Losing My Sister— A Healing Conversation w/ My Niece Lindsey

0:00Just Ingredients:Welcome to the Just Ingredients podcast. I'm Cara Lynn, and here we dive deep into the journey of healing and wellness. If you're ready to learn, feel empowered, and take charge of your health, you're in the right place. Welcome back to the show. Today's episode I am really excited about because it's a little bit different. This season we're trying to bring people on to tell their healing journeys. And so today we have my niece, Lindsay, which a lot of you might know if you follow Justin Greens on Instagram, because she's on there every once in a while. And she is on here because when her mom passed away, she actually did a really cool therapy.

0:40Just Ingredients:And we are here trying to give back is what we said. It helped her so much that we think if there's anybody out there dealing with trauma, grief, that this therapy might be helpful to them. We want to share about it in hopes that it can help somebody else. because honestly, this might be tough to do this episode. I might start crying right now. It's going to be a little hard, but we're doing it in hopes and helping somebody else out there.

1:04Lindsey:So it truly changed my life for the better at navigating a grief journey. So I'm excited I get to be here to tell you all that.

1:10Just Ingredients:Maybe we should just give a little bit of background for those that don't know the story, but it's Lindsay's mom passed away last year and she was my best friend, my sister. and my person that I went to for everything. I would call her or text her almost daily. I would call her on my ride home from work and I would vent to her. I would tell her all my issues at Just Ingredients. She would give me advice. We would talk quarantine. We would talk kid problems. She and I didn't have a great mom relationship, so we didn't have the mom to go to. So we always went to each other. We would bicker about things.

1:45Just Ingredients:We were both very strong, opinionated people, but we loved each other and obviously she was an amazing mom and obviously you loved her as a mom so this accident was shocking to all of us we weren't expecting any of this just tell the

2:00Lindsey:listeners maybe a little bit about your mom yeah she truly was the best she was the best listening ear i swear she woke up every day and was like how can i make someone's life easier today she was the most selfless person i've ever met and like she was your best friend she was my best friend too we talked every day we facetimed as a new mom i text her 12 000 questions a day being like help what do i do how do i be a mom how do i raise a baby and she just truly was the kindest most i'm gonna cry but just most selfless perfect funny humble soul she truly was amazing well and

2:37Just Ingredients:something at her funeral i don't know if you know this but so many people came up to me to like introduce themselves but then they would tell a story and it was always something that anace had done nice for them like she was writing notes to people she was texting people she was sending people things she always was thinking of others and trying to do good for others yeah and she was

2:57Lindsey:like that is a mom too it's she just woke up every day it's like it's really how can i serve and countless stories people still tell me they text me oh i just remember this memory of your mom and every single time that she's doing something to lighten someone else's burden which i think is incredible.

3:11Just Ingredients:Yeah, it is incredible. And we should say she was an incredible strong woman, full of faith, because she battled with cancer, breast cancer, metastasized cancer, like 17 years ago.

3:22Lindsey:Yeah, she was diagnosed at 35, had four young kids, including a newborn, a testament to her strength. Honestly, if there's anyone that's been through hard stuff, that's her. She has had a lot of health trials and tribulations over the years, but obviously definitely her cancer was the hardest. And she fought that with grace. And I actually was talking my sister about it like I don't have a ton of negative memories of mom going through cancer because she didn't show that to us like she put on a smile for us kids I was six years old so honestly not all memories are solidified but I don't have negative memories if we're going through cancer and she was just testament to who she was as a mom and the strength that she had to step up

3:58Just Ingredients:and protect her kids in LA oh I love that yeah and she had so many good people in her community I'm gonna cry because I remember it very well being an adult when it happened so many in the community that surrounded her to help her like I said this episode might be full of tears okay so should we maybe say a little bit about her passing yeah so I just want to think it sets the scene for

4:23Lindsey:kind of trauma that I went through I feel like obviously a death that happens quicker is it better or worse than a death that's planned for it just is different and I think sometimes in the way that you can cope. So you kind of just get into it. Right after Christmas, I just decided to go on a golf cart ride. The whole family was there and there was no funny business or anything going on, but somehow she was thrown off the golf cart, suffered immediate intense head injury, which then followed 11 days in the ICU, which had its ups and downs and ultimately ended up their passing in early January.

