HEALING FROM TRAUMA | Tina Meyer on Creating Light From Darkness | Rabbit Hole Reflections #7

** TRIGGER WARNING: This episode contains discussion of childhood sexual abuse and related sensitive topics. **

**Finding Purpose Through Personal Healing: A Survivor's Journey to Empowering Others** 

In this powerful episode, Tina Meyer shares her profound journey from victim to advocate as she discusses founding The Blue Butterfly Institute, an organization dedicated to supporting survivors of sexual trauma. With remarkable courage and vulnerability, Tina reveals how her personal experience with childhood sexual abuse and domestic violence led her on an eight-year healing journey that ultimately inspired her mission to create safe spaces for other survivors. 

You'll hear about: 

* Tina's personal story of surviving childhood sexual trauma and domestic violence
* The multi-layered healing process and how trauma impacts every aspect of functioning 
* How darkness can transform into purpose and opportunity 
* The importance of creating genuine safety in relationships and communication 
* The founding of The Blue Butterfly Institute and its mission 
* Practical approaches to trauma recovery that empower survivors 
* Why community support is essential for healing from profound trauma 

Today, as founder of The Blue Butterfly Institute, Tina combines her extensive background as an educator with her personal healing journey to provide free support groups, therapy services, and community education. Her work demonstrates how confronting our deepest wounds can lead to profound personal transformation and create ripples of healing for countless others. 

Through Tina's inspiring story and compassionate insights, this episode illuminates the possibility of living beyond trauma and reclaiming one's power to create a beautiful life despite painful beginnings. 

## CONNECT WITH TINA MEYER: 
Email: tina@thebluebutterflyinstitute.org.au 
Website: https://www.thebluebutterflyinstitute.org.au
Facebook: https://facebook.com/thebluebutterflyinstitute
Podcast: The Cocoon 

## CONNECT WITH LISA: 
All Links: linktr.ee/RabbitHoleReflectionsPodcast
Facebook: facebook.com/rabbitholereflections
YouTube: @RabbitHoleReflectionsPodcast
NEW EPISODES EVERY THURSDAY @ 7PM EST

Thank you for joining us on another journey down the rabbit hole! If this story resonated with you, be a light in someone's darkness by sharing this episode. Connect with our community on Facebook @rabbitholereflections, and catch our video episodes on YouTube @RabbitHoleReflectionsPodcast. Together, we're creating a world where shared stories of resilience light the way from darkness to strength. Through the darkness, into the dawn – I'm Lisa Van Slyke, and I'll see you next time.

Transcript

 Hi everyone. Thank you again for joining us here at Rabbit Hole Reflections. I am your curator, Lisa Van sle. Today we are joined by Tina Meyer. Tina is the founder of the Blue Butterfly Institute. She's a survivor of childhood sexual trauma and domestic violence. She spent the last eight years consciously healing the many layers of the impact of this trauma.

Tina, thank you so much for joining us. I'm so grateful for you to be here today and you're joining us from the uk so thank you for taking time outta your Saturday morning to join us here. Thank you, Lisa from Australia. Australia. I'm so sorry from Australia. That's alright. You don't need to apologize. So why don't you just go ahead and start where you want to and tell us about your rabbit hole journey.

Okay. It's interesting. I've just had my 54th birthday last weekend. Happy birthday. Thank you. Thank you. And I feel that I've done, as you'd said, I've been eight, eight years consciously healing my trauma from childhood and had done little bits and pieces before that, but for the last eight years it's been quite solid and intense.

And I thought that all of the big ticket items had been processed and released and sorted out until I hit my birthday last week when I had a little bit of a glitch. Let's call it a glitch. It was more like a massive explosion, but we'll call it a glitch. And what happened was I had not been able to express some needs that I had to my closest person in the world.

And I think that was as a result of the childhood trauma. And I'll explain why in a minute. And he ended up leaving as a result, just gone. And it made me sit back and go, oh dear, how did this happen? And I had to trace back to the why. And for the previous week, I realized I had been sitting in a space of disconnection.

I'd been a little bit disassociated from everything in my life. It was our first week of school holidays here, and I realized my mom had become a Jehovah's Witness when I was 13, 14 years of age, and we stopped celebrating birthdays, and I have struggled with my birthday most of my life. And I always questioned why.

