Ambr (00:01.153)
Okay, we're live. So welcome, everybody. Welcome back to Amber Talks. This is episode 39. And today I'm with a very special guest. My guest today is Dr. Suresh Joseph. It sounds so weird calling you so like something so official. But basically, Suresh is a clinical director of a trauma centric addiction facility in Sydney in Australia. So that's fancy words just to say, well, just to say to say
rehab center that's trauma-based, right? And Suresh and I, go back, we go way back. We met like almost 10 years ago now in a clinical setting, let's put it that way. And over the years, our connection has evolved and now we're more like collaborators more than anything else. So on that note, welcome to my podcast. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here.
Reshie Joseph (00:40.462)
Hmm.
Reshie Joseph (00:57.538)
Thank you for having me, Christelle. It's a pleasure to be here.
Ambr (01:00.537)
Thank you. And I was wondering, just to start this off, could you share a little bit about your story? I know we have some similarities, obviously, when it comes to addictions and recovery and everything, and a little bit of that, and how you got to where you're at today, which is clinical director in this facility in Sydney.
Reshie Joseph (01:21.272)
Very interesting question. Thank you for having me.
A book that I've enjoyed reading over the years, and you probably know this French-Canadian writer Henri Nouan, who has a very interesting story. He began his life as a priest in the Catholic Church in, well, somewhere in Canada. But I think he quickly discovered that he was not equipped to help the men and women that came to see him for counsel as people see their priests.
He left the priesthood and he became a psychologist and he worked a full career as a psychologist. And at the end of his career, he retired after a good four or five decades in clinical practice and he went back to being a priest. And at the end of his life, he wrote a very famous book called The Wounded Healer. And I mentioned this book because in many ways, this book encapsulates what I, not just what I do, but what I am.
And in this book, amongst the many things he says, he writes that most of us are driven to do this work because the person we're really trying to heal is ourself. And that would be true for me. And he also says, and I happen to think there's good genetic data to support this. He writes that those of us who make the best healers are very often the most wounded. So he's got me twice. And that, in a nutshell, is my story.
I started in a very different clinical setting. I've been in clinical practice of one kind or another all of my adult life, but I started in medical practice and eventually left for reasons of my own wounding, if I can call it that, if I can borrow from Noon. And my journey as a clinical practitioner and now as someone who has written a clinical program and is trying to implement it and create my vision of what I think
Reshie Joseph (03:24.898)
good trauma recovery is, is really a charting of my own personal recovery journey in trauma, in addiction. And if Nguyen is right, and I think he is, the person I'm really trying to heal is myself. And I also think that what makes me, well, this is what others tell me, and perhaps you can confirm or refute this, what makes me decent at my job.
are the extent of my own wounds and my attempts to understand them and to heal from them. And I know it's slightly unusual way to answer the question, but I thought I'd want to, it's a book I've returned to many times over the years and I returned to it some weeks ago and I'm just, it's one of these books, it's a bit like Shakespeare or Milton. Every time you read it, you see something different. And it was just a,
personal reflection that I had in meditation this morning, and I thought I would share it that way.
Ambr (04:29.581)
Wow, wow. So we're going in deep from the start. No, I, yeah, that is, that's beautiful. And that's so relatable. You know, I, I also really believe that, yeah, the, the biggest quote unquote healers are so good at what they do because they are coming from a place of, well, expertise in, in, in, in the wound, right?
And I don't want to bridge into the main topic too fast, but since your expertise, let's say that way, is trauma, like would you mind sharing a little bit about maybe not in detail what you went through, but you know, some of the things, at least just to make it a bit relatable to the people listening, you know, whether it's addictions or alcoholism or where does that trauma come from and what's been your journey?
in overcoming that, obviously with the parallel to your work.
Reshie Joseph (05:28.75)
Well, there are two things about myself in relation to trauma and addiction that are immediately and identifiably different. If I were to say compare myself to my brother, who is also a doctor, very nice man, we're very close. If I were to compare myself to him, if I were to look at the differences between the two of us, there are two differences that are immediately obvious. The first is that I'm much, much more easily hurt than he is.
And I don't mean in terms of, you know, sort of physical injury, physical toughness. I mean in a psychological sense. By the way, it's only a recent idea that people, that we haven't thought that people can be injured in the same way emotionally or psychologically as they can physically. Most ancient cultures, in fact, all ancient cultures I know of,
The word itself trauma comes from the Greek site. Talk about this in my book, which is available at findamazon.com bookstores everywhere. New low price, go get it. Give me some money.
Ambr (06:37.943)
I will link it. I will link it below.
Reshie Joseph (06:41.038)
So the word itself actually means wounding or injury. And it comes from the Greeks and certainly the Greeks, the Romans, the Chinese, the Indians, the Ayurvedic tradition, the Persians, all of them had this concept in their culture, but it really wasn't until Descartes with his mind body dualism that we decided that we'd have the machine. And then we'd have the Deus Ex Machina, which was the
bit that we don't bother with. And unfortunately, even though Isaac Newton debunked this, because he proved you may not be able to see gravity, but jump out a window, I assure you it's there. Even though he debunked this in a generation, this idea persists in modern medicine. And if my life struggle is given any meaning, it is to reverse this, it is to say, you can be injured in this way. And it is immediately apparent that there is something about me
that makes me far more vulnerable to being wounded in this way than even the immediate members of my family. The psychological skin is much thinner, if we can call it that. That's the first. The second is I also have this vulnerability or this propensity. When the wounding occurs, the healing process is not a smooth one.
