Healing Trauma Through Nutrition: A Journey of Self-Acceptance and Women’s Health with Shannon Swanson

Have you ever wondered how trauma influences our relationship with food and nutrition? In this heartfelt episode of Real Food Stories, join host Heather Carey as she engages in a profound conversation with Shannon Swanson, a dedicated therapist specializing in trauma healing. Together, they explore the intricate ways trauma can manifest in our lives, particularly for women navigating the complexities of midlife and menopause health.

Shannon bravely shares her personal journey of recognizing and addressing her own trauma, stemming from childhood experiences and a challenging marriage. This candid discussion sheds light on the importance of awareness and acceptance in the healing process, revealing how trauma—whether significant or subtle—can deeply affect our self-worth and relationships. As a culinary nutritionist, Heather emphasizes the interconnectedness of emotional health and nutrition, offering valuable insights into how our lifestyle choices impact our well-being.

Throughout the episode, listeners will discover practical nutrition advice and healthy eating tips that encourage women to prioritize their own needs and happiness. Shannon and Heather challenge societal norms that often dictate self-sacrifice, advocating instead for a journey toward self-acceptance and empowerment. With a focus on mindful eating practices, they discuss how food beliefs and culture shape our approach to nutrition and health, especially in the context of family food influences and personal food stories.

The conversation also touches on the importance of sustainable eating and the Mediterranean diet insights that can support women in their health journeys. As they delve into weight loss myths and the realities of emotional eating, Shannon shares details about her EXPAND membership—a supportive community designed to help women navigate their trauma and live authentically. This episode is not just about healing; it’s about embracing a healthy lifestyle that aligns with our true selves.

Join Heather and Shannon for a transformative exploration of trauma, nutrition, and the journey toward a fulfilling life. Whether you’re seeking inspiration from personal food journeys or looking for guidance on overcoming food confusion, this episode offers a wealth of knowledge for women at any stage of life. Tune in to discover how you can cultivate midlife body positivity and resilience through mindful eating and culinary wellness.

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Transcript:

Speaker #0
Well, hello, everybody, and welcome back. And if you are just tuning in with me for the very first time, it’s so nice to meet you. And I’m really glad you’re here with me today. I am your host, Heather Carey, nutritionist, chef, mom, and a woman who has been around the block with food. I want to open up about real food in relation to health, weight, and our bodies so you can make peace with what you eat. I am so excited to start 2023 with deep, heartfelt interviews with some of the most amazing women who are sharing their own stories around food, body image, and healing on a variety of different levels, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. So this week, I am starting off by sitting down to talk with Shannon Swanson. who is a therapist specializing in trauma healing and is the creator of the expand membership a group incubator that welcomes like-minded women to explore their past so they can realize an amazing future our

Speaker #1
conversation was deep and insightful and we talked around our personal narratives of of trauma and why trauma healing is so important for our growth. I look forward to you taking a listen today.

Speaker #0
Okay, well, welcome to the Real Food Stories podcast, Shannon. I’m so excited to have you here today. And I wanted to introduce Shannon Swanson. She has been a therapist for 20 years, specializing in trauma, as well as a health coach for women struggling with fear, limiting beliefs, and unworthiness, keeping them from living. the life they truly want. Shannon also holds a master’s degree in social work and is a certified health coach with a specialization in hormone health. And on a personal note, she has experienced firsthand the pain of divorce and having her life turned upside down. Through that experience, she has been able to find the strength and trust in herself to live life on her terms unapologetically. I love that. Through one-on-one private coaching and her EXPAND membership, Shannon is able to help other frustrated women heal mind and body so they can be fearlessly alive and more authentically live a life they are obsessed with. Can’t wait to hear about that. So welcome, Shannon. It’s so great to have you here today.

Speaker #1
Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Speaker #0
Sure. I would love to just… dive in and start talking about trauma as it seems to be such a huge buzzword these days. If you go on any social media site, any platform on Instagram, I’m just getting bombarded with posts all the time about little T traumas and big T traumas and reparenting and inner child work and just to name a few. I mean, unworthiness and not being… good enough and people pleasing it. I mean, the list just goes on. So I know I have been doing a lot of work myself personally this past year with trauma in relation to chronic pain. So I would love to hear your story and hear how you got into helping women with their own trauma.

