Transforming Pain into Power
With Cory Scott
All of us experience pain at some point in our lives, and it can sometimes feel impossible to move past hurtful experiences, however when we can open to the possibility that our pain can in turn become our greatest power, miracles can occur!
This week I'm talking with my friend and colleague Cory Scott. Cory is a partner, mother of two, and lover of the elements. She fancies herself a performance coach for witches and a liberator of inner children. Formally, she is a licensed clinical social worker, a certified EMDR therapist, VITA™ sex, love, and relationship coach, and 500 RYT yoga instructor. She is fascinated by the relationship between ancient tantric teachings, our human experiences, and neurobiology. She shines most brightly in the darkest places, although she is often caught dancing in the light, and loves to plant seeds and watch them grow.
Tune into this episode for some gems on how to use connect to your power inside.
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PLEASE EXCUSE ANY MISSPELLINGS AND GRAMMATICAL ERRORS, auto transcribed.
Amanda Testa (00:02):
Hello, and Welcome to the Find Your Feminine Fire podcast. I am your host, Amanda Testa. I am a sex love and relationship coach, and in this podcast, my guests and I talk sex love and relationships and everything that lights you up from the inside out. Welcome.
Amanda Testa (00:20):
Hello, everybody and welcome to the podcast this week. I am very thrilled to be talking with my friend and colleague Cory Scott, and I just love talking with Cory because she is such a genius of information and just, I love her spin on how the things that happen to us in life don't have to necessarily be the things that take us down, right? They can be sources of power and empowerment and becoming more resilient. And Cory, she is a, a partner she's mother of two, and I love this. She fancies herself a performance coach for witches and a liberator of, of inner children.
Amanda Testa (00:59):
She's a licensed clinical social worker, a certified EMDR therapist, and she's also a ViTa sex and relationship coach and a 500 hour yoga instructor. And we actually met through the ViTa coaching program cuz we're both senior teachers there and I just always love her insights specifically around trauma healing and how it doesn't always have to be such a scary heavy thing and really how we can all benefit. We were just talking before we started recording too, how like all, it would be such a benefit to our society if some like just basic tools <laugh> would be taught to us at an early age. So I want you to talk about that and it just made me think. I remember when my daughter was in kindergarten, they were doing body mapping, which I was just like celebrating the teacher so much. Cause I thought, wow, wouldn't that be really cool? Well, if I'd have learned that when I was, you know, six versus 36, <laugh> how old I was <laugh>
Cory Scott (01:50):
Yes, yes, absolutely. Yes. But welcome.
Amanda Testa (01:53):
Thank you for being here.
Cory Scott (01:54):
Ah, thank you for
Amanda Testa (01:55):
Having me, Amanda, is there anything else that you'd like to, to say, to introduce yourself or, or share a little bit about you and your story? Yeah, I been
Cory Scott (02:04):
Sure <laugh> yeah, I mean, my path personally has been a long path of personal development, trauma healing, and really finding my own resiliency and power in the, in the process. And so I spent the majority of my professional career working as a therapist and have recently in the last few years transitioned to coaching and teaching. And it's really combined all my areas of interest in this beautiful, magical way where I get to work on, you know, really kind of, I guess, high level functioning, right. Rather then kind of working with pain as the path to stabilization, right. Wanting to see symptoms reduced and a level of functioning that you know, is generally accepted. Be the goal. Like if that is the model of therapy moving into coaching, I really it's been so fun for me to take the skills and apply them to performance, to empowerment on a greater level.
Cory Scott (03:13):
And I'm just so in love with my clients in the work that I'm able to do, it has also been this beautiful combination of yeah, all the yoga studies and mindfulness, self pleasure, you know, all, all that work that really, for the majority of the last 15 years I have felt has been very personal. I mean, I did bring some of that into my therapy work for sure. I did some yoga within group settings and, and used mindfulness techniques, but it's a different ballgame now, like really being able to use, use my skills in a, you know, really kind of Emergent sort of co-created way that, that builds on developing this resilience and this personal power that that is, I'm just almost like addicted to it. Right. It's just so delicious and we all have it and yeah. Anyways, I'm excited to talk about it.
