72. The Pain You Carry Might Not Be Yours: How to Heal Inherited Trauma

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: The heaviness you carry, the anxiety, the exhaustion, the patterns you can't quite explain might not even be yours. It might be something that you've inherited. Today on The Authentic Path, I speak with therapist and healer Natalie Gutierrez, who is here to really talk through some of her books that she's given out to the world, specifically the Pain We Carry workbook, which is a real hands-on tool to heal complex trauma and reconnect with your ancestors' wisdom. And finally set down the pain you were never meant to carry alone. Welcome to The Authentic Path. I'm your host, Dr. Vanessa Calderon, Harvard-trained physician and healer. I integrate science and ancestral wisdom to support you in creating the success you desire in all areas of your life. I'm so glad you're here. Let's get started. Hi friends, welcome back to the podcast. If you have been with me for a while, you might remember my conversation with today's guest on my prior podcast, The Empowered Brain. By the way, The Empowered Brain, it's out there. It's about 180 episodes that I have left out published out into the world because there's so much good stuff on that podcast. Although I'm not recording new podcasts because they're all here on this one on the authentic path. But when I first brought Natalie on, we talked about her very first book. It's called The Pain We Carry, which is right here. And it was a book that on in all honesty, it really did change my life. I know sometimes people say things like that, but this one really did for me. that conversation has stayed with me, and I know has stayed with so many of you. And so I'm really just excited to bring her back. Natalie Gutierrez is a licensed marriage and family therapist. She's a curandera. Which is another word for healer, whose work lives at the intersection of clinical psychology and ancestral wisdom. She specializes in complex trauma, racial trauma, and the wounds that we inherit, not just from our own lives, which is really important to name, but from all of the generations that came before us. Her approach weaves in internal family systems together with cultural and ancestral healing practices. Her work has been featured on NPR, the Washington Post, and LA Times. And today, my dear friend, my teacher, Natalie is back. And this time, really to talk about whatever comes up, but especially her workbook that she created as a companion to her first book. So the first book again is called The Pain We Carry. And the workbook, if you're watching this on YouTube, is the Pain We Carry workbook. You can see it here. It is absolutely fantastic. so The first book names the wounds and this one walks you hand in hand with the tools that you actually need to do the healing. So I know many of you listening are physicians or coaches. some of you are healers yourself or your leader is simply someone who has felt the weight of the pain that isn't fully your own. if that is you, this conversation is for you. Natalie, welcome back.

Natalie: Thank you for having me, Doctora Calderon. I'm just so I just appreciate you so much and I appreciate just who you are and your support and also your medicina that you put in the world. So thank you for having me back. It's always an honor.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's it's been a while since we chatted on the podcast specifically. And I'd love for you maybe to just kind of let us know what have you been up to, since we've last talked. It's been about two years, I think, since we talked initially on the podcast.

Natalie: the time go where does the time go so my gosh so much has happened in the last few years as you sh as you saw as you've shown I came out with the workbook for the pain we carry and that has been such a wild ride I went on a book tour with the with the workbook which was profound A lot of people have been sharing with me how important this workbook has been for them. It is an extension of the first one. However, I think some of the questions that I get is whether or not you need to read the first before you read the second and and you don't. But I've been on that book tour. my gosh, what else has happened? I've been training with the IFS Institute as a trainer. For the Institute, and I have moved. I don't remember if I had moved when we last spoke. Yeah.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: It was right before you had moved. Right before you had moved.

Natalie: Yes. So I am now currently living in Puerto Rico. It's been two years, which is wild. And I still feel like I just arrived here yesterday in some ways, even though my soul feels like it's been here forever. and you know, I've just been in this place of also shedding layers of myself. You know, I it feels it always feels important to me to share with other people that I wrote this book for Voices with Low Majority. And also I I'm not healed from the things that are spoken about in this book. And that always feels important for me to say, right? I'm I'm a human that does therapy, I'm a human that does writing and I'm also a human on this healing journey. And I'm so I'm also healing from the very things that I that I've written about, that I've spoken about in this book, or in these books. and so, you know, navigating that on this on this journey. And then I also starting September 1st, which I believe is next week, I am releasing the Spanish version, Borfin, after after four years of the first book being released. I am releasing the Spanish version of The Pain We Carry called El Dolor