Speaker #1
Well, in terms of my own personal trauma, you know, what’s interesting, It’s what fascinates me as a therapist and personally is. even when I was in practice working with people, particularly, well, just children, both and adults, but just in myself. So you would think when you’re a therapist, that you would be keenly aware of these things of yourself, which is not true, which is really fascinating to me in terms of how deep denial can go. And I think some people think of denial as a very conscious, personal thing to do, but it really isn’t. It’s a very… unconscious way to protect ourselves. And there’s so much that goes into that. But in terms of my own personal trauma, I didn’t really realize it till I was in my early 50s. I’m 55 now, but when I was probably about 52, and saw my childhood in a completely different light than what was reality. And it started with having a falling out with my parents, particularly my mother. And then I started kind of looking into some things that was going on for me and realized that. most likely she is a narcissist and that I now am a victim of narcissistic abuse, which is really kind of, it was like, wow, wow, really? And then I started really looking into it and looking into, because the thing about trauma is that we’ve all been told that trauma is just a one-time thing that happens in your life that’s usually catastrophic. We immediately go to you men who are experiencing the casualties of war or someone who’s been attacked horribly, a really bad car accident, whatever. But we always think that that’s what trauma is all about when really trauma is very complex and can compound. And it can be all of these little traumas over time that just build and build and build and build, particularly in childhood, looking at emotional abuse and kind of this constant. barrage of like being gaslit or telling you that your feelings aren’t real and things like that, in addition to obviously physical abuse and so on. But for me, it was really taking a look at what that was for me. And so a lot of emotional abuse, a ton of it. And what’s fascinating about that, what I’ve actually learned, and it’s crazy being a therapist, this is something it never really, I never put it together, but. I always had this issue with, I think Mel Robbins recently talked about it, where I have no memories of my childhood. And I would always talk to people and say, remember these details. Like, how do you remember that? And I couldn’t put it together. I had this terrible memory. And it really comes down to what I’ve learned. It’s the trauma. And it does affect your memory tremendously. And so for me, it’s… It was first the awareness, which is what I talk about, which is the first pillar of my membership. It’s really becoming aware. And that’s the first step to moving forward. And so it was really coming out of denial, becoming aware and really facing the truth and reality of my childhood, which can be incredibly painful. But it really is important if you want to move on, because we carry trauma in the body, as you know. And it’s not going anywhere until we find a way to first become aware of it and then really sit with it and look at it. And that’s what started to make the change for me. And as a health coach, like, you know, you mentioned, I was doing hormone health. And when I kind of went through this big transition in my life and then ended up getting divorced, my life turned upside down. It made me look at everything. And then it inspired me to now shift my practice and what I’m doing in terms of coaching. to now help people with this now, because like you said, it’s a buzzword. And I think that, how do I want to say it? I think that there’s just, there’s so much that’s happened in the world and in the last few years, and so many people are traumatized for so many different reasons that that’s why it’s being talked about so much. And I feel that I just feel called that a lot of people are, are, are experiencing these things, but they don’t know what it is. They don’t know what to call it, they feel triggered. They’re having a lot of emotions and they’re not sure what to do. So that’s what helped me make the shift. And now that’s my focus.

Speaker #0
Yeah, I think the when I say buzzwords, I what what I think I’m wanting to say more is that it’s it’s finally coming to the surface to light. Because when I started looking into my relationship with just chronic pain and my relationship definitely to emotional eating. when I was younger, I didn’t have words for that. And I, and I didn’t know that trauma could mean, yeah, I mean, I had that, you know, well, that’s for other people, right? That’s, that’s for kids who have been in very abusive, physically abusive households or experiencing war or something, but not these little, you know, some, someone mentioned like that little T trauma, which just made so much sense to me, you know, that you can have just a series of little things over, you know, like your lifetime and, and they can add up and then right, you go and you’re in denial because you think that’s what’s, that’s how life is, or, you know, when you grew up with it, you know, that’s just how things are.

