Welcome to your Body. Remembers pleasure. I'm your host, Rahi Chun. This podcast is devoted to sexual embodiment, intimacy, and the body's innate capacity to heal, feel, and remember pleasure. If something here resonates with you, you're welcome to explore more writings and resources@rahichun.com. And now let's begin. 

In today's episode, we welcome Becky Carter Somatic experiencing therapist and trauma specialist whose areas of expertise includes resolving preverbal and transgenerational trauma, resolving sexual trauma for all genders, with a particular expertise with men, understanding the somatic effects of racial trauma.

And working with adoptees and their families. How can we identify preverbal or transgenerational trauma in the body? What are issues more specific to male sexual trauma survivors? How does the intersection of racial and sexual abuse and aggressions felt by marginalized communities have a compounding effect on the nervous system?

We explore. Becky's work with these themes and populations and her experiences and insights for how to hold a safe space for the resolution. Today I am very excited to welcome Becky Carter to the podcast Becky and my paths. It's really interesting. It's almost like the universe wanted our paths to cross, and I'm so excited and grateful that, that it has, it was really delightful to recognize how so many of our areas of interest and.

Specialties overlap and I just love talking to her. Becky has been a trauma therapist with over 20 years of experience with very interesting focuses. So they include healing relational trauma that occur in utero and beyond with a special expertise with repairing complex trauma, dissociation, and sexual abuse.

She has a special dedication for supporting adoptees and their families and facilitates groups for both male and female sexual abuse survivors, and also leads workshops on healing the wounds from systemic racial trauma. Somatically. Becky identifies as biracial, cisgender transracially. Adopted female with ancestors from West Africa and from Sicily, and serves as a therapist at the Family Resilience Group in Arlington Heights, Illinois.

The website there is family resilience.org. Becky, thank you so much for joining us today. Welcome. Thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here and I do love that the universe has aligned us into this moment in this conversation. I'm looking forward to it. Yes. Yes, me too. I've been looking forward to it for months now after our conversation.

Becky I wanted to start by, just so our audience has a sense of your journey and your background specifically in regards to these really interesting areas of expertise. Can you share a little bit about your journey and how these areas of interest and expertise. Evolved and led you to doing a deep dive in these different areas.

Yeah, definitely. And it's interesting because I do think that. I have not necessarily consciously chosen all of these paths. I think they've chosen me, in terms of what I was gonna study, what I was populations I've wanted to work with. I definitely feel as I've looked at the last, I'd say decade of my life, and I've really been honing things in a little bit more with my work like.

It's all come into my field of reference, and then I feel like I am the clients come to me, the topics come to me, and then I'm able to sustain in those areas, in supporting populations specific vulnerable populations. What I've come to realize though, is that it's all really connected to my.

Past experiences, my past traumas, things that I've been trying to figure out for myself. I was adopted into my family a biracial 10 month old going into an all white family. And prior to that adoption had spent a short amount of time in foster care, but during that time, went through what.

My body has come to tell me relationally I've come to known as a, a combination, most likely of sexual and physical abuse, and so really landing into a very unique situation of being parented. By people who don't look like you, right? In a world that oppresses brown people, right? With some early developmental injuries and the primal wound of adoption, and then I think a long journey of getting to. Know and understand my father, who is also a man who struggled for different reasons he's now deceased. But I had a very intentional kind of attachment relationship with my father.

He was very fearful of men going into my adoptive family. And it took a long time for me to be able to trust my father. And then we had a bit of a tumultuous relationship. As a result of his drinking. But then came to this beautiful place where in our later, his later years of life, my years, I was really starting to hone in on what I was gonna be doing in the trauma field as a clinician of just recognition of each other, embracing each other, understanding each other, our complexities and.

So for a long time, I've had a lot of curiosity about traumatized vulnerable men, right? And how to build relationships and advocate for my needs with men, and then also to support men and advocating for their needs. And and also I think just the journey of, not knowing my birth father not knowing my birth family and kind of seeking relationship and attachment with my adoptive father when things were a little more challenging.

