What does spirituality have to do with healing from trauma and dependence?
In November 2023, I spoke with Lorraine Nilon, an author from Australia who describes herself as a soul intuitive. She works mostly with people recovering from childhood abuse and narcissistic relationships, and many of them have also lived through alcohol or drug dependence. We talked about shame, self-reflection, and what she calls chip away trauma.
This is an archive episode, recorded when the show covered addiction, recovery, and spirituality broadly.
How can a painful past become something to learn from?
At 1:19, Lorraine said she sees life as a school, where experiences bring up whatever in us is not aligned with who we really are. Early on, she kept meeting childhood abuse survivors who also struggled with substance use.
Documenting their themes became her book Breaking Free from the Chains of Silence. In her view, a person with a background in trauma looks for something that numbs or shuts down the thought process. So, she asks people to treat the past as reconnaissance. History cannot be changed, she said, but it can be mined for lessons.
What if someone is not ready for help?
At 4:18, I described a situation that frustrates many families: a relative asks for help for someone who does not want it, and nobody has really figured out how to reach a person before they are ready.
Lorraine was candid that she rarely works at that stage. At 4:57, she explained that the people she sees have usually been sober for a long time and are working through deep emotions they have been white knuckling. Shame, she said, is the burden most of them carry, like a backpack.
What is the difference between self-reflection and rumination?
From 7:20, Lorraine described much of her work as teaching people to reflect without getting back on the merry-go-round of self-judgment. She compared it to a jigsaw puzzle. You pull the pieces apart, keep the ones that make sense, and work out what is missing.
In her view, there is no recovery without self-reflection.
Can a childhood without obvious abuse still leave trauma?
At 8:33, I asked about people who say nothing terrible happened to them. Some grew up as the one who could never do anything right, and that pattern can follow them into adulthood.
Lorraine answered at 9:29 that trauma is whatever made a person doubt their worth or feel unsafe. Alongside the big events, she described chip away trauma, the steady wearing down that comes from bullying, constant comparison, or a narcissistic parent. Interestingly, she said people feel traumatized most when they feel unsupported, which can leave them open to peer pressure.
Her image for how substance use and other compulsions take hold was memorable. They sell a story like a glossy brochure, she said, and once a person buys in, they are left reading the fine print.
What does she mean by reading energy?
At 13:17, after I asked whether she worked like a medical intuitive, Lorraine explained that she reads energy. Everyone does this to some degree, she said, as when you walk into a room and could cut the air with a knife.
In a session, she described a cold read of a person’s emotional patterns, traced back to where they started. Still, she relies on the person to say honestly whether a read fits. At 19:02, she added that she separates a read from her opinion, because the only place she is taking anyone is their own freedom of choice.
What are reconnect, recover, and rejuvenate?
At 23:24, Lorraine laid out the three steps she uses. First, reconnect to the truth of yourself and to your own honesty, which is why self-reflection matters. Then recover from whatever wounds, shame, or trauma you are carrying, including your own negative self-judgment. Finally, rejuvenate your curiosity and your zest for life.
Her books are built around questions and journal prompts, such as “When did truth become the enemy?” In fact, she wants readers to engage, not just absorb.
How significant is one person in such a huge universe?
At 26:08, I brought up those animations that show the earth as a tiny dot among countless galaxies, which can make a person feel like nothing.
Lorraine answered with a beach: without each grain of sand, there is no beach. In her view, every soul is equal, and wealth, schooling, and skin color are just different experiences. At 31:06, I mentioned an idea I had heard about, that looking at old baby pictures or videos of yourself can help you fall in love with yourself again.
Why focus on the roots instead of the leaves?
At 33:51, I said that people who are highly intelligent, creative, and driven for success are often at the highest risk, and have the hardest time getting free. Lorraine said at 34:29 that this is not her area of expertise. Yet, in her view, everyone has some form of compulsion, and the question is whether it becomes toxic.
She recalled an older man at a workshop who said he was like an old oak tree, so busy keeping the leaves from falling that he never saw the man with the axe at the trunk. Her answer was that the roots and trunk have to come first.
What happens when a person stops listening to everyone else?
Near the end, Lorraine did a reading for me from her book. I picked a number and a paragraph, and the passage that came up was about independence. From 40:20, I talked about how true that felt. Even in a job I liked, with a boss I got along with, I knew I was not meant to work for someone else.
Unfortunately, an earlier attempt at our own small clinic had failed, and I had been taking everyone else’s advice about it. This time, I decided it would work out no matter what. At 42:28, Lorraine said that was the point. I had found what mattered to me and worked with what resonated, rather than what other people said I had to do.
Why does a belief that resonates last longer than one that is forced?
At 44:45, Lorraine explained that people push back when someone tries to control what they believe. However, she said, many people in recovery hold on to a belief system by sheer effort, and when it starts to wobble, the old patterns pull them back.
What changes things, in her view, is a catalyst, a moment when a person decides to put intent, purpose, and meaning into their recovery. At 48:50, she said some people call her the mapmaker or the compass. Of course, the person still has to do the work.
Who is Lorraine Nilon?
Lorraine Nilon is an Australian author and self-described soul intuitive who works mainly with survivors of childhood abuse and narcissistic relationships. She has written three books, including Breaking Free from the Chains of Silence, and hosts a podcast about trauma recovery with a spiritual focus. Her books and podcast are listed on her website.