Speaker #1
Exactly. And, you know, to touch on in terms of my own health, that what I never even realized is, so when kind of toward the end of the the 20 years I was in management, the agency that I worked at. And I started having going through perimenopause, thought all of those symptoms were normal, that you just have to suffer through this. It got worse and worse. I ended up going to the doctor and I get diagnosed with hypothyroidism. And I changed my diet. I looked at supplements, which had a tremendous impact in helping me heal. The other piece that I didn’t realize was a couple of things was the stress that I was under. Stress has a huge impact on our hormone health, in particular our thyroid. But it was also the trauma. And I think, you know, particularly not speaking my truth and not looking at things, all of those things in terms of the mind-body hugely impacted. So it was the nutrition coupled with my stress coupled with starting to heal and use my voice in a different way. because I hadn’t for so many years, not, you know, really. And I’ve always been a person who champions standing up for yourself, but then I was having to really look at myself and go, but you haven’t really been standing up for yourself. And so that’s a big piece of when I work with people is I just want people to believe in themselves and to fight for themselves. But all of that is tied together.

Speaker #0
Yeah, exactly. I mean, I, I. And I agree with you, you know, your hypothyroidism that you mentioned. I also have an autoimmune disease and I very much believe that not that I could take it, you know, I can’t cure it and make it go away. But I think the link between stress and trauma and my autoimmune disease are very tightly linked. And I think that there’s just more and more research coming up on this and it’s exciting. I mean, it’s great. So you’re in a great field right now, I think, too. really help a lot of women, you know, and recognize that they might have some trauma, that they’ve just been living with it, they’ve been in denial about it, and then, you know, to face the awareness of it, and then go through it, you know, and go through it and get to the other side, even though it might feel really painful sometimes, you know, and really, you know, very uncomfortable. So as a therapist, Tell me just about how, you know, your qualifications and why you feel, you know, called to work with women and trauma.

Speaker #1
So I actually, so I was always really interested in psychology and I ended up working in the juvenile justice system here for some time. And it was this weird kind of way that I got there. I got an associate’s degree in. criminal justice. And I had to do this internship that was mandatory because at the same time I was majoring in psychology. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, but I had been presented with situations where I feel like the universe was like, knock, knock, knock, you’re going to be a therapist. And so I had to, I didn’t want to be a police officer. So I ended up having to go work at our juvenile detention center here and fell in love with these kids. And what I’m and I didn’t know it at the time, but I felt like this kind of really natural connection to them, this kind of inherent understanding. But I still didn’t know why. Now I know it’s all related to what I went through, even though I didn’t suffer physical abuse or sexual abuse or anything like that. But I did identify and so loved it, ended up becoming a therapist. So I went to I went to Portland State University here and got my master’s in social work. And did my internship here at an agency working with little ones from five to like 13 and absolutely loved that. And I think one of the biggest things that stands out in my mind is every time I sit with a child I was working with in our like our first session. One of the questions I would always ask them was because where I worked at is called psychiatric day treatment, meaning they are no longer able to. public school because of their behaviors, like being really aggressive, really disruptive, et cetera. And they get referred to the agency I worked at. And so they are in a therapeutic milieu, but receive education. Okay. So I would always ask, why do you think you’re here? Why do you think you’ve had to come to this place to have school and so on and so forth? And they would nine times out of 10 say to me, because I’m bad. And that immediately told me so much that, you know, that was so important. And so this child’s view was everything that has happened to me in my life is my fault. The abuse, emotional neglect, the emotional abuse, all of, you know, being in a foster care system in a foster home. All of these horrible traumas are because of me. I’ve done something to cause it. And it just broke my heart. But at the same time, I just felt like we’re changing this story because that is not your story. And that’s how I feel with women in particular is so many women have this story that I have to put myself last and everyone comes first. And I have to be a good girl and I can’t get angry and I’m not supposed to feel negative emotions. And I’m supposed to, supposed to, supposed to, supposed to all these supposed to’s. And really… Working with women to change their story and that you’re not these, because what are the stories most of us glob on to the ones that are negative about ourselves, stories of unworthiness, not being good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, whatever the not enough is. There’s so many to list that get in the way of living in our full truth. being authentic and who we are and doing it without apologizing anymore and not feeling guilty for putting ourselves first. But what’s under all of that, like in my membership, some of the women I talked to in my membership, they’re starting to connect the dots that, wow, the things that happened to me in the past in my childhood and traumas, even though they may not be huge, they definitely have impacted and helped create the stories that I now live with. that are limiting me living the life I really want to live. And so that’s kind of how that is for me.

