In episode 25 of the Mind Body Free Podcast, Rosa Shetty, LCSW shares the science of trauma healing as well as her personal experience with ancestral healing.
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Full Show Transcript
Abby (00:00:00) Hello and welcome to the Mind Body Free Podcast. I am your host, Abigail Moss and today I am with the lovely Rosa Shetty. Rosa is a licensed clinical social worker and mental health therapist from Los Angeles, California. She has over 15 years of clinical experience helping adults heal from childhood trauma and generational and ancestral trauma. Rosa is also the host of the Inner Healing Paths podcast and develops workshops on healing from trauma and generational wounds. In the healing work she offers, Rosa intertwines inner child healing, ancestral reconnection, and spirituality with the latest research-based therapy. Thank you for being here, Rosa. Such an honor and treat.
Rosa (00:00:46) Thank you, Abigail, for inviting me.
Abby (00:00:49) My pleasure. And I love how much experience you have in this and clinical mental health. So can you tell me a bit about what is the differentiation on the clinical side of it? How does that work?
Rosa (00:01:02) So it has to do more with the specific approaches that we use to help folks recover from trauma. We incorporate a lot of brain science understanding and get a better sense of what the brain goes through and what the nervous system goes through. So folks can mean in the session, we provide that information. That’s part of the conversation. It’s part of education. In addition to the processing and the traditional psychotherapy techniques that we use and specifically for trauma, there is a lot of research or evidence-based practices to help folks recover from traumatic events, meaning to help the brain integrate these experiences, these traumas in the story or the sequence of other lives.
Rosa (00:01:57) When it comes to trauma. Trauma, I like to say it’s like a loose page of a book and the traumatic event is like this loose page that is just floating in the book. It represents your life. So our brain doesn’t quite know what to do with especially those events that leave us completely overwhelmed. Our brain doesn’t know how to deal with it or at least certain experiences our brain may not know. So the process of traumatization is like that loose page. So when, when we work through our traumatic memories, when we heal, or when we seek therapy for this, it’s like we’re stitching back this loose page into literally stitching into the sequence.
Rosa (00:02:43) And so you can have more of a cohesive narrative of your life so your brain can make sense of what happened and it can be part of your story. Not, not, not something you constantly triggered. Some people dissociate. Some people just have a really hard time with relationships and it can cause it just affects many areas of your life. So that’s what when we mean in a clinical sense, we’re working through those traumatic memories.
Abby (00:03:16) Love that. Thank you. I love the blend of, like, evidence-based. These works are what we’re going to do. That’s, you know, the proven techniques that work with brain science. Do you? I feel that when someone can explain to me the science of what’s happening in my brain, it opens up this grounded perspective of, oh, okay, so this is normal. And here’s the next step to shifting this.
Rosa (00:03:47) Absolutely
Abby(00:03:48) Yeah. And do you find that like when you were explaining brain science to people, what kind of reactions do you get? Is it like, have people heard of these things before? Because I feel like brain science and trauma are not something that we all know a whole bunch.
Rosa (00:04:05) About, right? Yeah. And when it comes to the psychoeducation part, which is explaining what happens in the brain in very simple terms, because I’m not a neuroscientist. So the way I understand it is also in very simple terms, and that’s how I explain it. So when that explanation is provided, depending on the situation, depending on the context of what we’re discussing, there is their compassion that that is allowed there is a cognitive understanding of what happened. And interestingly enough, in a lot of these therapy modalities, psychoeducation is part of the healing journey and is a component that helps your journey.
Rosa (00:04:56) So learning about this is important. And usually, before I know we’re jumping into this topic, but when we’re starting, when we work through traumatic memories, we don’t start working on any traumatic memories until there is an understanding of what happens in the brain. What happened to you? What must have been like for that five-year-old or six-year-old from a nervous system perspective, what was going on in the brain? So there needs to be that that’s it’s foundational it’s a block foundational block that needs to be that is very much part of the healing journey. Yeah.
Abby (00:05:38) That’s beautiful. I love that. I’m all about giving people foundational blocks. It’s so empowering.
Rosa (00:05:45) Yeah, absolutely.
Abby (00:05:46) And. Yeah. And so do you refer back to that science as you’re going through that journey? Because you mentioned, you know, it’s like this is step one as we learn what’s going on in the brain and the nervous system. And would you mind like I don’t know if it’s possible to do like a high-level view of what happens in our brain, in our nervous system when we go through trauma and as we’re healing? How does that change your time?
