In short
Practical recovery for adults with child trauma who feel chronically disconnected; rebuilding connection through nervous-system regulation, “trauma time” awareness, and trust-building practices. Anna Runkle argues that disconnection is a near-universal adult symptom of child trauma and that therapy often misses the needed nervous-system/perception repair.
Guest background
Anna Runkle (“Crappy Childhood Fairy”) grew up in a commune in Berkeley (late 1960s/early 1970s) with drugs/alcohol and neglect; she witnessed violence, including being left in snow outside a casino for 11 hours at age six. She later moved to Arizona, had an assault in Berkeley in adulthood, and became a YouTube educator (nearly 1M subscribers; 78M+ views). She also describes careers and an analytical/data-analyst mindset.
Key claims
“Dysregulation” is a real nervous-system injury; unsolicited advice can worsen recovery; attachment wounds require special pacing in relationships; neglect can be more damaging than abuse; recovery involves regaining accurate perception and intuition.
Notable examples
her 12-step-derived “write fearful, resentful thoughts” technique plus meditation; her assault “scream” moment as a turning point; rules in her community against giving unsolicited advice; conflict repair within her family.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOExploring Childhood Trauma and Connection
0:45 to 2:24
Discussion on Anna's background and her book on healing from childhood trauma.
“what she's doing now, which is she has almost a million YouTube subscribers and over 78 million views on YouTube, talking about being a survivor, her methods, and how she's changing lives every day.”
Anna’s Journey and Childhood Experiences
2:24 to 3:40
Anna shares her experiences growing up in a commune and the impacts on her life.
“And I really encourage you to get this book.”
Understanding Dysregulation in Daily Life
3:40 to 5:48
The conversation delves into dysregulation and its effects on interpersonal relationships.
“I have, I have, there's a total of four of us.”
Attachment Wounds and Relationship Patterns
5:48 to 8:33
Anna discusses attachment wounds and how they affect relationship dynamics.
“And listen, we put names to everything these days.”
Navigating Therapy and Trauma Recovery
8:33 to 11:14
Anna reflects on her therapy experiences and how they relate to trauma recovery.
“I'm really glad therapists are now expanding into a lot more awareness of this stuff.”
The Impact of Unsolicited Advice
11:14 to 12:10
Discussion on the challenges of unsolicited advice and its effects on healing.
“And I feel like there's a beautiful self-preservation tactic there of like, I have a little tender spirit.”
Anna's Attack and Its Aftermath
12:10 to 14:01
Anna recounts her experience of being attacked and the subsequent emotional fallout.
“all sorts of wrong information running around in there.”
Experiencing Violence and Its Aftermath
14:01 to 16:42
Learn about a personal account of violence and its psychological impact.
“times a week, seeing a doctor going, what's going on?”
The Struggles of Parenthood
16:42 to 17:37
Discover the challenges parents face when preparing meals for their children.
“I'd had my heart broken by the love of my life before that.”
The Impact of Childhood Trauma
19:37 to 22:42
Understand how childhood trauma influences adult relationships and behaviors.
“And don't forget to use our show's code for 50 % off your first order.”
Show all 22 chapters
Empathy and Resilience from Trauma
22:42 to 28:00
Explore how experiences of trauma can lead to empathy and problem-solving skills.
“You just get totally wired to be like, I'm going to get that love.”
The Importance of Connection and Conflict Resolution
28:00 to 32:15
Explore the significance of connection and handling conflict effectively in relationships.
“I remember those moments like so vividly.”
The Importance of Connection and Conflict Resolution
32:16 to 33:46
Explore the significance of connection and handling conflict effectively in relationships.
“I was just cruising around with my hair constantly shedding and like the world's smallest ponytail until I asked a girlfriend of mine one day years ago, like, why is your hair so thick and beautiful?”
Journey to Self-Discovery and Healing
36:31 to 42:00
Hear about a personal journey of healing through unique techniques and self-discovery.
“formula besides therapy that can help you.”
Healing Through Writing and Meditation
42:00 to 44:30
Learn how writing and meditation can help process trauma and PTSD.
“So they're forgiven for not knowing that.”
Healing Through Writing and Meditation
46:05 to 47:53
Learn how writing and meditation can help process trauma and PTSD.
“I shop and sell at the RealReal every couple months.”
Healing Through Writing and Meditation
47:55 to 48:10
Learn how writing and meditation can help process trauma and PTSD.
“That's therealreal.com slash best, therealreal.com slash best.”
Writing a Book on Connection
48:10 to 52:48
Explore the journey of writing a book focused on connecting with others after trauma.
“You know, going from what you experienced from your childhood and, you know, always talking about connectability, now you've made it into a book and creating literally connecting every single day with so many people.”
Regulation, Connection, and Overcoming Isolation
52:48 to 56:03
Understand the importance of re-regulation and connection in overcoming isolation and trauma.
“When you're, when you're dysregulated and you can't really manage it, one way you to help manage it is to avoid people.”
Learning Life Skills and Etiquette
56:03 to 1:00:08
Discover the importance of self-education and etiquette in adult life.
“You know, if somebody is seating you in a chair, what are you supposed to do?”
Healing Through Connection
1:00:08 to 1:03:09
Explore how connection is vital for healing and personal growth.
“is raised pretty well by his parents and comes from northern England which is culturally the opposite of both Berkeley oh wow and Brooklyn where my mom comes from you know they like least said, soonest mended.”
Navigating Difficult Conversations
1:03:09 to 1:05:02
Learn strategies for effective communication and managing difficult interactions.
“And I have a website also called Crappy Childhood Fairy.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00The following podcast is a Dear Media production.
0:14Hello, my darlings. So this week on Everything the Best, I sit down with the crappy childhood fairy, otherwise known as Anna Runkle. We talk about practical recovery for adults who grew up with chaos, neglect, or inconsistencies. Something that we haven't really done a deep dive on in this podcast. And I couldn't imagine anybody better to do it with Anna's. Unbelievable. So we talk about her childhood trauma. She grew up on a cult and the process of which she came into doing what she's doing now, which is she has almost a million YouTube subscribers and over 78 million views on YouTube, talking about being a survivor, her methods, and how she's changing lives every day.
1:01So we also do a really amazing deep dive into her forthcoming book, Connectability, Heal the Hidden Ways You Isolate, Find Your People, and Feel Like You Belong, which just came out on October 7th. And it explains why a haunting sense of disconnection is an almost universal adult symptom of child trauma and honestly becoming increasingly more common and how to rebuild connection with very clear doable practices. So we talk about nervous system dysregulation, the two-part daily practice that she uses every day, kind of all day long, how to spot trauma time, how to rebuild trust. The book is really amazing.
