Offering Spiritual Healing to the Betrayed Katy Willis Betrayal Trauma Coach
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Offering Spiritual Healing to the Betrayed Katy Willis Betrayal Trauma Coach Kurt: Welcome back to another session of the Liberating Saints Virtual Summit. Today we are talking with Katy Willis. How are you, Katy? Katy: Fabulous. How are you, Kurt? Kurt: Nice. Now I'm going to claim that you're standing in front of a blue screen. That's a fantastic background. Where are you right now? Katy: That would cut me short if you did that, Kurt. Right now I am in Lava, Idaho. I have been finishing up some training for yoga. So I get to have this gorgeous backdrop for real. Kurt: Looks like a great place to do some yoga for sure. Tell us a little bit about your background and maybe about your story that's going to lead up to what we're going to talk about, what you'll cover today. Katy: Sure. I guess I'll be back up. During our engagement, my husband let me know he had struggled with addiction basically, his whole youth. He had gone on a mission, was a returned missionary with a temple recommend. As I prayed, I just felt it really reconfirmed that it was the right decision to marry my husband. I almost felt like Heavenly Father was like, "Katy, this doesn't change. What you now know, that's the only thing that it changes is what you know. There we go. It doesn't change that this is still a good choice for you." Then eight years ago, I had another D-day when I found out that my husband Mark has been relapsing in pornography and sex addiction. 1 I feel like I'm coming with a really unique combination because in addition to personal experience with the betrayal trauma and these things that we're talking about with the summit, I have also used those experiences and the pain and the difficulty in finding resources and healing as fire under my feet to now be very passionate about helping and supporting other women. So for me, I feel like the combination for healing for betrayal trauma is a body, mind, spirit combination. I can talk to you from, again, personal experience, physiologically, what happens when I go into trauma. I can talk to you about having my brain bounce back out, my nervous system shifting, my body literally shifting through yoga and neurofeedback. But now, as a professional, I teach yoga classes to kids, adults, and soon to be parents. I'm also a brain specialist. I'm trained in a protocol called Quantum Neurological Reset Therapy. It's basically balancing the brain and resetting the nervous system, where trauma not only changes our beliefs, but there are real physiological changes to the body from trauma. Then again, mentally, I can talk to you from years of Addiction Recovery Program, LDS 12 Step, spouse meetings, SA Lifeline meetings, healing through Christ meetings and working all those steps. We also spent several years in the lifestyle therapy program. That is the program that Geoff Steurer - I noticed he was another one of your guests - works for. Again, I can talk to you professionally as a life coach. We can talk about the mental, emotional aspects. From a personal standpoint, I can talk to you about spiritually what that was like to feel completely whittled down in my faith and at a crossroads of trying to figure out how to navigate things spiritually. But I can also talk to you from the standpoint of Mark and I having served as stake addiction specialists for our stake in the Brigham City South Stake for the past two years. I also have the great privilege right now to serve as Stake Relief Society president. Sometimes those two callings I feel like they just kind of blur together. In summary, my background is personal experience, but then also experience in turning and helping to make the path smoother for other women. Kurt: That's awesome. I think this is a crucial discussion because there's been talk about betrayal trauma in this conference, and it is crucial aspect, especially for leaders loved ones around the addict or individuals that are struggling to understand. Because it's easy to focus on the person with the problem, and we forget those that maybe are traumatized the most in this process. From your perspective, if someone isn't familiar with [00:05:00] betrayal trauma, how would you describe it to somebody? Katy: Can I describe it as a brain geek and anatomy and physiology, because that's what speaks to me? Dr. Kevin Skinner had a book that came out in 2017, I believe called "Treating Trauma from Sexual Betrayal." He interviewed over 5,000 partners or spouses who were sexually 2 betrayed and then compiled his findings in this book. There was an original study done, I think it was about 12 years ago now that concluded that almost 70% of partners or spouses develop most of the symptoms of PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, which is a major mental health illness. To try to paint this in a relatable maybe way, if we were to line 10 partners or spouses up in our ward or in our stake or our friends, seven of them are going to be dealing with major, major trauma. From a brain standpoint, what that means is, when we go into trauma, it's not like I'm like, "Oh, I'm triggered. I'm going to totally freak out." Like I'm in the middle of the grocery store. It's not something that we choose, it is physiologically wired. Our brain is trained to protect us. Because the last time that something like what's happening real-time present moment happened, then we got hurt. So the brain is going to kick in to try to protect us if that makes sense. When a woman is in trauma, when we are having a trauma response, we literally do not have access to the part of our brain that is responsible for logic, and reason, and rational thinking. We are in that same part of the brain. Say, if, Kurt, I threw something at your face, if I could through my magic screen, what would you do? You'd block it, right? It's that instinctual, protective portion of our brain. So, that can be a really scary place when physiologically your body has changed and mentally, emotionally, you are wrestling intensely, like we'll get in later, with feeling like... Let me maybe make it personally. When I was at the very beginning stages of healing eight years ago, it was so hard to know what was really true. Does that make sense? Because of the experiences that I had, it felt like the lies were real. The lies that I was not good enough, that I'm not worthy enough, and etc. So mentally, emotionally that can be a hard place. And spiritually, as well, as I said at the beginning, that that can be a scary place to navigate when you're trying to figure out how to integrate this new life story, this experience when you're faced with complexity and a paradox, basically, for many of us spiritually. Does that paint a picture for what betrayal trauma is? Kurt: Yeah, it's helpful. I think like you talked about in different contexts, there's a physical part of this, there's a mental part of this, and where you're going to focus on - and I'll pull up your slides here - is the spiritual healing. There's a spiritual part to this that an individual goes through. I think throughout this conversation, we're going to be talking in the context of this experience with women, even though obviously when there's a betrayal of trust that happens even for men. You know, they go through this. It's a human experience. But I think, in this context, we'll focus on the women's experience. But there's a spiritual part to this that maybe leaders and loved ones need to consider as these unfortunate circumstances unfold. 3 Katy: Yes. And to piggyback off of what you're saying, I feel like, in order to get to that spiritual part, we need to spend a few minutes on...The first few of these principles overlap more I feel like into the mental, emotional. But if we skip those steps, we will not have the privilege of working with somebody at the spiritual level. They just will not be open to that and we will not be able to listen. So are you ready to jump in then? Kurt: Let's do it. Yeah. Katy: Okay, great. Principle 1. This is establishing safety. I feel like something to point out with this is, long before an individual [00:10:00] could come to us saying, "Hey, this is what's going on in my life. I'm really struggling with betrayal trauma," we have to establish ourselves as a safe person already. Because if we are really hard-hearted, if we are difficult to approach, then why would somebody feel safe to even take that vulnerable risk with us, if that makes sense? I loved one of my trainers this week at the training that I'm at. He said, "The majority of healing is caring, not brilliance." If we have our own agenda then individuals will feel that. So we are there for them, not for ourselves.