Rosa (00:06:16) Yeah. So, you know, trauma by definition is when our nervous system, our brain is completely overwhelmed. So our normal way of functioning is just thrown out. It’s completely out of the frontal part of our brain, which is a part that is in charge of making decisions and is the part that we were when we’re in a place where we feel safe and at ease, that’s active, that’s when we experience trauma. That part goes offline. And what kicks in is the animal, the primitive or animal responses. And I’m sure you’ve heard of the fight or flight response. There’s when it comes to trauma, there’s also fighter flight. And there’s also the submission that there are some animals in the wild.
Rosa (00:07:11) They pretend to be dead. Right? They bring death. That’s a response. So when we go through a traumatic event, those are the responses that kick in. That’s the part of a brain that is active. And depending on the context of the situation, not every situation that we may perceive as traumatic is traumatizing to the brain because it depends on the resources that that person already had in their environment. It depends on the relationships. It depends on how long the extent of the trauma is. Was it a single incident or was it a continuation of incidents over years?
Rosa (00:07:57) So there is a great variation in terms of traumatization. It doesn’t look the same for everyone. So that’s why it’s really difficult when people compare experiences. And I went through that and I’m fine, you know, and then someone else is, is, is not given the same circumstance or even the same family, right? Even just a group of siblings. Right. They may have all experienced the same event and one may be deeply impacted for life. And another one may just channel that in a specific way. And so it’s very so trauma is very, very individual. It’s a very individualized response. But more or less, that is by definition, when we say we were traumatized by an animal, the primitive part of our brain kicks in.
Rosa (00:08:58) And that’s how we know we’re in that mode. So that’s more or less what happens. Then there’s more specifically the amygdala is very much involved in regulating the communication between those parts of our brain, the part of our brain that the primitive responses and the frontal part. So when we’re traumatized, the amygdala completely shuts down the communication with the frontal part of our brain. So over time, when we’re working through trauma, we are working with the amygdala. There is a technique that I practice called davening. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. It involves touch, right?
Rosa (00:09:45) There are three touches, three specific movements, and I’m doing it right now. There’s that with your palms. And then you rub your arms up and down and then on your face, right? So what that is, is they call it the creators of this approach. They call it the CPR for the amygdala. And these touches, for some reason, help the amygdala communicate with the part of your brain that can help you feel at ease, that can help you feel grounded, and that can help you feel safe. When we are triggered, when we are overwhelmed again, even regardless of how long it’s been since the trauma happened, it could be 20, 30, or 40 years. If we’re triggered, we’re back there.
Rosa (00:10:39) Right. So implementing techniques like davening, especially with the guidance of someone that is trained, can be helpful. To re-provide help and rewire the part of those parts of your brain so there can be that communication. So your primitive brain doesn’t completely hijack you in those moments when it’s not appropriate or you’re 30 years ago something happened and now you’re at work and you have a terrible boss and you can’t deal with this boss. And as a grown-up, because you’re back there. Right, 34 years ago. So this is so when we implement healing or healing or trauma healing techniques, that’s really what we’re doing.
Rosa (00:11:29) We’re rewiring these parts of your brain so they can communicate so that the primitive animal responses like fight or flight or submit don’t take over. And or like I said, some people just completely dissociate. They’re no longer in their body. So that’s more or less what we go through in every situation. As I said, it’s different depending on the age and the complexity of what happened to them. And the age is trauma that occurs pre-verbal. Is it manifested a bit differently for those that the trauma occurred a little bit later when they’re when there is cognitive memory?
Rosa (00:12:16) And then again, some people experience trauma at a point where they can’t remember, but they don’t. The brain blocks certain traumatic events. So it is a very so it’s just a very individualized approach. Yeah. Everyone experiences it very differently. Yeah.
Abby (00:12:37) That’s beautiful. I love that and I love that you mentioned that because it’s such an individualized approach comparison. It doesn’t apply at all because we’re all going through such different things. And the way that I experience an event is so different from the way someone else experiences it. And I love that you touch on what is my support? Do I have the resources, the tools to work through it? Do I have the community to help me through it? How long did it last? There are so many factors that can apply. I think it creates a lot of empathy to say, you know, for me to say I don’t know what they went through.
Abby (00:13:20) I don’t know what it was like for them to go through that. So there’s no way that I could say, Oh, I went through something like that. They should be okay or right, you know, I should be okay by now. There’s no should. This is what happened. This is where we are now. I think it creates a lot of compassion for each other as well as ourselves. Like this is where I’m at and that’s okay.