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: I

Natalie: que llevamos, which is

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: I just know that the that what it takes to get your book translated and this is the first language of many that it will be translated in and I already know my Thias, my Thios, the people that I wanna buy this book for, because everyone deserves to be healed from from the wounds that we've inherited. Everyone deserves that. Everyone deserves to live every day with a little bit more peace. And so I'm so excited. I am just, I am overjoyed that your book is being translated into Spanish because I said this when I first interviewed you two years ago when I first read your book. how like it was transformational for me and it really created this friendship that I have with you now because the book changed my life. I then approached you as a teacher and a healer. And I just I just think that you the magic, the medicine that you bring to the world is just so powerful. So I'm so happy that it's being translated. So for those of you listening, if you have a Tia, a Theo, a cousin, a parent who does not speak English, I would just really encourage you to consider looking. and I would just invite you to check out the book, see if it's something that speaks to you. before I start, I wanted to ask you a quick question. I wanted to name something that you said. You said I am A therapist, and I'm still on my healing journey. And I think it's so important

Natalie: Yes.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: to name that because so many people I'm sure that you work with, and I know so many people that I work with in the healing spaces and in my coaching spaces, there's this assumption that there will come a time when we are completely healed, when things are complete. And I think it's sort of a misnomer and it really creates more so much suffering and so much pain for people because. That assumes that there is a level of perfection that you are sort of striving for. And, you know, as as humans, our soul is here to evolve, and our soul will continue to evolve until the very ends of our days. And the way we evolve is to go through our lessons. And sometimes that's pain and sometimes that's healing. But we need to continue to do that for the rest of our lives. And so I am here as a beginner, even though I've been doing this work for over 10 years, you know. I was telling Natalie before we started that I I know that I am whole and complete, but that doesn't mean that I don't have more healing to do or more more of me to get to meet, to get to know. And so I love that you said that. And I just wanna remind everybody listening that the journey is forever and I pray

Natalie: Yes.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: that my journey never ends.

Natalie: Yes, yes. I feel like, you know, we're evolving. Just like nature evolves, just like nature has seasons, we also have seasons and we get to meet different parts of ourselves along the way. And I you know, I wonder, do we ever stop knowing who we are when we're Consistently changing. We sh we shed layers, right? Like the culebra, like the snake, we shed layers and we shed this we shed skin and we have new skin and then we get to know ourselves in that way. And then there comes a season where it's time for us to continue to release and and the the we carry that original blueprint with us, right? But there are also so many parts of ourselves that we're still meeting sometimes for the first time.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Mm-hmm. Yeah, you know, I I have this Theo. I call him Theo Javi. He's a he he comes from the Toltec tradition and is a shaman. And he says, every day on your birthday or around the new year, he wishes that you get to know yourself more. He says, I wish for you for this year to get to know you could be 60, 70 years old, and that is his wish for you. Because, you know, the journey is in this life, how much deeper can we get to know ourselves? Really, for me, the way I think about it is. so that you can love yourself even more. Like how much can

Natalie: Mm.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: you get to know yourself so that you can increase the

Natalie: Yes.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: capacity of love you have for yourself.

Natalie: I love that. I love that. I love that. Especially because we could be at any age, right? We can be at any age and we can still, it is still gonna be important that we love ourselves, that we fully see ourselves, that we fully accept ourselves as we are.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yeah, totally. So I'd love for those of you that have not read The Pain We Carry yet, which I know there are some of you still out there, would you mind Natalie just sharing maybe in a sentence or two what the first book, The Pain We Carry, is about?