It's very often interrupted, it's very often compromised, it's very often made very complicated by poor methods of self-soothing. The inability to self-soothe, in other words, which as you and I both know, the essence of trauma recovery is the ability to self-soothe. If one cannot do that, if one cannot self-soothe in healthy ways, then one will do it in unhealthy ways. And that is my view of what addiction is. It is an unhealthy mechanism.
that someone is driven to because they are unable to self-stabilize and self-soup. And so therein lies the pathology. It puts me at odds with many of my comrades in the industry who say that if you're an alcoholic, then alcohol is your problem. And if you stop drinking, problem solved. I say that alcohol is not the problem. I say that alcohol is the solution, which allows me to ask a second question, which is what is the problem that the alcohol is trying?
Ambr (08:51.833)
Mm.
Reshie Joseph (09:05.388)
to solve. And in my case, it was, that's the question to which I've dedicated my life both for myself and for the many wonderful people I have worked with, continue to work with and will work with. It's, to me, the most interesting and the most fascinating question that one can ask about anyone one meets. And certainly, it's the question that I ask most often about myself, if I meet someone, and I find that there is something about them
something that they've said, something that they've done, they do, or through the interactions I find because I'm so easily wounded, that a wound occurs. What's always interesting is to see the mechanisms of self soothing and how easily they become pathological. How very easily I cross into the territory of being, I mean, I've been in the recovery game myself.
close to two decades, but even after all of that time and many successes and many failures, even so, sometimes just the basics of self-soothing escape me. But am I even answering your question? Does that even answer your question?
Ambr (10:15.403)
Mm.
Ambr (10:20.473)
Yeah, no, absolutely. There's just so many directions in this, you know, in which we can go in. The one which I think is super important because obviously I don't know if everyone speaks this vocabulary. Do you know what I mean? So I'm just wondering if we can unpack a little bit like the healthy ways to self-soothe. And obviously I'm aware that they're different. They're going to be different from person to person, but just
Reshie Joseph (10:36.564)
No, they don't. They don't, yeah.
Ambr (10:49.229)
you know, what are the most common ways that we see people self-soothe in a healthy mannerism.
Reshie Joseph (10:57.826)
Well, can I say a little something about the unhealthy self-soothing before I talk about the healthy one? Because I think one of the things you wanted to talk about were the differences between the masculine and the feminine, the differences between men and women. And by the way, these are not the same thing as you well know, but if there is a difference, I sometimes summarize it in a rather crude way. So with the women I work with,
Ambr (11:03.395)
Sure.
Reshie Joseph (11:27.786)
almost ubiquitously I find that there is the presence of the unholy trinity. It seems to drive the feminine or it seems to drive women. The unholy trinity are boys binging and booze or relationships with men, a relationship with food and a relationship to substances. And they are in this this unholy triage. And they kind of bounce between the three. So
very often with the women I work with, they will have a handle on two, one will be out of control and then they'll get that third under control and then they'll bounce, they bounce between these three, they bounce between boys and then they get that boys thing under control and then it's food and then they get the food thing under control and then it's booze and then they spend years kind of, these old fashioned pinball machines, which I'm.
pretty sure you've never seen, we used to have these things called pinball and the ball would just go, know, pinging through them. Have you seen one of those things, these old fashioned things? you have? Okay. Showing my age a bit. And of course I don't look anything as old as, you were going to say that, I didn't look anything as old as I do. You were gonna say it, but I thought I, yes. Well, I thought I'd say it for you. But.
Ambr (12:28.099)
See ya.
Yes, yes, yes, I know what you're doing. Yeah.
Okay.
Ambr (12:44.255)
Exactly. You read my mind. You read my mind. Thank you.
Reshie Joseph (12:52.226)
Yeah, so that doesn't come from any textbook or any academic paper. That's purely an anecdotal reflection. It's just something I've noticed in a large number of women with trauma, particularly the trauma that links to childhood, which is perhaps the most interesting of all the traumas.
with men, there certainly isn't that triage or that triangulation going on. But very often their mechanisms of self-soothing are equally as pathological. But if there is a difference between the unhealthy, it would be the presence of this unholy trinity or otherwise. So that's the unhealthy or the self-soothing that exacerbates wounds, it doesn't heal them. And what is very tragic about that is people
women who do that will very often cause more wounding to themselves as they oscillate between the three positions. The necessary step to trauma recovery is a very difficult one because to begin with, the person makes the decision not to self-soothe in such pathological ways, but what they don't have is a mechanism to take its place. That is a journey. That takes time.
commitment, patience, effort, all of the things that you know very well. It's an arduous journey. It's a hazardous one. It's full of mistakes. It's full of trial and error, finding out what works, what doesn't work. And the temptation to revert to the old systems. You know, this is the thing. As dysfunctional as alcohol may see, certainly the way that
people drink, if it's the one thing that you know will work for you when everything else fails, why would you not use it? Why would you not at some point buckle and revert to it? You know, it's a no-brainer really, Christel, it's a no-brainer. You know, and I see this both in myself and in the many people I work with. And I find one of the keys to...