1:38I brought it home and kind of opened it up to this. I love when you do this with books. I opened it up to all the signs of dysregulation. It was the first page I opened it to and went through it with Davide. and we were both like, whoa, like so many of these things are, you know, symptoms that we experience so often. And so to have a practical book, you know, for somebody who like I'm in therapy constantly, but like, that's not, you know, Davide's not a big therapy guy. So neither is Anna. It didn't work for her. So I've been able to like do this with Davide. We've been like actively doing the practice at home since we recorded this podcast a few weeks ago.
2:20And it's really excited for this episode. Please enjoy our conversation. And I really encourage you to get this book. It's like really, really incredible. So enjoy.
2:37Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I like really wanted my like husband in this episode. Oh, interesting. Yeah, because he gets, we always talk, we talk about dysregulation a lot. Yeah. Which is what you talk about constantly, which I think find it so interesting. And I also, and we'll get into, we can just hop right into it. But I love also what you talk about with therapy, how they just want to like talk so much about your trauma and how traumatizing that is. For me, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's traumatizing for a lot. I think that's a lot of people's, can be a lot of people's experience.
3:19Yeah. How did you begin your journey into this work? Well, first I had to have a crappy childhood. I grew up in a commune in Berkeley in the late 60s and early 70s. And however much people romanticize that period, there was a very dark side to it. My mom was very much part of that. Drugs, alcohol, you know, crazy. Do you have siblings? I do. Yeah. One has died. I have, I have, there's a total of four of us. Three dads, four kids. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. And the grownups are all gone. And I was one of the two that like wasn't totally destroyed by the whole thing. And my survival strategy had always been to be able to connect with people.
4:03And I, that got harder for me later. But when I was a kid, I was like that my friend's mom, mom she has food she has these jars full of cookies you know I just I knew how the food was and I I just kind of had like close relationships with a couple of the moms and my teachers to be able to I don't know there was like a secret language you used back then to be like I kind of need some parental supervision here can you help me and nobody would call and report your your home life back then they would just sort of take you in and there's a certain elegance to that. And I'm really, really grateful to those grownups who were kind to me and not only just made sure that I was safe, but they encouraged me.
4:43They would say things like, you're a good writer, you know, you should pursue this. They weren't getting enough attention for anyone to even notice that. No, my parents were, they were fundamentally good people. They were well educated, but the alcoholism was extreme and that will take people down. And they separated. And And then my real dad died of ALS when I was a teenager. I'm so sorry. And I had a stepdad who was a decent guy, you know, a good kind of decent guy. So there was some stability after that. In my teenage years, we moved to Arizona. But I've had my life to sort of reflect on what happened there.
5:18And it doesn't really match the narrative that you would hear from popular trauma stories. I think that's coming out now. Like you said, you and your husband talk about dysregulation. I feel so great about that. when I started Crappy Childhood Fairy in 2016, nobody talked about dysregulation. Bessel van der Kolk said it. Pete Walker said it in his book. I got those books and it blew my mind. I was like, there's a name for the way that I'm weird. Yeah. The way that I personally struggle is a thing. And it's so free. I mean, it just gives so much value. And listen, we put names to everything these days.
5:51But, you know, in our home, you can see it with my 14 month old. Like this morning, he was just like, hysterical. And I was like, this poor kid's dysregulated. Like we need to like put him in an environment where he feels like he's grounded or something. He's also just fucking a 14 month old. But I was like, Carla, like, and I see with my daughter and she has autism. And so it's really important to keep her regulated, you know, because she's a very adaptable, like very lovely angel person. But, and, and I see it in my husband a lot too. And then he'll, you know, he'll see it in me. And when I explained to him what it was now, it's not so much, why are you acting like that?
6:27yeah it's like there's been there's a cause and effect yeah here happening and i'm i'm something internally is being triggered which i hate that you know that word gets well it has a specific meaning it starts it causes dysregulation in your nervous system all other definitions are subjective yeah this is a real thing yeah yeah absolutely i know thank you for that so at what point did you start i mean because you've had a long career path and you said that this journey really started when how many years ago? Well, as a person who was just like grappling with being very traumatized as a kid, but trying to function and succeed in the world, I was, my dysregulation got worse, I'd say in early adulthood.
7:13And then in my thirties, it was sort of getting progressively worse because I was going to therapy. Honestly, therapy was so dysregulating for me. I went for 17 years and we would talk about my mom and the drinking and the neglect and we talked, but what we didn't talk about is like, how am I supposed to go on a date? Can you tell me what the right pacing for a relationship is? Because I keep getting it wrong and I keep walking through red flags and I can't. Pacing of a relationship is so. Yeah. I see where people just like miss that step so much. Well, the attachment wound, it just like you're running, you're just like, oh, home, a big door just opened to my eternal home.
7:51and you just met somebody. And really by the next day you start seeing, oh, wait a minute, this is very weird. We don't have anything in common. I don't really like them. But if you have attachment wounds, you know, and especially the abandonment kind, it's almost impossible to leave. And so people like me have spent years in like stuck in bad relationships, got into the wrong thing in the first place, couldn't leave, had a kid, you know, whatever it was. And so there are so many things you can learn by understanding, look, as a person with trauma who gets dysregulated, who has attachment wounds, you need a special protocol going slowly, taking your time to see the red flags.
8:31And I feel like nobody talks about that. I certainly wasn't helped with that. I'm really glad therapists are now expanding into a lot more awareness of this stuff. But I still sometimes I could be interviewed by a therapist and they will literally reframe everything I say to give it a different meaning that makes sense to them. And I remember that. That did not work for me. So much of what was what I needed, most of them are, you know, they, they listen. But the thing I think that is so sacrificed when you grow up with this neurological injury of neglect, which is even more toxic than abuse, as we find out, the, the injury means your perception gets so damaged.
9:08Plus if they're grownups are sort of BSing you about what's going on. I used to, I used to be terrified to get in the car with my mom and for good reason. And I would get shamed for it. And they would be like, stop it. You're such a worrywart, you know? Yeah. Especially in the free loving environment that you were growing up in. Yeah, I felt that way about nudity. You know, we had to like witness people having sex, which of course I was horrified and shaken by. And I'd be like, I don't want to, you know, these people in our house and be like, oh, you're so modest. Modest was like a bad word. Wow.
9:39Yeah. So I was kind of mind fucked about reality. Can you explain the difference between abuse and neglect and like how that manifests differently? Because I could, I mean, I would assume abuse you're still being paid attention to, right? Yeah. Well, you might be. I mean, abuse is a form of attention, isn't it? So there's like hitting and sexual abuse. In my house, there was a lot of abuse, but not against me. And so I witnessed a lot of violence in my house. So it's abuse to cause a kid to have to watch that. But most of all, I mean, literally my mom left me in the snow outside a casino when I was six and forgot to come get me for 11 hours and finally found me at the police station where I totally covered for her.