And it was only through talking to one of my sisters that I realized that was probably why. The fact that we didn't feel we respected mom's choices, but we didn't feel validated ourselves. As people, so our birthdays became an issue of do we celebrate? We don't celebrate. What do we do about that?

And it made sense. And so I was able to sit down and what I've had a lot of tears this week and all that sort of stuff, but what I've realized is I've also grown so much that I didn't blame myself for what had happened. I can own my part in it absolutely. And do own where I was responsible for the breakdown, but I'm not blaming myself or hating on myself or going into any of those old stories of well.

Of course this was gonna happen. I'm not worthy and all that sort of stuff. And I thought this has been a really significant marker for me to see that. Yes, there are still things and there always will be things that come up that need to be processed, but I can do that. And I do it without the self blame and the self recriminations and the self-hate, which made me very happy.

Obviously I'm still very sad, but it's a, it is a different type of sadness. It hasn't. It sent me down the rabbit hole for the first couple of days and then I emerged quite quickly with my whole soul still intact, which was a surprise for me 'cause I didn't think that would be my response, which was interesting.

It's interesting that you mentioned that your, you are you were disconnected. I think a lot of us go through life disconnected and it. Even sometimes when we have a triggering moment or something that sets us off there, there's still that disconnect and a lot of us can't get back to. Ourselves, a lot of us stay continually disconnected.

When I reflect and it's because this person and I had not been as much in communication as we usually would be. And instead of me expressing that I needed a bit more communication, I got very scared and very fearful of rejection. So went right into that anxious attachment and that anxious attachment then made me behave in a more avoidant.

Way so that I was then taking space as well. But then I didn't know how to speak and I didn't know how to connect. And I think I was in free state for most of the week beforehand, which look, I believe that everything is an opportunity for us to grow and to heal and to learn. It's firmly, so everything negative that happens these days, I look at it through that lens.

And so this was no different. And I can trace back now, but at the time I didn't realize how disconnected I was. If that makes sense. So I was sitting in very much, I think that child trauma state again of, I don't feel safe, so therefore I don't know how to communicate and I won't communicate. And things happened because I didn't communicate.

You and I were talking before the show about my previous guest a couple of episodes ago, and he was talking about where he could actually pinpoint to childhood where his traumas had started and why he ended up taking the path that he did, because it really comes down to that childhood experience.

Yeah. You mentioned that you were in a regressive state where you were. Going back to that inner child aspect. Yeah. Where you needed somebody to comfort you. Yes. And now you have the skills to comfort yourself and to be able to soothe yourself and pull yourself out of your episodes even faster.

But it goes back to childhood. There's those connections with childhood. It truly does. And so the connections for me from my childhood stem from my mom and dad. My mom and dad were both from overseas. They met in Australia and got married in Australia. My mom stalked my dad basically into marrying her.

And we think now that dad was neurodivergent. On the autism spectrum. And so he didn't know how to get out of that. And so that, even though that wasn't what he wanted, he stayed in it. And then they had kids and they, he had to provide for the family. And they had a very volatile relationship.

There was a lot of domestic violence very early on with screaming and fighting and then hitting and violence. And so that's the environment I grew up in and was born into. Unfortunately, my dad was also my perpetrator, my, one of my main perpetrators of sexual abuse as well. And that happened when I was exceptionally young and continued for a fair few years.

I dunno exactly when it stopped, but then even though the sexual abuse stopped. The relationship repercussions for that continued all through my adolescence. Both of my parents have now passed, so I feel reasonably free to talk about them and when they passed, I had good relationships with both of them.

We had resolved a lot of that conflict. We'd resolved as much as we could whilst they were living. I had not resolved as much as I could because I continued to heal and had more glitches when they passed as a result of things that needed to be resolved. So there was a lot of sexual trauma and as I said, he was my main perpetrator.

I think what is very common for kids who have been sexually abused is we have no sense of. What the world is meant to be like because we're children. We grew up in the seventies, so there wasn't this mass social media or media impact on our lives. And so you grow up feeling that something's not right, but not actually knowing whether what's happened is wrong or right.