Natalie: Mm-hmm. So it is a love letter to folks of a global majority that essentially say, Hey, you know, that that that trauma that you might be carrying or that anxiety or that depression or that pain, though those wounds that you carry that feel hard, maybe at times to look at, they may not actually be coming from you and they might really be The suffering and the pain that you've inherited, whether it be from sociocultural systems and the and the cultural isms and cultural trauma, or they're coming from historical trauma and generational wounds. Not because you're broken, not because there's something wrong with you, but really there is something wrong with all the things that have happened to us in our lives, that have happened to our lineages, and that even continue to happen today systemically.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Hmm, powerful. So, so so so powerful. And and we know through the science of epigenetics that if something happened to your great-great great great grandmother, you're going to feel that in your body because that stuff gets expressed in the way your genes are expressed. And so it's really important for us to understand those connections because without healing that we hold on to that. And then we we make it our own. We personalize it. And then it's really hard to de-identify from that. So I think it's so beautiful the way you write the book. And for those of you that are going to check out the book, I'm so excited because it's written through sort of like case studies, through stories of some of your past clients, it sounds like. And think it just allows people to really dive in and see yourself in these stories, which for me was really instrumental in my own healing that came through for me when I when I read your book.

Natalie: I'm so glad because that that is exactly what I wanted to be. I want people to read a book. And for me it was important that people when they read that book, that they were hearing my voice, that it was kind of like you're sitting with a friend, you're sitting with a trusted person, and you're like Hey man, I'm feeling this way. And that the other person across from you was not trying to fix you because you don't need fixing because you're not broken. you need support. You need holding. And it's okay to feel vulnerable. And you know, the book, the first and and the workbook invite people to take something in and then like let's pause now, right? Let's not try to take it all in and oversaturate ourselves with this information because that also is not doing any justice. To us? How do we just in bite-sized pieces take what we have read and just be with that for a moment? Really be with that. There's no rush

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yeah.

Natalie: to finish the front to the back cover. There's no rush to do all these exercises right away. Can we just be and trust your intuition as we are as we're being, right? I really wanted people to read this and it'd be a healing experience for them.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Mm. It's powerful. You know something that I've been noticing, and I'm curious what your thoughts are on this. I have been noticing a lot of openness in the discussion of what you name as complex trauma, which is kind of ancestral generational wounds, patterns, healing that. And I've been noticing it in sort of the collective consciousness where a lot of folks are being called to the to either do their own internal work. Or after you do your own work to s to support the the holding space, the healing of others as they do their own work. And what I've noticed, and I'm again I'm curious what you think about this, is I'm noticing that the healing is happening at sort of a I fa fast is maybe not the right word because time is maybe easier, it's flowing more, but it does feel like like

Natalie: Mm.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: people are healing sort of faster. Like maybe just something is happening in the collective or people are more receptive or more open to this, but Maybe we're being supported cosmically or astrologically, I don't know. But it feels like there's a hu huge support for this work. So it just feels so timely right now.

Natalie: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I I feel like to your point I agree. And I feel like I would call it a remembering. I would call it a remembering. And and in my first book, you know, I had written like you know this already. Like this this on a soul level, you know what it is that I'm sharing. We just forgot it, right? Because we forgotten for many reasons, because many of us because society says, Hey, you have to like go and produce, you have to do this, you have to do that Some of us are working three jobs. Some of us are trying to, you know, juggle work and our family life and we're doing so very imperfectly because how do we do both perfectly? It's just so hard. It's so hard, and so there's so many ways that we're just kind of pulled apart and maybe even navigate life on autopilot, just kind of like having to turn it off, because we've just been in crisis mode so much of the time. so we know these things. These the the things that I've talked about in this book, on a soul level we know them. On a soul level we know them. And so it feels like now. there's a there's more of a remembering a more of an awakening a more of a remembering of like wait a minute I this does feel right this does feel right this sounds right like on a cellular level this sounds right I think that's what's happening

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yeah.

Natalie: for people. I think some people could wake up a little faster but but but but I think what we're seeing more is that it's really resonating with people. People are remembering like hey

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yeah.

Natalie: This is this is what it was or this is how I used to be. Or I it doesn't have to be this way. I don't like how it is this way. And and if you're suffering, I'm gonna suffer. I think people are really realizing the interconnectedness who of us, right? Of who we are. And if you're suffering,

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yeah.