10:21You know, it was my fault. I ran away. I'm sure she's looking for me. You know, I did what kids do not to get separated. It's funny how little kids know how to, Oh, yeah. My dad had a traumatic brain. He had level three out of four CTE from playing football. Yeah. And we sent his brain in after he died and they told us. And, you know, it was very interesting watching my mom grapple with that's not like there are moments of him that are not him. Right. But as a little kid watching his behavior, I would always it's funny how little kids are geniuses at making up stories and context to protect everybody and be these like little saviors for their pod.
11:02Yeah. The little survival skill. It is survival skill. There's so many survival skills that we can be very grateful for. Shutting ourselves down, people pleasing, anything that we're doing to survive. We survived. You know, we got through it. And I feel like there's a beautiful self-preservation tactic there of like, I have a little tender spirit. I'm going to tuck it away right now. And you're making a promise with yourself in the future. that I will take this out later and deal with it. But that's really, you know, that often gets, it gets lost. And so that's kind of, that was my beef with what was happening with therapy was that talking about the trauma, it was necessary.
11:36Like you need a little bit of like honesty and validation. Like that's terrible. But what we were missing, the thing about like reframing someone's experience, especially if it's not done, you know, really like intelligently, like a sensitively, we already had everything reframed for us. We already completely lost trust in ourselves. We already walk into danger because we can't trust our instincts. We don't notice, you know, you can't see red flags, that whole thing of like, trust your gut. That's not good advice for somebody who has unhealed childhood trauma because your gut has all sorts of wrong information running around in there.
12:12So there's this sort of recovery of your perception. That's a crucial part of healing. And like in my online community, I have all these, hundreds of people in these calls. And one of our rules is you don't get to give people unsolicited advice. They get to discover their own answers. Oh, wow. Yeah. You can say, oh, I love this book or I love this approach to therapy. Fine. That can be helpful to people. But to go, you've got to read this book. No, you're not going to get better until you try this one thing. This is the most important thing. It's so funny because that's such a, you know, people are trying to help, but unsolicited advice in many contexts fucking sucks.
12:47Yeah. It's criticism. It's criticism. Yeah. we're trying to get pregnant that happens a lot and motherhood yeah it's just like shut up yeah you really get it loaded on you yeah I'm an autism mom I hear all the time have you blah blah blah I bet you think I haven't fucking done yeah what are you really like oh my god okay here we go yeah it's just yeah but I do you know I you know I don't want to be somebody that that gets disrupted by that so I always just I give everybody the benefit of the doubt because they don't I'm always like that person is trying their best. Yeah. They're doing what the best that they know to do.
13:21Yeah. And that frees me of the judgment and then my vibration is in a better place. Yeah. You as an individual, like you having a little bit of space to get in contact with your own intuition is so much better than people telling you what your intuition should be telling you. I mean, if you're in danger, fine. It should be, you know, but really for the most part, normal people information about what works is not your information. I should have said that about me because I'm implying you're not normal. But I think what we're talking about is we're not, you know, we have difficulties that other people don't have.
13:53And so it's so much about recovering your intuition. And the reason I got better is because I stumbled on a couple techniques when I was totally hitting bottom with my symptoms, not knowing what they were, going to therapy three times a week, seeing a doctor going, what's going on? I, you know, it all, it all came to a head when I was attacked on the street. I was going to say this happened after you got attacked, right? Yeah. Yeah. I was. Where was this? It was in Berkeley. Did they ever find the people who attacked you? No, I talked to the police a couple of years later and asked about that.
14:25And they said, well, these people were doing it to people like a couple of times a week for two years. Oh my God. Never in the news. Just saying, you know, like talk about invalidation, beating people unconscious randomly. They didn't even rob you or anything. It was just like hate, just hate. It was a gang thing. There was like graffiti on the sidewalk afterward. No. Yeah. So it was a gang thing. And wow. Yeah. And so I asked them and they said, we did arrest various people for various crimes like that and it's not happening anymore. So probably we got the guys who did you. Yeah. Well, thanks.
14:58Yeah. Well, funnily enough, it's like I don't really have any like anger about them. I had a weird kind of like intimacy when it was happening with them where I was looking in their eyes like why would you do this to me it's a very intense thing to like knock a woman down on the ground and four people kick her in the head and face as hard as they can and a miracle happened where I woke up I woke up in the middle of unconsciousness and I had this like I didn't even know who I was or where I was or what was happening but I had this idea I have to scream you know that feeling when you have a dream and you have to scream and you're like I have that dream once a week oh gosh that's i don't know i don't know i'm i'm so i don't know what that is it happened like last night again i woke up this morning and i was in a scenario where i'm trying but it could be that there's a party in my house and i'm trying to kick people out or like and i'm and i'm saying something to someone i call 911 and i'm trying so hard to yell something and nobody's listening to me yeah you gotta figure out what that fucking thing is i have a theory this is my what is it for me well we're paralyzed in our sleep it's like that's meant to happen so we don't hurt ourselves you know thrashing in our dreams we're a bit paralyzed we want to scream but we can't activate our muscles and we're aware of that oh I think that's what it is uh somebody can check me if they're listening to that but the good news is in real life when I had that thought I I thought I was in a dream I thought I was gonna have to like really try so I was like focusing with all my all I had like and when I screamed it was so loud amazing and it was a turning point in my life because I had been suicidally depressed and that scream was saying no I want to live I do want to live actually come to think of it hold on I do want to be here yeah the moment happened and you fought for yourself yeah I was really in a bad place in my life then I was I had alienated people who loved me my mom wouldn't say she loved me even when I said my last goodbye to her.
16:47I'd had my heart broken by the love of my life before that. And I just thought I'm doomed. I just like, there's nothing left for me. And then, you know, in a funny way that that experience woke me up, but who did I have PTSD afterward?
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17:50So mealtime actually feels very easy. At my house, the big hit lately are the chicken dunkers lunches. My kids, I mean, you know, they love chicken nuggets and they just learned how to dip both of them. So they're like very into dipping the nugget, which is very cute. And it's loaded with hidden veggies and I don't have to peel, chop, or beg anyone to eat anything. So it's a win for everybody. Their meals are made with pediatricians, packed with hidden vegetables, and somehow my kids always finish their plates, which is amazing. Little Spoon is the first baby and toddler food company to set strict publicly available standards for heavy metals, pesticides, and more in their food.