If that makes sense. It does. And yeah, and so it shifts all of your understanding of boundaries and of expectations in relationships and. Of who you are and your worth because something feels wrong but you don't know whether it is or not. And that moment of confusion I think I'm seeing now is ripples and continues throughout your life and where you're not quite sure because I've learned everything I have from TV and books and that sort of stuff.

'cause I didn't have any real life positive role models for relationships. Or relational building. But what I was saying, hello, welcome to my A DHD brain. What I was saying was that once the door is open to one perpetrator, unfortunately it then leaves you very vulnerable to others. So there were a few other men and younger men that came into my life that abused me as well.

I'm so sorry to hear that. Thank you for sharing that with us. That's okay. Thank you for your vulnerability. You mentioned the not knowing what life is supposed to be like because the people that are supposed to take care of you and protect you and show you how the world is supposed to work, how are not doing their best to be able to do that for you?

And that is very common in. For people in adulthood to figure that out. It's very common for that to happen. Unfortunately, I grew up in the seventies, the eighties and nineties as well, so for my time period when I was in high school, in the formative years, yeah. My teachers were very religious and very strict and there was a lot of love, there was a lot of love from them and guidance from them, but that was still, you didn't talk about family matters.

You didn't bring things like that to them and that's. Something that was very common for all in adulthood and here we are trying to adult and we're trying to figure out how to adult with all the baggage that we're bringing along with us. And I think the stigma and shame, especially around childhood trauma and sexual trauma, and it's still very real today.

So that shame and stigma in the seventies, eighties, nineties was massive. Yeah. And so the victims of childhood trauma did feel what I did, and a lot of the people I work with now. Felt very stigmatized. Like they couldn't speak. So my school friends knew bits and pieces when I was in year 11, which I was about 15, 16, no, 16, 17, sorry.

My dad abused me, hit me to the point that I had two black eyes, a swollen lip. And so it was very obvious that I had been beaten first time that it had been obvious. And I went to school and my friends all just went, what the. And people started to realize there was a life I was living that they were oblivious to because I hadn't shared it.

I didn't know that I could share it. I didn't know whether it was right or wrong. And maybe I deserved everything that I copped because maybe I, like I wasn't a bad kid. I was a good kid. I was straight a student, very quiet. Very much on the spectrum like my dad, I think. So like you just didn't speak about that stuff.

And a lot of the kids that I've. Like that I went to school with, that I've reconnected with as an adult. They've gone, Tina, we never knew that this was what you were and they were my closest friends just didn't talk about it. And I think the beauty of this more recent time is that kids. These days in Australia, I dunno what it's like in the US I assume it's similar.

They're taught and that this is not allowed, that adults aren't allowed to touch them inappropriately and so they're able to disclose a lot earlier, which means for them, I think that there's a lot less chance of them carrying that stigma and shame well into their adult years if they receive support that they need straight away.

So it's an interesting evolution. But it doesn't help those of us who grew up in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, and even with all of the awareness, it still happens. Kids are still absolutely being abused in one way or another. Here in the United States, teachers are trained more to look out for certain signals.

But when you have a perpetrator who is instilling fear. Or you even mentioned you just weren't sure if, is this supposed to be happening to me? Is this something I can talk about? We are creating a lot more safe spaces for kids to bring that to the, to the forefront so they can get the help that they need.

Absolutely. There, there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. There's still a lot of systems that need to be put in place to help people who have gone through that, but we, we are definitely, as you said the evolution of. What kids can do now compared to when we were children. Yes, there's a lot, there's been a lot of strides.

There just needs to be some more along the way. Yeah. And it needs to stop realistically. It really does our lifetime. But we're sowing seeds hopefully for change and hopefully that change will come. Because realistically, a lot of people who are perpetrators, not all have come from their own abuse situations.

I. Having said that, I think that's changing now with how much social media access kids have and they have that easy access to porn and all of that is rewiring their brain to expectations. And I think that's sad. And that's something that I think has shifted the whole story around sexual abuse for children.

'cause we find here as well that there are a lot of kids who are one or two years older or the same age. There's a lot more. Similar age abuse happening here in Australia than has been in the past. I think as a result of easy access to porn, and again, no shaming the porn industry. They have a role to play.

