00:00:00 Kevin

Every single thing that I see people presenting to me has shame and fear at its epicenter. Everything. Eating disorders, relationship trouble, addiction, gambling, anxiety, depression, whatever it is, at the very core is fear and shame.

00:00:26 Tamara

Vulnerability alleviates shame, and that goes both ways. I can become vulnerable and alleviate my own shame, and I can become vulnerable and potentially help to alleviate someone else’s shame. What I’ve come to understand is that honesty, it’s honesty that creates safety. There is nothing that can debilitate safety so much as dishonesty. And especially with people who are so vulnerable, who are feeling so unsafe much of the time, their radar is always on, their BS detector is always on, and they know. And this is exactly why I really value working with people who are experiencing homelessness and addiction is because there’s very little filter. There’s so much honesty. Often, he said, you gotta tell people stories. He said people in poverty have no voice. And he said, but you do. You have a voice. He said. Several people listen to you. You got to tell these stories. There is definitely a force or an energy or a spirit that moves me to speak. But what some people might not know is that oftentimes after I speak up or speak out, I often experience a great deal of shame. So that comes from my personal history etcetera and I’m aware of that now. And funny thing is, regardless of that shame, kickback, whatever it is that’s compelling me to speak, must be stronger because I keep doing it.

00:02:14 Rosemary

This is the Gifts of Trauma podcast stories of transformation and healing through Compassionate Inquiry.

00:02:34 Kevin

Tamara Kowalska, you’re very welcome to The Gifts of Trauma podcast from Compassionate Inquiry. I want to say, I’m really excited to have you here, Tamara. It’s a conversation that I’m really looking forward to having when watching and listening to what you do and who you are online. I feel a real affinity and connection to you and there’s loads of topics that I want to talk about. So, you’re welcome to the show.

00:03:02 Tamara

Thank you so much. This is a really wonderful invitation to be here with you and to be here with the community, both the compassionate inquiry community and the community beyond that as well.

00:03:18 Kevin

Tamara, what I’d like to do is invite the people that I’m speaking to introduce themselves rather than me introduce you. I wonder, would you take a moment or two and in whichever format seems right for you, tell our listeners, and me, because I’m interested, who is Tamara Kowalska?

00:03:39 Tamara

What’s funny is my mind immediately goes to, and I don’t know which video it is, Gabor asking someone up on stage that he’s sitting with, “Who are you?” And I believe she ends up saying something like, “I’m my heart that’s beating and I’m my lungs.” And so that was a really a profound moment for me and I think it particularly embodies all that Compassionate Inquiry is about because I grew up really actually actively training myself not to feel my body. And so to be able to now acknowledge my body, feel it, look to it for wisdom, and furthermore, understand that my body is where healing happens. My body is what knows how to heal. And then I can be with other people, knowing that their bodies have the wisdom to heal as well. And it’s entirely changed the way I operate, by myself in the world, with my pets, with my friends, everything. 

So who am I? I am my heart. I’m my lungs. I am a community of cells, and beyond that I’m not really sure. I am a combination of likes and dislikes, which are sometimes conflicting and other times seem to match up just fine. I’m also a whole bundle of desires. And yeah, and so I think that actually one of the most beautiful things that Compassionate Inquiry has done, has acted as a catapult to send me into a really more organized inquiry, to be able to answer that question. So you might have to get to me, back to me in a few lifetimes and then I’ll be able to give you a more conclusive answer. But at the moment, I guess I would say I’m… It seems to me like I’m really a process… in a body and every day I understand more and less all at the same time. And actually, that’s what keeps me interested, because if I knew exactly who I was and exactly who other people, were and exactly what the world was, I think I’d lose interest after a while.

00:06:12 Kevin

It’s fascinating. Tamara, with that first question, I have a list of questions that I want to ask you.

00:06:17 Tamara

That’s not the whole interview.

00:06:19 Kevin

It could be because you have said so much in that little piece there that I would love to pick some of that apart. There’s a band from the UK, they’re like an 80s and 90s reggae sort of band called UB40.

00:06:35 Tamara

Familiar with them?

