s changed or you just get information about the environment. There are these informational fields. Before I got into trauma therapy big time, I used to do constellations. Do you know what that is?

Steven 1:20:27
No, I don’t know that.

Katia 1:20:30
Okay. Basically, you can put a paper on the floor and you could put a name on it. Say, somebody you don’t know, okay, but somebody else knows that person and you will step on it. If you’re sensitive, you will be able to tell how that person is. It works like a charm. I’ve done that before. I’ve basically impersonated people that I have no clue about. They said, you said the same words this person always uses.

Steven 1:20:58
Really? Wow.

Katia 1:20:59
How’s that work? Information never gets lost. If you are able to kind of make it available, you can literally understand what’s going on in another person. Look it up. Constellations is a big thing. I know it exists in the United States and stuff. It’s so interesting.

Steven 1:21:21
I haven’t heard of that, but I’ve heard of like people who’ve had transplants of different organs, like heart transplants. They have memories.

Katia 1:21:27
Yes, exactly.

Steven 1:21:30
I think a murder was actually solved using that, because someone received a heart transplant from someone that was murdered. They had the memory of what happened to that person that was killed and everything. That’s kind of interesting.

Katia 1:21:43
Yes, same principle. You can use that for healing and constellations. You can just make available that information. It’s really amazing what you can tell about situations and people that you don’t know. How is that?

Steven 1:22:00
When you have trauma, you do things to, when you’re a young child or whatever, you do things to protect yourself. You kind of fortify those habits within you. Are those creating like morphological fields, those patterns and habits that you’re developing to protect yourself from being hurt again?

Katia 1:22:22
In fact, yes, I think they’re creating morphological fields, especially collectively, as well. I mean, have you ever gotten into a room where people are super afraid and you can really, it’s like, it’s palpable. I think that’s a field. I think yes, of course, you create your own little field that’s kind of stuck in the loops in your brain basically.

Steven 1:22:45
In that respect, if you like go to group therapy, would that be a bad thing that all these people have all these different fields of self-protection?

Katia 1:22:59
Okay, I think if you actually want to deal with trauma, I don’t think group therapy is the perfect way to go, but if you want to have a different experience, if you want to use group therapy to have a safe room to actually have a safe experience with the other, to understand okay, am I projecting anything on it, on this person. You can ask back. You can say, I think that this and this is happening with you. Then this person can tell you no, it’s not that. You’re just projecting this stuff on me. I think that sort of safe room, kind of sandbox idea, that’s a very good aspect of group therapy. If you actually want to go into trauma, I think probably many other traumatized people, just mixing into your own thing, is not the best thing. Again, you need to know, what do I want to achieve? Then you can use this tool accordingly.

Steven 1:24:06
Okay, and you mentioned breathing before is that a tool that you use? You mentioned in the context of like connecting yourself with a therapist or with a loved one. Does breathing on your own, does that play a part in doing different breathing practices, does that play a part in trauma therapy?

Katia 1:24:27
Most definitely. I mean, it really depends again on what you want to do. Say, there’s a lot of rage coming up. Then you will, in that kind of therapy, trauma therapy that I practice, you will try to express that through fire breathing, which is basically like [sound] kind of like that. It looks very weird. It’s very activating but it really helps you to go through the emotion without being stuck in it and overwhelmed. That would be, but for example, if you just want to calm down. You would do something that we call ocean breathing, which is basically just let the breath come and go but slowly. If you just feel like you’re dizzy, very typical thing. You’re working on trauma, you’ll get dizziness. Why? Because the dissociation is kicking in and you just poof, out of your body. What do you do? You connect to the earth. You will just inhale through one leg. Just pause your breathing and exhale through the other leg. Connect to the earth. That will ground you, for example. It really depends on what you want to achieve. It’s a tool you can use.

Steven 1:25:48
Using breathing to relax and getting into different mental states. Maybe your brainwaves would become beta, go to alpha, maybe theta. Does that help you, that relaxation from the breathing exercise, does that help you get more in touch with your trauma and be able to deal with them more?

Katia 1:26:09
Oh, absolutely. I mean, in the beginning, we start with breathing, just basic breathing. Then usually we connect to an animal and breathe together and stuff, but that’s just basic breathing. It’s just more pay attention to your breath. That’s kind of a, this is one aspect of the breathing, but then if we go into the actual work then yes, you have these special breathing so to say, that are not just meant to relax you. There are different breathing parts so to say. Different parts of trauma therapy require different breathing techniques so to say, but of course, breathing is very important. What most people can’t do is they don’t breathe properly. I mean, I don’t have to tell you. They can’t breathe into their belly. It’s all these things. It’s very important. Some people, before you can actually go into trauma therapy, you need to train breathing with them. You just need to train the possibility. They don’t even know it works. You need to constantly remind them breathe into your belly, feel your breaths. You’re not doing much. You’re just like bringing them into the body because they will need that resource when they’re actually doing the work. If they can’t do that, they’ll just get lost and dissociate, which can’t happen. You won’t go into the actual work if they can’t do basic breathing.

Steven 1:27:33
Yes, right. Have you looked into breathing in the context of carbon dioxide and versus like breathing in a way that blows off more CO2, versus like retaining more CO2?