Speaker #0
But yeah, I think that’s, that’s such a good point. I mean, and that’s, that’s just heartbreaking, you know, working with children and having them say to you that they think it’s all their fault and they’re bad. And, and, you know, and luckily you’re there to, you know, help some of these kids because otherwise, right, they’re, you’re taking all of that information in childhood that’s imprinted on your brain, right? And then like, then you carry it into adulthood and women you know especially feeling like they’re not worthy or this i have a lot of perfectionists you know like you know it’s just people pleasing and you know just very very very hard on myself you know and i know so many women could be doing that too yeah and i you know and just the um you know when i grew up the the motto was kids are resilient As if like they’re definitely, you know, like things bounce off of kids and they don’t remember. And, you know, like here I am like, no, we remember, like we remembered. So, you know, there’s a lot of that. And I think inner like reparenting that goes on. Is this something, you know, just talking about inner child and reparenting? Is that something that you get into with your clients?

Speaker #1
Yeah, I think it’s just really, I don’t. I, I think that I do, but I talk about it in a different way. And it’s really talking about just honoring yourself. What is it deep down that you’re really feeling? Like what I talk about is I start with triggers. Like what are your triggers first of all? So when you are triggered, Meaning you’re feeling a lot of really heavy emotions that are causing you for a lot of people. They don’t even realize that they go into a state of fight or flight. And so I’m trying to figure out how to say this because there’s so many thoughts running through my mind. But I think now just in general with people that because we think of trauma as having to be this big event, what happens is they don’t understand that they we I think literally every single one of us walking the planet has some kind of traumatic. events and background in our lives because we’re living in this world. I don’t, there’s no way you can get away from it. And they don’t understand that they don’t identify with whatever emotions they’re feeling is connected to trauma. And so I think that they go into the world, something gets triggered. I would say the most common for most people is abandonment issues from childhood in some way, either emotionally or physically, you felt abandoned from one parent or the other. And so that’s getting. particularly through their relationships as they go date date and get married and so on and so forth and they’re feeling these triggers and then the abandonment gets triggered and they’re not really sure they don’t know how to label it but that’s typically what’s happening and so then they are going into you literally go into a state of fight or flight so this arousal that happens you’re kind of you’re leaving what’s called like your baseline and so now you’re reacting out of this and I think for a lot of people, it’s not having that awareness. And it really does require you when you start to become aware. Oh, so what I teach in my membership is first, what are the emotions you’re feeling and understanding that those emotions are derived from all of that childhood trauma and things that have happened. They are connected to the thoughts you’re now having is connected to your behaviors and your reactions. And so really diving into that. And we don’t do therapy in my membership. It’s not anything really heavy. I come at it more from just creating an awareness, first of all. And then it does kind of require you to sit in silence and talk better to yourself and kind of that reparenting. And in those moments saying you are safe, you haven’t done anything wrong. This is what’s going on with you right now. And having those conversations kind of internally. But of course, I always tell everyone that even though my membership isn’t a place to do therapy, because that would be inappropriate. That’s not what we’re there for. You can still do some of those pieces, but if it gets really heavy, then I, of course, I would always tell someone, I would really encourage you to go to therapy. And I think still in this day and age, which blows my mind, it still has kind of this taboo negative connotation to it that if you have to go see a therapist, there’s something quote unquote wrong with you. No, there’s nothing wrong with any of us. We all just have some kind of form of trauma that we haven’t worked through yet. And sometimes we just need someone to help tease out what’s kind of going on because we, like I said, I’m a perfect example. I’m a therapist and I couldn’t see it.

Speaker #0
Exactly. Right. Yeah. I mean, right. Even the therapists need some therapy, right? You need an outlet and you need to, right. Have someone to talk to and process things. It’s hard to do it just on your own.

Speaker #1
Exactly.

Speaker #0
You know, and I think even just, just talking about like adult women, you know, like being adults, like, you know, especially in midlife now. I know you and I are definitely in that a whole there’s just seems to be, I think, a heightened awareness. And I don’t know if it’s for me. I know my kids are now all graduated college and grown and out of my house. I mean, you know, it’s a lot of transition going through hormone changes. Our aging parents are you know, there’s a lot going on right now. So I think that is an opportunity and a time to. really start looking at all of these things or, you know, all of these emotions that maybe we’ve just been like, you know, just being the good wife and being the good mother and, you know, the good daughter and, you know, we’ve been stuffing down. So I know that you mentioned that you went through a divorce. Do you want to share a little bit about that and how that sounds? It sounds like it was part of your, your. part of your journey.