Ambr (14:50.307)
Mm.
Reshie Joseph (15:07.202)
the recovery journey is the person feels so helpless and so disempowered at the start and so ashamed that the first step in that journey really is to reverse that process to, as John Braggshaw says, to heal from the shame that binds the person, to free that person from what is a prison by the mind for the mind. And so that really is the first step. If people can talk about these things, sans shame.
then we're off to a good start. I don't even know if I'm answering your question or not. You're gonna have to guide me here a little bit.
Ambr (15:40.461)
Mm-hmm.
Ambr (15:46.297)
Yeah, I mean, don't worry. Like, there's no... We're not in any rigid structure. But yeah, it's interesting because obviously as I'm hearing you speak, things are coming up, right? And I had almost forgotten about this unholy trinity triage, which I've heard of before. And, you you refer to it as the pinball game or it's like the whack-a-mole game, right? It's the same thing. It's like...
Reshie Joseph (16:14.008)
That one, yeah.
Ambr (16:15.127)
Yeah, you get one down and something else comes up. what I guess what kind of came through is that I think a lot of people believe that when you that you can heal trauma, right? And that like, think I think people tend to forget that it's not a black and white process in the sense like, okay, I healed my trauma, I put the lid on and it's like, it's gone. It's never again. It's like,
No, like you said, it's a lifelong journey almost. It's a process. It takes time. It takes patience. And what I believe from my understanding where the real healing happens or happened is when you're now able to implement those healthy coping mechanisms or ways to self soothe and implement those because you're conscious of when they come up, of when certain things come up.
Right? But that doesn't mean that you're gonna, you're gonna do it perfectly every single time. And when you were mentioning, you know, food, or substances, I was smiling because just yesterday or the day before I was speaking with my coach who, know, incredible woman, she's a business coach, but she's highly intuitive and highly, highly like attuned to behavioral psychology and is very, very interesting woman. And, you know, I kind of.
understood that, yeah, for me, drugs and alcohol, that's like not even in my energy anymore, if we put it that way. Like it's really out of my identity. However, a process that I have seemed to have picked up over the years is traveling, right? So it might not be as unhealthy as drugs or, or, you know, casual sex or whatever, but it's still the same process and mechanism, right? It's still that
unhealthy relationship to something and taking it one step further just being super vulnerable like you know a topic that came up was was around men and I'm like no like this is this has been a lifelong freaking topic of mine right as you know and I refuse to think that it's still an issue for me because I don't believe that it's an issue I don't have the same behaviors that I did back then however I am now aware
Ambr (18:33.721)
of when certain things come up and now those issues have actually evolved into something a little more interesting, let's put it that way. So, and you can tell by the way in which it has evolved exactly what it's pinpointing to, like exactly to my trauma. And it's almost as if like, you know, everything is just there in front of me to say, like you might not be
like, you know, in promiscuity, like how you were in your early twenties. However, there are certain unhealthy, let's say, let's put limiting beliefs. Let's say there are some unhealthy limiting beliefs, unhealthy beliefs that are, yeah, might be holding you back from, you know, a truly fulfilling healthy relationship. And I realized that that's actually just where I'm at.
You know, that's where I'm at. there's even if I think that I can heal that and resolve that right now, mean, like, is it actually going to all of a sudden disappear? No, it like keeps on evolving and shifting and transforming. But I believe that the more one is conscious about these things, the more that they can at least, you know, take steps forward and noticing things and like, yeah, bit by bit, like healing that, that makes sense.
Reshie Joseph (20:03.35)
Yeah. Well, I can, you know, admire you for your forthrightness and for your candor in talking about this stuff. And certainly with due regard to that, I won't delve any deeper into what you said, but I think it should be remembered where you began and where you are now, because sometimes we, for a multitude of different reasons, we look at the journey as yet uncompleted.
And we don't, as Scott Pegg says, look at how much further along the road less travel we've come. And having known you the best part of a decade now, I certainly remember where you were and where you are now. And sometimes I think part of the journey in recovery is the ability to celebrate that win. Client of mine here was someone who said that. We had a big Christmas party.
we had all of our alumni come back. You one of the great joys of this work is to talk to people with whom I've worked with over the years and to see them grow. And something that she said that I think, I mean, she has a huge amount of respect within the community of people who pass through here. And she said something that she felt has really helped her is learning or gaining the ability to celebrate the wins. I think she's onto something there.
Ambr (21:29.955)
Hmm.
Reshie Joseph (21:32.598)
And I think we can, for reasons of personality or for reasons of trauma, the black and white thinking you refer to where everything is either 100 % or zero, very good reasons for that, by the way, I call it threat-based thinking. If you feel threatened, then the world instantly becomes divided into that which is safe and that which is not. Everything becomes black and white. In order to see the world as a shade of gray in a nuanced and subtle way, one must have the ability to feel.
Ambr (21:53.273)
it.