Amanda Testa (04:13):
Yes. I love it. And I just, you're not, you can't see Corey right now, but just even like her lighting up, she's talking about it. I'd love, you would share a little bit more about, you know, what personal power means to you.
Cory Scott (04:23):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think one of the big sort of cornerstones of personal power to me is the ability to choose, right? Like choice is such a huge piece of that. And when I see people who are really high checked by a trauma response, that's one of the first things that we often notice. Right. And it, you know, like sometimes people name that kind of like the victim mindset. Right. Which gets a really, again, like I think a really bad rep, but the, the, the internal sense of like, I don't have choice here. Right? I can't maybe control, what's popping up into my head. I'm having these intrusive negative thoughts. I'm having intrusive memories. I'm just getting flooded with emotion, right. There's not a sense of choice or power and control over what's going on internally. And then of course this also impacts external like relationships right there as the internal world is getting more and more or chaotic, you know, the it's, it's also showing up in the external world.
Cory Scott (05:26):
And so having that sense of like, okay, I can choose where I put my attention. I can choose even, you know, how I'm gonna approach this situation. Right. That's a basic mindfulness skill, but it's also a huge piece of personal power being able to pause. Right. I think it was Victor Frankel who said something to the effect of between the stimulus and the response there's a space, And in that space is your power and trauma really collapses that space. Right. You know, and, and we lose that, that sense of, of choice that comes in the pause between what we're taking in from the outside world or the cues that are coming from our internal existence, and then how we respond to that.
Amanda Testa (06:08):
So good. I love that. Thank you for expanding on that because I do feel like, you know, what you just said there about finding that space and the choice, how that is possible. Like in any situation you can get to that. Right. And I think, you know, we were speaking earlier on this too, is that there's I loved how you said, you know, a lot of times work around trauma can feel so heavy and big and scary, but really we're all, it's just the way we respond to things and it's not like good or bad, it's just what is right. And so when we can kind of have a better understanding of it, it doesn't have to be so heavy and scary, and there are ways to go about working with triggers and all of these things that aren't so scary. Right. I'd love to hear you share more about that.
Cory Scott (06:46):
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, I like to tell my clients that trauma healing is kind of like we get to do the dessert PO first <laugh>, that's how I like to talk about it. And, and, and I think it's important, right? Because to live with a lot of unprocessed trauma can be so incredibly painful, right? It, it can feel like, I don't know if I'm gonna have a good day or a bad day, again, that lack of choice, that lack of power and control is so often such a huge theme. And so, you know, starting with the dessert course to me is like such a, such a perfect <laugh> way to work with something that's hard and heavy. It's like you get to have the, the sweetness, the goodness first. And, and I think it's a really important piece. And, you know, when I first started to do this work long time ago, I really wanted to get to the meat and potatoes.
Cory Scott (07:35):
You know, it was like, what are those traumatic exp says, how are they stored in the body? Right. How can we like resolve this? And the longer that I worked with folks, the more I realized how important that dessert course is. I mean, probably it's nutritionally speaking, like not the greatest analogy because obviously, you know, dessert, nutritionally is not, not so good for us, but the course in trauma healing is extremely nourishing, right? It's like that a drink of water when you've been thirsty for a long time, it doesn't resolve all of your health issues, but it really helps like get some balance going. And so, you know, to me, the, the dessert course includes containment, right? Being able, you actually differentiate things that have happened in the past. The, the sensations that come along in the body with that experience, the negative beliefs, the emotions, the images, right.
Cory Scott (08:32):
Being able to actually externalize them and put them away in a container. This is BA one form of containment. It's a really basic kind of external visualization process. But for folks who can use a container, it's so incredibly helpful, and this is one of those skills. I think every kindergartner needs to have a container, right? Because it's just like, even without thinking about like big T shock traumas, we all carry around for most of us, a level of kind of chronic stress and worry and concern about things that aren't happening right now that deplete our energy and degrade our self-esteem. And maybe, you know, we havoc in our relationships sometimes too. And so this ability to kind of differentiate, to say, wow, this is a real stressor. I, I need to deal with this, right? It's not repression. It's not suppression. I'm not pretending like it's not there.