What can listeners take away from this conversation?
In Lorraine’s view, trauma is not only the dramatic event. It can also be the slow wearing down of a person’s sense of worth, and she linked that to the peer pressure through which, she said, a lot of substance use begins. Lorraine’s message was that honest self-reflection, without self-attack, builds a foundation strong enough that old patterns lose their pull.
How do I approach this today?
Today my practice focuses on helping people come off benzodiazepines and other medications gradually, and on medication for alcohol and opioid dependence. Physical dependence is not addiction, and the safest way off is usually slow.
This page is educational. It is not medical advice, and listening to the episode or reading this page does not create a doctor-patient relationship. Decisions about starting, continuing, or tapering any medication should be made with your own physician.
Full transcript
A note from Dr. Leeds: my guests speak from their own experience and expertise, and the terminology they use is their own. Whatever the topic, this show holds to one distinction: physical dependence on a prescribed medication is not addiction. This transcript is educational content, not medical advice, and nothing here creates a doctor-patient relationship.
Read the full transcript (50 minutes)
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:00] Lorraine Nilon, welcome to the podcast.
Lorraine Nilon [00:02] Thank you for having me on board.
Dr. Mark Leeds [00:05] So I’m really excited to hear about all the things that you’re doing. I, you know, I’ve looked at your books. You have some really incredible books out there and your website. And I love the spirituality that, you know, things about helping people with addiction and the focus on spirituality. And, you know, and I’ve been thinking about spirituality a lot. Just the other day, I just want to tell you before we get started, I was at the airport. […] and I got lost. I was following the map, and it took me into these weird back airport roads, and I had no idea where I was. And then finally, I was going up this bridge, and the sun is shining through the clouds right on me. And I’m going up, and it’s like something out of a dream. And it was the most beautiful vision of driving up this bridge and seeing this light. […] And I’m thinking, wow, is this the best moment of my life? I think I’ve just reached the peak of my life. This is really great, this spiritual little driving thing. And then also that thought, wow, this doesn’t get any better than this. But is this what everything life is about? I don’t know. What is life about? What are we here for? Talk, let me know.
Lorraine Nilon [01:19] That’s a big question. To be honest with you, I look at life as a school, like a university. You know, we’re in here, we’re meant to learn lessons and we’re meant to have experiences that are going to flag up the stuff in ourselves that’s not aligned with the truth of who we are. And I also work on the policy that everyone is unique and got their own style and their own journey, to use the cliche, but it’s a cliche for a reason, your own journey to find and understand yourself. And that’s what spirituality is to me, is it’s about accepting that you’re part of a bigger picture, but understanding your story and keep that development and self-growth moving, not to become stagnant and when I look at addiction you know I do I deal a lot with sort of addiction to victimhood so when I first started working so I class myself as a soul intuitive I’m not a clairvoyant I’m not going to tell you your future but I can read energy and I read emotional energy really well so when I started working with people through different sort of modalities. I started having abuse, childhood abuse victim after childhood abuse victim, which also had a lot of addiction problems as well. But they were also addicted to their own victimhood. So I started documenting and that’s where Breaking Free from the Chains of Silence book come from. Took me 12 years to document all these different themes that people were struggling with and if you’ve got a background in trauma then what you would be looking for is something that dulls down or numbs down or shuts down the thought process so and that’s where you know other addictions come into play and so a lot of the time what you know because I come from a spiritual sort of very grounded spiritual it’s very feet on the ground understand yourself approach to it is that once I could get them to understand that they could take lessons from where they’d been and what they’ve experienced and use that for personal growth, all of a sudden you had people that were excited about, instead of shameful, excited about grabbing the opportunity to get the lessons out of where they’d been. And I always call it reconnaissance. Okay, we can’t change history, we’ll class it as reconnaissance. Now what can we take as an opportunity to learn from that? And the stronger that we understand ourselves, the greater our foundation is, which then becomes like a protective mechanism to all the negative emotions that we feel and negative thoughts. So, yeah, that’s a little simple answer. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Leeds [04:18] Yeah. And now the thing with addiction is it’s a difficult thing to especially in the beginning when a person is first starting to recover. I mean, there’s also even before that, there’s that first stage where a person doesn’t even really want help. And that’s very frustrating for the for the family. You know, I don’t know if you’ve ever had those calls from somebody, a family member, and they’re like, I need you to help this person. They don’t want help. You know, they want to keep using drugs or drinking. But we need you to figure out some way to get through to them because we can’t get through to them. And I don’t think anyone has really figured that one out, you know, that until someone’s not ready, they’re just not ready.