So now that, I look back, I can see. Where all of these focuses, have emerged from. And and then it was just a little bit about getting to the place where I'd done enough of my own therapy to realize how I wanted to work with some of these populations adoptees, male survivors, sexual trauma, racial trauma.

That it really needed to be in an embodied way. 'cause it wasn't until I got in my own body and did the work to see where I was holding the story, the narratives, what was preverbal, what was traumas for later on my life that it wasn't until I touched into my nervous system and my own body that I could understand.

The depth of what I've experienced, what was stuck in my body. Where my fight response was drawn to. And and so that embodied work really led me to the somatic focus in all of these areas. Wow. That's really fascinating. Becky. Thank you for sharing all of that. There's so many things there that I wanna follow up with.

One, one of the things that stands out and that's really fascinating is. How you were able to somatically, recognize, identify, and work with a dysregulated nervous system from traumas that were pre-cognitive. It seems to me like that is one of the areas that, that you work with addressing repairing trauma, either in utero or it even sounds like transgenerationally that.

Shows up in someone's nervous system. So I was curious about the TTT transformative touch therapy. Yes. I'm fascinated with the DNA research that's coming out that is showing how in our DNA, past trauma, transgenerational trauma is carried from one generation to the other.

Can you speak to how you facilitate that experience of clients who. Have a, whose behavior indicates that there's some trauma, either transgenerationally or prem memory. And how you work with that for clients to help resolve that from their nervous system. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm gonna do my best here, right?

Sure. One of the things that I learned from Steve Terrell who developed this model of transformative touch therapy with a training he has titled, transforming the Experience-Based Brain, which I love that, right? That the brain is holding an experience, that there's not a verbal, awareness of, and so one of the things that I've, he says is that when you are working with a client who's clearly struggling and brings you a lot of, I don't knows, right? And it, it and it may be something that you might think as a therapist that I could extrapolate just from what you're telling me, like what might be going on for you.

But they seem very stuck, right? They're stuck in an, I don't know that there's something they're trying to access that they can't access. There's some barrier there or that they're, when you're talking to them, you almost have a sense that there's a very young part. That is starting to show up in the room.

And I, for me, that as a therapist, it shows up in my own system as I, I'm drawn to a more nurturing energy. I feel a little bit more like I am. Wanting to bring a different tenderness or gentleness to the dialogue. I can see almost the embodiment in some clients of going into younger parts.

Maybe their hands go from being open to fisted like we do when we're little. Or they might curl up a little bit in their chair as they're talking almost becomes smaller. And so that you're starting to see that there's an embodiment and that there is something that is being held in the nervous system that the client's not aware of but there's clearly something that is creating distress to be accessed.

And so the work is really just allowing for these very slow titrated moments. A little bit at a time of allowing for clients to, to start to consider that their body has a story to tell. And doing that in a way that you are helping them access what their body might be trying to tell them while also resourcing them in the present.

Moment of therapy and that attachment, right? And so that, I notice, there's this small kind of movement that you're doing with your body. It looks like there's a lot of vulnerability there. And at the same time, you're here with me, and this adult body and we're, there's an attachment here.

There's things that we've secured in this therapeutic relationship to ground you as you start to go back into these very vulnerable moments and that. And that once we have enough safety in the therapeutic relation, we can relationship, we can touch into those parts of the nervous system, literally with our hands to support regulation so that the client isn't forced to have to talk through it, right?

So we support the kidney adrenals, right? We support the brain stem. Which connects to that vagus nerve that flows down through our body and all our vital organs that, that can tense up and get constrained in response to trauma, right? That we support the vagus nerve.

We support joints. Things that help help us feel more embodied and anchored and resourced. And it's just a very slow going of supporting regulation and allowing clients to go from, I don't know, to, my body's telling me this. And me noticing that your body's doing this in response to a certain type of stress or activation or threat.