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19:12Buy them in the snack and freezer aisles. We are obsessed. Little Spoon is the mealtime hack parents can't stop thinking about. Try their no-prep nutrient-packed meals and snacks for babies, toddlers, and big kids. Get 50 % off your first order online at littlespoon.com slash best with code best at checkout. That is L-I-T-T-L-E-S-P-O-O-N.com slash best. And don't forget to use our show's code for 50 % off your first order. Hi, I'm Moshe Kasher, and I would like you to meet my thick-ass thang. I guess that's me I'm Natasha Leggero we are comedians and we're married and we do a relationship and life advice show called the Endless Honeymoon Podcast and here's the exciting part we want to advise you we're a no judgment zone so anything you want to ask about it's all good yes send us your questions to Endless Honeymoon Pod at gmail and tune in to the Endless Honeymoon Podcast on Apple Spotify YouTube or wherever you like to listen
20:22You know, I was intelligent. Yeah. I was hardworking. I was funny. I used to be a comedian. I'm back in this neighborhood. I like, I'm remembering the 80s. In the 80s, I was a comedian here. And I had too much, I had, I was too dysregulated to be, to be able to handle the roadshow aspect of it. Like I could do local clubs, but if you want money, you go on the road and I couldn't deal with it. But I didn't have a word for that. I thought I was just like lame. I thought I was just a bad comedian. So there were I lost a lot of opportunities because of these symptoms. I went to therapists and they were they would really zero in.
20:55You're an adult child of an alcoholic. I am. But that doesn't really explain. Yeah, I am, too. But it doesn't it never really gave. I was like, thank you for putting a label on something. But like, how am I supposed to? I mean, I'm really lucky that I have a lot of empathy. Like I viewed my father with such deep empathy from a very young age. I don't know where that came from. So it freed me from a lot. But being an adult child of an alcoholic is very harsh. Yeah, it is. It is. My 20s, I was a lot of chaotic behavior. I understand as few others can. And you know what? I have this unique perch because of my YouTube channel and I do all these calls with people and I get like hundreds of letters a month from people with a question for me.
21:42I can't even possibly answer them at all, but I've been able to, I'm an analyst. I've had many careers. One was a data analyst. I have a very analytical mind. It's a really cool way to be able to deal with like the influx of information that you're dealing with. But just reading, it's like I've learned so much about what trauma is from understanding how other people have experienced it. Like if I were a therapist, I would have to spend these an hour for many weeks in a row with people to learn about them. But people give me this little peek into their lives like hundreds of times a month. And so I get this unique view.
22:14And alcoholism in the parent, like one of the things I help people with is limerence. It's like an obsessive addiction level, you know, romantic feeling for somebody that you can't have, where it just kind of takes over and you can't really live your life really. You're not really emotionally available. very rough it's so common for adult children of alcoholics and I I don't know I won't I won't be too sure of this but I think I'm the person who noticed that and now everybody talks about it you know and because I've been I've made a lot of videos about it but there's this thing like if a parent is just like narcissistic or checked out entirely or left or died you got totally neglected you you never got attention you had to figure out a certain survival strategy if your parent was off and on going, I'm sorry, baby.
23:00I will be a better mama now. The cycle off on off on. You just get totally wired to be like, I'm going to get that love. I will find a way. Of course. Of course. Yeah. And that will suck your soul dead. It's just really a bad symptom. And I don't think people used to realize how connected it to trauma it was. They knew about like getting into an abusive relationship, which is another pattern. And it often follows. Yeah. the lives of somebody who was abused or witnessed abuse. And, you know, gratefully, physical abuse has not been something I repeated. I don't believe in repetition compulsion. I don't think it's a compulsion.
23:40I have my own opinion about a lot of things. And since I'm not a therapist, I can just say what I think. Yeah. And everybody, you know, check your facts. Take me with a grain of salt. I'm going to tell you my experience though, that I was never trying to recreate my childhood. I can promise you. I was always trying to create a better life. But I now know about dysregulation and the sort of like deactivation of my left front cortex under stress causes reasoning to drop out. Yes. There you go. I'm not it's not compulsive. Yes. It's a it's an injury. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a brain injury. It's an injury.
24:14That makes a lot of sense to me. I see so many. I love TikTok. and I've somehow stumbled upon a theme on TikTok where they say, oh, the child of an addict is, you know, whatever the percentage is to repeat that. And it then shows them like graduating from college and getting a degree and getting a job and whatever. And it's like uplifted me so much to see. I mean, I think I don't think I mean, we want to survive. So many people just want to survive. Right. So it's really beautiful to see kind of like, not maybe you have to make a lot of mistakes along the way. Well, you definitely do. That's how we learn.
24:55And we were supposed to be able to make supervised mistakes when we were two, you know? Yeah. And have somebody come in and go, no, actually you do have to share your toys. It's so fascinating having a child because you really like, my God, every day I'm like, and I don't want to be, I'm not like an overthinker or helicopter-y, but I what a privilege to be able to watch my son like test boundaries and for me to create like a foundation for him yeah I know isn't it healing very cool you finally get to be on the other side of the dyad which has a lot of healing power too because you can't go back you can never go back and get your childhood no some people are really into the idea of reparenting I don't really I don't really find my healing there I know a lot of people do I'm just like I don't know it's still just me.
25:41I'm still, yeah, I don't say that way either. That's a little like weird pressure to put on your kids too. I think to like recreate something that I did. And I had a wonderful childhood. I just had a dad who, you know, a couple of times a week would just turn into a different person for a while and then wake up the next day. The man that we all love just got like and then he got kind of like too tired and sick to, to be that angry for a long, you know, And he was a magnetic, wonderful man. And so I remember him from those moments. But it's interesting when he died because it was a lot of like, oh, he's my whole life.
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26:15I'm so I was so obsessed with him. I was there the night he died. Like we're having the whole thing. And then it was interesting for my mom and I to have these moments. We were like, we had some really tough moments with this man. Yeah. Yeah. And like that needs to be that lives somewhere. Yeah. You know? And so what do you do with the energy of that trauma? Especially for her, that was her husband, right? Like my husband holds me on a pedestal. He would never hurt me. My dad was really willing, not cognitively, to bring her to very dark places. So she had a, but she believed in him. She was always like, I know that's not him.
26:50It was this fight for this man that she knew was in there. It's just been very interesting to watch. It was interesting when he passed away to kind of like watch the, as you go through grief, kind of acknowledging those moments. Yeah, it's not funny. Do you think in addition to the wounds that his periodic drunk spells did for you, did it give you superpowers? Oh my God, yeah. What did you get?
27:17I, but the big one is empathy because I felt bad. He was miserable. Yeah. And I was like, happy people don't do this. Yeah. And he's suffering. And I would see like a giant man who had a big life and it didn't end up the way he thought it was going to. And he also had physical injury, couldn't really, you know. And so I was just like, this is so sad for him. You know, this is like really sad for him. And then it gave me a lot of problem solving skills. It made me the glue for a lot of situations. You know, he would get into a spell and I would lay there and go, should I interrupt this? Is it going to make it work?
27:55you know, and I would get up and be like, I was dead asleep. And then I heard yelling, what's going on to kind of like save my mom from that moment, you know, clever girl. Yeah. Yeah. I remember those moments like so vividly. So kind of had me like think on my toes. Yeah. Like how to manage kind of like stressful scenarios a little bit. Have you ever heard people talking about you on a hot mic? Pardon? Have you ever heard people talking about you want a hot mic. That happened to me not that long ago. And there you get, it's like that thing you said, Oh, I just happened to have a hot mic. I wonder who's talking about the hot mic.