Rosa (00:13:40) Yeah, absolutely. And you know, it’s also a journey. You know, it’s also very much a journey because I knew that just from my own life, just some of the things that I went through, I was quote-unquote, okay, I was fine for a few years. And then a breakup happened. And then that brought to the surface things that I had not addressed from childhood when I became a mom. You know, two years ago I had a baby. And that brought up more stuff than the surface things that I had not even considered, as you know, that would come up. And they came up and I had to work through that and I’m still working through that. So I feel that sometimes we work through our difficulties as best as we can, depending on our resources and the support.
Rosa (00:14:29)
Rosa: And then and then we’re okay. We’re, you know, we feel great or we feel like, okay, I feel like I got a good handle on my triggers. I feel like I’ve worked through some of my childhood difficulties and then a life event happens, right? A change in a boss. Like I said, for some reason, a lot of folks that I see come in because there’s a lot of it’s a window, right? It’s an entryway to heal. And for some reason, being in the workplace, a difficult boss, being in that power dynamic is so triggering for so many people. And I don’t know, for some reason that’s the doorway. That’s the doorway to work through. And that may not even be the reason. Working under childhood difficulties is not even the reason why they’re coming in.
Rosa (00:15:21) They’re coming in because they are overwhelmed, and stressed with work. They feel like they can’t work. They can’t continue. And it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Right underneath is all of the trauma that they experience. And somehow this person, this boss, is reminding their nervous system of what has happened. Because the body or nervous system doesn’t pick up on it. It’s not a rational process. This is a boss. This is not so-and-so from 20, 30 years ago. Our body just responds to the trigger that feels familiar.
Abby (00:16:03) Yeah. And I love that you call it a doorway. I see it that way, too. It’s like this trigger is an entry point to healing, something that’s very likely been there for a very long time. And in that healing, it’s kind of like a reclamation of a part of yourself. It’s like this is an opportunity to let go of something and become lighter at the moment. It sucks and doesn’t feel that way at all. Right.
Rosa (00:16:27) Right, right.
Abby (00:16:28) But when you do the work with someone like you when you are willing to go into those places of discomfort in a supported way, then it is a place that you can move through and just become so much stronger and happier.
Rosa (00:16:44) Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. And, you know, I think for a lot of folks, a lot of times is bringing in compassion, bringing and understanding for self, for those wounded parts. And that’s when the concept of the inner child is so powerful and becomes very powerful. Because when we use that as a way to connect with those wounded parts because we know when we’re talking about connecting with the wounded parts, that can be scary. Most people do not want to revisit those parts from the past. But when we bring in the element of an inner child, it helps folks conceptualize their trauma in a way that is more gentle and in a more compassionate way.
Rosa (00:17:41) And again, using the doorway analogy, it becomes an entryway also for other healing. And it becomes a very powerful visual to connect with that part within themselves that needs that compassion, that needs that healing and the sense of safety. So sometimes that, that, ah, the parental instinct kicks in and we want to protect and we want to help and we want to and we just naturally a lot, you know, a lot of folks are just naturally compassionate towards a child. Right. And so when we conceptualize that within ourselves, it just makes it so much easier to work through those very, very difficult wounded parts within us.
Abby (00:18:31) Yeah, 100%. I love inner child work and something that my husband and I see in this phenomenal couples therapist and that she says is, you know, the parent is the compassionate one. The inner child is the one that needs the love. But when we stand in our adult self, then compassion comes. And of course, we want to take care of this younger part of us that’s hurting or wants to feel loved or safe or supported in some way. It just becomes natural and being able to put a face to it and engage and interact with that part of ourselves, it’s so freeing. It’s where it gives so much insight and understanding into Why am I just so angry? It’s like, Oh, what’s behind that anger? Oh, maybe there’s, you know, a sad child behind that anger. What does she need or what does she need?
Rosa (00:19:26) Yeah, absolutely. And it’s just amazing. Just when we shift our attention, or I should say, when the intention is to connect with our inner child. And it’s amazing what comes up. And the insight that we immediately receive is almost like we get these downloads because we do hold so much compassion and healing energy within us. So when we can intentionally connect those to the compassion, the healing energy that we have with our inner child, we not just heal, but we also gain an understanding. And we were able to just make sense. And sometimes our brain just takes us to a time in our life we had not even connected a present event with a memory from childhood.
Rosa (00:20:25) And when we set that intention to connect with our inner child, our brain will just take us there. It’s just amazing how that works. And suddenly we’re there and we have a memory of being three or four, whatever, whatever the age and we get it. We’re like, okay, that makes sense. Why is this so hard? So it’s triggering for me now.