Lorraine Nilon [04:57] Yeah, true. And see, to be honest with you, I don’t deal very, I’ve had rare occasions where I’m dealing with that stage. I’m my clientele have always been people that have had sobriety for a long time and they’re looking to move forward in their, you know, their spiritual understanding of themselves or they’re looking to tidy up those deep seated emotions that they’re sort of white knuckling their way through. And that’s, you know, now we’ve got narcissistic abuse relationships and childhood abuse. That’s sort of the base. But it’s more about, for me, it’s like looking at life as an opportunity. And we’re forever unfolding our understanding. And one of the big things that I see that most people struggle with, and it’s shame. It’s that you know we’ve got this these histories and then we feel such shame about them that you know they become this backpack we carry with us all the way through so it’s really sort of getting people to acknowledge the shame and then confront it but in a healthy way not in a judgmental way not in a self-attacking way but to really sort of go okay you know and I use the equation of you know we’re all walking so somewhere along the line we learned to roll then we learned to crawl and then we learned to walk on you know leaning against things and then all of a sudden we’re walking and then then we decided to have a go at running and skipping and any recovery journey regardless of what it’s recovering from is like that you’ve got to get to that stage where you’re prepared to be curious enough about yourself to actually start rolling and getting those knees underneath you and start building that foundation of self-understanding, not what people have told you, not what you think people think of you, but what do you know about yourself and anchor into those truths and then start using that as a curiosity, you know, dive board to really start exploring who you actually are without your emotional baggage. But you’ve got to deal with the emotional baggage to get to that point of understanding.
Dr. Mark Leeds [07:15] Yeah. Yeah, that can’t be easy. No.
Lorraine Nilon [07:20] Well, a lot of the time I spend teaching people how to be self-reflective, you know, and how to not ruminate, you know, like not grab a problem and then just keep, you know, jumping on the merry-go-round with it and using it for self-abuse and self-judgment, but actually to pull things apart like a jigsaw puzzle and get the pieces that resonate with you and make sense with you and work out what’s missing and then just, you know, teach them how to have intent and purpose in the way that they are self-reflective. And that’s an interesting process because everyone comes with their own unique layer or filter, might be a better word for it, filter of what they’re running things through. So you’ve got to understand your own filter to then get to a point where you can have self-reflection with clarity. Yeah. And there’s no recovery journey without self-reflection or introspection or contemplation. So it just doesn’t work without it.
Dr. Mark Leeds [08:20] Yeah. When you mentioned trauma, you know, people, you know, a lot of people have suffered, you know, pretty severe traumas, but then you also have a lot of people with addictions that, you know, when you bring up trauma, they might say, well, I was never raped or abused. Nobody beat me, you know, at an uneventful, pretty good childhood. But, you know, the person may still have gone through some kind of trauma, maybe emotional trauma. And a person might even one day, once they hear a conversation about this is like, wait, maybe my life was like that, you know, like where they figure out that their own family was like, for whatever reason, was masterminding this sabotage against them, you know, like this narcissistic thing where, you know, they kind of felt like, you know, Why is it that everybody’s always celebrating my brother and sister? They’re all doing so great and I can never do anything good. I try so hard. And that goes on throughout life. That’s not just when you’re a little kid, but you’re a grown-up and trying to impress your parents and trying to do things well. I mean, is that damaging trauma that can lead to addiction and cause severe problems, those kind of family dynamics?
Lorraine Nilon [09:29] Oh, absolutely. So most of the time when I’m explaining trauma to people, It’s whatever made you doubt your own worth or whatever made you feel unsafe. And if you’ve got, you know, like bullying in your background, you know, with something that is consistently name calling and all those kind of things, or you’re always being treated in like the competition, you know, and you’re the black sheep of the family and all those kind of things. They have what I call chip away trauma. You know, when we have a big event like childhood abuse and you can identify it, you know, okay, this is what traumatized me or it might be a natural disaster, you know, well, I lived through an earthquake and no one spoke to me or my father died and no one told me what was going on. All these kind of things build a place where you start doubting your own worth and feeling insecure. So there’s the chip away sort of trauma, which you get a lot with narcissistic parents and relationships because it’s chipping away at your own sense of self-worth. And then you have the big events where you feel completely stunned. And normally what you’ll find is that people feel traumatized when they feel unsupported. So you can I can have a client and they’re dealing with something real time not in not historic and then say something at work and then the boss comes along and supports them then all of a sudden that’s not a problem so a lot of our trauma is when we feel unsupported and we’re losing that sense of self and that leaves us susceptible to peer pressure which a lot of addictions can start that way you know and no no one tries a drug for the first time to say I’m going to wipe out my life you know what I mean it’s like oh I’m going to give this a go and you know it’s going to be fun and we buy into the story but it takes another life of its own when we’ve got no foundation to pull back to and then some of the drugs that we’ve seen in recent times have been quite savage that it hook you very quickly but it can be on shopping it can be on gambling, it can be on all sorts of things where you’re trying to fit into a herd and then all of a sudden you’re really isolated anyway. So I always explain to people our addictions tell us they sell us a story like a glossy brochure and then when we buy into it dumps us and we’re left seeing the back, the fine print, what it didn’t say on the glossy brochure and that’s what happens to people is they, you know, they walk into the glossy brochure And then all of a sudden they’re in the fine print where it’s all turned into crap. But no one starts off with that original intent, or very rarely is someone starting off with that original intention.
Dr. Mark Leeds [12:24] Yeah. You mentioned intuitive. You said the word intuitive. I once interviewed someone who is a medical intuitive, and they did something where they would look at a picture of a person and they would get insight into what diagnoses they might have. And what was going on with them and could sometimes pick up on things that doctors would miss. And I actually wondered, like, you know, is it really like a supernatural power or is it just like she’s really good at looking at a picture and seeing things that, you know, that doctors would miss because doctors aren’t really as sharp with their diagnostic skills as they used to be. You know, but that’s universal.