Natalie: I'm gonna suffer. I'm not gonna be well if you're not well.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yeah, absolutely. It is definitely resonating at that level. And the the author of the four agreements, he says the reason why his book that's so simple resonated with so many people is because it was it's it's just integrity, talking to integrity, which is it what I think sort of what your book is doing, you know? Integrity. It's tr it's a capital T truth speak and people are feeling

Natalie: Mm.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: that at a soul level. It's just Resonating at such a deep level. I think that that's really powerful. Really incredible. You know, I you said in the beginning that people have asked you a lot of whether or not they need to read the first book before they read the second book. And you said they don't. I just want to echo that. I I have read both. when I started the second book, I was actually shocked at the new amount of information that was in there. The new, because my

Natalie: Mm.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: senses, you grew so much before. between writing the

Natalie: Yes.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: first book and the second book. And so what you offer in the second book is deep and and the I thought the first book just was like, whoa. So I I guess I I want to share if someone is interested in in starting with just the second book, you will gain a tremendous amount of wisdom, both from readings of what of just kind of the wisdom that you share, Natalie, but also how you support people in tapping into their own wisdom inside this book through the exercises. It's powerful. So I'm curious for you, whenever you were thinking about the second book, what made you decide that a workbook was needed?

Natalie: Mm. I was getting a lot of feedback about the exercises in in the first book and how do we expand on that? How we how do we deepen that? I already felt when we put out, you know, the first book, like this book is unfinished. There's so much more to say. This mo there's so much more to do. So I already had in the back of my mind, like there has to be, there has to be another one. But I said, how do we also break make this more practical for people? People want to do exercises and practices that feel like you know that that feel like they they're not it's not just here in the heady space, it doesn't live here, but it lives in the practical. It lives in what can I do right now to help me explore what it is that I'm feeling in the moment or to help me explore the pain that I carry or to help me connect with my intuition. How what can I do? What are the practical steps? We're talking about it. Great. But now how do I, what do I do? How do we pen to paper? How do how can I explore this in a way where I'm actually putting it into practice? So it felt like a workbook would be the direction to go to give people more tools to use to help them explore what it is that they're holding inside. It's not just for clinicians, it's for everyone. Right? It's for everyone.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: yeah, a hundred percent. And I love some of the exercises that you included. Some of them are thought exercises, right? Like think about this, but some of them were so powerful in that you tap into somatic exercises that people can do on their own. Where in your body does this live? And even even the exercises of draw what this would look like and draw what it would look like. Because you know, that taps into so many different parts of your brain.

Natalie: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: That we're not used to. And, you know, a lot of people, when you think about the concept of therapy, for example, a lot of people think about it as very narrative. Like it's just talking. And yes, a lot of therapy is talking. And there's so much healing that can be done through the voice. And there's so much compassion that can be done through sharing your narrative and story and having somebody just witness. And

Natalie: Yeah.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: when you can tap into all these other exercises, the ones that you put into this book that are so creative and so thoughtful. You're accessing so many different parts that are available for you to heal that you already hold inside you.

Natalie: Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Right. Right. And, you know, I wanted to invite people to draw too because I had also received the feedback of sometimes we don't want to write. Sometimes we don't have words to express. And that makes so much sense to me because we have, you know, we have like us, like we have the English language, but even that falls short of some things that soul wants to say. And so how do we draw it? How do we draw it? How do we draw it out? And I find that really powerful to not only express oneself through writing, but also to express ourselves through art or even through dance, right? But how do we externalize what it is that we're feeling so that we can look at it? There's something about us being able to see it through an image

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Mm.

Natalie: where we can s where we where we can just see and and and and and see how it resonates and see what comes up for us. But there's so many ways

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Mm.