And supporting a settle in the body. With a safe co-regulate other. That is so beautiful the way you described that. It's really creating that safe sanctuary for the inner. Child or inner infant. To feel safe enough to. Really be present and to be witnessed, and then to bring the kinds and quality of support that was probably lacking.

Yes. And for those who are listening and not seeing when Becky says support the cranial base or the kidney adrenals it is supporting with touch and it's a simple it's simple, but so profound when an infant or a child is in need and. Is feeling not secure. Just having that presence in touch can be profoundly reparative.

Becky, I wanna ask you, since this, I'm fascinated with all of this, but because the podcast focuses on sexual health and wholeness, what are the kinds of. I'm curious, so for you, you had mentioned that there were indications that there may have been sexual or physical abuse when you were in foster care, whether it's your own situation or what you witnessed with your clients.

For people listening who may suspect that something inappropriate or violations may have happened, prem memory. How do you recognize some of these things show up in your clients? Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that I noticed for myself is that I would have certain. Embodied reactions to different type of types of situations.

And so whether it was different medical procedures that I had to go through, or, situations where I was experiencing pain in the body with uncertainty, right? And having a very visceral, embodied, panicked reaction, with a lot of. Shut down and constriction of things like the kidney, adrenals and all the things that we don't need when we are in fight mode, right?

We don't need to be using our GI system as much when we are going into fight mode, right? And so recognizing that when I came into. Contact was something threatening that my GI system, my body would just shut down and give out a little bit, right? And collapse underneath the presence of a perceived threat, right?

Or perhaps a trigger. So it was that my body would have this very reflexive reaction that wasn't necessarily matching. What was going on in my life. And so reflexive that it's not like I could stop it, right? It just happens, right? And then the shame that would come with that, right?

And, but. Working through, wait, your body has something to say here, right? In response to certain contacts or interactions. You have this this somatic reaction and noticing that in my clients too. That they, it, it would look a little bit like a client saying that they're, they notice when they go into an intimate relationship, a sexually intimate relationship that, they might notice a reflexive constriction in the body or certain parts of the body, or that the pelvis always, kinda, the pelvic floor always seems a little strained, a little bit tight.

Or they may find that, they float outside of the body and disconnect and dissociate a little bit. Or there's a coupling of. Instead of, somebody doing something which should be sexually pleasurable, that the body receives it as painful. So that there's a coupling of pleasure and pain.

Instead of, I'm going to do something that ideally, a partner would think would feel good for the other person and induce pleasure or arousal it, it reduces pain and it induce a shutdown or a collapse even in the sexual system. So those are some examples.

Those are great examples. Yeah. Yeah. And what I'm recognizing in what you're sharing, Becky, is that to recognize how the body is going into protective, defensive, or shutdown mode, it does require a certain level of. Awareness in one's embodiment. And I think part of the irony is, I think so many of us do avoid feeling in our bodies when it is unpleasant.

Yes. For good reason. Overwhelm of shame and, people obviously numb themselves with various, there's so many means to numb ourselves here in this society, but to really recognize and to start. That healing journey, it does require one, to pay attention to their body and their body signals and what it is the body has to say.

Yes. And it is extremely difficult after sexual trauma. Most traumas, it's difficult to look at the body reaction, but especially after sexual trauma and that so much of the work is. Is allowing for the body to speak and the client to stay with what the body is trying to tell them without becoming overwhelmed, right?

So creating enough embodied resources. Where your body do you normally feel positive? Where in your body do you. Sometimes maybe feel a little bit lighter safer less pain, less fear. And it may be as much as a tiny little finger tip, right? Or is there something outside of you, outside of your body that you notice anchors you and feels good?