Reshie Joseph (22:02.218)
safe, know, very thorny subject, but I see it happening in the conflict regions around the world. One side looks at the other and they don't see a shade of grey, they don't see people who are problematic and then people who are on their side. It's all either white or black and it comes from the fact that people who feel threatened will think threatened, you know, and so there are reasons, you know, there are reasons why
Ambr (22:23.353)
Right.
Reshie Joseph (22:29.896)
So we both know about the unhelpful thinking patterns, we both know about the limiting beliefs and we both know about the black and white thinking patterns. I'm far more interested in why people have limiting beliefs, why they think in such black and white ways. And when I look into this stuff deeply, I find that people have these limiting beliefs, because at some point it serves them and what it does, albeit
in a very strange way is it makes the world that feels very unsafe to them feel slightly safer. If the world feels terrifically unsafe to me, what better thinking way to deal with this world and to view it as black and white? Everybody's either my friend or my enemy. So if you're a friend, good. And if you're an enemy, well, at least I know who you are. If I feel terrifically unsafe in the world,
Ambr (23:04.814)
Mm-hmm.
Ambr (23:22.233)
Mm.
Reshie Joseph (23:25.834)
Might it not be better for me to limit myself into only certain thinking patterns, ones that are extremely familiar to me and exclude everything else? Sure, I lose a huge amount by doing that, but at least I have the simulacrum of safety. So I'm very interested in why people have limiting beliefs rather than the fact that they do, which you and I both know very well.
why they think in black and white ways, why they think in terms of type one errors, why they feel it necessary to project all the time and to assume that people have nefarious intent when in actual fact their intent may be benign. Much safer to assume someone's out to get you only to find that perhaps you were mistaken as opposed to the other way around. If you had a violent father or a violent mother and you guess wrong, boy, are you in trouble.
if you see what I mean, you know, sorry to use such a stark example. And then of course, the globalized negativity where it's much easier for me to negotiate the world if I tell myself that everything is a problem, everything's a threat, or everything sucks, or everybody's out to get me, and then work on the assumption that it's all bad. And then if I happen to encounter something good, well, bonus. The other way around, well,
Ambr (24:24.099)
Thank you.
Reshie Joseph (24:51.82)
that that's problematic if I've got trauma. So people who feel threatened, think threatened. And if I encounter someone who thinks threatened, it's very often a clue that their trauma recovery has gone awry. And what's very interesting, so for example, I've known you all this time, and if I can share a little without going into details, I've encountered you at your best, and I've encountered you when you've been struggling. And one of the...
Ambr (24:58.958)
Mm-hmm.
Ambr (25:14.499)
Please.
Reshie Joseph (25:20.99)
most characteristic differences is that when you're in a really good place like this, your thinking is very subtle and very nuanced and very shades of gray and you don't look around and see everything as either threat or safety. You see shades of gray. know, so someone like me is approached in a much, much like there are good things, there are less good things, but all in all, it's a shade of gray package as opposed to, no, no, no, I need you to be white. You can't be black.
if you're, you you've got to be one or the other. And if the journey I've undertaken with you both as a more professional relationship to one that's more collaborative, if that can be summarized in a single sentence, it would be one that was necessarily very black and white to one that has become very shades of gray, has it not?
Ambr (26:14.073)
Wow, that's very soothing to hear. Thank you.
Reshie Joseph (26:23.339)
Is it soothing to hear?
Ambr (26:25.655)
Yeah, because I, you know, you mentioned celebrating the wins and being able to look back a little bit. I do often forget how far I've come, you know, especially because now on this journey, I surround myself more and more with like, extremely healthy people, extremely like successful people, people that are like further away down on the
Reshie Joseph (26:31.15)
Hmm.
Reshie Joseph (26:39.126)
Mmm.
Ambr (26:54.425)
consciousness thing that I actually forget that yeah, actually I've come like from a really long way. So really thank you for reflecting.
Reshie Joseph (27:05.262)
George Orwell in his essay on Gandhi begins by writing all Saints should be judged guilty until proven innocent. I agree with him. I hate healthy people. find them high. find them, you know, anyone who's healthy, who's functional or well adapted. I just I don't trust them. I mean, ever meet someone doesn't have any enemies. It's like who the hell doesn't have any. It's like, yeah. So I, you know, I like, you
Ambr (27:15.929)
I'm
Ambr (27:23.801)
Yeah.
Yes.
Reshie Joseph (27:33.23)
I mean, I like my women covered in tattoos and full of vindictiveness, put it that way. I know where I am with that, you know?
Ambr (27:37.529)
Right? No, I mean it.
Yeah, yeah, sure. know, as he says, showing his tattoos. No, but yeah, it's...
Reshie Joseph (27:50.178)
Buy the ticket, take the ride, Christelle. No, I've had it for a while, but that's a saying by the writer Hunter S. Thompson. And you and I, think many criticisms could be leveled at us, but leveled at us. But the one thing that could never be said of you and I is that we are people who sit on the sidelines. We have bought the ticket and we are on the ride. Are we not?
Ambr (27:53.088)
my god, is that you?
Ambr (28:15.929)
We are the ride. We are the ride. Yeah, no, hug beset.