Abby (00:20:47) Yeah. So freeing to understand that that’s you know, for me I’ve been in places where I’ve been angry and then angry at myself for being angry because why? Why am I acting this way? I shouldn’t feel this way. And then to be able to go back to that part of my younger self. Just understanding. I feel like compassion comes as the confusion goes away. And then there’s this. Then there’s the opportunity to reclaim that part of herself because it’s like that part of us was kind of trapped at that age when that trauma happened.
Abby (00:21:19) Like in shamanic healing, we call an inner child a form of soul retrieval. It’s like reclaiming a part of ourselves that got splintered off and stuck in time. And when there’s that reunion with that part of ourselves, when that healing happens, it feels like just becoming filled with love, becoming filled up with you again. And it’s such an incredible experience to feel that.
Rosa (00:21:42) Yeah, absolutely. And I feel that just being able to read, it’s almost like you give yourself your past self, you’re a second chance. And it’s almost like a rebirth in a way, right? You’re able to redo what maybe your parents weren’t able to do for you or you’re able to give yourself what you weren’t able to receive back then. So it becomes like a second chance, right, to start over, you know? And it’s just such a beautiful experience. I’ve done shamanic healing for myself and inevitably it always, you know, I tend to go back to just naturally, even when I’m not in the same therapy. Every now I’m doing more of the spiritual healing work for myself in my mind just takes me there, right? And it automatically just, I go to a different time and to be able to, to see yourself in that time.
Rosa (00:22:50) And it’s just such a beautiful experience. I know the last opportunity I had to do that, to do this soul retrieval exercise was a couple of years ago. And I forgot what I was working through. But it was for me. What was amazing is that when I did this journey, it took me back to being like in my twenties, in this specific house that I was living in at that time. And there was a part of my soul that was there in that house and journey through that, and seeing that space and seeing every corner of almost even just being able to to take a tour of that house as me now. But seeing myself there was just that in and of itself.
Rosa (00:23:46) And I know the guide was just asking me to just call back that part because I need that part here now. You know, I can’t stay in my twenties in that house. I need it now. And so being able to call back that, that, that part of my early twenties that was stuck in that house was so healing for me. And, and I mean, I know it didn’t take that long. It wasn’t a very long exercise, but it was so powerful. But again, it’s allowing yourself to redo, you know, it’s like giving yourself a second chance and being that companion for yourself in therapy, you know, you have a guide and you know, when you’re doing some shamanic healing, you also have a guide.
Rosa (00:24:34) That is critical to not feel alone because so much of the trauma that we experience happens in isolation. It happens a lot. For a lot of folks, the actual process of traumatization has to do with being completely alone. Whether you feel alone or you’re alone with no way to escape or no chance of getting help in that situation, no choice in the matter because you’re just there alone. So that becomes a huge component of healing, is to feel like your companion for that little one within you or to allow for some for someone else, a healer or a therapist or a shamanic or shaman. Right? That would be the term shaman to guide you, right?
Rosa (00:25:35) To guide, to be with you in a relationship in those moments that you’re revisiting. And so you don’t feel alone. And the beautiful thing about it is that your nervous system responds to that, our body responds to that. And that’s what starts changing these neural pathways in our brain that let us know that we are safe. We are okay. We’re not alone. And we have a choice. Right. So the choice is the second component of trauma. It happens in isolation and then it happens. And we don’t have a choice. We’re stuck. We have to take it for our survival. So, so, so. Being able to have the choice to go back and heal these parts and be in a relationship either within ourselves.
Rosa (00:26:29) Right. As I am the older one now going back and more in that parental role to our inner child or allowing our the guide, the therapist or the healer to guide us through that. These two components are just so, so powerful for our brain, our nervous system, for our spirit.
Abby (00:26:48) Yeah. Absolutely. It’s incredible. And I love that. It’s like we kind of become when we go back as an adult to revisit the inner child, it’s like we become the healer for ourselves. And we realize from a time that we may have felt so helpless that we become so empowered, we realize how strong we are to be able to heal this stuff, especially with the support of a guide. And you had to do work with generational trauma as well. So this stuff that we come into the world with isn’t, doesn’t necessarily start with us.
Rosa (00:27:21) No, it’s yeah, rarely. It rarely does. So one of the things that I learned very, very early on in my career, when I started my career working in I was doing child abuse investigations. I was a social worker for the Department of Children Services, Children Family Services here in California and Southern California. And so I was going out there and doing investigations of neglect, physical, sexual abuse, everything. And I was young. I was in my twenties. As I said, it was a very challenging part of my life. But it was also more of a calling, I felt and I don’t know if it was more of this, the soul, you know, I went off course, I, I think anyone that goes into this field, they go into for a reason, right?