4:56Lindsey:So a lot of my trauma comes from the accident itself and being never witnessed that. And if anyone has gone through something similar, like a head trauma is evident when it happens. And it's, there's images and things that you don't want to remember your mom as. I want to remember her as the beautiful, amazing, creative, perfect person that she was. I don't want to remember her in those moments. Obviously, I witnessed that. I have the trauma, the sounds, the noises, obviously the visuals, all of the things. And post-accident, it you lose someone that you love and who's your entire world like my mom was my life she was my best friend and my everything and then you have this accident and trauma piled with it and it was everything I thought of 24 hours a day I pictured it I heard the noises and I had a six-month-old baby and I was like I can't look like this I have to show up and I have to be a mom like mom doesn't want me to live like this um and luckily Carl and had a friend recommend this therapy and I was like I don't even care what it is.

5:57Lindsey:Like I'm doing it. I don't care how much it is. Like I just need some type of relief. And the so that therapy is ART therapy. It's accelerated resolution therapy. And some of you guys may be familiar with EMDR, which is the bilateral eye movements. This kind of takes that and goes the step further. So I signed up for that. I actually only did one session. I need to go back, but it's no to work faster than EMDR. They recommend like three sessions can get you to where your goal point is. So I signed up, I did one session. It helped me immensely kind of get more into that.

6:31Just Ingredients:Yeah, so you were hearing the noises every day and seeing those visuals every day from the accident. And I remember you telling me this, and I'm like, this is pure trauma. And I kept saying to you, like, in the meantime, like, it's okay, your brain's just trying to heal. Your brain's trying to accept everything that went on. But in the meantime, I was asking around, I'm like, you guys, anybody know how to help this? And thankfully, I had a friend who was like, oh, my gosh, I went through something very similar from an accident of her spouse. And she's like, ART was a lifesaver for me. And so that's why we're telling you guys about ART, because I didn't know about ART.

7:06Just Ingredients:It was new to me. And so I was like, what is it? And she was explaining it to me, gave me a reference even for you. And I was like, just go try it. And so maybe just walk them through like what a session looks like.

7:18Lindsey:Yeah, for sure. going back for something kind of talk about what happens in the brain when you experience a trauma and how ART is created to help that. So your amygdala in your brain is basically like your safety center. It's your threat detection center. It wants to keep you safe. So when you experience a trauma, your amygdala goes into overdrive because it wants to protect you. And in doing so, it actually weakens other areas of your brain. So it's a lot of people who experience trauma, they have memory loss, they kind of lose their executive function, they can't plan properly, that they also can't regulate their heart rate and their breathing and things like that.

7:53Lindsey:You're always just in the spider flight feeling. That's from the biggest nerve kind of shutting down a little bit. So ART is created to help calm the amygdala and allow the rest of your brain to go back to regular functioning. And that's through those bilateral type of myths.

8:08Just Ingredients:Okay. Before you tell about the session, were you noticing those things like a memory loss or not remembering things and not being able to make decisions and things like that?

8:18Lindsey:So first, I'm not a very anxious person. I wasn't going for the accident. And after the accident came an extremely anxious person. I just felt like I could never breathe. I could never relax. I remember Carlin took me to go get foot zoned. And I was like, this is the first time I've been relaxed in four months. Like my brain was just an overdrive. And I had the memory of a walnut. I remember I was with one of my coworkers in the office and I asked him a question. He answered it. Five seconds later, I asked the exact same question and he was like are you okay like I you literally just asked me this like I had no memory and I'm still suffering with it it's getting better but it's like my husband was talking about some funny king at an event just over a year ago and I had no recollection like literally not even like oh yeah it sounds familiar no recollection and he was like oh wow well and

9:06Just Ingredients:like you said because the amygdala is trying to keep you protected so other parts of the brain are working as well. And so a lot of people might be experiencing this because it doesn't have to be debt. Trauma comes in a lot of things. I mean, a cancer diagnosis, watching someone go through pain or an illness. I mean, there's a lot, obviously lots of reasons for trauma. So ART can help with grief and trauma of all sorts of things.

9:31Lindsey:Yeah. And they say with ART, it always doesn't have to be trauma, but if there's anything that's triggering to you, or if you have negative of associations with a sound, a memory, anything that kind of brings you that trigger, they say ART is great for you. Interesting. Okay. So you want to tell about the ART? So what you do, at least in my situation, I'm sure every therapist is a little bit different, but we did an intake call. Fred kind of walked her through. They want you to talk about it. And it is really hard. Like it is mentally exhausting and you're reliving that moment visually. Yeah. I'm kind of talking it through.

10:00Lindsey:So she had me talk through it just so she could figure out kind of where I was, what my baseline was. The whole basis of ART is you play it in your mind like it would be. So we decided my start and end points of where I wanted to play through. It's like I always had 11 days of hard times. But I cannot work through all 11 days. So it's like we set kind of the beginning and end of where my movie was going to be. And then I went for the first session. And what you do is you do the bilateral eye movements. So you follow her hands moving back and forth. And what that does is it actually mimics REM and how your memories are consolidated when you sleep.