And can you just take a moment to take whatever that is in and just peek into your body's response to positive. Resourcing, right? And that if we can get to know what our body does, and, reflexively in some less overwhelming ways and less activating ways, becomes a little bit easier to look at how our body holds pain and trauma and to hear the stories that our body wants to tell us.

That can give us a lot of ideas about how to heal and how to repair, and what the antidote to all that pain is gonna be. Sure that Sure starts to surface. Yeah. Yeah. The infinite wisdom of the body really can guide us in our healing journey. It's really a I love the, under underscoring, the importance of finding the, where your body is resourced.

And where you are resourced relationally as well to support that body resource. And the irony, I've shared this in other podcasts, I, 'cause I see it often, it's like when someone has had a pattern of. Let's say an unhealthy or violent relationship. And finally they get to a sa, a safe relationship.

That's when the trauma feels safe enough to come to the surface. And sometimes it can be very confusing yes. To the person when all they're feeling all of this emotion that's just been buried, but it actually, it's the safety of this new relationship. And it could be the resource of a therapeutic relationship, certainly as well, where so much repair happens.

Becky, I wanna a, I wanna shift and ask you in your work with groups of men and sexual trauma, it's touching and it makes so much sense how your dynamic and relationship with your father has led you to this deep empathy and desire and curiosity. Understand the challenges within men, essentially.

And your work with male sexual trauma survivors. What are the unique challenges to men who have experienced sexual trauma? And don't know what to do about it. Yeah. I think one of, and it's it all gets me, sad to think that one of the unique challenges is just recognizing traumas there.

Because I think for a lot of male survivors, what. What they experienced that was traumatizing was either in incredibly minimized or it was looked at as some kind of rite of passage that, oh, you're so young to have this exce, this sexual experience and lucky you, right?

Lucky you that, you were able to experiment sexually right? In situations that, other little boys or young men didn't get to. And there's this misinterpretation of early, young sexual interaction for boys and men as being something that they should, be proud of.

And I, I fault our society for sending that message. And I think, so for some of the men I've worked with, it's been about recognizing that was not okay, right? First of all, looking at the relational dynamic in which the, sexual abuse occurred, looking at where they were developmentally, how much manipulation and coercion was there, and helping 'em understand that they were.

A victim of something that something was done to them that shouldn't have been happening. And all the ways in which their body has stored that, this sense of that wasn't okay. And your body's letting you know that wasn't okay. It's showing up relationally, in your adult life that everything that you went through was not okay in terms of the struggles you have.

And so there's the initial recognition. Which is challenging. There's this belief that there's actually people out there in the therapy world who can address this issue, right? I think a lot of men feel like, oh, most sexual trauma therapists work with women, right? They don't and.

That kind of concern that there won't be an understanding of the uni unique complexities that men are gonna bring. Most of the men I've worked with they're in my office initially because there's anger. They've been betrayed somehow, and it's triggered a some memories or kind of a repression.

Things that have been repressed are starting to surface regarding sexual trauma. And so creating spaces where men can feel like they could disclose someti something that was sexually violating. And how his therapists were always thinking about that. That if we have, eight to 10 male clients on our caseload, are we considering if they haven't disclosed that perhaps statistically two or three of those might be survivors.

And are we speaking in a way that would allow for something that vulnerable and that shame inducing to be disclosed? And so that's really. Tricky. And just knowing that, there's other men out there. I think a lot of men feel incredibly isolated. Yes. That, other men are not talking about this, they're not, or that there's a, they will be judged even if they come into a group context, by the other men in the group. And or they've been judged by therapists or min, their situations have been minimized by therapist in the past. It's a lot of barriers. The biggest is for most trauma, shame.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. It's really interesting as you're sharing all this, I'm just having these memories of of PE during junior high school and at that tender age when a boy's body is turning into a young man's body, how much peer pressure there is to prove that you are manly and just how much bullying and rising, raising and all of that.