Cory Scott (09:23):
I'm acknowledging it, but I'm saying, you know what, I'm gonna get this out to look at it when I'm ready. When I have support, when you know, I, I have time carved out, out in my schedule and an intention, but right now is not the time for that. And I'm, and I'm gonna actually put it away, put the lid on my container, clear it out of my body in my mind. You know, I think that's that to me is one of the most important ingredients in the dessert course. There can be a slow path to, to containment. It can take a while to kind of strengthen that, the ability to set something aside. But it is really, to me, that's the first step in regaining power and control over your internal environment is like, oh, this happened, right. It's passed. And yes, it's charged. Yes.
Cory Scott (10:09):
There's a lot of unresolved energy and issues with it, but I get to choose when I get it out and look at it, how long I look at it. Right. And I can, I always know when I get it out that I can put it back away again. And so that's a big piece, right? And then all the resources that, that we work on at the beginning of any kind of trauma healing, right? Establishing a sense of safety, of power and confidence. These are all things that are like the necessary area ingredients to establish so that when you get in to get the trauma out, it's ready to, you know, integrate and link to those positive resources, to that sense of power and control. I can survive. <Laugh>, you know, challenging situations they pass. It helps the body to really be able to come into the present moment and, and feel all of that goodness, and, and actually link it to those adverse experiences and patterns that we carry. So good.
Amanda Testa (11:07):
I love too, you know, when you are talking about having all the dessert makes it easier to then go in <laugh> yeah. Versus like the, the opposite <affirmative> and you know, one of the things that I, I think is so powerful that I often see as well is just that, you know, PE so many people have this fear, like, oh, that I just don't wanna attempt to deal with that. Like that's too much, blah, blah, blah. <Laugh> when really, I feel like it's more of just becoming who you are in a way. Right? Like we, we often just define ourselves by certain patterns that aren't necessarily true, right?
Cory Scott (11:43):
Yes. <laugh> totally, absolutely.
Amanda Testa (11:47):
And so people might think, well, I don't need that. I mean, I never had anything bad happen to me, so I didn't even need to worry about it, but it is like you were saying earlier, not necessarily the big Dettra shock trauma, but just like little things, like little patterns that repeat. And I have, I'll just share one quick, funny story about this, because we have a joke in our house though, whenever something is lost that I need to go look in the dumpster because that's like a, my immediate go-to like, I'm freaking out, it's gone. It's in the dumpster. And I laugh because I know that's not true, but literally I just had this experience today where my mom, you know, she loses her keys. She's always she's. We joke that she has a little bit of O C D like everything's super clean, always.
Amanda Testa (12:20):
So as a kid, like everything was just like gone and probably in the trash, if I lost something <laugh> so that's where it stems from. But I was just laughing cuz literally she texted me. She's like, think goodness, I found my keys. They were out in the trash can and the trash man was about to come. So I got him just in the time and I had to send that text to my husband and I was like, see, this is where it comes from. And we laugh so hard. Cause like little things like that, that can cause like these crazy fights in the house, like you need to put things where they go. They're not in the dumpster, whatnot. But those and how those little silly things show up in your relationship. Right?
Cory Scott (12:52):
Absolutely. Absolutely. Amanda, I mean, yes. I, to me trauma healing and the principles and even process of trauma healing is so much bigger than shock trauma. Right. And, and this is where I like to think of, it's not like, do I have trauma? It's like, where, where do I have it? And yeah. I mean, if you think about, if you back up and look, look at the big picture of trauma as an unsd stress cycle held in the nervous system, right. It gets stored in my, my way of thinking basically under one of three primary kind of negative cognitions or negative beliefs, th these negative themes, right? The one is safety vulnerability, right? I'm not safe. I can't be trusted, no one on the planet maybe can be trusted power and control, which is what we were just talking about. Right. I can't handle it.