Lorraine Nilon [13:04] Yeah
Dr. Mark Leeds [13:05] Yeah so but what do you do you do anything similar to that as far as like would you consider yourself a medical intuitive or is it related so
Lorraine Nilon [13:17] So when I’m looking at intuitive is that I can read energy so when we’re talking you’re actually reading energy too you know everybody does it so it’s like we hear the words but we also feel the energy behind it you know I can say the same thing but in different tones and you want to feel something different so when I’m working with clientele basically I go in and as they’re talking or sometimes I ask them I’ll do what I call a cold read where I just read their energy and what I get is their emotional patterns and then we that’s a starting point and then we work from there to understand why these emotional patterns are working the way they are and it’ll track back so intuitively sometimes I see a picture and it might not make any sense to me but you know I’ll say to you know like I already know because you said about the bridge but you know bridge and sunlight and you’ll say oh actually I’ve got this story that was a profound moment for me and then we go through in there and see what we can learn so but we all do it you know like when we say you know you could walk into the room and cut the air with a knife life you’re intuitively picking up on the energy or you know someone says hello and you know I’m really happy to see you and then you know it could be a facial expression as well it doesn’t match what we’re saying like the it’s like these people feel like they’re trying to get away from me or they’re just being polite want to move on so it’s reading all those subtlety signs that we’ve got and that’s what intuitive is and then you know sometimes I just hear different things and occasionally freak people out because I’ll, if we’re sitting in a very safe space, like a client sort of relationship, it’s like, did you just think, and I’ll say whatever, and they’ll be like, yes. But for me, I’m relying on you to be honest. And sometimes I say no. And then they’ll say, but you know what, that is a thought that annoys me all the time. And then I can tell them what it stems from. And I’m like, well, that’s coming from, you know, I’ll track it down. So it’s quite different but it’s a way of using our emotions as tools to go in and see what’s left unresolved within ourselves because that’s to me is the spiritual purpose it’s not it’s not just holding ourselves in a positive energy and pretending everything’s okay it’s actually knowing when you’re ready to walk through those tunnels that have got emotions trapped in them that are you know, hangovers from previous that we need to deal with so that we can come to a better understanding of ourselves and start building again that foundation of who we are. So because when we understand that, then, you know, different events can happen around us, but we’re not losing ourselves to the events. Whereas if we don’t have a strong foundation within ourselves, you know, people say things and do things, you know, especially narcissistic stuff where you’re left wondering why did they do that why did they say that why are they constantly putting me down and all the rest of it because you start to believe it’s something wrong with you so when the stronger your self-foundation is the less chance someone has the ability to do that to you so you become more of a sovereign being where you work with what resonates with you and what you know you start trusting your own awareness and then you start accepting the reality of yourself and a lot of the time when we’re looking at people that have suffered from addictions they’re disconnected from themselves and they’re disconnected from even the love they feel for other people around them and all they’ve connected to is actually that part of themselves that makes them feel unworthy or you know not good enough all that and then then they go into this couldn’t be bothered I’m not you know what’s the point and all that sort of stuff so there’s like this resignation to that part of themselves and then the addiction takes them on a bit of a path so which you know sometimes I go well if that’s what your soul needed to do and it’s reconnaissance you’ve learned all the things that you don’t like how about learning some of the things that you do like about yourself and see which ones you prefer which one which ones make more sense to you
Dr. Mark Leeds [17:50] Yeah yeah and that must be an incredible thing for you know for a client who gets to work with you to you know to get that kind of a reading of you being able to pick up on what’s going on because I’ve had that experience of you know talking to someone who has that kind of ability and they would say things to me. I’m like, how did you know that? Like, I never even said anything about that. You just kind of like, you know, figured out stuff that I wasn’t even thinking about. I wasn’t even really fully aware of, you know, to say like this situation or person scares you and that’s what’s underlying the issue that you’re going through. And, you know, yeah, I mean, yeah, please don’t read me now. You’ll probably like pick up on some terrible things, but no, I mean, that’s really a great thing to like, you know, as opposed to going to like a, your typical psychologist or counselor or therapist, you know, and they are kind of in their own world of like they have their own issues and maybe not even really listening fully. But yeah, it’s a great feeling to be able to meet with someone who’s, who’s seeing you and hearing you and putting it together and getting insight into things that you might not even be aware or important.
