We’ve all heard of our inner child, right? That wounded inner child who is still reckoning with incidents occurring in our childhood. But, have you ever heard of your “outer child”? Tell me if this sounds familiar: You are going back home to visit your family and the minute you get around your parents, it’s like you’re 16 all over again. You’re angsty, everything is unfair, and you just want to burn incense and listen to music, yet hanging out with your fam makes you want to lash out and yell and scream and maybe break a lava lamp. And suddenly all of the coping mechanisms you’ve learned in decades of therapy are out the window. This, my friend, is your Outer Child. It’s a way in which we regress to earlier versions of ourselves and act out from that place when surrounded by triggering people. And, let’s face it, it’s often our family.

In this week’s episode, I dial up Alexa Rae Schiefer, Trauma Coach and former mental health clinician, to ask her some heavy-hitting questions around the trauma we incur from our primary caregivers. We dig into the concept of “Parentification Trauma”, the inner and outer child, what trauma responses tend to look like, and what the hell a Window of Tolerance is and why we should be aware of it.

Alexa Rae and I also discuss what it means to self-soothe and how that process can vary depending on what trauma you are up against. We chat about processing the trauma of our childhoods and how, more often than not, we are trying to pretend we don’t have any trauma. Yeah, ok. How’s that working out? We even talk about what-the-hell trauma even is. If you know you’ve got a wound, or two, or twenty, to process from your childhood, be sure to grab a pen and paper. This is a good one. 

This pod explores:

• The definition of trauma and how we all pretty much have it
• Understanding Parentification Trauma and how that influences your behavior later on in life
• What common trauma responses look like and what you can do about them
• Understanding Abandonment Wounds and how they show up in our lives

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ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: 

• Nadine Burke Harris TED Talk: How childhood trauma affects health across a lifetime
• Standing up for yourself with Amy Green Smith on Authentically You with Alexa Rae!

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this week’s ‘dial an expert’ guestie:

Alexa Rae (she/her) is known online as the “Authenticity Healer” and woman who decided to shake up the healing game in mental health. Her full first name is Alexa Rae and she used to go by Alexa until Amazon stole her name. Now she goes by “Alexa Rae” or “A. Rae” for short. She is living her purpose on earth to help as many women as possible connect to their authentic selves. She is renowned for her ability to deeply connect with women, help them see their worth, and for being a down-to-earth healer.

In her former life, Alexa Rae was a professional mental health clinician who worked in a variety of areas – acute mental health, trauma, forensics, eating disorders, adolescents, education, and more. She left this realm as she struggled working in a field full of gaps in healing and wanted to shake up the mental health game. Since quitting her career to follow her purpose, she has gone on to help hundreds of women reconnect with who they are meant to be on this planet and heal the relationship with themselves and their bodies.

Alexa Rae has traveled the country speaking to women at various events, is a part-time professor in a mental health and substance use graduate program where she educates the up and coming clinicians to approach mental health differently, and runs a podcast called “Authentically You.”

Grab Alexa’s “Get Out of Your Own Dang Way” free email series.

Visit Alexa’s website for healing programs, courses, and resources. 

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