28:32Oh my God. But that's like, those are skills for life. To do something diplomatic that people can recover from. So you don't have to ruin your relationships. This is like rocket science connectability. Yeah. And so I'm obsessed with connecting and I'm upset. It's like what I talk about in therapy, because sometimes I'm like, fuck, I have such a big mouth. And she's like, you are hardwired to need connection all the fucking time. Yeah. And so and that manifests. That's why you succeed on social media. Exactly. Because I need it. Right. It's not healthy. I know. I'm always like I'm addicted to the tension.
29:06Yes. I mean, you do this. You do it way more than I do. So, I mean, that really has like, you know, thrown me forward into like the career that I have for sure. And also, you know, we had a family dinner on Sunday and my siblings who were in their 50s and 60s got into like a little fight. And it was like kind of, they were just poking each other. But my brother got mad and just thrown him off. And I grabbed him physically and I was like, guys, stop it. You're being big babies. Like, let's just have fun. Like, come on. And like, he was like about to leave. And then we ended up having the best night.
29:38We sat at that table and talked about my dad and family experiences for two hours on a Sunday. Like, and it ended up being the best night ever. And I was like, thank God that I have that kind of skill set. Yeah, repair and recovery. Conflict is allowed if you have that. And how are you going to actually be close to anybody if conflict is not safe to have? Because it's such an essential part of being human. Conflict and also getting weirded out by other people's mishaps and all that stuff. There's such a culture right now of people cutting off people. It's like, oh, they did something harmful. Cut them off, cut them off.
30:14And I get it. I've had to cut people off. But if you cut everybody off, Here's the problem. You don't have anybody. And you don't have anybody to practice on. And it's easy to believe there's this island of perfect people. And if you could just get rid of all the people who have hurt you, you will naturally land on that island. That wasn't my experience. I had so much to learn. Don't you also think it's unhealthy to only surround yourself with like like-minded people, like truly only people who think exactly this? Oh, gosh. Well, we see that pain all the time. You know what I mean? where it's like, and you see it with like groups of girls when they're like this tight knit or like a pack of dogs.
30:49The pack mentality I think is really dangerous. I like having lots of different people around. I feel comfortable in that space and I like having uncomfortable conversations and I think it just makes me a better person. Yeah, I love it. Growing up, I don't know, my parents, when I was like four, Walter Cronkite was talking about the Vietnam War and the helicopters were there and I was like, mommy and daddy, what is the Vietnam War? You know, 40 minutes later, they're literally beating each other up. And so I just like got so afraid of conflict, difference, division, you know, among people. It's just like on a deep level, it disturbs me.
31:25I've decided though, while that was originally a trauma wound, it's actually something very special about me. Like I'm a peacemaker. I bring people together. I have this huge online community. We don't talk about politics and world affairs, even on a day when everybody's all up about it. We don't talk about it there, I know everybody has opinions, desires to change the world in their various ways. And I know that if they can learn to re-regulate and connect with each other, they could be successful at their beautiful goals to make a positive difference. But if they're not, there's nothing worse than a person with trauma standing on the street corner, you know, trying to guilt you because you didn't sign their petition.
32:03I'm signing every comment section on the internet right now. Oh, it's horrible. It makes me really depressed.
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34:31We went over the ingredient list and the electrolyte drinks that she brought home. And I was like, why are you drinking yellow number five and red 40? This is crazy. And there were so many other weird, gross ingredients. And I looked her and I said, mom, we have all those element sports drinks here because we also, outside of having the packets in every drawer in our house, we have the drinks that come in the can. It's a sparkling electrolyte water and we keep it in our fridge and it's delicious. And it was like such an aha moment that there is an amazing option for us to be hydrated and to replenish our electrolytes in a way that is not going to harm our body.
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36:30Tell me about the shift when you realized that there was a different way of a different like formula besides therapy that can help you. So for me, I stumbled on something that it was just arcane. Nobody was doing this. There were, there was a handful of people in AA. I'm not in AA, but I knew this woman who was, and I barely knew her. I gave her a ride one night and I was like, you know, I'm just not getting better from this assault thing. And I, I don't really have any friends left. I could give her a ride. That's why I even had anybody to hang out with. And I said, I feel like I, I feel like I'm at the end.
37:08I feel like I got to like, you know, I can't do this anymore. And she was just like, Oh, I know that feeling like the back of my head. You want to come in and see what I do about it? And for some reason I said yes, even though I was bitter and cynical. And I thought she was crazy. She was covered with tattoos. I was 30. She was 23. That's a big age difference. Like, who the hell are you? But you have to admit I had nothing to lose. And she, we talked all night. She was sort of telling me her experience. And it was the first time I heard somebody and we're still friends. And yes, she does have complex PTSD, but we didn't have names for it then.
37:40But she just said, this was what, like how I felt around people. This is the way I felt like I would have to die after I expressed my feelings to people or spoke up and said something. And the way I was certain that there was something just like disgusting about me every time I had a boyfriend. And I was just like, oh my God, you know, I finally met the first person I relate to. And so I did what she said. She showed me how to write fearful, resentful thoughts on paper and is in a very specific format. I teach it in a free course for anybody who wants to learn it. I teach it to you right now in detail, but it's so important that you do it correctly.
38:13If you just like vent and rant on paper, it'll make you feel worse. Oh, like hitting pillows doesn't actually get rid of anger. It exacerbates it. So it's a specific technique to sort of name it and then release it as a prayer. Or if people are not inclined toward a higher power type thing, you can release it. But the idea is the whole point of writing is you are surrendering it. You're just like, I just don't want this cluttering up my head right now. Maybe it's true. Maybe it's false. Maybe it's important. Maybe it's not. But I need it out of my head right now. My head is a bag of cats and you get it out.
38:46And there's this specific thing you write at the end. And then she said, now go learn to meditate, meditate afterwards and do this twice a day. And I was like, how long do I write? She's like, as long as you need to. And you still do this, right? I still do it. I still do it after all these years. And I've experimented with not doing it. And that's the only reason I know it's actually creating a substantive change. It wasn't just that one time when I was 30. So when she showed it to me, you know, I was suicidally depressed. Who taught her this? It was a woman named Sylvia, who was one of the founders of Narcotics Anonymous here in Los Angeles.
39:18She was this amazing woman. She passed away less than 10 years ago. And she had learned it from her husband, who's a guy named Tom, who learned it in New York from a stranger who showed up. You know, it's just kind of this thing. And most people in AA don't do this. Anybody hearing it will recognize sort of 12-step inflection in it. Yeah. You know, when I was doing it and I started going to 12 step meetings, I went to the program for families of alcoholics for 25 years. But some people go to open AA meetings and there was we had like a reputation. They thought we were acting like a cult just because everybody was.