Speaker #1
Yeah. And what it was is, is that I, it was, you know, it’s interesting going through the last few years, how it’s affected everyone’s relationships. And I think from so many different perspectives, right. Being with someone day in and day out in a house when we were on lockdowns to, you know, just reevaluating your life, which was a huge gift in a lot of ways for us, I believe. But it was just having this time in 2020 where it just hit me that, again, I was in denial of what happened in my marriage. And probably for a really long time, not happy in my marriage. But what happens with us is that and what happened with me, and I think a lot of us do this in this world, is it’s so easy to get distracted by life. So, you know, raising my daughter and doing all of my mom things, and then this career where I’m working 10, 12 hour days. And so one day goes into the next. And it’s so easy to put certain aspects of our life on a shelf and not nurture them the way that we probably should. And, or just not seeing the reality you’re living in. And so that’s what happened for me is like, and I kept telling myself, oh, it’ll get better. Oh, it’ll get better. Oh, it’ll get better. And nothing bad. You know, there was nothing like we’re still friends. had an amicable divorce. He’s a really good person, but the way I look at it is just not a good energetic match is kind of what I’ve learned now is my new is the way I look at it. But I don’t see it as a failure. I just see it that more, and this is kind of what I teach is why did I stay in something for so long that I knew wasn’t working? It was the denial. And I think being distracted and not wanting to look at it, not wanting to face it. But also, we still live in a culture where to end a marriage is a failure. There’s something wrong. Again, the story of there’s something wrong with you. And so that’s the other piece I’m trying to help women with is like, no, there’s nothing wrong with you. That it just wasn’t a match. And for whatever reason, you know, we’ve changed as difficult. For me, it was just really looking at it for what it was and making the decision and talking with him to say, this isn’t working anymore. And we both knew it. I mean, that’s the thing. It wasn’t a shocking surprise to either one of us. But what I’m grateful for, for both of us is to just be able to take our own ownership for our piece in it. We didn’t go into, there wasn’t any blaming, There wasn’t any fighting around it. It was. this is done. It really was that simple. It doesn’t mean painful, but it was just coming to the realization and finally facing it. And, but it definitely is hard because I think for a lot of people, whether a man, woman, or in this situation that it’s difficult, especially after how we were together, what, 24 years, it’s being on your own again for the first time. And. So, you know, it’s a major life to change, but I will tell you that I’m glad that I did it because I’m happier and he’s a lot happier. And now we can go find the person that I think is a better match.

Speaker #0
Right. And yeah, and I think that this time of our lives is that time to reevaluate what’s going to make you happy and feel peaceful. And if things aren’t working right, that we have to take a look at them, a hard look sometimes.

Speaker #1
Well, and life is short. That’s the other thing. It’s like, you know, I, this woman I spoke to, it really sat with me. And it was this woman I was having a conversation with, this was back in 2021, when I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to decide. It started in 2020. And then it kind of built. And that’s when we finally decided at the end of 2021 to separate. But she’s, we were talking and she said she was a hairstylist. And she said, yeah, this woman came in and she sat down and She wasn’t a regular client, but she came in and she was in her 80s. And she asked me, somehow they got on the topic of her marriage, the hairstylist. And she said, well, I’m not really happy. And she goes, well, let me tell you what, don’t do what I did. And she said, I was unhappy very early on in my marriage. And I decided to stay. And I was miserable the entire time. And here I am at 85. And it’s. you know, I can’t go redo that. And so I think that stuck in my mind that it’s so important for us that we get so complacent with, oh, tomorrow, I’ll do it tomorrow. Oh, I’ll do it tomorrow. And then tomorrow, the tomorrows keep coming. And then pretty soon it’s like, wow, it’s look how much time has passed. And just to remember that life is really short and you are here to live for you. This is your journey. You have a purpose in this life and to not, to not um sacrifice that for anybody and that you matter and to not put things off yeah and that i think that to you know we have such deep social beliefs that oh

Speaker #0
you don’t want to get divorced do everything you can to save your marriage or you know but she’s your mother or you know like you have to all right we’ve got very very very deep ingrained beliefs about how we should be acting as women and that it’s selfish, right? To focus on ourselves first. And I agree with you, life is short. Life is very short and it’s not selfish at all to feel like you deserve happiness and peace and serenity in your own life. So I totally agree with that. What are some of the things that, you know, it sounds like, you know, I know you’ve gone through a lot. then, you know, in your own life and with your own journey enough to feel that, you know, you are now passing on all your wisdom and experience and your professional experience too. But what are some things that still challenge you that, you know, are just kind of ongoing?