And so I can so easily see how these abuses of power dynamics when one is a young boy or a young man, can be chalked up as a rite of passage or even as something to show off about when in fact the effect in the person's body is a shutdown, is an inability to have a healthy erection or yes or invite intimacy.

Yeah. And or to not and to not be, there's so much especially depending on age of trauma that, if you're starting to get curious about your body, if you're starting to, things are shifting hormonally and yeah, you're shifting and growing and changing and there's hair and things are getting bigger and the voice is changing and you have feelings you didn't have before and that when all those things are awakening.

And ideally blossoming. The ideal situation is you are, you're not shamed with all those develop developmental changes as a man. You're, it's celebrated. You get to have conversations about him, and what you're, and the normalization of everything you're feeling, right?

And if right at that time you are. Either by, a another male or a even female. The majority of my survivors that I work with, the male survivors also have female perpetrators. If you're, if you are being treated in a way that you know right at this time where you're coming into kind of a sexual awareness that you are having to compromise things that.

Don't feel good to you. Boundaries are being thwart, thwarted and and violated. If you are being you're starting to get confused about things that feel good, but also feel painful at the same time. And that, and that the things that your body's naturally doing, like having an erection or having ejaculating in a situation that is terrifying, right?

What that creates in adulthood. Yes. Every time I become aroused and I get excited, I am terrified. And the challenges that creates in relationships for men, and that often is what comes in the door and in the best of our, my group experiences, that's what. When survivors have spent enough time together, can talk about those incredibly vulnerable pieces.

I imagine the healing that happens when members of the group recognize their own experience being reflected in someone else's share like that. Yes. Like something so vulnerable and to a lot of people embarrassing as ejaculating when they're in an intimate situation and it's all based on that initial imprint.

I think imprints are so powerful, our first, whatever it is. And I'm working with a colleague who's kind of specialty is all around touch receptors and our very first touch imprints that happen. Yes. And how that can really lay a foundation for patterns into adulthood.

You bet, Becky, just for listeners out, if there are male listeners who are being inspired by this, how can they find male support groups, the kind that you facilitate? What, what's a way for men to find support groups like that? I'm gonna be honest, it's very hard. By the time people landed in, in my office or, on my Zoom calls, it was after lots of searching.

There are several different organizations, websites that are, have been doing ongoing support for male survivors. There's men healing.org. There's one in six.org, male survivor.org. I am one of, probably like two other therapists in the Chicagoland area who run groups for male survivors of sexual trauma.

We all know about each other 'cause there's so few of us, right? And there's a lot of platforms where you can do things online or you can do things. Chat rooms or, things like that. But finding spaces where you can do in-person or more intimate zoom work. Therapeutic work is a lot harder.

One because it's just hard to find. Men who have the courage, right? And the capacity to try that. It's terrifying to think about disclosing much less in front of other men, much less to sign on for several weeks to process ongoing shame inducing things. So I tend to do this thing where, three people's, a group.

So if I can get three, and it, I will start it. Whereas I think what I've seen in the community, which has been a struggle, is that people wait till they can get seven or eight people. One just a lot gets, it gets missed because you can't track, you can't. Get a sense of somatically what's showing up, embodied reactions and and those wonderful moments where you see clients reacting to each other.

Yes. And that can be a moment for co-regulation and support that gets missed. So I tend not to go above five or six in my groups. Ideally. I think we're getting there. I think a lot of these organizations are also trying to come together to have farther reach, but it's tough to find for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. So I really wanna talk about the intersection of sexual trauma and racial trauma. Because I feel like because we live in a racialized systemically racist environment, the structures that we live in are have been influenced by our history in that way. There's so much great work out there now documenting the effect of microaggressions, in our environment.

You and I spoke about how this really trains. Our fond response if we're a minority growing up as far as, needing to feel safe and accepted. I'm really curious about what you've recognized as far as the intersection of a nervous system that has endured a racialized environment and when that intersects with sexual trauma.