39:52You sound a lot alike, you know, when you're feeling happy. Yeah, I used to go. I had a boyfriend who was sober and I would go with him to meetings a lot. And then we went to the ones for family members. I'm familiar with the program. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very curious about cults. People who are traumatized are very vulnerable to cults. And I've thought a lot about this. Like when people want to use mind control, like the government, you know, they'll take vets to practice mind control and see if they can turn them into assassins and things. traumatized people are very susceptible we crave sort of clear black and white and and you know some there's times in life when you just need somebody to tell you what to do yeah and so and so in a way those early years i'm so glad she was in there she was very like dictatorial like if you want to work with me you have to write first don't call me and tell me your problems you can write and read to me but i don't want to hear your like yakety yak about you know boyfriend du jour you And I used to get shocked.
40:50I was like, shocked, shocked. How could she talk to me this way? For one time she said, I was reading to her and I was like, I have fear. Nobody wants to hear how sad I am. She was like, that's right, Anna. Nobody wants to hear how sad you are. It's really boring. You're always sad. And I was like, shocked. I was like, nobody told me that. She told me other things too. Just like, oh, you have an obsession on a married man. Stop now. You have to stop now. And all those years in therapy, that was not the sort of thing. They went out of their way to be nonjudgmental, not directive. So there's something about a scrappy 23-year-old who used to live on the streets, you know, to just go, cut it out.
41:25It was really exactly what I needed to just sort of stop the self-destructive behaviors. And then it's a technique. I've had a lot of time to think about why does it work. At the time, it was just like a miracle. I mean, really, in two weeks, I didn't have PTSD anymore. I didn't have depression anymore. and I'm not saying I was ever diagnosed with PTSD or undiagnosed with it. I know what PTSD is. They really missed it by not detecting that I obviously had it. You know, I had every symptom of PTSD from the assault and the underlying complex PTSD from the childhood, but it just wasn't understood back then.
42:00So they're forgiven for not knowing that. They were saying, talk about it, talk about it. And if you're still, if you're feeling worse, now take a bunch of benzos. And that was just like, all across the board, not good for me. And so I just stopped all that. And I was writing and meditating and my mind had a chance to just organize all the information that was just like not able to organize because of the PTSD. It was just able to like tidy up in there. It was just like a cleanup crew came in and just took all my thoughts and feelings and helped me process it from a charged thing full of adrenaline and, you know, all the hormones of like, it's happening right now into a memory i could remember it's not going into denial i love yeah that yeah because i lived so much of my life with that yeah this happened and he's not calling me back and this is doing this and you're just so dysregulated constantly re-triggered into dysregulation and then you don't even know like is this even is this guy a jerk i can't even tell anymore my body feels like he is but the information says no and so it's it just all of a sudden life clears out and there's this like quiet space where you can think.
43:06So a lot of people will favor mindfulness for that. I was so far gone with PTSD, I would never have been able to sit for five minutes and focus on my breath. I was just like, I was like a pot full of popcorn. So this is just very forgiving. You name it, you write that you're willing to release it and then you meditate and the meditations are just like hell on wheels. Your mind's just going everywhere. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. it's a bit of rest and rest does the trick. Rest is often what you need mentally to be able to support what you just did in writing of intent, you know, intentionally moving these thoughts out of your mind.
43:44It's very powerful. I, you know, and I, I, something like a million people are doing it around the world now because I started sharing it on YouTube in 2016. How many followers do you have on YouTube right now? Almost a million. I'm getting very close. I'm going to celebrate big time. You know, they give you a gold plaque. They do. It takes a few months for it to arrive. So I'm like, do I celebrate when I cross a million or do I wait for the plaque? I know, both. We need a plaque cake. I know, I do. I know, two cakes probably. The number. And then when I hit a million, I was trying to be there right there at the moment and like film it with my phone and watch the little counter, you know, go over.
44:19That's pretty exciting.
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48:10You know, going from what you experienced from your childhood and, you know, always talking about connectability, now you've made it into a book and creating literally connecting every single day with so many people. I mean, how does that feel for you? Yeah, it's pretty intense. So this is the history of the books. I knew I wanted to write a book pretty much as soon as I had this remarkable recovery. And by the way, just because I stopped having PTSD, let me tell you, I had a heap of problems and I had to learn the way we all do through trial and error in life to solve my life problems with money and men and work and self-fulfillment and, you know, just trying to be a decent person.
48:52I teach all of that. I love what you're talking about. You always talk about dating. I think it's so important. Yeah, the dating thing. I, you know, that's a very lost art. And I've been able to, I've been with my husband for 17 years, married for 12, and he's like a really good guy. And it's very different from anything I ever had before. And I was able to make these changes. That's a, that's, you know, I have a whole course and a coaching program for that whole set of lessons. And it's totally counter-cultural. Like somebody gets on there and goes, yeah, you can't sleep with them. Nope. And if they don't like it, they can just go away.
49:22They're not for you. You know, you can't do that right away. I have very counter-cultural lessons and stuff about how to stay connected to your family if you'd like to, even though the abuser is still there at Thanksgiving or whatever it is. But here's, so - Holidays are coming up. That's a good one for everyone to listen to. Yeah, exactly. I know it's, yeah, holidays are a big one. But I, you know, people we love are precious. People who knew us when we were children are precious. It's not just like binary where either you cut them out of your life or you just totally keep taking the crazy. There's a middle way there.
49:54And that's what I've learned through my experience. So I'm teaching people how you can get where I am like so much faster without like goofing off like I did and being lost and not knowing and full of the wrong information. So I've got these books here. And a year ago, I came out with Re-Regulated. And this is like my magnum opus. This is where I explain. Here's how here's why the standard treatment didn't work for me. We now know that maybe 30 percent of people with trauma, they also don't do well talking about the trauma. So now that's more recognized now. But I came up with a simple way. It's pen.
50:26Look, I have like this is what I always have this with me. Now I'm talking to you and we're taping and I can't just stop and write fears and resentments. But I will if I have to, because it's better than glitching out and dissociating. So you're always kind of writing things down. I'm often doing it. I've had a long time. You can do it. You can do it on the car seat upholstery while you're driving, crying, you know, but look at the road. but I'm for 30 years I've been releasing I've been releasing my stress and anxiety and anger you know through this friction of hand to paper and the minute I'm writing even you know a grocery list I'm releasing stress people need to do this rather than do this on the internet oh yeah it's handwriting there's a lot of science why handwriting people go off on each other and you're oh yeah and then you're and then you're just perpetuating you know I think when people are so angry then they go to the internet for it.
51:18Yeah. So this is amazing that you always have so much of the philosophy that I'm teaching. It's like, there's a technique here, but mostly it's a philosophy and it's that, yeah, your mom sucked, you know, and people are mean and, you know, men don't like you right now. And you know, the world is cruel and your female friends bullied you and all that stuff may be true, but the only person who's going to help you with your life right now is you. Nobody can do this. You have to make some changes and doing that requires being honest. It requires, I see three, like it's a three-legged stool of how I experienced trauma and where I have found the most effective place to focus your healing.