Natalie: to connect with what we're feeling inside, but I think I think a lot of the time we need to externalize it to be in relationship with it.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yes. There's one exercise I'm I don't remember where specifically in the book this was, but you said, What is this what does this look like when you when you are feeling this and you ha I had you had us draw like who we were? And then you said, would it look like if you didn't hold this burden? And I remember being like, Whoa, like the imagery and it was free and flowing and I was like flying and it felt like sovereignty. And I was I was drawing that and I was like, Damn, that's liberating. Even just to draw it out, it was like

Natalie: Yes, yes.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: It was so beautiful. It was such a beautiful experience to me. At at the time when I was drawing it, I remember getting so emotional thinking like sovereignty, liber like liberation, freedom is possible.

Natalie: Yes, yes. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And part of for the workbook, part of the the title is igniting soul's liberation, right? Igniting your soul's liberation. We we think about liberation and we think about what happens outside of ourselves, but we also need to liberate ourselves. We also need to reconnect with deepen our relationship with our own intuition, with our own soul. And so that Really envisioning what our soul looks like, I I wanted people to do that because what I want people to take from this workbook is the question, and I ask it everywhere I go. I ask it everywhere I go. And sometimes it's a hard question, but I'll ask: what is the most liberated, freest version of yourself? What are you doing? Who's around you? What are you not doing? When you envision yourself free, what are you doing? Right? When you envision yourself without the burdens that you carry, beyond the burdens, who are you then? And that question takes us back to our original blueprint. Who we were before we became unfree.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yeah, I that's like the mic drop question. I don't even want to say anything. I'm a people, everybody sit with that. Pause, pause the podcast, listen to that, be with that question. Seriously,

Natalie: Yeah.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: that's powerful. And actually, I think that takes us into sort of the next thing I kind of wanted to to discuss with you, which is the concept of ancestral wisdom. You know, I just tell you from a personal experience, for those of you listening, some of you know the story already, but I come from a long lineage of of Indigenous healers from Mexico and from El Salvador. And I come from a father who's a mystic, and my grandfather also was. And so have been blessed to, and I'm also first generation, and so I'm very close to this lineage. And even though that's the case, I still grew up in a place where there was colonization, where that wasn't respected, where people tried to erase all of that story, you know. I grew up as a woman with you know, with the lineage of Guranderas and that with the fear of like the witch hunts and all that kind of stuff still

Natalie: Yeah.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: kind of like resonating through me. And so so even though all of that is true, I was still incredibly intimidated, afraid to access the wisdom that lived within me, but also lived within my ancestry. And it wasn't an and I knew that healing was my path so much so that I became a physician, you know. And Not until I tapped back in and it wasn't until way later in my adult life, 'cause I even remember as a kid when they tried to give me, like, you know, try to use herbs and all these other things to heal me. When I was a little kid, I couldn't fight against it. Like, yet if I went out for stomach aches, okay, and it always worked, you know. But when I became a teenager or a young adult, of course I was like, that doesn't work. There's no science. There's no

Natalie: Yeah.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: data to back that up. Anyway, and it took me bucking against all of that to finally come home to it later in life, you know,

Natalie: Mm.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: and And really apprenticing with it and learning it and just having so much reverence for for it, for the wisdom that lives within us. And and really just sitting as a student of the wisdom, you know? And so when we

Natalie: Mm.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: talk about ancestral wisdom, want to just ask you, like, what what does it mean to to be able to reclaim that? Like what does that look like, especially for all of us that are disconnected?

Natalie: Yes, yes. I love I love that question. because I feel like it's in in many ways very individual in the sense it it it may mean different things to different people. For me what it means is and what invite people to think about is How do we reconnect with our ancestors, our loving ancestors, right? Because we also have ancestors that maybe have aren't healed

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yeah.