Reshie Joseph (28:19.826)
We are the right. Yeah. Yeah. Neither of us are sitting on the sidelines of life because that was his message to to I think Hunter S. Thompson. Good or bad, don't sit on the fence. Don't sit on the sidelines in the safety. Get in there. Jump in there. Yeah, you you have trauma. You get hurt, but it's way better than just.
playing it safe and being nice and being these sort of healthy functional people. mean, these people are sort of inherently suspect, I think.
Ambr (28:58.297)
Yeah, no, it's so true. It's so true. And before just moving on to that, I just want to bounce back to one thing about the limiting beliefs. And if someone listening to this is recognizing themselves, being like, my God, shit, that might be me. I'm like black and white thinking I feel threatened all the time. I don't feel safe. Especially if it's a woman. What is one step that they could take in
like tackling maybe some of these limiting beliefs or just like at least trying to see things a little more in the shades of grey instead of so black and white. What's one step that they could take?
Reshie Joseph (29:39.406)
The step is to find someone that they trust. Another woman. I'd say maybe not a man, although it could be. I don't want to tar every man with the same brush. But if you're a woman, particularly, know, younger woman, say, and the world has become very threatening to you. You I often use this analogy. If you're wandering around in the outback or in the desert and you come across some
you know, snarly, large fanged predator. The only thing in that moment that's going to make you feel better is to have half the tribe standing to your left, the other half standing to your right. That's the only thing, right? When we're looking at our ancestors and why we are the way we are. And so in a metaphorical sense, if you are that woman where your brain is looking at your environment and just looking for where the predation is, find a tribe.
put half of it to your left, put the other half to your right. I don't know what it is that makes you feel threatened, but I do know that if you've got members of a tribe standing to your left and to your right, you'll instantly start to feel better. And you'll also have voices that you trust that will turn to you and say, know, maybe that thing isn't a lion. Maybe that thing's just a rocky outcrop, you know? So if that was just a
Ambr (30:39.373)
Hmm.
Ambr (31:03.289)
Mm-hmm. Right. Right.
Reshie Joseph (31:08.558)
a single first step, I'd say do that. It is, by the way, and there's a good, there are good neuroscience reasons for this. It is why I also think that organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous at their best, and I know there's plenty of problems with, you know, 12-step and all that, and not suggesting there isn't. But when you and I have seen it at its best, it's because it hooks into this tribal
social connectedness component and people find safety in the ranks of a tribe that they come very strongly to identify with. And for people who felt dislocated their entire lives to feel suddenly part of a winning tribe is an enormously powerful pull, enormously powerful.
Ambr (31:40.025)
Mm-hmm.
Ambr (31:55.587)
Wow, that's super powerful. So like, obviously that first step can also be applicable to men, right? It's not just only to women. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I mean, I can definitely relate to that just in my own journey, you know, which started out with these 12-step fellowships and having that sense of belonging, you know, and feeling like understood by...
Reshie Joseph (32:02.51)
Absolutely.
Ambr (32:20.429)
But yeah, these groups of people that come from all walks of life, but you know, we're united by a single purpose. Let's put it that way. And although I feel like I've outgrown a little bit that specific tribe, I do remain absolutely confident that the social community group aspect remains fundamental, I think, in anyone's life in feeling.
safe, yeah, to a certain extent. And for me, that's evolved over the years. And right now I'm part of this Tony Robbins community and it works for me and it serves me well. And that's probably going to evolve as well, you know, over time. But it's also just remembering that, yeah, like things change all the time. Things transform, things evolve and that it's okay to step in and out of new skins, just like a snake that sheds its skin, right? Like that's what...
That's what life is also about. We're constantly growing into new personas, if I could call it that way.
Reshie Joseph (33:23.97)
This goes to the heart of much of the research of my favorite, my most beloved neuroscientist, a gentleman called Yuck, Pang Sap. He spent a large portion of his career investigating the opioid system in the brains of primates and mammals and humans and trying to answer the question, why do we have this system? Because the reason, you look at all drugs of addiction,
all substances that are addictive, they all have a myriad of different actions. They're all dopamine enhancers. They, you know, some of them are stimulants, some of them, you know, they all have a myriad of different mechanisms, GABA, et cetera, et But the one thing they all have in common is that they all activate the opioid system in the brain. Alcohol, famous as a painkiller, cocaine, is still being used as...
painkiller by dentists, it's just called lineocaine, it's a synthetic version, heroin obviously, morphine, you know, all of these, they all activate different systems in the brain, but they all have one commonality, they all activate the opioid system, and I've often wondered why is that? Why are the addicts in so much pain? Where is, where, wherefore cometh this pain?
childhood trauma, what is it? If we drill it down, I wanted to drill it down to a microscopic molecular level and understand what is it? And I found the answer in the writings in the papers of this beautiful Estonian neuroscientist. He investigated the system and he discovered that the opioid system, to paraphrase him, is not there for its pain killing effect. That's really a secondary effect.
The shocking thing about his research was he discovered that what we had hitherto thought of as being the primary domain of oxytocin was in fact wrong. And that one of the key neurotransmitters or brain chemicals in mother-infant bonding was the opioid system. That in one exact region of the brain called the periaqueductal gray, when a baby cries and the mother nurtures it, what you have is a baby's brain pumping out morphine.