51:53One is you got to learn to re-regulate. Two is you got to learn to reconnect with people. This is hard. Almost everybody who has traumatized struggles with connection. And part of that is probably neurological. Part of it is cultural. Part of it is, you know, just your parents didn't model it. Part of it is psychological. Part of it is, yes, kids are mean and friends are mean and we get our hearts broken out there. But the difficulty of connecting is the second thing. The third thing is self-defeating behavior. And of the many self-defeating behaviors, addictions, attraction to unavailable or troubled people, black and white thinking, way too much conflict in your life.
52:32Like you're always suing people and, you know, accusing and, you know, that's a trauma symptom. So I help people confront that stuff. But a big one that is not really recognized as a self-defeating behavior in this sense is isolation. It's driven by dysregulation. When you're, when you're dysregulated and you can't really manage it, one way you to help manage it is to avoid people. And so some of us avoid people outright. Some of us, we want people, but we have to hold them at arm's length because it's just so triggering in the, you know, it's so much dysregulation. Like if I have an argument with my husband, And if it's a hard argument, I will not be able to work that day.
53:12I'm so tired of being that way. But that's where my nervous system is. It used to be two months when I was young. You know, if I had an argument, it's like it's down. I know what to do. But it's a process to sort of get myself back online. And my mind scatters. And I might not even be feeling like negative emotions, but my mind is just not working yet. And so I'm really, really committed to all the little things you can do in the moment to re-regulate. When you feel like you want to yell at somebody, you know, stop, drop, do these emergency measures, get yourself re-regulated, feel your body again, delay, delay, delay.
53:49Don't say anything. Unless you're in physical danger, there's no need to express that right now while dysregulated. So funny, these are things that we work on in therapy with my daughter. I bet. Because she lives in her brain. And she's, she has, you see her, she's living out entire scenarios and replaying things and shows and stuff because the world is scary to her. And she's dysregulated her, she's not connected to her body. So she'll go inside of herself. Yes. So we had this crazy therapy session yesterday and she taught me so much more like how to be sick. It's just so it breaks my heart for everybody because I've had so many specific, you know, random specific.
54:29I've had so many authors and scientists on the podcast who talk about how connection is like people who are happy and connected. Their wounds heal faster, like scientifically proven that we're meant to be connected people. Yes. And so I cried in this session with her yesterday because I'm having to like learn how to like when she's playing, if she's playing with a tea set, I need to ask her, can I have tea? Because she doesn't understand the bounce back and forth of being a human being like with other human beings. But you see this in it all. where it's, you know, and it just makes me so sad for everybody.
55:02So, you know, retreating to isolation makes so much sense to me because if everything is, is so dysregulating for you, why even try? You know, I get it. Well, people with autism have taught me so much because a lot of the symptoms overlap. Yeah. That's I'm hearing a lot. The cause is different, but this thing where you feel like, I don't, I just didn't get the memo. What is all this nonverbal communication going on. Like for me with the other moms at school, like I feel like I'm a stranger in a strange land or a bull in a China shop. Like, why is it that they're not reacting to me like in the same comfortable way they do to each other?
55:39And it hurts. Of course. And you attack yourself, but there is, you know, I just, I sort of came to accept, yeah, I have a little bit of missing information. So I have to teach myself. And I, you know, I often teach my students, like I had to teach myself everything and I learned from TV and watching people who I thought were doing pretty well and like I literally had to teach myself how to use silverware by watching other people like I we didn't do that at home we didn't even use silverware we didn't have sit-down meals very often so so that I just had to teach myself stuff and and so I try to just stay really focused on here's what's available you have YouTube YouTube will teach you how to change a tire How do you silverware?
56:19Like, what are all the forks for? You know, if somebody is seating you in a chair, what are you supposed to do? If you're invited to a dinner, are you supposed to bring something? So I'm, you know, I'm looking forward. I'm going to be writing an etiquette book in the future, you know, for people. How cathartic in the meantime. Yeah, but like etiquette for these people. Out of just being an adult. How do I do this stuff? It's hard. When do you know if it's love at first sight? you know it's like hint never that's not possible yeah but so we do that but yeah for it's that you a lot of things you can learn as a workaround other things other things you can learn and it will heal up sort of organically there is clearly and obviously whether people believe in a higher power or not whatever you want to call it there's a healing force inside your body that is always handling like intrusions into your immune system and just organizing itself to get that out.
57:18I think I love the immune system because a lot of people understand it. We experience it directly. We're like, oh, I hope I can fight off this cold. Oh, I succumbed next time. But I think that our ability to stay regulated and attuned to people in our environment is like an immune system. And sometimes things happen and it is like a virus getting in there. And I love that your whole system has to sort of like freak out. So connection is, you cannot heal and become a whole human being without people. I think there are a handful of people who are genuinely called to a monastic cloistered existence.
57:55But most of us, we actually are, we need to be around people. We can't practice connection. We can't fully develop and mature without that practice. But to practice, you need a way to deal with like the french have a word for this it's i'm going to sort of misappropriate it but the spree de scalier it means the spirit of the staircase where you say something and then you're going up the stairs you've walked off and you're like oh what i should have said but the remorse from having just expressed yourself or invited somebody to coffee or something then you're like was i too weird is that creepy do they think i do that all the time Yeah.
58:34And that has to go somewhere or it's just going to clog up your bandwidth again. If you have somewhere to put all that stress about people, it will gradually help you not have that stress about people. It'll start to be a little more like attuned to reality. Like, so you feel embarrassed when you actually did do something embarrassing. And you don't worry about it when you don't have to. So you need to know how to apologize if you do something weird. You need to know how to set boundaries. This is what this book Connectability is so much about, why it happens. But then these obstacles, you have to be able to release, be courageous enough to release the people who are just messing up your life, even though it's going to leave you alone for a while.
59:11Alone for a while can be an incredibly powerful place where you get to focus. This is what I'm trying to change. These are the new standards I need for myself. And then it's a lot of stuff is about how to communicate and living as a dysregulated person. And I had very bad habits, ways of talking about when something bothered me, it would come out like lashing out, very emotionally dysregulated. And I've learned so much to be so much more artful and structured and measured in the way I communicate things that have a risk of alienating people. Knowing when not to say anything. Yeah. You know, knowing when you're working on that.
59:46Yeah. Yeah. And also, like, I had to fire somebody once and it was really painful. I was dreading it. Yeah. first time I ever hired an employee after three months I knew this was a disaster and I felt like the person had been both incompetent and unethical it was pretty bad right yeah and I what I wanted to do was go I've had it you're out you're fired and my husband who is raised pretty well by his parents and comes from northern England which is culturally the opposite of both Berkeley oh wow and Brooklyn where my mom comes from you know they like least said, soonest mended. They have this saying, you know, or positive attitude, one foot in front of the other.