Katia 1:27:46
Yes, definitely. Again, I’ve been doing trauma therapy for quite a while now. I wasn’t so conscious about the CO2 before, but now that I’m more conscious about this, yes. It’s really important that we pay attention to breathing techniques that would just not have them hyperventilate. I must admit I didn’t have a technique so far, but I can feel if a person’s hyperventilating. I will just have them just slow down, slow down, slow down your breath. At some point, they usually fall into a good rhythm. I understand that their body is calming down. I’m an empath, so I feel it, but now I have this little thing. No, I’m serious. I really am excited because I think that’s probably much easier for people to get into that state without me constantly slow down, slow down. I didn’t know about this although my colleague told me that this was common practice when she was a nurse like 30 years ago, 20 years ago. They would give that to people to prevent blood clots. Can you imagine? Then it vanished and then it vanished. Then those little syringes came with the anticoagulants. She said that was standard practice for everybody lying down back then. Something like that. I don’t know if it’s exactly the same, but she said that was common practice. I think we should go back to that and I’m really excited to try that out. Actually I gave one of them to her, because she is running my practice now. I don’t work personally with people anymore. I’m more in the research, but I gave her one of those and I really want her to try that out. I am really excited to see what happens when we work with clients and have them breathing with one of those before trauma therapy and probably even within trauma therapy. I can’t say, probably they won’t be able to keep that in their mouth all the time. It’s going to be distracting, but when people really practice I can see that you can say, now take your Relaxator, put it in your mouth, calm down. I can see that happening, but we need to try that out.

Steven 1:30:17
For sure. At least doing it for a little while, like we did during the beginning of the talk, just breathing together for a little while. Kind of connecting in that level.

Katia 1:30:25
Exactly.

Steven 1:30:25
Now, you said you don’t work with clients currently. You’re doing more of the research.

Katia 1:30:31
Yes.

Steven 1:30:32
I was going to ask if people can work with you, but is there, you have a website that people can go to find out more about your research and what you’re doing, or if there’s anything that you offer there at the website?

Katia 1:30:45
I mean my colleague, I worked with her for many years and I trained her. My colleague Ulrike, she’s running my ex practice so to say. If you want to work with us, I’m saying with us, because I’m still a supervisor. I just don’t work with clients personally any more. You can go to integral-evolution.com. You’ll find many more information about evolution mostly, development, but of course, we also treat the part of metabolism.

Steven 1:31:17
There’s a dash between integral and evolution correct?

Katia 1:31:20
Yes. Integral-evolution.com. Yes, that’s correct.

Steven 1:31:25
Then you work with clients from all over the world, or they have to be local where you live?

Katia 1:31:33
I mean, there are certain obstacles. You need to take certain tests, but if you’re actually serious about it, there are ways to take these tests internationally. It works because we do work with clients internationally from the United States and from Europe. People from Europe usually come to see us, but if you’re further away then it’s a little different but yes, we do work with people internationally and have for a long time. Lots of steps can be done remotely. Some you need a blood withdrawal in there, but that can be arranged if you actually want to do it, so sure.

Steven 1:32:12
Very interesting. I went to your website tonight. I saw that you had an eBook that you can download. That was very fascinating and talked a lot about the things that you’ve talked about on the call and a lot more as well.

Katia 1:32:27
That’s completely free. If you just want to look into that, because I know it can be very overwhelming. There were many things that we touched upon. It’s there for free. You sign up and you get it. There’s a little quiz even that you can take to see from the developmental part, because most people understand health but development is a little sketchy. You can just have a look at things. If you’re interested in more stuff, there’s a newsletter that people can sign up. I just finished a class for practitioners. It’s not translated into English yet, but if people are interested, they can sign up for the newsletter. As soon as I get to do that, which is hopefully within the next three months, I’ll do more internationally. So far, I’ve been working on the German market, so to say, and I really want to do stuff internationally, because I can just reach more people. I just think it’s very much needed right now to work on solutions. We all need to pool resources and work on solutions that I really like to put information out. I would like to do that. I will hopefully do that within the next three months.

Steven 1:33:38
Awesome. Before the call, you told me that you have a podcast that you’re going to be coming out with soon. Do you have any timeline?

Katia 1:33:47
Again, I really hope to start that within the next half year. It’s really on my mind and I want to release it kind of as lessons. It’s not going to be an interview podcast. I just want to kind of systematically build up everything that I’ve ever understood about the human body. I’ll start with the body. I’ll go over to emotions and I’ll talk about CO2, about trauma, about nervous system, about certain nutrients, about how the survival mode gets fixed. It’s probably going to be the Integral Evolution Podcast, or something like that. I don’t know, but I already have an outline in my mind. I couldn’t do it yet, but if I do it, I’ll record it in one huge session or something like that. I will just release it like lessons for people to just have that information available. I really want to do that.

Steven 1:34:43
Okay, very interesting. I like your approach to trauma with the whole integral approach and all the different levels and angles that you come at it with. I appreciate you being on the call. It was very, very interesting.

Katia 1:34:57
Thanks for having me. I love being here. I hope your listeners can learn something about it. Again, there’s much more on my website they can learn about and if they sign up, they learn much more but I really hope to, I just want to share.

Steven 1:35:14
That’s awesome. All right, thank you.

Katia 1:35:17
Thank you so much.