Reshie Joseph (35:36.874)
or endorphins, which is a combination of two words, endogenous morphine or morphine that your brain produces. And the mother's brain does the same. And that is the source of mother-infant bonding. It's why we have an opioid system. It's to allow us to bond to other people. It's why we have that. In the final paper he published, one of the most arresting sentences I've read in any academic paper.
Panksepp writes that in newborn rhesus macaques, in newborn monkeys, morphine simulates the presence of a mother. If you give a baby monkey morphine, it's normal in every way except one. It doesn't cry for its mom because it doesn't need it. Because the thing that the mom gives it when the mom nurtures it is it supplies the brain with endorphins, endogenous morphine. If you supply it with exogenous morphine by injecting it, you're giving it what it gets naturally.
This goes to the heart of why I think tribes like yours, like the Tony Robbins, why these massive communities work, because many of the people who are attracted to this, something about their childhood interrupted this natural supply of endogenously generated morphine. And so when someone goes to an AA meeting or someone goes to a Tony Robbins meeting or someone goes to one of these things and they cry,
for their mothers and someone turns and nurtures them. This is a simulacrum of this precise system. It's why I think on a neurological level, organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous works because if you go there, you're getting your endorphin, your endogenous morphine hit in the way that nature intended. And because you do it that way, you make it unnecessary to get it through an external
supply. I know this puts me at odds with a lot of people who will say that, you know, AA works because of the 12 steps or because of a higher power. And I take them, I'm not arguing with any of these people. not having a, I don't want to get into a fight with them. I'm just saying there are reasons at the molecular level that tell us something about why these systems are there in the first place. I think Panksepp's research is accurate. I think Dan Siegel explains this very beautifully in his
Reshie Joseph (37:55.778)
books on interpersonal neurobiology. I think this is a really, really important advance in the argument. I think it's also why people like you and I find relationships so problematic, because something about our childhood has caused an interruption in the natural way in which endorphins are reinforced in the brain. And so the ability to find that natural opioid reinforcement in the periaqueductal gray problematic.
And part of the journey in recovery is learning that, learning how relationships that are really simulacrums of relationships with mom and dad, how those things naturally nurture us and where that nurturing is to be found, how to build trust, communication, boundaries, ANS regulation, all of those things that, alas for you and I, do not come naturally.
Ambr (38:51.193)
So for people like you and I, let's say, just to categorize, you know, people in recovery or that have recovered, how do we relate to other people? And are we able to relate with people who are not like us?
Reshie Joseph (39:01.88)
than Royal We.
Reshie Joseph (39:15.694)
Wow, that's a very interesting question. What I try not to do is I try not to set us up into an us versus them. I try not to give the impression that there is something unique or different about, say an addict or, there's nothing particularly unique. What is perhaps unique about you and I and our tribe, if you like, is that we have this
very well-worn pathological path in which we search for and find our endogenous morphine supply. In the case of women, if you are the kind of woman who has a tendency to find this supply through what you have discovered to be unhealthy relationships with boys, an unhealthy relationship with booze or other substances,
and you have a really dicey relationship with food, those are clues that tell you that this may in fact be the situation you're in. This may be the differentiation between yourself and your sisters. Doesn't make you any worse. Doesn't make you any, in many ways I think it enhances you because people like yourself, you who perhaps do struggle in these three areas also have a...
a capacity for the numinous, the transcendent and the creative and the spiritual. If you look at a sunset, you will see something that your sisters do not see. And your trauma is very much also a part of that. I'm talking about a different piece of research here. the message that I would hope to give over to people is, what a...
And this is also for myself, what I had hitherto come to regard as a terrible burden, this trauma that I have, it's a terrible burden, I don't want it, I want to heal, I want to get rid of it. Well, what if I could told you that the same genes that make you so vulnerable to those in the wrong environment, in the right environment, don't just make you resilient, they open up a world that is denied to 90 % of human beings. It opens up the world.
Reshie Joseph (41:39.95)
There's no accident that the greatest artists, poets, creators, sculptors were all, all of them were, if you look at their lives, know, from musicians, you know, to poets, all of them were addicts. All of them had some kind of huge dysfunctionality that shows you they were very vulnerable to trauma. But when they found the right environment, these are the people who paint the pictures.
Ambr (41:56.707)
Hmm.
Reshie Joseph (42:09.964)
These are the people who write the poetry, who take the photographs, who create the systems that are numinous and transcendent. And this is a capacity that comes from the same thing that makes you vulnerable to trauma. I think this is what makes the journey in trauma recovery so worthwhile. You don't just achieve resiliency. You don't just achieve the ability to self-soothe. You go way beyond.
stress diathesis, you open up the world, what I would call the numinous and the transcendent and what perhaps you might call the spiritual and the aesthetic, you but we're talking about the same thing and that that also is linked to our trauma. And if I am to be believed and I have the research of Jay Belsky and Michael Pluers and my own professor Thalia Ely to rely on, if I am to be believed, then the journey is not just to achieve resiliency, the journey is to
crack open this transcendent world and it's an amazing world to be in. And to realize that the same thing that makes you vulnerable to trauma makes you vulnerable to this experience. Would you not celebrate that? I would. I think that's cause for celebration.