And I, I don't know how to word my question, Becky. I'm just curious about that intersection. And I know what you're asking, right? Just as you're trying to form the question, and I think they, there's so men, many intersections, right? So we think about sexual trauma, it's an oppressive, it's experience, right?

And it can have very coercive, manipulative components to it. It can be covert sexual trauma can feel a little bit they can be. What seemed like subtle sexual innuendos or exposure to sexual things over time, in, in ways that may not feel very direct, but have a direct impact, right?

Sure. Like a microaggression. So sexual trauma can have those pieces and it can also be very direct and very overt. And and I think that if you've grown up in a brown or a black body, if you've grown up a minority, if you've grown up, neurodivergent or you feeling othered for your life, if you're part, of the L-G-B-T-Q population, that there's a sense of always.

Having to be more vigilant, always having to kinda feeling a little detached from, removed from the majority, whatever the majority is in your community, your situation. And so if you've grown up with that isolation, right? And if you've grown up feeling with, like you have more vulnerability, one, it could be more likely that you are targeted by.

Sexual predators, right? Also, it is what I call like a compound injury. So you're not only are you experiencing the oppression of racial trauma, systemic racism that of your, your current experience and your ancestors, but you're also experiencing the oppression of a sexual trauma on top of that.

So it's very compound. So it's the, so it's shame of, I could say for myself, speaking for myself and what some of my clients of color have expressed that also have sexual trauma, that, so this, there's the shame of I'm in this skin, but I didn't choose this skin. I'm in the skin and I am living in a world that has decided, for some reason, because of the color of my skin, I'm more threatening.

I'm not as safe, right? And because of that I will not be afforded as much opportunity in the systems that a white body might be afforded, right? So there's that piece. So not only am I in this skin that creates some vulnerability for me, but I have been violated in the skin and in this body, physically or sexually, right? So it's a really compound shame. It's compounded shame that you are really working with and helping survivors find when they, whether it's of racial trauma or sexual trauma when they are in a piece, when they are fawning and just saying something that they may not really believe to get out of a threatening situation.

Doing something to please others so that you can stay safe. And really helping with both of these types of trauma, helping survivors find voice, find choice, find moments, they feel like they're witnessed, not oppressed. Where they have a volitional.

Interactions, right? And where they are seen with that voice. The body and the skin that they're in. And that they're heard, right? So lots, A lot of overlap there. Yeah, a lot of overlap. And the word compound really stood out because that really succinctly describes it. I'm just struck by, for example, the fond response in order to feel safe in life in one school, growing up in social groups, all of that, it can become so ingrained in one's social behavior pattern that when it comes to. Crossing one's sexual boundaries. I'm guessing that one's habitual, fond response leads, one, to be more susceptibility to having their boundaries overstepped. Because of that just ingrained pattern of wanting to be accepted. Yeah. And so she's other, yeah.

Yeah. To please other for survival and at the sacrifice of what you know is feels. Safe and embodied right for the person going through it. And that can happen just to in communicating in relationships and getting needs met emotionally to, sexually, and in sexually intimate interactions of, overriding.

One's comfort with something. And then this tricky piece of, not wanting to pathologize what might be a little bit more unique kind of sexual interactions. And and allowing 'cause sometimes, what can be exciting sexually is also can create a little bit of nervousness.

And how to help survivors when, so much of excitement and arousal is, has been so overlapped with nerv. A negative sense of nervousness, right? Not this is new and exciting. I'm nervous, this might be fun for me sexually versus this. Creating a nervous fear in my body that might lead to a shutdown or a fight response, right?

Or a freeze response and or flight response. And it's and helping clients sort out in an embodied way when their body is really saying yes versus when their body's in an ambivalent place with something sexually and when it's really in their no. And helping them find their no and their yes.

Yeah, that distinction is so important to really discern within one's body if there is a history of trauma, when a nervous system arousal response is a legitimate response based on one's safety in the moment, and when it is a sexually invited response that is sexually arousing and pinging or triggering an a habitual nervous system response.