Cory Scott (13:46):
How many times do we think, do we get overwhelmed and think like, I can't handle this it's too much. Right. I mean, perhaps there's a incomplete stress cycle sitting over right underneath that thought, right. I'm helpless. I don't have any, there's no way out. Right. Those are all power and control themes that, that are so classically trauma responses. And then the third category, which I think so many people identify with is defectiveness and responsibility. So it's my fault. There's something wrong with of me. Right. All that low self-esteem negative self-talk is so often sitting around incomplete stress, just like, like you described, that's such a beautiful example of something that really impacted you and stayed with you and created anxiety and stress. Right. And even shaped your identity and how you enter act when you lose things. But it's not abuse from your mother. Right.
Cory Scott (14:40):
And, and it certainly wasn't intentional. Right. I mean, you know, there are probably lots of kids that grew up in homes that were really chaotic and, you know, would have dreamed of a really tidy, clean household. But yeah, we, we impact each other like as humans. Right. And, and these things stay in us. And so to me, trauma healing is this like incredible gift. I mean, it, to me, it's true empowerment work. You can't really separate the two. And it's hard to do any kind of, I think, integrated blasting empowerment work without addressing trauma because it's, they're so connected. Right. And the way that we think and feel about ourself and see ourself in the world is often painted by our vulnerabilities. Right. We kind of have these negative bias brains. And so, yeah, it's a, it's such a big, big piece of, of who we are and how we see ourselves.
Cory Scott (15:41):
And we have so much, we have so much ability to, to tap into that and tap into our potential and heal. And yeah, I think that piece is what I really want the world to know is that this isn't actually complicated and you actually have everything in your brain and body and nervous system to integrate, to heal, to feel like, you know, the powerful, confident, beautiful, vibrant being that you are. It, it can just be a few piece is that that are needed, you know, to, to have a little bit more support, a little more awareness, a little more attention, and VO comes together. <Laugh>
Amanda Testa (16:22):
So it's so beautiful too, when you just see that in a body that you're working with. Right. Because they do, it's like that blueprint comes online and it's just a beautiful thing to witness. So often. Yes. I just am like in all of my clients, because really it's there, it's all them. Right. It's just allowing that piece to come forth.
Cory Scott (16:42):
Yes. Yeah. And it's a lot of times to me, to me, it is inside the pain, right. It's not separate from, and, and I think this is so important because we can feel like we need to, to like resolve our issues or somehow neutralize this pain in order to feel good. And it, I would propose that it's actually the pain itself that becomes the power and the pleasure. Right. And that to me is so hopeful <laugh> because then the, maybe the, the way to think about that is the more pain you can feel, the more powerful that you are. And I think there's so many people that just feel so overwhelmed by the amount of pain that they're carrying unresolved grief fill in the blank. Right. And yet there's, there's so much depth in that there's so much potential for love and growth and goodness, you know, and it shouldn't be something that we have to carry around, like a Scarlet letter. I welcome.
Amanda Testa (17:35):
I scar that letter. It's true. Because I think even just in my own experience of how I handle things compared to years ago, right. When there was zero coping tools, I had zero coping tools <laugh> so it would usually mean like, oh, I'm gonna go and like drink or whatever I need to do to not feel the thing or to not deal with it. And so, I mean, even today, for example, like this morning, something reminded me of when my dad passed away. And just so I just, I think in the past, that kind of thing would just be a lot harder to deal with. But now it's like, you know what, I'm gonna give myself 20 minutes and I'm gonna just be with this and I'm gonna drink some tea and I'm gonna walk the dog. And then, you know, do things that I know nourish myself where that was not something that I would really pay attention to.