Ambr (43:23.619)
Mm-hmm.
Ambr (43:27.129)
100%. 100%. And it's, you know, the imagery that's coming to my mind is one of the pendulum, right? So like, the pendulum for me, at least it it swung from such dark and, you know, like, just, yeah, the depth of darkness, let's put it that way, just to use spiritual terms and then, or trauma or whatever you want to call it. And then now,
because it went so far on one end, it has the capability to go equally as far, if not further, in the other end, you know, it's a spectrum. on the other side of it. yeah, I mean, a hundred percent, it just makes sense to me anyways, that anyone who goes to such depths of...
the human experience in trauma and darkness and difficulties and hardships will, if they want to, if they truly want to, they can be catapulted into fourth dimension and other realms because of that capacity. And this is something that I talk about in my work, know, especially with this masculine feminine energy stuff,
is that the women that are hyper independent, just to throw a label, because of trauma, it's to understand that this trauma is not a bad thing. It's not like to be shamed upon. It's your biggest gift, actually. If you find a way to alchemize that into something powerful for you, like your trauma, your hardships can be your biggest gift. And that's what I'm doing and empowering these women. It's like, hey, like stop.
playing the victim, do you know what I mean? Like see what happened to you as a gift and use it to propel yourself forward. And I've introduced this new concept of like actually channeling the masculine energy into becoming more feminine because, you know, as you know, it's just a dance between the two, right? And sometimes that power that comes from within, which is, you know, that of like...
Ambr (45:44.801)
drive and focus and determination, which is more masculine traits, everyone has those, can be utilized into helping women flow more. And I know it's a bit paradoxical what I'm saying, but I've noticed it for me. Like if I'm able to put a routine, a structure and have discipline around my lifestyle, I can actually fork out time to be, to be instead of doing all the time.
I can't fork out time to just sit down and not do anything and genuinely just either take care of myself or literally just not do anything. And it's just a whole other world discovering this. But that being said, wanted to ask you, are there any reflections that come up around this topic for you or women that have dealt with trauma and have been
in masculine energy.
Reshie Joseph (46:44.238)
So I'll answer this question in two different ways. The first way is, I don't know, it just popped into my head and it's sort of, I think it's quite funny. I'm gonna share it and then I'll perhaps give you a proper answer. There were two essays that were written by Gloria Stein. Gloria Steinem is a, the older comrades will remember her, but for those of you who don't know, she is probably one of the progenitors of the.
the
which part of the feminist movement is she? She was very scaling of the academic feminists. She was part of the radical feminist movement, right? She's one of the original radical feminists, very scaling of Walters and all these other people. But she wrote two very interesting essays. And one essay was titled, What If Men Had Periods? And the second essay was, What If Women Could Win? And...
Ambr (47:41.709)
Mmm.
Reshie Joseph (47:43.126)
I mean, she's an incredible writer and she's so funny, know, which really lends weight to her feminism. Those of you who've not heard of her, I encourage you to read her. I think if you're a woman and you want to explore feminine strength. And the essay on what if men had periods was really...
strange, but so accurate. If we men had periods, this thing would just be like a complete celebration. know, it would be, we'd be high-fiving each other on the streets going, hey, you know, it's like, let's go for a drink now, man. I'm on the rack. You're on the rack? Yeah, well, I was on the rack yesterday. You should have seen, you know, I had three cups full of the stuff, right?
Ambr (48:16.377)
You
Reshie Joseph (48:26.648)
You know, and I think Stein was right, you know, if men had periods, this would be like some kind of fucking macho. So I didn't mean to swear, but this would be like some kind of macho thing. We'd be, anyway, it's a very funny essay. But the second one, which was, well, what if women could win? And that's a really interesting essay because that I think is the summary of, or for me anyway, that that's the summary of what you're trying to say here that.
Ambr (48:38.947)
Yeah.
Ambr (48:42.999)
Mmm.
Reshie Joseph (48:56.654)
the sisters who are perhaps listening to this, ask yourself that question. What if you could win? What would that look like? What would that feel like? Would it look like or feel like the person who felt themselves to be the eternal victim? Would it be the person who then oscillated to the position of needing to be the perpetrator or to go around rescuing people? Would it be one of these? Steinem suggests not.
Steinem suggests a complete reconfiguring of this, and her answers are very subtle and very nuanced. And to borrow your phraseology, that would have a recognizable streak of the masculine in it. know, the woman who comes in and who doesn't apologize for taking charge, or who feels no need to be embarrassed about
bodily functions, indeed feels perfectly ill, but he does celebrate them. It would almost kind of look like that. And that's why I think I like radical feminism so much. You know, certainly the, if you look at many of them, they wouldn't have led my one of my favorites. I mean, she's forgotten now, but if I recite it, some of her poetry, you'd recognize the Edna St Vincent Millet, very beautiful woman who lived at the turn of the 20th century American.
I mean, very, very promiscuous woman became an alcoholic and an addict and died young. But she lived in the way that she wanted to live in an era where women didn't do that. You know, and she was very radical in that respect. Many of the women in that era, Rosa Luxemburg and Edna Svets and Millay,
Ambr (50:32.173)
Mm-hmm.