Rosa (00:28:15) So I went through it because I was trying to unconsciously heal a lot of what I had experienced and maybe even from a past life, maybe from my family. But here I was being very young and helping or doing these investigations. But what was frustrating about it is that for a lot of these children that were now being the victims of X, Y, and Z abuse or neglect, their parents were also victims and it was generations. I remember the specific part that we were working through as it’s a small desert community here in California and it’s a very, very small community. And the families were already known to the system. It was like, Oh if you had been in the department long enough, you likely knew the parent or the grandparent, and then you.
Rosa (00:29:11) So it’s like that you get to see like three generations of this. So that’s a very direct way, right? It’s very generational trauma. There are also more subtle ones or there are those that we don’t talk about, those silent memories that we don’t quite know what happened. But especially if you’re intuitive or you’re an impact, you have a sense almost as if you’ve always had a sense of a specific situation, even though you’ve never experienced it. And then when you investigate, when you find out, you realize that your grandma or your grandpa or whoever or your parents went through something like you had experienced.
Rosa (00:29:56) For example, for a long time, especially when I was young, I think it was like during my teen years, I started getting worried about public transportation and I was afraid of getting into a taxicab. I was super scared of any of that. And later, as an adult, like just with like two or three years ago, I found out what happened to two generations of women, meaning I starting from my great grandmother to my grandma, you know, in public transportation, like they’ve all experienced some house, some type of trauma in public transportation, in a taxi, in a bus. So and so it was I had never heard those stories, you know, when I was I but I just started having this fear. And when I was pregnant, again, these irrational fears started coming through for me.
Rosa (00:31:00) And I know, of course, when you’re pregnant, everything is related to the pregnancy and hormones. And I’m sure it was also related to that. But there was also this element of like I’m like my life is in danger. Like my baby’s life is in danger. And I’m, you know, thankfully, thank God I was healthy, baby. Healthy consistently throughout. There were no issues in that regard. It was just an irrational fear that I had. And that prompted me to want to find out more about my grandmother’s pregnancies, my mom’s pregnancies with me, and with my siblings. And and and finding and finding out. Stuff happened to them too. So it was those connections. Sometimes the generational traumas get transferred through silent memories that we experience.
Rosa (00:31:56) And we don’t know what I mean. I am lucky that I’m able to find out, to have the awareness of asking and with that intention of piecing together these, these, these parts of my history. But so many of us just go through life without that awareness. So it’s really important and especially when it comes to irrational fears, when it comes to sudden, especially sudden phobias, too. To find out if you’re if you have parents or grandparents around you to ask those questions. Because you know from just my personal life, I was shocked to find out the direct connection of the fears that I was having.
Abby (00:32:46) Yeah. Yeah, it’s incredible. I love the term silent memories and yeah, what a gift to be able to find out where that was coming from. When you found that out, did it make it easier to work through that fear?
Rosa (00:33:00) Yeah. You know, when I found out about what was going on with my pregnancy and it’s a trauma story that is that didn’t happen to me. You know it was something that I was experiencing or intuiting because I’m an empath and I think you and I have talked about this. So I think I was just intuiting this at that level. And it’s a story that doesn’t belong to me. So out of privacy for that person, I’m I don’t I’m not going to share it. But what I can tell you is that once I found out what happened, it was like it was pretty overwhelming for me. And at that time, I was working as a therapist for myself. I was just continuing my work, my healing journey.
Rosa (00:33:52) And when that happened, I remember that thankfully, I have someone to process this with to make sense of this in the context of my history, my reactions, and traumas. And I was able to, as I said at the beginning of the podcast, stitch those pages back into this, this narrative of my life. And even though it didn’t happen to me, it is part of my history because it’s my lineage, it’s where I come from. And for me, it helped to make sense. But I think it was a good week or two where I was pretty impacted by this. You know, it was almost as if I was working through personal trauma, even though it didn’t happen to me, I was very much responding and integrating this.
Rosa (00:34:49) I think my brain, my nervous system was trying to make sense of this the same way I would if it had happened. So it was a very real, very, very difficult experience. But thankfully, I have had support. It happened in my thirties. I have a lot of resources available to me and I was able to work through them. It did take me a few weeks to come to terms with that. But I feel, again, going back to that analogy, I was able to just integrate that as part of my history. Integrate that page. That was a page of my book.
Abby (00:35:27) Yeah, that’s beautiful. Yeah, it’s almost like the term kind of acknowledgment and honor comes to mind. It’s like, oh, okay, this. I’ve witnessed this.