It's just the ease of access for kids when their brains are developing. That I find difficult to navigate. Yeah. I agree. There we don't shame here. And so thank you for saying that. And I'm not saying that you did, but yeah, we definitely we're love and light and I know that you definitely are because you have an amazing foundation and we'll get to, what you do in just a little bit.

But, everybody has the journey and the path that they need to take. Unfortunately, sometimes it's not a nice, it's. Lifting or soul along the way. So that does existence and you're right, we absolutely do need to try to squash it as much as we can, particularly for the next generation. Yeah.

Yeah. Just so that people can grow up healthy. But we all deserve to be loved and we are all worthy of love. And the journeys that life or the things, the opportunities for learning and growth that life presents us are all very different. And so I've had my very dark times in my journey where I've been very suicidal and self-harmed and, not so much drug and alcohol abuse, but only because I think I realized I have quite an addictive personality. And so when I feel like out of control with something, I pull back from it, if that makes sense. And I think that saved me from going down that path. And I think all of our paths bring us to the point where we are meant to be, where we can then start.

Empowering others and supporting others, even if it's just through sharing our stories. For me, the sharing of stories is vital 'cause it's what connects us all as human beings, right? 'cause none of us have the perfect life. I don't think I might be wrong, maybe some people so that we could. Our ancestors were storytellers.

They didn't have the written word at the beginning, so it was expressive and there was dance and there was a lot of action and just, these expressive stories to each other. And we've gotten away from that. But I do. We're coming back to it. I think that's a key thing that we're missing here in this realm, in this existence, is that we are not storytelling as much as we as we had, our ancestors had in the past.

But I definitely see a shift where we're doing a lot more storytelling. And it's important, like you said, it's important to share our stories because we heal a little bit of ourselves, but we also can help others heal when they see they're not alone and they, we can give them some. Some guidance, some advice, without actually coming out and giving them guidance and advice, but they can glean some wisdom off of our stories.

So I think that's, it's very important that we do bring the stories back, which is what we do here at Rabbit Hole. Yeah. Reflections is bring people's stories so that there's a connection to healing the world. We on a journey here to heal the world. And that comes through the creation of community, doesn't it?

Yes. Having a safe space where you know that you can share in complete vulnerability and you will be received. Yes. And we do that. So you mentioned that I have a foundation, it's called the Blue Butterfly Institute, and it's started, we're a not-for-profit charity here in Australia. We may, we do not charge our.

Clients for any of our services, and we hope to maintain that for as long as we can. All of our therapists are volunteers, so they donate a little bit of their time to support. So none of us work full time in the institute even as therapists and, the reason I started it was because when I was growing up, I didn't have anywhere to go that I knew of there.

There was nothing in our area that would specifically support that, and I. I was I'm a high school teacher by trade and I had a student who was very pregnant a long time ago now, and I was teaching her while she was pregnant. And then a few years after her child had been born, she, and she'd left school.

She reached out to me and she said, Tina, my daughter, the one that had been in her belly has been sexually abused by her, my partner's. Grandfather and we've taken it through the police, but they offered us support, therapeutic support, and there's been nothing and we've heard nothing back and we've been ringing and there's, she's not getting any therapy and it's been three months.

And I said, ah. I said, okay. And I had a alternative healing business at the time and I said, look, if you want me to speak to her, I will, and we can do some work that way. And she didn't take me up on that offer, and that's perfectly fine. But it did sow the seed for me of. If this is happening for them, who else is it happening to?

And digging in and going down that rabbit hole, I realized that quite often people were being offered support and promised support, therapeutic support for their children, and it wasn't happening. And we, I encountered that a lot more once I started the institute because people would reach out to us as what was their last.

Or their last opportunity at that time, and so it became quite obvious that. People weren't receiving the help they needed. And I said, man, someone really needs to start something here to create something so that people have some support around them. And then it gets into that whole thing of I'm someone, I could probably start something, heaven forbid.

And so I did, I. Put a call out on Facebook and said, look, I'm about, I'd already registered the charity or the not-for-profit. We became a charity afterwards and I said, is anyone interested in coming on here and joining a board and creating something? And I had a whole heap of about 15, 20 people put their hands up.

They came to a meeting four years ago. Almost to the day, and we started this journey. Then Covid came, we were locked down, so it moved online. But since we started, we've given almost a hundred thousand Australian dollars worth of free therapy people. Wow. And we run four support groups. So four safe spaces called the Cocoon in different areas.