Lorraine Nilon [19:02] And that’s the whole point of it is you know like some some of the people that I’ve worked with especially like like I said you know most of the recovering addicts that I’ve worked with have had a long-term sobriety and one one lady recently said she said the difference between you and all the other therapies that she’d used is that you’re filling in the gaps or you’re telling me what to look for so I can fill in the gaps. And then there were some things that she found within her system that worked for a certain amount of time to get her through, you know, the horror stage and, you know, like rebuilding her life. It was getting her through that. But now that she’d sort of done that, it was sort of holding her back as well. So we, you know, pulled apart because we operate from belief systems. So sometimes the beliefs work brilliantly and then they don’t. And that’s okay. So it’s working out when to evolve that belief system, take it to another place. We repress a lot of things. So it’s like, and then they come in our thoughts, you know, so we’ve got this rumination and I would say you’re back on the merry-go-round. So sometimes you’ve got to pull apart that so these thoughts aren’t swirling around your head. And sometimes it’s just these emotions and we have these trigger spots and we don’t understand why when someone says this or when you see that, why I get so triggered. So if you can get an understanding of that, all of a sudden it’s not confusing. It makes sense to you and then you can decide. I always say the only place I’m taking you to is your free will, your freedom of choice. I’m presenting you with information I might throw some options which is based on you know I’ve been doing it for 30 years based on experience but I’ll tell you the difference between when it’s a read from you and when it’s my opinion or my what I you know what it’s making me think of but all I’m taking you to is your freedom of choice you’ve got to decide what you do with that information that you get but when it really resonates with you it takes you somewhere you know like you would have known on your journey that when you hear something that really resonates with you all of a sudden it’s like a door opener that it makes you look at something differently or it makes you realize something a lot of time I tell people what they already knew but when they’re hearing someone else say it gives it more value gives it some worth so that’s that’s why I really love having sessions with people and I you know I’ve wrote three books and there’s three more in the wings that just you know I’m trying to get one’s close to being published I just a bit time poor I haven’t got it finished but the editing side of it but it’s it there’s a whole wealth of insight that we have within ourselves and a lot of the time all you need is like a little spark that’s going to help you tap into your own information and that could be just you know two friends having a conversation and the friend says something you think I never thought of it that way and then all of a sudden all these pieces like the jigsaw falls into place and you go I so get that and that’s what you’re looking for is so that you can really understand where you’ve been why you were there and where you want to head to so and that really is why I use recovery reconnect you know you’re not going to reconnect to the truth of yourself you got to recover whatever wounds it is wounds it is whatever shames you’re carrying you got to recover from that whatever trauma is trapped within your system you’ve got to recover from it and then you can rejuvenate your curiosity and your zest for life and that sense of self the importance you know you’re born so you therefore are significant and you are unique there’s no one there’s no one exactly the same as me and there’s no one exactly the same as you and that should be celebrated wow
Dr. Mark Leeds [23:19] So it was recover rejuvenate What was the first one?
Lorraine Nilon [23:24] So reconnect, recover, and rejuvenate. So you’ve got to reconnect to the truth of yourself. You’ve got to reconnect to your own honesty and the ability to be honest, and that’s why you need self-reflective skills is that, you know, so that you can be honest with yourself. And we’ve got to deal with our fear, our fear of really acknowledging our own emotions because most times we feel our emotions, and the first thing we want to do is resist, deny, and avoid it. We want to run. We want to hide. We want to suppress it. And then the trouble is that we suppress our emotions. And then what we want to do is reset to where we think we should be. But you’ve got all this baggage with you, or you’ve got all these negative belief systems running through your head. So when you reconnect to the truth of yourself, all of a sudden, you’ve got a platform to start exploring from. And then if you know you’re in a recovery process, you know, and sometimes it’s just recovering from your own negative self-judgment, which does a lot of damage. And then rejuvenate that curiosity about yourself. And then that’s going to give you this zest for life. And all of a sudden you’re going to change your perception and you’re going to look at things differently. So even in my books, the whole point is, I tell you, read the book. What do you think? How do you feel? And there’s all these questions all the way through. But it’s so that you’re engaged with the information, not just sitting there and letting somebody else tell you what to think. It’s actually, oh, yeah, she’s wrote about, one of them I wrote, when did truth become the enemy? That’s in the spirituality book. You know, what’s your thoughts of that? When did truth become the enemy? Why are we so shy of really confronting the truth of ourselves? Why do we run so hard? And then so I put these prompting sort of journal prompts, contemplation points or even conversation starters that you can start you’ve got a base somewhere to start to explore from so which is it works really well and I love hearing when people have you know done the old oh that just brought all this together I’ve been thinking about this for ages and now I really understand it because that’s self-development understanding yourself is how we grow. And I call it soul maturity and spiritual growth. You know, like your soul’s mature. Your awareness of your soul needs to mature. So, yeah, we’re all quite wise internally. We’re very clever souls. Yeah.
Dr. Mark Leeds [26:08] And what do you think about that? I mean, the soul, the, you know, people, when they talk about spirituality, They might talk about the universe, you know, connecting to the universe. And, you know, if you watch some of these videos on social media, there’s some people that put together these incredible animations of showing how small we are. You know, this little tiny dot of dust floating in the middle of like this huge galaxy and amongst millions of galaxies in an infinite space. I mean, you know, it almost seems like, you know, we’re like beyond insignificant. We’re like really nothing. You know, there’s that picture that was taken from, like, something like 4 billion miles away where the earth is like a little tiny pixel in the picture and you can’t even see it. I mean, like, you know, so what do you think about all that, like, the universe and spirituality?