1:00:29Just like very simple Mary Poppins-isms, you know, that I needed. And he said, you don't need to say that. You just need to let him know it's over and he'll want to know why. And you give him an example. And if he really tears it out of you, you can give him two examples, but enough information so that he understands what was wrong, but not like all of the stuff you have against him so that you level his whole confidence in himself. Like, we want this person to be okay after this. That's why it's so dreadful to fire somebody. You don't want to hurt them. No. But they need to know why this happened so that it doesn't seem random or vindictive or anything.
1:01:04Legally, you also need... But also, you know, the goal is for somebody to get a lesson out of it, right? Like, here's an example. Yeah. And then if you splurge your resentments, now we've entered a whole different ballgame. Yeah. Like, they're not going to hear anything you're saying. and then you're some enemy and it doesn't, you know. When I'm angry, I'm more likely to be emotionally dysregulated. So as a rule, if I'm angry, I try to be measured. I try to be very conscientious. And remember, if there's something that needs to be expressed, I can do it in an hour or tomorrow. I need to take my time now to get very clear.
1:01:39Like, what is the purposeful thing for me to say that I can live with and that is not going to go cause unnecessary harm and damage? Everybody needs to learn that. Yeah, everybody does. I sure. Yeah, I know. I think that's the sort of direction I'm going in. How do you talk to people who are cruel to you? How do you hold your ground without freaking out and turning into the thing you hate? Yeah, absolutely. So this is the etiquette of today, you know, of how to be a good person who's providing an anchor to that sort of good will, you know, and common decency and good values just kind of hanging in there.
1:02:14And every once in a while you see somebody who's amazing at it. And I love that. I just eat that up. I love learning how people do that. If we had just, you know, a few more people doing that or twice the number we have now, or heaven forbid, everybody, if everybody knew how to do that. I imagine what a nice society we would have. But that's what we need. We need to be, we need to have social grace and forbearance and, you know, kind of help each other in a way that's helpful. Yeah. What a beautiful way to end this conversation. Thank you so much. I feel that way so deeply. I'm heartbroken about how disconnected we all are right now.
1:02:51And I don't think, I think we lack a lot of grace for other people. So thank you for the message that I hope everybody hears. Where can everybody find you? Because obviously we have your YouTube and your podcast. Yeah, YouTube is like the hub of where people connect with me first, usually. And I have a website also called Crappy Childhood Fairy. And I love your website, by the way. Thank you. Thank you. It's such an, there's so much information and it's so helpful. It's really, it's also beautiful. All your branding is really good. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. My publisher Hay House really worked with me to come up with, I had to convince them that these trauma symptoms, it's a joy.
1:03:30This is joy bursting out. the first when people hear about trauma, they think of like a silhouette of a sad person. And I was like, I have an idea. Can you work with me on this? I want it to be like, yay. Yeah, I can connect. I can re-regulate. Yay. Because it's like the best thing that could possibly happen. And it's a happy thing. It's a sad thing that becomes a happy thing. I like to have a little humor about it. But the books, you know, making YouTube videos, I've made like 1200 YouTube videos. I have courses. I teach webinars every month. I have a membership that's really vibrant. I go do retreats and workshops.
1:04:04I do all these things. But when it was time to write a book, I was challenged to put it all in an end-to-end process because on YouTube, you're like a sea anemone. Everybody's just like, oh, I'll touch this thorn. I'll touch this one. And I traveled with my niece and she stepped on a sea anemone in Croatia this summer. So it's in my mind how they're just like, there's nowhere you can step on one without getting them stuck in your skin. But it's a, but you can learn in a, in a bunch of little spikes online, but a book and my fans really love the audio book. It's in my voice that they're familiar with.
1:04:36You have a very healing voice. And you can kind of just like take a hike with it or just sit and listen or relax and listen to it. Reading is actually reading two paragraphs in a row can be very hard when you have complex trauma. Your focus isn't there yet. So you can learn through your ears or along with a lot of People use both together and it lays it out end to end. This is the healing method. And then connectability goes in deep dive on connection. Amazing. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. This was such a pleasure. Thanks.
1:05:09And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes this week's episode of Everything is the Best. I hope you enjoyed it. Please rate, review, subscribe, all that stuff. Maybe leave a comment. Go ahead and follow me on Instagram at Pia Barancini. And I hope you have a fabulous, fabulous rest of your day. Love you. Ciao.
1:05:36Please note that this episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct or indirect financial interest in products or services referred to in this episode. Mississippi is breaking new ground for business at a historic pace. Amazon, XAI, Toyota, Milwaukee Tool, and GE Aerospace have all tapped into our deep talent pool, prime geographic location, and welcoming communities. This is bigger than mega sites. Mississippi offers a thriving business ecosystem with affordability, greater collaboration with energy partners, and record-breaking speed to market.
1:06:13Looking to expand? Break new ground at Mississippi.org. Thank you.
From the publisher
This week on Everything Is the Best, I sit down with Crappy Childhood Fairy—aka Anna Runkle—to talk about practical recovery for adults who grew up with chaos, neglect, or inconsistency. We get specific about how trauma shows up in daily life (overreacting, shutdowns, people-pleasing, money and relationship spirals) and how to interrupt those patterns with simple, repeatable tools.
Anna—an Oakland resident and Berkeley native—has shown people how to heal symptoms of childhood trauma for nearly thirty years. Known to more than a million followers across platforms (including ~929K YouTube subscribers and 78M+ views), she’s a survivor herself, and her methods are changing lives every day.
We also dive into her forthcoming book, CONNECTABILITY: Heal the Hidden Ways You Isolate, Find Your People, and Feel (At Last) Like You Belong (Hay House; October 7, 2025). Anna explains why a haunting sense of disconnection is an almost universal adult symptom of childhood trauma (and increasingly common even for those with “normal” childhoods), and how to rebuild connection with clear, doable practices.
You’ll learn:
A plain-language framework for nervous system dysregulation—and how to come back online
The two-part daily practice (brief writing + short meditation) to reduce reactivity in under 20 minutes
How to spot “trauma time,” respond to triggers (yes, even unanswered texts), and choose self-compassion over withdrawal
Scripts and boundaries to rebuild trust, navigate conflict, and “read the room” without shame
Why consistency—not perfection—creates the conditions for real connection
About the book:
In Connectability, Anna offers research-backed lessons, self-reflection prompts, and daily connection plans to help you: notice early signs of dysregulation, lean into healthy vulnerability, set confident boundaries, master the art of apologizing, and build the kind of close, reliable relationships that support lifelong well-being. It’s a hopeful, practical path for anyone who struggles with people—whether you have a trauma history or simply carry old connection wounds in a lonely era.
Produced by Dear Media
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