One of them is online, but the others are in our local area. And so we support people. Through that. And we offer individual therapy that is not just straight counseling. There's access to counseling, there's access to emotional freedom techniques, tapping. We've got a yoga, meditation therapist on board so they can get into the somatic, moving it out of the body.

And so we offer these services to support people, but. At our last support group, which was a couple of weeks ago I said to the girls, I don't facilitate them anymore with Naomi facilitates them, but I attend sometimes. And I said to the girls, why do you keep coming back? And they both said, it's the only safe space where they get to be completely and unashamedly themselves.

And I just thought, all right, that's enough motivation for me to keep going. And it is. It's the creation of community. I think that helps the whole collective healing, and that comes down to all of us feeling safe enough to share our stories. I was on a podcast earlier today. I was interviewed on a, for a criminal defense attorney.

She has a podcast where she gets stories from people who are either a family member or a person who was in the system. We were talking about community today as well. Because you have a lot of families that go through something or you have parents don't know what to do when they're, when it happens to their children, and where do you go?

How do you support your child other than just putting them in regular therapy? There has to be a better way to give your kids the support that they need to get through something like that. But as a family member, you're also facing that trauma. Yeah. It's your, it's a different type of trauma, but you're facing that trauma, so it's how do you navigate that?

And it's beautiful that you. What you said, I need something. We need something. Somebody should start something. And you did that you create to help people. That's amazing. That's amazing. It's only in recent times I've realized that it is amazing. It's also been a lot of hard work and I've basically do two full-time jobs these days, but it is vital and look, we support victim survivors, but also their families or their nearest and dearest, whoever that is, because you are right. When parents find out about this, I've had a lot of phone calls just sort of crisis phone calls with parents whose kids have just disclosed to them and they don't know what to do with it, or they don't know how to make sense of it themselves, and there's that horrible feeling of blame and of having let their kids down when it hasn't been them because when.

There's sexual abuse done to a family member. It actually, you're right. It impacts everybody in that family and their closest people because everybody becomes in some way abused by that. Yeah. And it is hard to know what to do. That we very much push in the institute that we need to all talk about our emotions.

We need to talk about how we're feeling. We need to process them. We need to know that it was not. Anyone's fault who's involved in it beyond the perpetrators. They are the ones to carry the shame and the responsibility. It's not anybody else's fault. Hundred percent. Because it was something that was done to them.

And we really do push that. When someone discloses, the best thing you can do is just sit there and hold space for them and believe them. And that can be like when we sit and talk to each other and we active listen, so we nod and we might hold their hand or their arm or hug them as they speak, if that's what they want or feel comfortable with.

But it's just being in that presence and space and even just letting them cry, not feeling like you need to feel the silences. The most beautiful gift you can give a victim, survivor is to believe them. The second most beautiful gift you can give them is to be with them on that journey to the best of your capability.

And it's all right if that's not being there every day because everybody then needs a break. 'cause vicarious trauma is very real. So everybody needs to self care and self support. It's a hard road. Moving through the victim survivor journey as a victim, survivor, or as a friend, family member, partner. It's hard.

So what were some things that you did? I know you've talked a lot about your healing journey and where you are now compared to where you were then. What are some things that you did to start healing? I think the first thing that I did, I moved away. I had a lot of repressed memories, so I didn't actually remember everything that had happened.

Okay. Isn't it funny that my throat chokes up at that point in time? Timing and interesting. But so I went to uni. I went away for university Okay. To study. So I was away from the family unit and then the healing started. I think it's really important for people to realize they can't heal when they're in it.

You just can't because you've faced with the reality of the trauma Still, whilst you're. Living in a situation, even if the incidents occurred a long time ago, your body is still manifesting the trauma the same way it does and always has. And so I had to move out of the home.

And when I went to university, I was studying psychology and English. Okay. Unsurprisingly. And, I started to realize in my fourth year that I had some things going on that I needed to work with third year. Sorry, that I had some things that I needed to work through and I looked in the, I was in a very regional area, so country area.

Okay. But. Happened to be a sexual assault counselor at the local women's health center. And so I booked in with her and I sat down with her in my first session and I said, look, I've written out a list of indicators that suggest I've been sexually abused as a child. Can you have a look at them and tell me if there's enough for me to say that I have?