Rosa (00:35:36) Yeah.
Abby (00:35:37) So, yeah. Yeah. Beautiful. And it makes me think of your know-how. In different cultures and different things, we’ve been through. Like, did my ancestors live through a famine or, you know, a massive recession? I mean, we think about, you know, feelings of money scarcity or food scarcity or just scarcity, period. Like that stuff just goes so far back. And it’s I kind of see it as we heal the stuff inside ourselves, we’re healing the stuff throughout the whole lineage for all those who come after us. And that’s beautiful work that you’re doing for your child. And in doing this in our work yourself.
Rosa (00:36:19) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think since becoming a mom, that has been a huge part of my motivation and my intention now for my healing is because, you know, if we don’t work through these difficulties, inevitably, you know, the energy, the legacy of these trauma wounds do get passed on. There’s an energy component to this. And so I intend to heal and to integrate this into my own life experience for the rest of my life. Because really, when they’re starting trauma that you can work through. But there are other things that you mentioned, these other generational or ancestral trauma that may take us a very long time to work through or to even understand. Right.
Rosa (00:37:09) So I know for me, it’s going to be a lifelong journey of just improving myself. Not so, you know, the way I see it is I’m working through these generational wounds and ancestral wounds and just what I went through in my own life. But I see it as an ongoing process of just bettering and just improving myself, my mental health, my physical health, and my spiritual health for me and my daughter, you know, for me and my for my also for my, my, my mom, my sister. You know, since I started this journey of healing, there’s been a lot of healing that has happened naturally without me necessarily or without them sorry, doing anything, or me saying anything to them.
Rosa (00:37:56) I’ve just noticed some shifts in there, in their own individual lives that, that, that, that shows that they’re working through their difficulties, their wounds. And I think that’s a beautiful thing because that’s what happens, right, is we’re all connected. So when one heals or improves, inevitably those close to us will also receive that ripple effect, because we’re all connected, especially with our close family. It’s going to be received. It’s going to be impacted also. Yeah.
Abby (00:38:33). And I love that you mentioned that. I think a lesson for me is, you know, instead of being the one who wants to heal my family, heal my parents, you know, make everything okay, make it all better, take their pain away for them, which I can’t do. I can just duplicate hearing it, but instead, be that step into integrating myself and embodying that. And then naturally people see and it’s an invitation to do their work if they call too. But also in the subtle, I know you mentioned being empathic and working with the energy of it. They feel that too. It’s like it’s a little lighter in that whole generational line, just kind of things.
Rosa (00:39:15) Lighten up. Yeah, absolutely. Or they reconnect with their voice, for example. Or they reconnect with something that they love to do as a child. And somehow that gives them so much joy at this point in there, you know, so, so and so. For example, for my mom, one of the things that started happening a few years ago is that she started connecting with, well, my mom has always loved plants, but what happened a few years ago is that she started using plants to help people around her get better. And then she wrote this little book. It’s not published. It’s just like for us, for the family. She put it all together in writing and she emailed it to all of us. And it’s like 30 pages, I don’t know. Like it’s a lot of pages of all her healing, all her healing and remedies, and herbs that she uses. And she did that all on her own.
Rosa (00:40:13) And I was just so fascinated by that process as she was and I was supporting her and me without telling her. I think this is healing. I think this is going to be I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t say anything about our family and our lineage or generational wisdom. Nothing. And I was just encouraging like, I love this. Thank you for sharing this. And she found so much joy and so much pride in putting this together for all of us. That was healing for her. And that hadn’t. That I had nothing. To do with anything I share. I think she saw there was a period where I was also really into the plant and I was planting things and that kind of prompted her idea. And so you just never know what’s what, how you can inspire those around you, and even beyond that. Right. Because I’m sure some people have benefited from her healing that I don’t even know about, but you just never know how you can just start that process for yourself, most importantly. And then inevitably, because it’s energy all it’s all energy, it’s going to be received by those near and close to us.
Abby (00:41:23) That’s so beautiful. I love that she just took it upon herself to create this. And I see that being healing for her. And also just this transfer of knowledge to what a gift to your family to bring.
Rosa (00:41:37) Yeah. Absolutely. I feel that it was all because my grandma is no longer here. She passed away 15 years ago, but when she passed away, a lot of that knowledge was gone because at that time, no one was not in that mindset, you know, to pass on anything, you know, for her, it was just survival. So there was none of that. And then when my mom was putting together these remedies, she was remembering a lot of her mom’s remedies and what her mom used to do. And, you know, and so I think the way I like to see it is that we go through that process. My grandmother was also being given that healing giving her legacy was. On. So there’s an ambulance outside.