Natalie: yet, right? And so when you and also I want to say that, you know, it for those of us that don't know our ancestors, right? That can feel really hard. And so I like to say the the ancestors known and unknown. because that You know, that feels important 'cause a lot of us come from lineages that have experienced enslavement, displacement, and rupt in our own ancestral lineage. But I invite people to see, well, who do you envision to be your ancestors? Because it it doesn't have to always be people. It it it is people and it can be people, but it doesn't always have to be people. the our, I should say, our original ancestors are really what we see every day when we go outside, the trees that have existed for thousands and thousands of years. does it look like to be in relationship with the elements, with the earth's elements who are also our ancestors? How what does it look like to be in relationship with, know, who we believe are our ancestors, whether they're connected through blood or whether they're connected through What's the word I'm looking for? Just folks that have maybe transitioned who we felt close affinity to. Right? What does it look like to be in relationship in that way with ancestors? And then the wisdom, the practices that our ancestors have practiced back then. We may not always do we we may not always have that opportunity to bring those exact practices in today, but what does it look like in your way? To practice ancestral reverence. does it look like in your way to connect with something that is bigger and beyond than just yourself? Because we come from people. We didn't just show up here, right? We come from people. And also there are folks around us that hold us. There are the spirits of trees, the spirits of our our other than than human kin are our our Furry friends, right? Our our furry family animals, right? All of that. Plant, plants that have the spirit of plants. How do we, how can we be also in relationship and be be in right relationship, I should say, and also glean the wisdom of them as well, right? Nature has so much to teach us.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Mm. It's so beautiful. And for those of you that are interested in, both of Natalie's books, The Pain We Carry and The Workbook, have exercises at the back to reconnect with your ancestral wisdom. and it's they're beautiful. They meet you where you are. If you are someone that feels like you're pretty connected, I guarantee you you will learn something new. If you are someone that you have you have no idea what this even means, but you're kind of curious, I Guarantee you it's going to give you a great place to start. So if this is resonating with you, it is a beautiful invitation to just tap in because we say ancestral wisdom, in my mind, I see and in my body and in my soul, what it means to me is your wisdom. This is your wisdom that lives within you through you. We just, and so

Natalie: Yes. Right.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: we call it ancestral because it is. It's it's a gift that was given to us from our ancestors. It's like every time I sit with cacao, I have a cacao ceremony every week. Every time I sit with cacao, the first thing I say is, thank you to my benevolent ancestors who put your wisdom into the land so that every time I'm with and with the sacred cacao, Isha Cacao, I am with the wisdom of my ancestors, you know, because it's the trees and it's it's every

Natalie: Yes.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: element, the earth, and it's it's powerful. So if if this is resonating with you, I I just recommend as a great starting point. Either the book or the workbook, they both have exercises at the end. At one of the I think it's closing to the closest to the end. There's chapters in there that w that help you reconnect and it's really beautiful, really powerful work.

Natalie: I'm so glad that it's felt like that for you, Doctora, because I want I want people to feel less alone in this world and I want people to feel more resourced and and it's it also feels important to me that people see that they have medicine within and that they have they have I mean it sounds cliche, right? But you have the power to hear yourself heal yourself, But you do. You are the source. You are the source. And and also we together are also our, I want to say anti-venom in this world

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Mm.

Natalie: that is so that is so painful, that is so that that perpetuates all these cultural isms and perpetuates these burdens onto us that we also have the power collectively and individually to say no. No, no. I will not carry this anymore. we really get to see who we are. That we really get to see who we are rather than what we've internalized from the from from what society says we are.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Yeah, a hundred percent agree. And the way you see yourself, right, is the more you let go of all of these things. You you mentioned something that just lands with me, I think, as an emergency medicine doctor, which is we are our anti venom. then the truth is we are also sometimes our own venom, you know, until we can

Natalie: Absolutely.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Because, you know, like if we've been living in this world that is is just frankly, objectively created by many oppressors, and we internalize that oppression, we become our own oppressors when we believe what we have been told. And it's it the programming is strong. We see it everywhere.

Natalie: Yes.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: It's in books and it's in movies and it's in it's all around us. And so

Natalie: Yeah.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: until you do this intentional work yourself. Sometimes we are our own venom. And what's

Natalie: Yes.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: beautiful about that is like what Natalie said, we can be our anti-venom. And you know, indigenous practices, there there's three source kind of basic medicines in in in in the indigenous practice worlds, which is the breath, which is sleeping, and which is water. And that's you that's available to everybody here. When you can sit with the breath. You my gosh. And I know I know you know how powerful the birth is, Natalie, but when you can create that pause, that moment, when you can observe the what the what the c what your consciousness is telling you because of what you've learned, and then start doing that from a place of purpose and intention, how healing that can be. It's powerful work.