Amanda Testa (18:18):
Like I would just wanna push it away, blah, blah, blah. In the past <laugh> but it's really, but like you say, like once you desire with it for a minute, it it's like moves through and then there's, there's like good stuff under there and it's, and it does, it makes me realize, wow, you know, how beautiful today is. And isn't it amazing that I have such a deeper appreciation for all that I have because of that experience and how much closer I am with my mom and my sister, all the things that come from that. And also there's something else that I, that you mentioned that I really wanna dive into more it's just around the, like that interconnected piece. Like when you feel more whole and heal, then there is that sense of interconnection with the planet and like how important that is. So I would love if you would speak more to that, if you don't mind.
Cory Scott (18:58):
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I think there's a lot about trauma healing. That to me creates that sense of interconnection, right? There's something about grief is such a powerful portal and such a beautiful example of pain that brings us the can either isolate us and shut us down, right. Like completely, or it can also, it has the potential to bring us incredibly intimately connected to one of another. And to me, grief is like the rupture that opens us to love. And so early on in my therapy career, I'm taking a, a little side trip here. I'll get back to the interconnectedness, but I think grief is, yeah. I think grief is such an important topic too. And I, I do see it like very connected to trauma healing, but, you know, I had this kind of sense. I was like, I think those of us on the planet who are really resistant to doing the work of grieving, we like shut ourselves off from loving, right.
Cory Scott (20:05):
And look around the people in your life who aren't very loving <laugh> and know are very difficult to love and who you feel like, Ugh, I wish I could just give them some love or why are they <laugh> so unloving toward me, it's an inquiry. Anyways. I would invite you to just question, do they have a lot of unresolved grief? Is this someone who has really had some significant loss in their life? And that could be loss of a loved one, but it could be loss of skills or an identity, right. Losing a job, all of these kind of necessary and unfortunate losses that we experience when we don't let ourselves be kind of broken open by that grief. It's very hard to show up and give and receive love. And yet the gift of grief is that it, for me, in my own personal experience with grief, it's, it's enabled me to love in ways.
Cory Scott (20:59):
I never thought I could before at depth, I never knew before. And you know, this is that, that pain as the portal to power and pleasure and love and aliveness and interconnection, right. That, and that, as we go in know, this is kind of taking some of Leanna Silver's work from feminine genius, that idea of like the rupture and the rebirth, this pattern and this sort of cyclical name that we're, we're all moving through. And, you know, trauma healing to me is about leaning into that rupture, being able to hold your center, stay in your window of tolerance and move through to the rebirth, same with grief, right? And, and these are when we're in that when we can lean into that cycle and hold ourself through it. And we know it in our body because we've been there and been broken open by some of these really, you know, painful and unfortunate situations that we often face in life.
Cory Scott (21:58):
It gives us this sense of like, I'm a part of this cycle that's going on around me. Right. I have compassion for the other people in my life who I see struggling. I can join with other people in the beauty and magic of the rebirth when they're in their highs. You know, I can be them there with them in their lows. And, and that sense of like, I'm not in competition with other people I'm in connection, right? These are all pieces to me of trauma healing. I mean, from a, from a really kind of perspective, but doing that work of learning how to hold our pain, learning how to, how to lean in and process through it and feel through it and, and trust that the rebirth is on the other side.
Amanda Testa (22:40):
Yes. Yes. I'm wondering too. Maybe if there's anyone out there listening, who's like, yeah. You know, I am in pain right now. And like, what would be maybe one thing I can do in this moment to feel if there is one little step, what might you offer?
Cory Scott (22:52):
Yes, absolutely. Well, I think really recognizing it. Okay. So, so the first step I'm, I consider myself an integrationist and in there are steps to integration. They're very simple. And the first step is differentiation, right? So this means I need to differentiate my pain from my pleasure. I need to differentiate like this experience, this trigger that I'm having from my identity and who I am. Right. So, so differentiating like, okay, I'm Corey. And there is a part of me, there is an experience that's getting actively in my body that says it gets flooded with shame. And it says, I'm just worthless and I'm no good. Right. And so being able to kind of like differentiate, that's one part of my experience. It's not all of me, it may feel it may be flooding me right now. And it may feel like all of me in this moment, but there I, I am a human being who has more experiences than just this one.