And, she looked at me and she looked at, took the piece of paper, turned it upside down so that she couldn't see it, and said, talk to me about you feeling like you've been sexually abused. And that opened that for me to be able to come and empower myself, not have it necessarily validated by someone else through my list of indicators.

And it started a journey for me. Unfortunately, she became pregnant and left and that was a huge betrayal. I'm joking when I say that. 'cause obviously she's, but it can feel like it, but it did feel like it at the time. And so that stopped my journey for a little bit. But I retreated into myself and started doing some of my own work.

Okay. Then when I moved back to closer to Sydney where I'd been where I'd grown up, I was then able to access a psychologist. So I did all that traditional stuff at first that we would expect indulge in a little bit of hypnotherapy and my brain wouldn't let me go in, and I was, I'm very relieved to this stage that I don't recommend hypnosis for sexual abuse until you've been through your journey enough to know.

I believe that the brain will release stuff to us when we're able to deal with it and not before. So we shouldn't be pushing it, but that's my personal take on that. And so I then started delving into the world of alternative healing therapies. So I had a reiki session with someone, so the energy healing, and I started on the.

On the, I don't ever do anything by halves. So when I had reiki and realized it was helping to soothe my nervous system and regulate myself and bring me calm and peace I decided I should become a reiki master. So I started that journey of. Studying and became a reiki master. I then had through that, went through to meditation, and rather than just going to meditation, I thought maybe I should become a meditation teacher.

So I started studying again, became a meditation teacher. Again, with, I felt called, with the emotional freedom techniques of the tapping. And so even having never experienced tapping the gods just told me, go and learn this. It'll help. It's time. So I went and did learn how to do that and became an advanced practitioner in emotional freedom techniques.

And then sound healing worked the same way and everything always worked the same way. And then like I've been, I dabbled with crystals, I've done affirmations. I do fully push affirmations 'cause they do help us rewire our brain. I've run women's healing circles. That community, safe community where people can share.

So bringing people together to share their stories, not just sexual trauma stories. But then I did start a, the first support group before the institute even came into being through my business, I ran a support group for sexual abuse survivors. And that actually then became, our model for that was six years ago, and that became the model for the institute to follow.

And so now we run the four groups. That first one still intact. And most of the girl, one of the girls who started six years ago in that support group with me is one of the one, she's the woman who runs them now. Very nice. Yeah, so we've, it's, it is a beautiful community that has been created by all of our collective energies, but my healing journey has taken on different things at different times.

More recently I've been working with an EMDR therapist who. Been amazing. And that helped me go into some of those memories that I had not been able to access and process them and release them and dissolve the emotional trigger of it. So I've been able to move forward and actually step into the role of being the leader of the institute.

Very nice. Yes. So really quickly, for listeners that might not know about the energy work that you're talking about and how you're moving the energy out of the body through the body to release it, can you talk about that just a little bit to give some of listeners who might not know a little bit of background?

Sure. So basically whenever something so trauma is. Not what happened to us, but it's how our body and our brains make sense of what happened to us. And often if we are not sharing it, we don't make sense of it. And it becomes trapped in the body as energy blocks if you want, or illnesses. And so the idea is if we can process.

What's happened to us and process where we store it in the body, we can then move through our healing journey. So our healing journey isn't just what happens in the brain, it's what happens in the heart, and it's what happens in the whole entire body. And so look, I carry extra weight. I'm carrying extra at the moment, which I don't like because I've just been under high stress.

And a lot of my weight gain is stress. Weight gain and it's trauma weight gain. So when I'm feeling unsafe, I will go into bad eating habits. And so I store that in the body. So to shift that I need, I can use different energy things like reiki to, or even yoga, meditation, to move through some of those blocks that ends up it's holistic.

So even though you moving blocks in the body, it ends up shifting your psyche. It ends up shifting the emotions as well as the stuff in the body. Does that sort of make sense? It does. And I'm, I. Follow those types of practices. So thank you for explaining that to listeners, but can you tell us the difference between reiki and tapping?