Abby (00:42:36) That’s okay. Life happens around. Yeah.
Rosa (00:42:40) So it was. So through that, we. I feel that you know, a generation before and generations after, you can now have this opportunity to heal and integrate this wisdom. Right. And, yeah.
Abby (00:42:56) That’s beautiful. And it’s something that it’s so good to be aware of, too, because we talk about ancestral trauma, but there’s also ancestral wisdom. And to feel that wisdom of all those that came before us and that used to be really common practice in more indigenous cultures before colonialism. This knowledge we get passed down from generation to generation, and that got interrupted right through the process of colonialism. So to like you said, she remembered and it’s this beautiful remembering. And you know what? From her mother and that was part of her mother’s remembering from her. So it’s beautiful to see. I kind of picture that as like an opening up and this healing that’s able to flow through the line again.
Rosa (00:43:40) Oh, yes.
Abby (00:43:41) Wisdom that wants to come through.
Rosa (00:43:42) Yeah, absolutely. I know where we’re running out of time, but one of the things that it was it was such an amazing time because I honestly feel that my mom, my grandma was wanting this to happen. I feel that she was so happy to see that we were having this intention to reclaim these healings, these herbs, as, as our wisdom, as to reclaim it and to pass it on. One of the things that started happening to me is that during that time that all this was going on, my mom was writing this. I suddenly started getting things from my grandma. So my grandma passed away. Like I said, many, many years ago, I never received anything from her.
Rosa (00:44:36) She passed away. I was in college and it was just I never really thought of obtaining any of her objects. She had a lot of sayings and a lot of religious items and things that later on in life, I was like, Oh, I wish I would have kept something from her. I wish I would have had something but never did. And then what started happening is that my mom came back one day. She was like, Oh, I found this, this, this statue of, of the Guadalupe Virgen Guadalupe. And I was like, Oh my God, this is my grandmother. She’s like, Yeah, it was a little chipped. And I was like, Oh, it’s, it’s beautiful. And she’s like, Yeah, just clean it up. I know you will like it. My mom doesn’t she doesn’t believe in saints or any of that. She’s a born-again Christian.
Rosa (00:45:26) So she very, very doesn’t like any of that stuff. So she’s like, I know. I knew you would like it. So I wanted to give it to her like, Oh, thank you. Where did you find that? And she’s like, Oh, I was laying, you know, just in the garage, blah, blah. Okay. The fort. Like a couple of weeks later, she came back with like two other items that she found. And then I was like, Why are these things coming to me now? It was like a period of like a month where I got all of these different items that I got her my Bible, and I got all these. I was like, Where is this? I was just so perplexed because all of a sudden this started happening and I was talking to a friend of mine and she’s very spiritual. She channels her spirit guides and in her spirit guides share a lot of information with her about others when, when, and when that is welcomed.
Rosa (00:46:18) So she was telling me from her perspective, what her spirit guys were sharing with her is that these are the items that gave your grandmother strength during the worst times of her life. And she sees what you’re doing for her daughters, for her granddaughters. And this is her way of saying, thank you, I’m tearing up. And this is her way of saying thank you. And I was just very touched, but it didn’t stop there. What she says is she wants you to do one more thing. She wants you to visit your grandfather one one time, one more time. And this is not for you’re not going to do anything. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to. My grandfather’s very elderly, but he wasn’t a good man. He was just very, very he was very he didn’t do good things.
Rosa (00:47:19) So I don’t. I didn’t have a relationship with him and I didn’t have a desire to connect with him, even though he’s still alive. And so when this message came through, a girl wanted you to see him one more time. She is well, she has worked through her karmic debt with him. There is nothing that her soul needs from him. They’re done. Their karmic debt has been done. But there is something important with you visiting him that for some somehow it’s at a soul level and that’s all I’m getting. It’s just like there’s a cycle that needs to be completed and this needs to happen. And I was just so torn because I really did not want to see him. And at the same time, I wanted to do this for my grandma. So it took me several months. I think it was like six months or so.
Rosa (00:48:14) But I eventually went out there, I went to visit him and I was back in my grandma’s house. He still lives there and it was a very emotional process. But it was with him, it was fine. There was no it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it was going to be. I was able to just chit-chat with him. He asked me to play two specific songs for him and like I said, he’s very he’s elderly. He doesn’t have conversations now, but he’ll come up with certain things. So he asked me to play these songs from the 1930s. One of them was I Was a Thorn in Your Past. It was a Spanish song, but that’s the name of the title. And he asked me to look it up on YouTube and play it for him. So I looked it up and the music. I don’t know why he asked for this one, but it was a poem of forgiveness, basically saying, I was a thorn in your path. On your path, but I am sorry.