Reshie Joseph (50:45.474)
Beatrice Webb, whose house I lived in as a child. know, many of these women, if you look at them, they really embodied what Steinem is talking about, which is the ability to embrace this devil may care, very massive inside, you know, and it isn't, Steinem explains this far better than me. It's not a license to be promiscuous or a license to...
Ambr (50:54.169)
So.
Reshie Joseph (51:07.976)
know, drink till you pass out, you know, those sort of more regrettable aspects of masculinity. It's the side that makes men strong. Take charge, do what you will, be confident, all of those things. I'm not explaining it very well, but I think that's what I take from this particular aspect of the discussion. Embrace that, if you will.
Ambr (51:15.896)
Hmm.
Ambr (51:33.763)
Wow, wow, that's some powerful messages there. Thank you for sharing that. I just want to be mindful of the time because I know it's almost an hour and it's pretty early on your end. Well, there's like so many directions this could still continue going in. Is there anything you feel like you would like to add about anything we spoke about which was such a wide array of topics?
Reshie Joseph (52:01.972)
Aside from the fact that we need another hour to discuss my comic genius, aside from that, no, think I just followed where you led, and I hope I gave an insight in a way that I mean, when I go on a podcast, what I try not to do is I try not to trot out the sort of the generic textbook answers, because I think a lot of why would you want to listen to me if you could hear it from
Ambr (52:06.797)
Yeah.
Ambr (52:25.612)
Yeah.
Reshie Joseph (52:30.208)
say Gabo Mate or Bessel van der Kolk or Judith Herbert, why would you want to hear it from me? So rather than stick to the tropes, what I try and do is mix it up and try and say something provocative and interesting and maybe talk about people that are less well known but that I feel are equally important and give a different perspective. I hope I've done that.
Ambr (52:55.737)
For sure, I mean, you've definitely cited some books and articles and references that I think most people aren't familiar with. yeah, really just, yeah, thank you so much. Just to close this, you know, if you had one...
Okay, what would be from your perspective as a clinical director now and who's been in the field for quite some time, what would be one of the best tools that you could share or that has served you or that you've seen serve people in general in regards to relationships?
Reshie Joseph (53:38.434)
the ability to regulate the autonomic nervous system.
Ambr (53:43.449)
Could you say that in a little more layman's terms for people who don't understand what that means?
Reshie Joseph (53:46.817)
Ahem.
So the autonomic nervous system, if you don't know what it is, is divided into sympathetic and parasympathetic. It's the part of the nervous system that tells you when you're being threatened and when you need to fight or run. And it also is the bit that tells you when you're safe. I submit in my model of human relationships that it is not possible to have a relationship with someone if you feel threatened by them.
The ability to find safety within our relationships is foundational. And that is not simply between men and women or in intimate relationships. They are in all relationships. Try building a relationship with a coworker where you're in ANS hyper arousal. Try doing that where everything that they do triggers you. I submit it's not possible. If there is one...
Ambr (54:36.781)
Mm.
Reshie Joseph (54:41.09)
I mean, as Napoleon the Pig said to Snoopy in Animal Farm, they are all created equal, but some are more equal than others. And if there is one that is first among equals amongst all the many skills that one seeks to acquire in a place like this, if there is a first among equals, if there is one that is more equal than the others, it would be this. If you can regulate your...
Ambr (54:50.317)
Hmm.
Reshie Joseph (55:06.206)
the part of your nervous system that is responsible for threat. If you can find safety in your relationships, in your work, in your occupation, in your personal life, in your personal functioning, in your social circles, if you can find that what you have found is a mechanism that allows you to live free from... I mean, I summarize, I borrow from Karl Marx and perhaps I'll end on this.
where people often ask me to define what addiction is, know, what is addiction. Karl Marx wrote in his, this was, he was writing about religion in his, in the introduction to his critique of Hegel's philosophy of right. And so this is borrowed from him where he says, addiction is the sigh of an oppressed creature. It is the heart in the heartless world. It is a false constellation.
for the chains that bind us to our pain and our trauma. Recovery seeks not to remove these false consolations that we be forced to bear the chains without consolation. True recovery is to break the chain and to live free from the need for such consolations. I'd say that if you can master that, that is, you give yourself a chance to do that.
Ambr (56:30.221)
Drop the mic. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I yes. Thank you. And what you just said, you know, I see it summed up so much on on social media in more very basic terms of, regulating the nervous system and this and that. And so it's there's definitely like a collective awakening or at least a movement happening nowadays where women are realizing that, yeah, being feeling safe is extremely important. And it's
It's not necessarily from the outside environment. Of course, that's a big part of it. But it's also like, do I, how am I, I'm responsible for my own nervous system, like how do I ensure that I regulate that? How do I do that? And it's also going to differ from one woman to another, right? So yeah, wow. Wow. Thank you so much for your time, for all the insights, for the knowledge, the wisdom. Yeah, I really, really appreciate that. And I'm sure that a lot of people are going to get.
a lot of insights or at least just perhaps food for thought from this podcast.
Reshie Joseph (57:35.758)
It's been a real pleasure, Christel. Thank you for having me.
Ambr (57:38.499)
Thank you.