00:06:36 Kevin

Yeah, and they sing, “Every day in every way. I’m learning more. The more I learn, the less I know about before.” And those words came to me as you were talking and something else you said while I was listening to you, this idea, that Compassionate Inquiry for me, and it sounds like for you, it really gets into everything. It seeps into everything about us. It has changed the food that I eat, the music that I listen to, where I socialize, the conversations that I have. What I read, it changed everything. When you said a community of cells, what I actually heard was a community of selves, s-e-l-v-e-s, and I really like that term and I wrote that down. So thank you for that. A community of selves, all these aspects of ourself.

00:07:24 Tamara

And it’s, you know, what is so amazing is that each cell in our bodies actually has all of the systems that that we have as a full body. So in a sense, yes, I have a community of cells and of selves. I’d like to add something though, as you were speaking, what also came to mind because we are speaking, is I’m also a voice. I have a voice, but maybe I am a voice. And I think one of the things that has brought me to this exact moment in my life is that I’ve had ,also, a really complex ongoing relationship with voice in general, my voice specifically, and other people’s voices. And I understand the power dynamics between our voices, what we use them for, where we choose to use them, and what we choose to say. And if the things that we say or don’t say are actually perceived as a choice. So that’s really been a huge part of my life.

00:08:33 Kevin

Thank you. We’re going to talk about your voice Tamara, if that’s OK. In, in, in many different facets. And from what I’ve read and, and what I know of you and what I’ve read before we chatted, I would go as far to say that you seem to have a very powerful voice, or you seem to use that voice in a very powerful way. And before I lean into that, I was just very curious and I’m really curious with all our guests. The question that I wrote down first was why are you here? Why are you on The Gifts of Trauma podcast? And I guess you’re here because we invited you. So then the question might be, why did you accept? Why did you come on to the show? What would you like to use that voice to say?

00:09:16 Tamara

So actually hearing you say I’m a powerful voice brought tears to my eyes.

00:09:21 Kevin

I can see that.

00:09:22 Tamara

Yeah, yeah.The constriction in my throat. So then I’m not forgetting your second part of that or the question embodied, which is why am I here? And I guess I did have a choice to say yes or no to this objectively. But as in many things in my life, many of the major decisions, the pathI’ve chosen hasn’t “felt.” Can I use air quotes with that? Hasn’t “felt” like a choice, or rather, I didn’t have a choice not to. There is definitely a force or an energy or a spirit that moves me to speak, and if anyone who has watched a lot of the master classes for Compassionate Inquiry. But what some people might not know is that oftentimes after I speak up or speak out, I often experience a great deal of shame. So that comes from my personal history, etc. And I’m aware of that now. And funny thing is, regardless of that shame kickback, whatever it is that’s compelling to me to speak, must be stronger, because I keep doing it. So why am I here? I’m here honestly because there is an internal mechanism that is directing me and I’m really grateful that I’m listening because I have had so many wonderful, exciting and interesting opportunities in my life and experienced some amazing things. Some of them unconventional, some of them may have seemed like super stupid decisions, but in the end they’ve all been really amazing experiences and I’m so grateful for that. But what brought tears to my eyes when you said I have a powerful voice is two things. One, when I was growing up I was so shy and so soft spoken. I almost never spoke in class, almost never spoke at home. I remember we had a house with three stories and my parents would send me to the third floor and they would stand by the front door and make me shout down to them so that I could be heard three stories down. And I just remember standing there crying and crying. I couldn’t do it. And I was painfully shy throughout school up until maybe high school or university. I really did, thanks to some wonderfully supportive professors, I think, find a voice. And also too, I took great refuge in learning and I lived in my head. I lived in my intelligence, was my refuge and still is. I love learning new stuff. I love being faced with a dilemma and working it out in my head. The only difference is now I also definitely am more aware of my gut and my heart and what they’re actively telling me. But there’s so much pleasure for me in reading a really interesting book, especially theory, things like that.