Cory Scott (23:54):
Right. So really kind of getting that perspective, which can be very challenging to get. Right. But recognizing, this is just one piece, this is just one experience I'm amongst many and then potentially right. Even tracking like, okay. And when I really sit and feel and observe that I can recognize that it's connected to some of this unresolved junk, let's say from my past, right. From relationships, can I put that away from a moment? Just, just for right now, put it away. You put it in a, you know, imagine a chest, a trash can, whatever kind of container you want to imagine. Put it in there really actually like, feel yourself, take it out of your body and put it away, put the lid on it and then, and then try on the opposite. So if the words that are really zapping you right now are like, I'm worthless, then try on the opposite words.
Cory Scott (24:50):
Right? So I am worthy. Let's say I'm worthy and deserving of all of the love and joy. That feels like a nice power statement. <Laugh>. So there is, there's a process that I really, really love. And I think it comes, I'm not actually sure of its origins, but I've used it for a long time. It may come from some hypnotherapy, but it's this visualization process where once you have your power statement in your mind, right? Whatever the opposite of that negative thing you just put away and contained is, and you can let it be simple. Then you picture out in front of you, a circle it on the ground. You can close your eyes. We can, we can do it right now. If you want to and see this circle and pick one of your favorite colors, maybe a color that, that really resonates with these power words.
Cory Scott (25:40):
And once you've got that color, go ahead and fill up the circle with the color, let the color take over the whole circle. And then imagine putting those power words into the circle. So you can see them in the circle and write the words, fill up the circle, stack the words on top of them, layered on top of each other. And once the circle is completely full of your power, our words, just pause for a moment and then leave the circle and the words on the floor and come back into your body. And now imagine that your body is like a teapot and pretend like you can empty all the stress, just out the side, like you're tipping over and let it flow out. Let it drain out and down into the earth, releasing any stress in your body, a few breaths with this. And then once the stress is all out, go ahead and step into the circle.
Cory Scott (26:43):
Once more stepping into this colored circle, full of your power words and pull it on, pull it up like a pair of pants, like a onesie until the color. And the words are sealed around and inside you feel your power color and your power words, it's all around. And inside you filling you up, sealing this in and now imagine, or just pretend walking in the direction of your future and just the rest of your day and feel the words in the color in your body, getting stronger and stronger with each step you take into the future, feel it in your body, getting stronger and brighter, bring the color and the words through your body and seal it in and around you. And when you're done, you can take a gentle breath into your heart and open your eyes. And then anytime moving forward, when see that color you came up with, you can be reminded that this is your power color. I love, I love seeing it in the world around me. And you can just cue yourself, right? With those words, with the color. Some people are more visual than others, but it can be really powerful to use our imagination for good <laugh> right. I, this is another piece that I really, really, really love because so often our imagination reeks all kinds of havoc, but it's really a tool and a potential waiting for us to tap into and to harness for good, rather than, you know, all the catastrophizing and <laugh> that we do.
Amanda Testa (28:22):
Oh, that felt delicious.
Cory Scott (28:23):
Thank you. Just jump it in my thought. I love that. I was like, I think we need power words.
Amanda Testa (28:28):
Yes. I love that. And I think everyone, I mean, that's such a beautiful practice and it doesn't even, I mean, it's not like it took a long time either. And just like I noticed the difference in how I feel in my body and just my energy
Cory Scott (28:39):
Level. It's good to focus on the positive. Right? It doesn't fix anything and it's not, I'm not, you know, we don't do this to kind of whitewash or, you know, deny the pain, but it helps the body to recognize that there's there is power and there is goodness here too. And that's such an important thing to feed where attention goes, energy flows and neuro firing flows and they wire to together. And so it's, it's a wonderful thing to support yourself, to have, have these kind of internal resources that you can, you can rely on just like, just like you do rely on, you know, cash in your pocket to be able to like meet some of your daily needs. You know, you get hungry, you grab a snack, like you're gonna get down and, and need to grab a power color in a power words, you know? And yeah. And this is, I think, such an important piece of, of being able to care for ourselves and understand and relate to our stress response systems in ways that are empowering instead of kind of feeling like I'm a problem that needs to be fixed. Or I just can't can't deal with this it's too much. Yes.