Rosa (00:49:10) So it was a song and he loves the song. And so I took that message. I don’t know, for me from a grandma, I don’t know. But it was there. And then before I left, the person that takes care of him said, Oh, I’ve been keeping this. It’s a set of miniature collections. It’s like I’ve been keeping this miniature collection. It’s like little forest animals and like little things that my grandma kept in a box. It’s like I’ve been keeping this because I thought it was cute. I had it up on a wall, but it doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t have sentimental value to me. So I want you to have it. And I remember that from that my grandma had this little collection of miniature forest animals. And when I took that, the message I got in the moment, it was like, I just thank you. This was her last gift as a thank you.
Rosa (00:50:07) This is her little, precious little collection of forest animals. And it was her way of saying thank you to me for doing this. One last thing for her and her husband, my grandpa. So it was a full-circle moment for me. It was a process, like I said, of many, many years. And I was able to feel like at that moment I felt done. And weirdly enough, I have not felt my grandma as often as I used to. I have not received any more items from her. My mom and I, of course, still talk about her, but the way it was during those years, it wasn’t. It’s almost like she’s good now. I don’t know how to describe it. I haven’t talked to my friend that did the reading for me at that time. But I felt like there’s a sense of OC. I like she’s done for now at least with this. Yeah.
Rosa (00:51:06) So I just want to share that little story because I felt I’m such a, for me, spirituality and integrating these ancestral memories and ancestral healing components. For me, it’s just part of what I do. So I wanted to share this experience because it gave me so much healing on an emotional, physical and spiritual level. And it’s something that it wasn’t in one sitting. It’s not like I sat and I talked about this and then I knew it was a process, but the key, I think for folks out there listening, is to be able to have that intention of wanting to reconnect and heal from these wounds or things that have. Passed down the lineage. I think it starts with that intention and the awareness that you do have certain things that you want to work through and they didn’t start with you and that they may no longer be here in person, but as energy is spirit form, that may still be very much involved.
Rosa (00:52:07) And we welcome that. It can be such a huge and powerful source for our ongoing healing. It’s a component of our healing as well. It’s healing. Our trauma from the brain perspective is one component, but there’s also the spirit that we have to tend to. And that’s why I wanted to share this story and I hope it resonates.
Abby (00:52:30) That’s so beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I was just feeling so much love around as you’re talking about it. Like around your grandma, your grandfather and and and gratitude, it feels like for you doing that. And how incredible to have that moment with that song to do and to feel and to have that come full circle. Those full circle moments are so heart-expanding and profound. Absolutely beyond words. So.
Rosa (00:53:00) Absolutely, yeah. And my daughter, I took my baby with me. My daughter and my mom were there with me, too. So it was like this generational healing. And we all felt, my mom, mind you, she just didn’t have what I was what I had in mind. Right. My intention was very different. She was just there because she always has a relationship with her father. So she was just visiting him and she was just so happy that I finally agreed to see him. And that sense of giddiness, a sense of joy was felt for my mom. For my mom told me she experienced that for so many days after and same for me so many days after that experience, I still felt that sense of giddiness and joy. It was just so uplifting energetically that we just felt happy for a long time after that, which was also a very, very beautiful reward to experience. Yeah.
Abby (00:53:57) I love that. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here today and doing this work. Your mind, body, and spirit. Yeah. So, Rosa, people want to reach out to you. How can they find you?
Rosa (00:54:07) Yeah. So I’m on Instagram. Of course you can just find me by my name, Rosa Shetty. And I also have a podcast. It’s called Inner Healing Paths. And my podcast is all about just different ways of healing. I interview people. I had you, Abigail. I think you were actually the last episode I uploaded the last one there. Yeah. So I just talk about all things related to healing of the mind, the heart, and the spirit. And I also have a Patreon and we meet once a month and we talk about in a more personal and deeper way about just different healing topics. In June, we’re going to be talking about parenting our inner child, and the patron is for women only. But of course, the podcast is for everybody.
Abby (00:54:53) Yeah, awesome. That’s beautiful. I love it. And we’ll put those all in the show notes as well. Thank you for being here. It has been such a pleasure. So much love to you and all this incredible work that you’re doing in the world.
Rosa (00:55:06) Thank you. Thank you, Abigail.