00:12:49 Kevin

It is very evident Tamara that you’re now connected to that gotten heart given that when I spoke just a few moments ago, I could really see the emotion that arose and and you immediately I could see that you immediately knew that emotion was arising as well. You just checked in with yourself and you took a moment and that was really clear to see that you were connected to your body. And when you started talking and you’re watching the master classes, I think you and I might battle for most words spoken on a master class. And Tamara why I’m really interested in what you’re saying is because I too struggle with that idea of saying in the moment, being very driven to say something and something wants to be said. And when I listen to you and when I listen to myself, it’s relevant, it’s knowledgeable, it’s on point, it makes sense. And I too then finish a lot of those master classes or, or even when I do a gig and saying or perform poetry, meaning I have what Brené Brown calls the vulnerability hangover, where half an hour or two days later, it is a real somatic shame attack, that I call it. Talk to me a little bit more about that.

00:14:19 Tamara

Oh, that resonates so much. So I graduated from university with a degree in education, but really I never spent too much time teaching in a conventional school and wandered through my professional life. And one of the threads that’s constant and consistent and ever changing is performance, whether it’s theatre or drama. And performance poetry has always been there for me. Spoken word poetry. And so I’ve had, I’ve had moments, I’ve had performances where I’m on stage and I feel confidence and then I leave and I want no one to talk to me. And I, actually here in Windsor, I started with a friend of mine. We have a monthly open night for spoken word poetry, any poetry really. And I started this over 20 years ago and I don’t always have a chance to attend anymore. But when I do and considered the OG and so I receive some reverence and I’m paid a lot of attention. And actually it’s very uncomfortable for me. There’s a part of me really that that wants to be much less visible, and a part of me that wants to be much, much more visible. Like that stage is both too big and too small for me all at the same time. So yes, so when you say that, oh, I get it. And that can happen even just 30 seconds after I’m done, I come off the stage and inside my stomach’s all butterflies and I think, oh, “why did I do that? Who do I think I am?” All sorts of thoughts, but and can Ioffer another example of so one of the the most amazing opportunities I’ve ever had in my life was to I started a drop in centre for homeless youth here in Windsor and that was in 2010 and it’s still operating. I ran it for almost 10 years and grew it, and it’s quite a viable agency and it’s actually something I’m quite proud of because it’s the curriculum, the programs, the way the staff operates. I got a chance to design that. So it’s a vision that I got to see manifest and unfold quite successfully. And I’m grateful for that. But because we were a charity, it still is a charity and received no ongoing government funding was really important for me to be in the media, in order for people to know the need and hopefully help us meet that need. And so I was often interviewed and often on the news, etc, and people would actually stop me here on the street or in the grocery store. And there was this one part of me that was proud that I was visible and that the work I was doing was visible. And then another part of me that would feel so ashamed, not just, oh, I want to hide my face, but really be super critical of me. Like in the course of the words are always, “who do you think you are? Who do you think you are that you could do this?” There’s two sides of that.

00:17:38 Kevin

Tamara, honestly, I don’t mean this to make false connection. You could be talking about me. Really. I so deeply connect to you when you’re talking about this. This is absolutely my experience and it’s interesting because quite often I notice when I do things that invite me to be present. So when I do my sign bathing experiences or or saying on stage or recite poetry or speak in a master class, in those moments, yeah, I’m imagining. Please, please let me know if you agree, agree or disagree. In those moments when we do those things, I am so deeply connected to presence that it is absolutely beautiful. And it’s only afterwards that something in me that isn’t connected to presence, something that wants to remove me from presence comes along and says to me exactly what yours is. “Who do you think you are to be delivering a sign by or teaching meditation or singing on stage or talking to Gabor Mate?” So how, how do you deal with that then? So when you love to do use this voice and, and, and speak and and be in the media and we’re going to talk a little bit about your music and writing and all these things that you do with your voice. What do you do then with this voice that comes along 30 seconds or 30 minutes later and says, “Hey, who do you think you are to be doing this?”

00:19:05 Tamara

Thank you for being so specific about when this shows up for you because it’s given me an opportunity to identify when it’s present for me and when the vulnerability hangover doesn’t show up. I can say that it very rarely shows up for me when I’m with a client.

00:19:27 Kevin

Yeah.