Amanda Testa (29:49):
Ah, so beautiful. Thank you. I'm wondering too, is there perhaps a question that you wish that I would've asked and I did not ask. It's
Cory Scott (29:58):
A good question. I dont know I'm, there's not any questions coming up for me.
Amanda Testa (30:05):
Okay. Or maybe even just perhaps anything, any other thoughts that you wanna share around this? Or what else is feeling alive that you definitely wanna make sure that you can yeah. Just name. Yeah.
Cory Scott (30:16):
I think I just want to really name that's okay. Wherever you are. <Laugh> you know, this is such a, this is such a complex life to live and there are so, so many unpredictable and unmanageable elements to being a human on the planet in 2021. And if you just list to that practice and tried to follow along and felt like there was a huge wall between you and your power circle, you know, it's okay. Like that is really okay. And it might, it might behoove you to get some, some additional support if you couldn't do that. Right. Because, because that's okay. It's just also a sign that there, there are some obstacles to really accessing positive resources and, you know, that's a trauma response in its own. Right. So having self compassion and really reverence for yourself honor for your process, right. There are many people on the planet who cannot visualize, and then that practice was really alienating potentially to them.
Cory Scott (31:23):
Right. And it's okay. Like we, we have all this diversity in our neuro neurobiology and in our life experience. And so it's really about finding what, what resonates for you and honoring that instead of trying to fit yourself in, you know, to someone else's process. And I think it's so important that we all have people in our lives who really can reflect our truth and sit with us and be in connection wherever we are listening to us. And so I just wanna put that out there. Right. I think I, I kind of painted a really positive picture of trauma healing and, and it's okay. If does that feel positive to you right now? You know, that's, that's really okay. And, and maybe there's like one centimeter, one tiny little inch of space in you that feels like, okay, but maybe this could be a source of power and feed that.
Cory Scott (32:20):
Right. Like, because it really is. And if you had asked me 20 years ago, you know what I thought about trauma healing? I mean, I, I was just such a mess and I've taken all of the pain that, that the world heaped on me in the first 20 years of my life. And I've, I've really harnessed it in a way that it has, it has become my power. And so this is why I'm so passionate about this work and, you know, and making it accessible for everyday people, because we all live with stress, response systems and emotions that are hard to deal with sometimes a world that is terribly confusing to make meaning around, but we can support one another and we can, we can find empowerment. Like there really is a path through to the rebirth.
Amanda Testa (33:09):
Yes. Yes. Oh, so good. And I think too, like you just said, I think changing just things are changing in the way that we look at getting support. Right. Because I feel like a lot of the messaging that I got when I was younger is that, well, that's only if there's something wrong with you, right. There must be something wrong with you if you're asking for help from someone <laugh> right. Cause that first step too, of even just like asking for help can be so hard sometimes. Yeah. But yet there's so much available and just like kind of normalizing that we all need help <laugh> yeah. Right. And it's great to seek it and yeah. You know, whenever that is, whether it's just because like, you want to feel better or if there's something big you wanna heal or just, you want to be like, you know, proactive of like, how can I better work through things that are gonna happen to me? <Laugh> it's just, I think there's always a place for it. Yeah. There's never a wrong
Cory Scott (33:59):
Time. You yes. Well, if you think of your pain as your power, it really sort of changes the right. The, the perception of that, cuz it's like, you know, I'm like, oh, I don't feel like dealing with this pain today. Right? Like, oh next year I'll get it on a look at it. But if I think, oh my gosh, this is a huge amount of untapped power and potential and creative force and life force in me, then I might be a little more motivated to go in and, and tinker in that pain. You know? I mean, I think we all think about, I don't know, protecting our savings accounts or, you know, these other places where we gain some power right in the world. And I would love for us to think about our pain that way, how would we interact with people who are deeply grieving? If we saw them as incredible portals of power and love on the planet, we would honor their process and really give them more space to feel and be, and be slow and take that time. I mean, if we, as a culture saw that as a portal to power and love. I mean, I think all of these dynamics around healing would really shift in terms of our priorities, the time and space that we give to them. Yeah.