Yes. Yeah. And that the part of the brain that's connected with fear is also the part of the brain that's connected with arousal. And how we distinguish that. And some, for some of my clients, if they're comfortable with it masturbation is a bit of a triggering topic for sexual trauma survivors.

But if they're comfortable with it, I will have them start not with engaging with a partner in sexual. Experiences to try to sort out what feels safe and what doesn't. But I'll actually have them experiment through masturbation and when they experience even just certain types of self touch, what they notice their body doing in reaction to that.

They have control of whether they, decrease pressure. Add pressure, disconnect, right? And starting to get a sense of what happens in their whole system, but especially their pelvic floor in response to touch. Any type of touch. And then giving permission to clients who don't want to have sexual experiences to to not have them. And that, that sometimes mastering your sense of sexual self is saying, I have a right to say no all the time. And owning that. I wanna bring something up and that is just to recognize the challenging landscape that is out there, Becky, I feel like so not only are certain nervous systems compromise.

Racially and sometimes trained into a fond response, but then once one recognizes, oh, the, there are patterns in my system that have been developed as a result of sexual trauma combined with racial trauma. Who's out there to support me? That's another barrier, right? Because people like you are very rare who can understand, this the compounding of these influences.

Yes. And I think there are a lot of people out there who just think, oh, this is just me. Not realizing, these very systemic phenomenons and realities in our environment and how they do compound to create certain obstacles in our intimacy, relational patterns and like your, like a diamond in the, like a rare breed out there.

And I think that, but that's part of our systemic challenge. Yes. Yes. It's and I am wondering how many people out there who do have this compounding effect in their embodiment when they're engaging sexually or intimately, feel like they're the only one because there's no resource out there.

Yeah. I, and it, and this is the part that gets my fight response going. I get angry about it. Because I think we are, we need more therapists of color and we and in order for that and trauma therapists and who can, specialize on these tracks, which takes a lot of education.

It's a lot of money. And that we have systems in place that don't. Make that as accessible, right? And so I love to be a part of anything where it is about taking, different, more diverse folks who are interested in learning the somatic model learning about healing the wounds of sexual trauma and doing anything that can help provide a.

Just a plat for them, for platform, for them to get the education and to move through that and to get the expertise they need without financial barriers, right? Without being oppressed through the whole process, right? So that the systems that are in place to bring more people like me into the world so that survivors feel like they can access them. Are still oppressing. Folks so they don't feel like they can get to this place. So I think we have a long way to go. I don't know how much I'm answering your question, but, I think I'm always encouraging, for me, it's a little biased because I I enjoy this work and I think we need more trauma therapists out there, sexual trauma therapists and ones of color.

And ones who have a sense of, who've done their own work around how racial trauma sits within them and, we need more. And so anything I can do to encourage other. Therapist of color or other therapists who have been oppressed to come out of their PS and and access any anything within this sys system that still is very racist, that would allow them to get to the point where they can help others like us.

I encourage. Yeah. But we have a lot of work to do to make even the psychological field more approachable and accessible. To therapists of color. Yeah. Yeah. I got on my, I get up on a, yeah. A postal on that one. I really do. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. You're in the trenches and you see the, you see the system as it is and what can be done to really open it up in order to. Provide the kind of resources that everyone should have access to and is so limited right now. Yes, and it, Becky and, here's the tricky thing is that it's not just resources as far as money and education. It's finding those people who have the somatic.

Understanding Yes. To hold space for other people's somatic understandings. And there's nothing like being with someone who's who you know, understands what your body went through. Yeah. Or at least can create a an environment where. Understanding what the body's gone through is likely, right.

It can happen. And I think it's crazy how much. How many of my years I was a therapist and I was never really taking into consideration the body in a intentional way. And yet and I got to a point where I would get stuck with people. It's something's missing here.