10:37Lindsey:The bilateral life of it, scope of that, which I think is really interesting. And then she leads you through a cycle of prompts. And so what you do is you visualize your movie first. Then you're done. You kind of signal to her. And then she leads you through all of these questions of kind of like rewinding your brain and refocusing how your body responds to it. Then you do it a second time. She asks more prompts. And then you do it a third time. And it's actually really interesting because the prompts that they ask and the eye movements, it truly like rewiders your brain and how you remember it.

11:06Lindsey:So it's like, I still picture the event, like I still have memories of it, but my body doesn't go into that fight or flight panic response like it did. And that was all I needed. I was like, I just need to stop being panicked 24 hours a day. And it was amazing. So you basically rewire and reframe the memory in your moment. And it was like, picture how the outcome would have been. for you or picture something else. I was like, I pictured some of the memories in the hospital. We were sitting on the beach. The trauma had still happened. The outcome was still the same, but I was able to rewire into something that was something me and my mom loved.

11:41Lindsey:So it wasn't just crappy hospital room. You're in the ICU that was happening on the beach. And it's crazy to put in the words until you experience just the profound effects that it can have.

11:52Just Ingredients:Interesting. Cause she obviously loved the beach. That was her favorite was the sun, the warmth of the sun on the beach. And you do. So just like your conversations and hard times of being in the hospital, we're moved to a beach setting, which then let your body breathe maybe and get out of that fight or flight. Yeah. Because you were repeating this over and over in your head and the sounds and the images. So it stopped that as well. Yeah.

12:20Lindsey:And it's interesting because it's so hard to do the therapy because you're picturing it and it's like you're playing it like a movie which you only want to do when you've experienced this horrible thing and it gets easier if easier as you do that through the therapy but actually decrease the amount of times that is going through it because my brain had reframed the memory not as this trigger scary thing that happened but my brain was able to have more like neutral peaceful feelings towards it so it didn't need to be replaying it because it was no longer a threat. Interesting.

12:50Just Ingredients:But you're not just like thinking through this. She's having you do certain eye movements and things as you're doing this. So you have to work with a therapist who actually knows how to do it because the eye movements are changing how your brain waves are reacting to things. Yep.

13:06Lindsey:And it's very specific prompts. She was reading out book paper, like it's very dialed in and exact in the things that she uses. And if she didn't phrase things perfectly, should go back and phrase it again. So something with the exactness of the questions that she was asking and the props. I don't know, but it's magic.

13:21Just Ingredients:Okay. So how does this differ from EMDR or is it similar? Yeah.

13:26Lindsey:So I think they're really similar. ART is a newer thing. Actually it was created in 2008, but became accepted to therapy in 2015. So it takes up EMDR and builds on it where you're still doing the bilateral movements, but you don't have to kind of verbally talk through your cues. it's all in your head and it's supposed to work a lot faster it's like they say three sessions

13:46Just Ingredients:or EMDR and that was more of a consistent flow yeah isn't that so interesting and so I think that's why I haven't heard of it I started asking around and a few people knew about it a few didn't when I said ART they're like like you draw I googled it and it gave me art therapy like drawing in actual art yeah it's not that I was like no no there's no drawing involved in this Let's take a quick break to hear from our show sponsor. You guys know I'm really intentional about ingredients, not just in food, but in skincare too, because what you put on your skin matters. That's why I've been loving 100 % pure makeup and beauty products.

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15:08Just Ingredients:Now back to the show. Okay, so did you feel better right away?

15:15Lindsey:Yeah, so I would have really seen apnea. I think it was like four to six weeks, which probably isn't recommended, but I just was so desperate for help. So I came home and was more exhausted than I've ever been in my life. I had just felt like I ran like, I don't know, a marathon. So exhausted, went home and crashed. But I noticed changes pretty quickly. It wasn't night and day, but my body as it adapted to kind of the new thoughts, I called my family the next week and I was like, you guys, I'll have to get and do this. And she told me, I'll probably want to come back. And I'm getting to the point where I want to come back because the anxieties are now starting to creep in.

15:49Lindsey:And she said, that's actually really common. It's like you fix the trauma response. But then the anxiety of experience in worst case scenario before kind of creeps in. And it's fine to book another session.

15:59Just Ingredients:Interesting. Well, you probably were exhausted because your body was in that fight or flight for so long that it finally was just like, oh, like I can relax. I can breathe like every muscle in your body was able to relax again. Yeah, I know people do like a second one, like they start creating it and it probably is you hit your year mark. That's a huge milestone and it's time to fix some other things.

16:23Lindsey:Yep.

16:23Just Ingredients:Nope.