00:19:28 Tamara

In general, that’s just not present in my regular work with clients. It is present for me, absolutely, when I’m speaking in front of peers, when I’m performing or yeah. And I think because my performance poetry is so personal, I’m exposing something about myself that is so frightening that the only way I know how to do it is through poetry, which is all about using metaphor. Like it’s all about not just coming right out and saying stuff, which this has actually been an evolution for me because my most recent work is less flowery. It’s less about the language and more about communicating a message. So how do I? I’m not entirely answering your question. I think how I have dealt with that vulnerability hangover in the past, in the past, before I had some awareness of myself, would have been to have a few drinks.

00:20:37 Kevin

For me too, I hear you

00:20:40 Tamara

It helps.

00:20:41 Kevin

Until it doesn’t have it, it helps. Until it doesn’t.

00:20:45 Tamara

Absolutely yeah, which and and I think that the IT doesn’t help thing also Gabor talks about that AH Almas quote that part of us that loves us so much creates the struggle and difficulty in our lives. So it’s even the not helping the that I’m grateful for because it, um, it also directed me, yeah. I now now I absolutely have so much attention to my body and I have maybe like would say, gathered so much evidence to demonstrate that I can trust that my body will metabolize what’s present, that I’m actually able to sit and be curious and, and watch these uncomfortable feelings. It also helps though, that through Compassionate Inquiry I have found a really wonderful unity to be with, whereas in the past I always felt like I was alone. There was an intense loneliness in my life up until I turned 50. Intense loneliness. And so now when those uncomfortable feelings show up, A) they’re not showing up in a landscape of just this barrenness. So they’re showing up in a landscape that is just rich with support. And even our conversation where we’re finding out these similarities between one another, where things are resonating for us. I’ll remember this the next time it happens. And I’ll be like, I’m not alone. And so self compassion requires that we understand that this is a universal experience, that this isn’t happening just to us. So those are the things that help me. Another thing that helps now, and you did help, is that I think when not everyone in this world has access to the same size or kind of audience just because of the way power is unequally distributed. And so I’m conscious of that. That’s not to say I don’t say stupid things sometimes in the wrong place or that I don’t say smart things in the right place. But I’m conscious and I always have been, as long as I can remember, of a really unequal or inequitable distribution of power, especially where voice comes in. And, and so when I was speaking on behalf of the Youth Centre, it wasn’t only me I was speaking for. And that alleviated some of the shame of being so visible, for better or for worse. We could look into that further, but.

00:23:28 Kevin

Could we pause just a second tomorrow?

00:23:30 Tamara

Yeah.

00:23:31 Kevin

Thank you. Because I, I’m conscious that I think that we’re talking about shame. Maybe you did say it earlier on at the start, but we’ve been talking around it for quite a while. You’ve been talking about it shame. I just want us to name it, but that’s what we’re talking about here.

00:23:46 Tamara

Absolutely, yeah. And thank you for pausing because it’s really, it’s actually really important to name. I’m curious why you think it’s important

00:23:56 Kevin

I think it’s important Tamara for me, shame or fear, if we take maybe sadness and anguish out of the conversation. Every single thing that I see people presenting to me has shame and fear at its epicenter. Everything. Eating disorders, relationship trouble, addiction, gambling, anxiety, depression, whatever it is, at the very core, is fear and shame. And, and to be honest, I don’t even know that they are two different words. I think they’re the same word spelled differently. So that’s why I think it’s important to speak about it because it is to me the underlying or overriding thing in all of our discomforts. And I’m teasing out of you your methodology for dealing with it because I believe that’ll be really helpful to the people that are listening to this conversation.

00:25:00 Tamara

I agree with you that fear and shame are really at the epicenter of most peoples struggles or pain maybe.

Shame for sure, I’ve come to understand actually fuels many of the other uncomfortable sensations and emotions by were very long time we had a hard time crying in public, so I did, and what made it worse was the shame I felt when the tears started to fall. I see shame in that way as a kind of propeller for all the things that we don’t want to be experiencing and it just intensifies them. 