Lorraine Nilon [26:58] One of the things I’ve wrote about is that if we look at a beach, right, it’s made up by millions of grains of sand. But each of those grains of sand are just significant because we need the mass to make the beach. Without the mass of those sands, there’s no beach. So I look at each person as that significant speck in this bigger picture. So even though we’re you know a speck or you know like a snowflake or a grain of sand we’re still significant right because I think a lot of the time people struggle with understanding that they are naturally significant that doesn’t mean you’re better than anyone else that doesn’t mean you’re less than anyone else because there’s an equality within all our souls what we’re seeing is just all having different experiences you know like you know wealth is just an experience skin color just an experience schooling an experience but our souls there’s an equality right across the board and it doesn’t matter where you’ve been doesn’t matter what you’ve done there is an equality in your soul so that’s how I look at it So, yes, in the, you know, the universe is so big, it is difficult to understand. And I don’t think there’s a person on the planet that can say they fully understand it. But we’re all in a significant speck within it.
Dr. Mark Leeds [28:32] And for people that have, you know, a fear of, you know, I guess like that existential crisis of like, you know, oh, my God, this is all going to end soon. I might have this many years left or maybe I have no time left. And, you know, next, you know, I’m here one second, I’m gone the next. And is it just nothingness or, you know, or is there something after, you know, like, do you have like a sense of that? Like, is it just a belief or like, is it something in your with your spiritual intuition? Have you seen something beyond like the physical world or, you know, what do you think about that?
Lorraine Nilon [29:09] I, well, it’s my understandings from what I’ve experienced. So, you know, like I see ghosts, I hear things, I feel very connected to where I’m from, whatever label you want to put on it. I don’t really get hung up on labels. So I hear and feel things from there. So for me, it’s beyond a belief. It’s a knowing. Do I understand it completely? No, I don’t. Do I trust it? Yes, I do. Do I feel part of something? Absolutely. Do I understand exactly what that means? Not really. So and I can sit very comfortably in the exploration of that. And I work with the policy that if I’m meant to know something, they’ll let me know. So you know like when you’ve seen things and I’ve you know got 101 stories of different experiences with even clients and my own stories and all the rest of it I can’t doubt that there’s more to this than what I’m living now and that comes from my understanding but we all have to find our own way to what resonates with us I’m not a big one for latching onto a belief and then just holding it I like to be in the exploration of going I trust that I don’t fully understand it but I know where I’m from cares and supports and loves me and I care and support and love it I don’t always just ask it to do things for me or provide things I class it as a friendship relationship you know that you’ve got my back and hopefully I can keep evolving to a point that I’ve got your back as well so and they give us a lot of grace you know like they have a very great acceptance of we’re learning to crawl we’re learning to walk in our spirituality yeah yeah
Dr. Mark Leeds [31:06] You know there’s an interesting therapy I don’t know where I heard about this but I think it might actually be useful for people they say you can if you reconnect with you know the baby version of yourself you know looking at old baby videos or pictures and you can kind of fall in love with yourself as a young child or a baby. […] and it actually seems to be something useful that a person can fall in love with themselves again you know see like wow I was a really cute baby
Lorraine Nilon [32:00] Yeah and I think it also confirms that we’re in an evolutionary process we start somewhere and we finish somewhere else and we can celebrate that so and celebrate the uniqueness you know you […] yeah so and I think that’s something that we’ve used judgment too much and it stopped us from really celebrating the uniqueness of each person, which is important, which is very important.
Dr. Mark Leeds [32:33] Yeah. Yeah. I think for parents, you know, who are worried about their kids not reaching some milestone on time, you know, it’s like just, you know, leave them alone. They’re going to get there.
Lorraine Nilon [32:43] Yeah, yeah. And we are sort of scaling a lot of that stuff, you know, like by this should happen. And so some of the things that we deny about ourselves causes us a lot of pain. You know, like so sometimes we’ve got people that have got really caring hearts, but they’ve trained themselves or through different traumas and all the rest of it, they’ve become extremely judgmental on themselves and they never give themselves a break. So that natural part of them, that unique part of who they are, doesn’t really get to see the light of day and they start devaluing it. So, you know, and they might associate, say, a loving heart with vulnerability and potential threat and all those sort of things. So when you’re looking at uniqueness, which, like I said, needs to be celebrated, it’s embracing all of yourself and finding out who you are without your emotional baggage. Is it’s easy to say, but it’s also harder because you’re running through those different filters that can disrupt your self-understanding.
Dr. Mark Leeds [33:51] Yeah, and one great thing about working with people with addictions is that they tend to be like really unique, special people naturally. You know, the people who, and I always say this, the people who are, you know, highly intelligent and creative and driven for success, they’re at the highest risk for having the most difficulty with addiction, and they have the hardest time getting out of addiction. And so you already, if you commit to work, if you’re dedicated to working with people who have overcome addictions, you know, you already have like a really great pool of people to work with.