Natalie: Yes. It is absolutely powerful work because when we lean into intention and are intentional about even so much as taking a breath, then there's something empowering about that. You're anchoring into yourself. You're giving yourself something that is free, right? That is free and that is yours. Right? And without breath, we don't have life. So you are giving yourself something more powerful and you're anchoring in that. You're taking a moment intentionally. there's so much empowerment in that. And the more that we do that, then we go on to say, well now I'm gonna do this and now I'm gonna maybe set more boundaries here and now I'm gonna do this. And we become we gain what's the word I'm looking for? Agency. We feel like we have agency rather than a just a learned helplessness because oppressive systems do want us to feel helpless. And there are certainly things that are without beyond our control, and there are things that are within our control. And those are the things that we have to get clear about within ourselves to navigate so that we reclaim ourselves, so that we we remember, so that we remember.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Hmm. It's the first time I think we've said the word reclaim in this episode. We use it a lot, I think, in the first one. And just self-reclamation, reclaiming who you are for yourself, just for you. Not because, not for anybody else, but just because you deserve to reclaim who you are, to look

Natalie: Yeah.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: in the mirror and say, I am. This goddess, this queen, this god, this king,

Natalie: Yes, yes, yes.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: whatever, you know, like I am that by itself, like we all deserve that work, which is why I'm just so grateful again, Natalie, that you have done your own work and you've leaned into your own gifts and your own curiosities and your own passions and your and that that have brought you to be this beautiful, skilled healer in this world that just holds this incredible loving, compassionate space and just allows others. To dissolve all the stuff that's holding them back, you know, as they let go of who they are. And you do it so beautifully. So I know we're getting close to time.

Natalie: I appreciate that, Doctor.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: So I guess I'm just saying now, Natalie, we're gonna have to do a part two, girl, because there's a lot we have not discussed. but as we wrap up,

Natalie: I'm here for it. I'm here for it.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: just as a reminder, the first book is called The Pain We Carry. when is the Spanish version coming out?

Natalie: September first, September first, twenty twenty six, so

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: my gosh. Oof. So like in two weeks. So in two

Natalie: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: weeks, the Spanish version is available for you to purchase for yourself, for your tías, tíos, dads, moms, everyone. I know I'm getting one for my dad. I cannot wait to get him a copy. And for his wife, because my dad just got remarried. So for both of them. Thank you. And then we

Natalie: felicidades, felicidades

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: have the Pain We Carry workbook. And again, you don't have to do the first one to do the second one.

Natalie: Yeah, right.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: You can start with either one. Just check them out and see which one is calling you. And they both offer so much wisdom. So I recommend getting both. but again, what I love about it, Natalie, is you people can take their time. There's no rushing here. There's

Natalie: Yes, yes.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: no there's no such thing as like a time when all of this has to be complete. So do it at your time. You know, do it when it serves you.

Natalie: That's right. That's right. It is so important to just take your time and honor your pace. And I say that often. it would be a bit hypocritical if I were to say read the book fast and finish it, because then that would not be honoring your intuition. That would not be honoring your pace. And I want to say, you know, it's even okay to not have to not do all the exercises if something just doesn't vibe with you, that you get to say no. And you get to say yes and you get to discern, discern what is for you and what isn't. And I want my book to be a tool in your own discernment, in your own healing.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: Hmm. Powerful. I will link your website in the show notes, Natalie Y Gutierrez. I think it is, right? Natalie Y Gutierrez.com.

Natalie: See.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: I will link that in the show notes. and I will also put the titles of your books in the show notes for those of you that are interested. But

Natalie: Thank you.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: again, I highly recommend you check it out and keep an eye out for the Spanish version. I think when this podcast goes out, it'll be right before the Spanish version comes out. So it'll be great for all of those that are interested. I love you so much, sweet friend. Thank you again for joining us.

Natalie: I love you. Thank you for everything that you do. Gracias. See you soon.

Dr. Vanessa Calderón: See and see you all next week. Adios.