Sure. So Reiki, the practitioner for reiki is not. They're not necessarily holding space for you the same way someone in a therapeutic type session would Reiki, the Reiki person who's administering, no, that's not administrating Who's facilitating that space? The energy comes through us, and so we've all got this energy.

Once you're attuned, you can use it more consciously and so the energy comes through and it's more, at the very least. Reiki is relaxation, so you will feel very relaxed as the energy works its way through your body and it goes to where you need it most. It's very gentle and even when it is supporting you to shift whatever's happening in the body, it's very gentle.

And it works its way through tapping. The facilitator of that space actually needs to check in and clue into the person they're working with, and it's through words and statements that we come up with. So the facilitator will hold that space and guide that session. So they are. The effectiveness of the facilitator will support the level of healing a person can go through, and tapping is on the acupressure points in our face and top part of our body.

And it works on dissolving the energy. So you say the negative things. So for example, I'm feeling very anxious. I'm very anxious. I'm very anxious. I feel very anxious, I feel, and so you're owning the emotion. And the idea is that as you tap on those points and you process the feelings and the thoughts, the negativity dissolves and you keep tapping and shifting the words on the tapping until that dissolves.

So it's a little bit more consciously directed by a facilitator, whereas reiki is more peaceful. Can somebody do their own tapping if they can't be with a facilitator? Look, there's a lot of things on YouTube that show people how. I personally think yes, if I think most people prob some people probably could.

Is it as effective? No, because when you're a facilitator of the tapping, I'm reading the whole body and the energy in the face. I can see, you know how my. Voice choked earlier. Yes. When I, yeah. So I can read that and go, okay, there's something happening there. Let's unpack that and go deeper into that.

Whereas if you're doing it yourself, you may not pick up on that 'cause you're so focused on the other thing, the idea is about surrendering. So yes, someone can do with my clients, I suggest too, like I give them easy things they can do if they're feeling dysregulated, like tapping on your collarbone. I am safe.

I am safe. Or tapping hard like we do with. Babies on their bottoms when they're dysregulated to bring our body and our nervous system back into regulation, everyone can do that. An actual full tapping session. I suggest you find someone who's accredited. It will just be more beneficial. I. I was not expecting the show to go in that direction, but thank you for explaining that to listeners.

I'm a firm believer in tapping. I do like to listen to podcast, not podcasts, but videos and do some self-guided tapping, but I'm definitely gonna have to do more with a facilitator because it sounds like I might have better luck is not the word, but more success if I actually have somebody that does it with me.

Yeah, who's holding the space? So it's again, that sense of we're all worthy of being supported in our healing, and we all deserve the very best from someone. Not every strategy works for everybody. I've been through a very alternative type healing process for myself. Someone I know other people who have been in traditional therapy for 10 years, and it supports them, it would not support me.

I've always had to stop and start and change different things depending on what it is I'm working through and what I'm releasing. So I think everyone's different, but I would always recommend going with someone who is accredited. I had one very bad experience. In therapy. When my dad died, I had a lot that I needed to work through, obviously, and understandably, and I went to someone that I thought would be the right person, and she was, in terms of what I learned, she put me into a meditation and I became activated during it, it was towards the end of our session and I had gone back into quite a debilitating memory that I had no prior knowledge of.

And I walked out of there activated and frozen and unable to even let her know that I was not okay. And. What I, and then she didn't check up on me, and what I learned from that is that I always need to check in and make sure that my clients are grounded before they leave and that they have access to me outside of the session because we don't know what a session might bring up and I can't, I personally cannot leave them without that support.

As part of that support is them learning then how to empower themselves. To do their own work in between sessions. So it's an interesting dilemma being a sexual abuse therapist or trauma therapist because it doesn't fit straight into an hour session, and then you've got that every week or every two weeks.

It's a different type of therapy, which is what we practice in the institute. That's a very valid point and something that. I've experienced therapy where I left more confused than when I started. Yeah. And I, I didn't wanna go back and I was very anti therapy for a long time. I found a great practitioner who gave me skills during sessions that if I saw something was happening, between sessions, I could go back to those coping mechanisms to.

Ground myself to bring me in the present, not in the future. Not in the past. Just try to bring myself right back to where I was because I would get stuck in the pattern of. The what if, trying to fix it in my head. But you can't fix it because it's already happened.