Speaker #1
Yeah, I would say it’s the triggers. It’s my abandonment stuff. It’s, it’s a big one. And I think the way that Healing, I guess, is talked about. And I don’t like to, I mean, I use that word, and I’m not big on making words terrible by any means. But at the same time, I think it’s not so much that healing is a bad word. It’s, what’s the word I’m looking for? It’s not really the true thing that’s happening because we’re not broken. There’s nothing, because it speaks to something being wrong with you. And really, it’s important to understand there’s nothing wrong with us. We’re not. broken. It’s not about healing. It’s about becoming aware and just really looking at what’s coming up for me. So When it comes to when you start to become aware, okay, this is a trigger, I’m getting my abandonment is being triggered. It’s really understanding that this isn’t going to end.

Speaker #0
that except this this learning and uncovering is like an onion so when you’re when you have particular trigger and emotional things that are coming up for you like for me it’s my abandonment issues is understanding that with every trigger is an opportunity for me to feel all the feelings and sit with them and try to really ask myself questions and really look at it why is this coming up What’s it connected to? And continuing to allow myself to do this process without any judgment of myself. But understanding that the work on ourselves is like an onion. There’s layers and layers and layers and layers to it. And I think that when you can come from a perspective of being really curious about yourself without any judgment and just allowing yourself to feel. and become aware of what’s going on with yourself, you free yourself from so much burden. And so I think that’s been the biggest thing for me is really, you know, because I didn’t really become aware of this until I was what, 52, 53. So I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. But you know, and the work, and it’s not fun, you know, I’m not, you know, it’s very painful for all of us to have to look at our shadows and look at all of the pain. But what I absolutely I fundamentally do know from firsthand experience and working with my clients is that you cannot run from it. And if you want to live a fulfilling life where you’re present and you’re in it and you’re taking it in and you’re not missing a moment, you have to be willing to face these things and look at the pain and sit with the pain. And some people think that if I just avoid the pain, it’s going to go away. No, all it does is. on the inevitable and it makes the pain last longer and it’s going to keep knocking on your door until you look at it. And so the fastest way truly to kind of start to face these things and look at yourself and look at what’s coming up for you is to just allow yourself to sit with it and feel it. And it will go sooner rather than later. And the last thing I’ll say about that is that understanding that emotions are just energy. And so if you can look at it from that perspective, when you’re feeling these emotions that feel like they’re going to completely take over and they feel very overwhelming, if you could just sit and just feel it, it literally moves that energy out of the body. So it’s really important. And that’s really important when we talk about trauma because trauma sits in the body. So you want to feel it in order to move it.

Speaker #1
Right. No, I think that’s such a great point. I love that. metaphor of just being energy right and right and not to be scared of it you know and just to know that it’s it can move out of your body and i know you know just for me i know the avoiding you if you you can try to avoid these big emotions your whole life and it’s going to come out in some other way and i know for me you know just my own personal story with i have a story just around emotional eating, you know, because I just. I avoided for a very long time. But it’s, you know, and and then when I think I learned I was learning more about some of these emotions and everything, I’m like, all right, I got that. You know, I learned it and learned it. So now I’m like, I’m good. Like, I’m I’m I’m healed. And I don’t think that these some of these past traumas and the feelings around it really ever totally go away. And I love what you said about just the peeling of the onion. that it’s right, you take off one layer, and then there’s maybe something underneath there. And, you know, or, or things come up where we get older, and we don’t have to make life is constantly changing. So I think that’s important, too, is just to know that, right, we can learn and understand and then have our tools, you know, to maybe, right, not to become totally undone. And like, you know, and just to ride it out and learn that it is just energy and sit with, you know, feelings and everything. So that’s, those are really great. great points.