Lorraine Nilon [34:29] Yeah, and like I said, it’s not my expertise. I sort of, you know, on that spiritual, and I’ve mainly done with narcissistic relationship abuse victims and childhood abuse victims and people that are looking for that sense of purpose. But we all have some form of addiction. It’s just whether or not it’s really detrimental to ourselves. You know, like if you have someone that loves listening to music and, you know, will not go to work because they want to listen to the music, that’s an addiction. You know what I mean? Like they can allow what they think they love or what they are enjoying to override their self-responsibility and being present in what they’re experiencing and all the rest of it. So we all have some forms of addiction. It’s just when they become to something that’s extremely toxic to us that we lose ourselves completely to it and they’re difficult to deal with. So for me, it’s working with people. It’s about looking at the emotional patterns that we have and knowing, working out how you can get from judging basically yourself on everything and really start appreciating and feeling connected to who you naturally are. So as you had a guy in a workshop once and he said I’m like it was an older guy and I told him I was I’m going to pinch that I’m going to quote that but he said I’m like an old oak tree Lorraine and he said I’m so busy trying to stop the leaves from falling and you know make sure the leaves stay where they’re meant to be that I don’t even see the guy walking near the trunk with the axe and it’s always something that takes me out that I didn’t expect, I didn’t see because I’m so busy watching, you know, the top of the tree that I don’t even give any thought to the trunk, the foundation. And I said to him, that’s like our spiritual journey. We have to focus on the foundation, the roots, the solidness of our own self-understanding for us to grow healthy. And then it’s okay if some leaves and branches fall off it’s just making room for new growth but the foundation needs to be strong and what a lot of us try to do is you know hold on to belief systems that don’t if they don’t work then we don’t value them and then what that does is cause us to think we’ve got it wrong again and beat ourselves up and all the rest of it so it’s really like for me when you’re looking at spirituality and self-development it’s really knowing that what resonates with you and what you can start using as a foundation of understanding yourself know thyself and really let yourself anchor to that so I do on my podcast I do this thing called flip the book where I give people a read and I tell them a little bit about their personality would you like me to do that for you like the okay so I’m going to use the book breaking free so at the back of it is the core essences and they’re the purity of who we are at the core of our being so can you give me a number between 189 and 215 201. 201. Okay. So these are just the ones I’ve written about. There’s plenty more. Okay. So you have five paragraphs to pick from. Okay. What comes to mind? One, two, three, four or five? Three. Three. Okay. Okay, so independence is important to you, to feel that self-independence. Independence is the ability to freely experience life as a soul, uninhibited by negative judgment or opposition to truth. Independence is not isolation. It is sharing the truth of yourself and choosing not to lose the sovereignty over your own soul. Independence is acceptance of accountability for your own energy. It is also taking responsibility for the resolution of the energy in your soul’s unconsciousness. So you can refer to that as your emotional baggage, if you like, and the evolution of who you naturally are. So would you say that sums up your journey?
Dr. Mark Leeds [39:21] Oh, yeah, definitely, yeah. Yeah.
Lorraine Nilon [39:23] So we have all these essences within us that tell us information and I’ve wrote I wrote a lot about it in Breaking Free and in the next book that’s coming out there’s a lot so that when you’re stressed you can use that book to come back and go okay remind me who am I at the core independence is important and I’m trying to get to a place where an uninhibited by negative judgment and that I’m valuing this experience as living life, you know, and for me I would say as a soul, but you might just say living life. And I’m choosing to share the truth of myself, which is what your podcast is about, and your work with people, but not at the expense of my own sovereignty. You know, so you’ve already worked out that those things are important to you. Yeah. And that’s part of building that foundation, that trunk of your tree.
Dr. Mark Leeds [40:20] Yeah, that’s definitely accurate. Some of the worst times of my life were working at different jobs. I’ve had jobs that I hated, even the jobs. But that’s what kind of actually really made me come to the conclusion that I’m really not meant to work for anybody. Towards the end, I had a job that I actually really liked. I got along really well with my boss. He was managing a practice for another doctor, actually for his father. And we got along great. We had great conversations. He would do anything to make me happy. He’d buy breakfast, buy lunch. We’d sit there and talk, you know, when we had free time. And I still, nothing could really make me feel satisfied with that. I thought, you know, this is the most perfect job anybody could ask for. And I still think there’s something wrong with it. I’m just not meant for this. You know, not meant to.
Lorraine Nilon [41:15] Which kept you looking. It kept you know, like it kept you striving.