Amanda Testa (35:16):
That's so true. I sometimes think, you know, there are a lot of cultures out there that have a lot better ways of ritualizing grief and moving through things like this. I feel like especially, well, here I am in the us and I feel like in our culture, it is very much like two weeks back to work. Right. And that is not what it takes often to like fully go through the process. Right. Yes. And it's all very buttoned up. Right. So people don't necessarily cry or if they do, it's not really appropriate. Or like if you're at the funeral, you can't, I don't know. It's just, <laugh> I just think about these things like that kind of are the norm in our culture that are really not behooving healing. <Laugh> totally. I just felt like naming that. I don't know why I just gave
Cory Scott (35:54):
Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. Well, and if you see grief as a problem to be fixed, then it makes a lot of sense to kind of contain it, target it, knock it out. Right. Like kind of minimize it and move on, you know, and I did use the word containment there, but you know, you get my, my meaning. Like I, yes. I think, I think it is so important to see that, that worker, that coworker who comes back prematurely and has now suppressed a bunch of grief so they can show up, they're probably not performing very well. They might be taking out some of their anger and grief unresolved on their coworkers or even worse their clients. Right. Like, so it is, it is a big piece of kind of looking at more holistic health and wellbeing as a society, as individuals. What does success really look like if we're miserable and feeling all of this pain and isolation? I think it, you know, I think there's, there's certainly room for growth, for perspective shift and for some more space for us be able to be human and recognize the power in our humanity. And there's a tremendous amount of it and yes, absolutely.
Amanda Testa (37:06):
Yeah. The power in our humanity. I think that's a beautiful note to, to wrap up with, because it is. And I, and I think too with all that's been happening the past few years, it is a, a time of kind of real change in a lot of ways. Right. People are really kinda realizing like that the way it was is not working anymore and being human and allowing that and celebrating it and like coming together in ways to honor all of it so important.
Cory Scott (37:31):
It is. Yeah, it is. And there's, you know, there's pain and change there's grief and change even if it's good change. Yeah. And finding ways and spaces for that is again, just coming back to that interconnection, it's what brings us together. It's what brings all our internal parts together. Right. That sense of, again, we, we differentiate to link and integration, right. And differe like wow. Pain is an important part of the human existence. Can we give some space and time for that? That's kind of differentiation from the grind. Right. So that we can then link back together and, and really move forward in positive ways. So this conversation has been so much fun. Thank you so much, Amanda.
Amanda Testa (38:19):
Yeah. Thank you so much, Corey. And I'd love if you would share where everyone can connect with you and learn more about you, if they want to work with
Cory Scott (38:25):
You. Yes, absolutely. Probably the easiest way to find me is through my website. So it's Cornelia Scott, which is my full name, Cornelia C O R N E L I a Scott S C OT t.com. And you can contact me through my website. Yeah. And I'd love to be in touch.
Amanda Testa (38:44):
Thank you so much again, Cory for being here and thank you all for listening. I'll make sure to put all this information as well. And the show notes, you'll be able to find those@amandatest.com slash Corey Scott, C E O R Y S C O T T. And I'll put everything there. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening to the find your feminine fire podcast. This is your host Amanda test. And if you have felt a calling while listening to this podcast to take this work to a deeper level, this is your golden invitation. I invite you to reach out. You can contact me at Amanda test.com/activate, and we can have a heart to heart to discuss more about how this work can transform your life. You can also join us on Facebook and the group find your feminine fire group. And if you've enjoy this podcast, please share with your friends, go iTunes and give me a five star rating and a raving review. So I can connect with other amazing listeners like yourself. Thank you so much for being a part of the community.
Speaker 3 (40:11):
The.
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