Speaker #0
And to know that you’re just not doing it wrong. Yeah,

Speaker #1
there’s no right or wrong in this, right? There’s, I mean, just the fact that we’re having this conversation right now, or just, you know, learning about it is just, is just great, but better than just trying to avoid or just go into that I should be doing this or I should, you know, so it’s, it’s an ongoing process. Right? Tell me a little bit more about just your your expand membership. And I want to ask where people can find you and how they can join if they want. Is this an ongoing membership? Is this a, you can join anytime.

Speaker #0
Yes, you can join at any time. And I absolutely love it. And I know that my members are getting so much out of it. And I think I’ve actually had one of the members say to me, I’ve done therapy before, and this has opened my eyes in a completely different way, just because of the way that I talk about it and explain it. But it’s, you know, I try to make it fun and light too. So it. Do a mixture of different things. So usually every month starts with a coaching call where I have a topic and I talk about it. And then the next week will be some kind of tool or guide or something tangible that they can work with related to the topic. And then the next week would be as our live coaching call where they can ask me anything they want. So it’s a Q and A. We kind of talk about that topic. They can ask me any question they want, dive in. And then the last week, I’ll do a meditation or an Oracle card pull. And because everything is on Tuesday, if I have a five-week, five-Tuesday month, I’ll do something extra. So today I’m doing a recipe drop, which is all about grounding foods to help you ground. Because this month in January, the topic was talking all about not setting New Year’s resolutions, but living more with intention. What are your intentions for this year and how to live a more intentional life? And so everything came from that. But yeah, you can go to my website at shannoneswanson.com or you can find me on Instagram at shannoneswanson. And you can go to those links there and take a look at the membership and you can join anytime. And it’s really affordable. That’s the biggest thing I wanted was to do something that especially with a possible recession and everything, the price is going up that I wanted people to ask something where. I could offer my skills as a therapist and a health coach because I don’t just talk about the trauma aspects of it. I also talk about food and how it’s all connected and how everything, the mind-body connection. And I wanted a place for people to come where it was affordable, where they could get this help, especially with everything going on in the world that didn’t break the bank. Because I do have one-on-one coaching, but it can be a lot more expensive. Um, so yeah, it’s a lot of fun. I love it. Having a great time. It’s helping a lot of people and, um, yeah, I love it.

Speaker #1
Okay, great. Well, I will definitely link your info in the show notes so people can get that information that way. And any last key takeaways for women and trauma that you want to just share?

Speaker #0
I would just say something important that I learned when I became a health coach that I wanted to mention and forgot. And that was, it was really interesting to me, particularly with your podcast. And that is that a lot of what we talk about, someone wants to change their diet, lose weight, look at their nutrition. They think that’s the only place they should go. What am I literally putting in my mouth? And what we learned was, is that the food you eat you And your nutrition literally is secondary to these other areas of your life, which is your career, your spiritual practice, your activity and your relationships. And all four of those areas of your life hugely impact your food choices and your nutrition and all of it. from having an eating disorder or eating your emotions to having you know any kind of food and sensitivity, but or eating out of stress, it’s all connected. So that’s a huge takeaway. So if you’re having any kind of issue with food, and you’re wanting to take a look at that, you want to start by also looking at these areas. And, and it’s huge, huge, huge thing to understand it’s all connected, you can’t just change your diet and leave your stress level sky high, it won’t work.

Speaker #1
Absolutely. I, yeah.

Speaker #0
And I have a link for your listeners that I will send to you so they can get a bundle, a free bundle for me that has 30 days of journal prompts and a way to kind of look at some things that we talked about today.

Speaker #1
Okay, that’s great. I’m a big, big proponent of journaling. So that’s always, that sounds really helpful and great. And yeah, I agree with you that it’s not just about the food, right? We can hand out. diets all day long. But if you don’t connect with all of the other areas in your life, especially the emotions and the trauma and stuff, that it becomes just a big challenge. So you really need to focus on all of it. Shannon, thank you so much for joining me today. I so appreciate this has been a fantastic conversation. And I know that this whole topic of trauma and processing that is just going to get bigger and bigger. I think people are just really open to looking at it. So I really appreciate you telling your story, your personal story, and just having you here today. So thank you so much.

Speaker #0
Yeah. And thank you. It was a pleasure being here. It was a great conversation. Thank you.

Speaker #1
Great. Thanks. And as always, if you loved this podcast, please consider gifting me with a five-star review. It is so helpful for me to get the word out on real eating, our real bodies, and real food stories. Thank you so much and have a great week. Bye for now.