Dr. Mark Leeds [41:20] Yeah. But at that time, I didn’t think I was really capable of going out on my own and doing my own thing. I really just, I thought like, you know, because we had tried it before. We had tried having our own little medical clinic. And in fact, the thing that went wrong there was that I was taking everybody else’s advice of how to do it. People would say like, oh, you have to take every insurance. You have to, you know, do this and do that. And all that advice was like destroying the business. And so, you know, and that was like a sad thing of like finally coming to the realization that, you know, we can’t afford to pay the rent. So we can’t renew the lease. And we had to decide to finally shut it down. But, you know, this time around, we did everything differently and in a much better way. And but I think also I had that for you know from the reading it makes sense I think I finally became determined that it’s going to work out no matter what I’d I’d rather be you know out on the street and homeless and you know not that I was going to really let it get to that point but I thought I would sooner just lose everything than actually go back and work at a job again so
Lorraine Nilon [42:28] You found you found what was important to you and you’ve kept moving towards to it and part of that is the independence which is giving you a type of freedom and as soon as you gave yourself permission to have that freedom instead of listening to everybody else which it doesn’t mean you didn’t listen to you know this time you didn’t listen to other information but you worked worked with what resonated with you yeah more so then right they’ve told me I’ve got to do this and they’ve told me they’ve got to do that and that’s it that’s that’s strengthening up your sense of self and that’s a good thing that’s you know if you look where you’ve been to where you are now that’s a beautiful journey
Dr. Mark Leeds [43:05] Yeah and now you know like I’ve discovered you know this is like the you know and having a podcast is part of the business and the best part of it is sharing information with people teaching people sharing different messages and you know bringing like you know for example your message and what you have to share with people in your books bringing that to my audience. And, you know, and yes, sometimes it brings a new patient to our medical practice, but, you know, maybe, you know, you might help hundreds or thousands of people. And it also might bring in a little bit of business to the, you know, the thing that pays the bills, you know, cause I don’t in any way profit from the podcast or the blog or any of that stuff, but it all kind of works together and it’s really the best, you know, way better than taking out an ad on the local paper or something, you know, and I’d rather I spend hours every week, you know, working on a podcast and writing blog articles and that kind of thing and trying to help as many people as I can and putting information out there. You know, it’s much more rewarding than, you know, the old fashioned way of doing it. Like I remember sitting with the phone book, you know, back when we had the Yellow Pages phone book and the guy is saying like, you know, pay us a thousand dollars a month and we’ll get you this many phone calls. And I’m like, yeah, but who are those people that are going to call? Like, and, you know, and I don’t believe any of it. And, you know, he came back, he’s like, well, the problem is you didn’t get a big enough ad. You need a bigger ad. And, you know, I don’t do any of that. So I don’t do any of those paid ads or any of that stuff. But I’d much rather just spend all my free time, like figuring out ways that I can, you know, put information out that will help as many people as possible. And then something always comes back to you when you do that.
Lorraine Nilon [44:45] I think so. And I think, too, when you are, you know, you’re working with people in recovery, is they’re looking to what resonates with them. You know, like I, you know, I don’t work for everybody, you know, like there’s lots of people that I’m not for them. They’re not interested. And then there’s people that they go, yeah, she resonates with me and I’m curious. So I want to get a bit of information from her. And, you know, like I say, I have clients that will work with me for a while and then have clients that just come back and forwards every now and then. They just want to, I don’t know, what can you read on me now and see where I’m at? And then they go off and do their own thing and all that. So it’s really like, you know, when people are provided with some insight and when they work out whether it resonates with them, then that’s informative information. When people feel like someone’s telling them and they’re pointing the finger and trying to control them to believe something that you know is forced upon them then automatically they’re going to feel like they’re being opposed because it’s not leaving them with the freedom to actually explore what resonates with them we’re humans we’re and we’re souls in a physical body and that means that we’re forever evolving if we want that there’s there’s information being provided to us in lots of different ways and that information is to give us some insight and that’s why I believe that self-reflection is so important and the ability to in a healthy way really contemplate different things that are going on with us and be able to put them in a perspective where we can come to peace with them because a lot of the times you know people are they go through a journey of recovery and then they’re white knuckling themselves to a belief system and once it starts to wobble then it’s easy to go back to the old patterns because it’s always trying to draw you back so it’s when you actually really resonate with something and all of a sudden it’s not just a belief system, it’s touch something internal that I know this is a knowing, then they’ve got a path to move forward. Like, you know, every addict gets to a point where, you know, they go fighting and screaming and carrying on and they don’t want to go in the recovery process. And then there’s something, there’s a catalyst, an activating event, or a moment where they go, I actually need to put some intent in this. I need to follow this with purpose and then give this some meaning. Otherwise, I’m going to go back into the pit and I can’t get any sense of meaning. And then when people get to that, regardless of what they’re trying to deal with, all of a sudden, they’re the authority over their own soul. They become a caretaker.
Dr. Mark Leeds [47:41] So Lorraine how can people how can people find you if they want to you know either find your books or to meet with you if possible
Lorraine Nilon [47:50] So the books are available on all the major platforms amazon etc and at lorrainenilon.com.au is my website so and there’s booking slips there and there’s also the podcast too if they want to hear more about like recovery trauma recovery narcissistic relationship recovery and with a spiritual edge on it you know about our soul and the purpose of life and things like that’s also which is Lorraine Lorraine Nilon spiritual explorer so I thank you for having me on your show I’ve enjoyed the conversation with you
Dr. Mark Leeds [48:29] Thank you yeah I definitely recommend that people reach out to you because it’s definitely something special I mean I definitely feel like you know that spiritual connection talking to you and I can imagine that you can really help people you know to read them and to give them some feedback and insight and help them get get through the process
Lorraine Nilon [48:50] Yeah yeah it’s it so some people some of my clients call me the map maker or the compass but you know we the person themselves is the one that has to do all the work you’re just you know pointing them in a direction and giving them some insight. But it’s nice to be nurtured through self-discovery. And there’s an online course too. If you want to learn how to be more self-reflective, there’s an online course. And there’s a special on that at the moment too. So not a bad time to get it. That’ll be running till December.
Dr. Mark Leeds [49:25] Oh, that’s great. That’s great. So you’re the map. Do you guys get Dora the Explorer there? Who do you ask when you don’t know which way to go yeah that’s great yeah so again the website it was lorrainenilon.com.au
Lorraine Nilon [49:43] Au yeah so australian
Dr. Mark Leeds [49:46] Yeah oh that’s yeah that’s great so yeah so thank you again thank you lorraine for joining me
Lorraine Nilon [49:52] Thanks for having me matey