Yeah. So the, having those coping mechanisms was great for me and listeners, it's very important that you have the support outside of those sessions as well. So I'm glad you brought that up because I, I think a lot of people experience that and they don't go back. And therapy is not a bad thing.

Everybody. Everybody can benefit from therapy. Absolutely. It does not mean there's something wrong with you. Everybody can benefit from therapy, so thank you for bringing that up. All a therapist does is hold space for us so that we can work through and process what's going on in our lives. And we all deserve to live the happiest, most fulfilled lives.

And it's the things that are done to us or how we process the things that happen around us that impact the way we view the world. And sometimes just having someone. Help you unpack. That is all you need, right? It doesn't need to be long-term ongoing. It can be just isolated incidences of therapy when stuff is too much.

Exactly. Tina, this has been a great conversation. I wish we had more time, but we're coming to the end, so I want to make sure that listeners will be able to find you. I believe in your institute and I'm so glad that you're here. I don't like the word institute. That sounds too sterile, I do believe in that.

I'm. So glad that you were able to share your story. And I do want, before we leave, for you to be able to tell everyone where they can find you. Yeah. And, but I would also like for you to leave a couple of nuggets for listeners. You've talked about so much and because you talked about so much, it could put somebody in a rabbit hole of, yeah, what do I do next?

What do I do next? So what would be one or two pieces of advice that you could give listeners right now before the next step? All right. We have to always trust that we are enough and that where we are in our journey is where we are meant to be, even if it is horrible. That's the first one. The second that everything that happens to us, every experience we have, positive and or negative, is an opportunity for us to learn and to grow.

The third thing is everything is. Or as I choke, again, everything is temporary, so this darkness will C. There will be light. We just sometimes have to hold on to wait until the light comes, but it will come. It is always there. The world is always, or universe is always in equal measure of light and dark.

So we have to sometimes go through the dark. We do have to go through the dark to get to the light and, but it's temporary. Everything is temporary. If all else fails and you are really struggling, go and stand barefoot outside on the grass or on sand or on the dirt in the bush. Look up to the sun.

Close your eyes. Take really deep breaths with an a physical exhale on the breath, and keep your eyes to the sun and feel the warmth and come back into your body by experiencing that sensation. And if all else fails, go and brush your teeth because that shifts your perspective like you would not believe.

That is absolutely beautiful. That's more than a couple of nuggets there. But yeah, that, no, that was absolutely beautiful. You touch, you almost had me in tears with a couple of those. I was like, yes. And that's what you shared here is exactly what Rabbit Hole Reflections is trying to do. Trying to spread that hope and that love and that inspiration so that people have what they need, in the immediate to be able to then take that next step because so many of us get so. Where we are because we're in the future or in the past and we're not necessarily in the present. Now of course, of the traumatic situation is going on right then and there disassociate, but for the most part, giving them that advice.

That's absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for sharing. Where can listeners find you? The Blue Butterfly Institute has a website. It's www.thebluebutterflyinstitute.org au. We're on Facebook, we're on Instagram. We're on LinkedIn. I am on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. But basically all social media and website outlets, people can reach us.

We run on donations, so if anyone, you know is a philanthropist and would like to spend. Any amount of money, but a couple of million would be great. Feel free to donate as well, and you can access that through our website. I say that a bit facetious. Call that into the universe. Absolutely. I love that. I love that so much.

And then you said you had a podcast or your foundation has a podcast? Yeah, the Institute has a podcast that you can find on Spotify, apple, everywhere that you get your podcast from. It's called The Cocoon. It's the same name as our support groups. Different branding, but the same name. So it's The Cocoon Podcast on Apple, Spotify, et cetera.

And we delve into survivor's stories there, but also we speak to academics from across the world who have explored different aspects of research in this field. And so it's quite a, it's a vibrant podcast. It's more for education and empowerment. Thank you so much for sharing your story, Tina.

I just thoroughly enjoyed having you here today. And listeners, her contact information will be in the description of the show, so if you are in need of some of her services, please don't hesitate to reach out. You can find those contact links and whatnot in the description of the show.

Thank you so much again, Tina. It has been a pleasure. Likewise. Thank you everyone. Thank you so much for joining us here at Rabbit Hole Reflections. I hope you enjoy the rest of your day.