Like, why? And I'm like, I know what's missing. There's all these other things happening in the room that I don't have a way to help you dialogue and work through, which is what led me to the somatic field. So I get excited because I see that we're in a place where. The word somatic or the word embodied responses, it, it's more common.

We're seeing it more often. Yes. We're seeing in different hospital settings, treatment programs, that the somatic model is being brought in and it's not. It's not like some fofo thing out there. This is a scientifically based. Legitimate model of treating some really challenging traumatic experiences.

And so I get excited by that. I get hopeful by that and that there's a little bit more awareness of it. But that's, for the lay person out there who's less aware of, what gets missed when you don't bring in that somatic piece. That's something that I think we still need to work on.

Just when we talk about psychology in general, when we talk about trauma or mental health issues in general, we have to keep talking more directly about the body. Yeah. I feel like the most effective. Results that, somatic therapies really provide. My guess is that your, in your practice, you have people who've done talk therapy for years and Oh yeah.

It's really the somatic work that, that invites their breakthroughs because as you say, it is the stories that are unexpressed from the body. And Becky, I, during this conversation, I'm realizing what an incredible. Unique offering that your life set of experiences have informed you with, and you know how you've metabolized that to hold space for such, it's such a unique offering because you're biracial, you were adopted and raised in a white family and youth.

Traversed kind of the healing journey on, on so many different, really all trajectories that we spoke about, healing from sexual trauma, from racialized trauma, and to do all of this with the embodied understanding that you have. I am very excited. That you exist and that Yeah. And that.

I'm excited I exist too. I could say that. Yes. After years of this work, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What a unique gift that you are and that you offer in your deep dives into so much of this work that your body knows and that you can reflect back and hold space for, and it's really special.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Becky. Thank you so much for sharing your experiences and insights with us today. Is there anything that you feel like we missed? Because I know that in your bio, I know that working with adoptees and families of adoptees is a special place in your heart.

You have two children who you've adopted. Yes. Yep. And we haven't touched on that. Is there anything within the context of what we shared? Because this is really about sexual wholeness I think that just that really if you are adopted or you work with adoptees, that when you have that primal, really early wound of being abandoned right by birth mother, that I think there is.

That starts you in a different platform. I call it like the tough start, right? And how you navigate relationships with others. How you navigate your relationship with your body that's here when it was given up. And that it, there's, I don't think it's a surprise that, i'm drawn into other, these other overlapping areas because I think, the experience of adoption is in essence probably one of the most, oppressive shame inducing experiences, right?

That you were born and as a result of you being born, you were not kept. And so the work around coming out of the shame of that, out of the, the oppression of not being wanted, right? And being okay with being having survived, being alive, being embodied, all of that, is it's really important work. And yeah, that would probably be a whole nother discussion, the adoption piece and the trainings I've done around that. But, but, but I'm here and I was adopted to, into a lovely family that nurtured the things. In me so that I could be here doing this work and and talking about these things and supporting others. Yeah. I must bow to them and bow to you and bow to your soul's journey for coming back in this form and really, sharing your expertise and your wisdom with us. Thank you so much, Becky. Thank you for having me. Notice how you're feeling in your body.

Right now.

And amongst these feelings and sensations, what feels best in your body?

And once you identify that, how about consciously taking in that goodness?

Are there themes that Becky spoke about that you may wanna explore for yourself? If you recognize subtle fawning or appeasing behavior patterns in social or sexual situations that do not honor your body's authentic desires, how might you receive the support of friends and loved ones to somatically re imprint new patterns?

Of voicing your authentic yeses and nos, taking the time to pause and choose what your body truly wants or feel into your sense of embodied safety and resource instead of succumbing to reflexive patterns of yesterday.

 Thank you for listening to Your Body. Remembers Pleasure If this conversation supported you, the simple way to help this work reach more people is to leave a five star rating or a brief review. You'll also find more resources and teachings@rahichun.com. Until next time, take good care.

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