But shame. So actually this also leads into my current work and something that I’ve come to understand about shame. And I don’t think if I’m exactly answering your question, but I’ve come to understand, and this is through years of participating in the Compassionate Inquiry community in a number of ways, as well as participating in Beyond Addiction, for example, with Sat Dharam and just casual conversations, the conferences, so many different ways of being a part of this amazing community and bringing that into the greater community where I live, etc. But something I’ve come to understand is that, and understand it through experience, is that actually vulnerability alleviates shame. And that goes both ways. I can become vulnerable and alleviate my own shame, and I can become vulnerable and potentially help to alleviate someone else’s shame. So it’s really when, and so I have worked with homeless youth for many years. And then, even though I’m not at that agency anymore and I have private practice and I use a lot of CI with my clients. I also work with an addiction recovery program here in Windsor running through an organization called the Downtown Windsor Community Collaborative and they are a wonderful organization. And through a project called Connect with Compassion, which is funded by a private donor, I get to go to our downtown mission, which is our homeless shelter, and offer my time weekly, couple of hours a week, to do CI on a drop in basis with clients who are there, most of them experiencing homelessness, most of them staying at the shelter, and most of them addicted to sort of street drugs. It’s not just alcohol, for example, but it could be crack or crystal meth or fentanyl. And there’s a lot. And I named those drugs because there’s a lot of shame that comes with being homeless and being addicted to those kinds of drugs. Different from somebody who is wealthy and has a cocaine addiction. There’s a different stigma associated with street drugs and over the last few years, some of the most important people to me, some of the people nearest and dearest to my heart are actually in and out of homelessness and using fentanyl, ???? or crystal meth. And I love them dearly. And when I meet a new client at the mission, for example, if I make myself vulnerable and say I have a couple of people who are near and dear to my heart and they’re probably on the street right now and they use fentanyl, it’s almost like I can watch layers of shame fall off of people’s shoulders. And they are sometimes confused too because they see me and they may have assumed certain things about me and  my life etcetera, etcetera. But once I make myself vulnerable, then it removes some of the shame that might be present in that room. And so I think in that way we talk about shame, but I like to also include vulnerability because there is an antidote to shine.

00:29:18 Kevin

Is it a Brené Brown? I think it’s Brené Brown. Shame dies when stories are told in safe spaces.

And I love how you’re offering the antidote through shame is vulnerability. And for me, vulnerability is a conceptual thing. But when we invite the actions around vulnerability, what does that look like? And that means asking for help, opening your heart to sharing your story, being honest, being honest about your emotions and crying on the street, as you said. And, and that’s a really beautiful thing. You’ve almost answered one of my questions that I haven’t asked yet. So we’re doing really well. I think I’ll just be quiet and let you keep talking and I’m sure you’ll cover all the points. The Windsor homeless Centre that you talked about and other work around homelessness and I’m really interested tomorrow in why do you the question that I wrote. I’ll just read it to you verbatim. Tell me a little of how you see young people affected by homelessness, and in your opinion, what keeps the stereotypes that other people may have – the stereotypes and perceptions around homelessness. So I’m really keen. What are the experiences of shame and pain that people who are experiencing homelessness live with? How do they express them to you? How do you see them and why? OK, I’m questioning stacking. Let’s go with that question first. How? How do people who live with homelessness, how do you see their shame and their pain presenting? What does it look like?

00:30:19 Tamara

I see people either making excuses in themselves as though that’s what I’m expecting, as though my estimation of them is very low and so they want to explain themselves. Oh, I got here because of this mess or people will take on, they’ll say to me things like, I know I’ve made a lot of bad decisions in my life, but I’m really trying to get back on top of things, etc. And I guess what that comes down to is I see people blaming themselves for the situation that they’re in. That’s one way – people just emphasize an attitude of self blame and apologize.

00:31:10 Kevin

I know you haven’t finished answering that question tomorrow and sorry for question stacking, does that then this is I’m really interested in this. Does that then prevent people from being vulnerable and reaching out for help? Is that a barrier? That low self esteem? That shame? That trying to explain themselves, blaming themselves for bad decisions. Does that in itself stop people asking for help? Is it a barrier to their healing?

00:31:35 Tamara

Sometimes the help that’s available is not help that facilitates healing, but it’s help in terms of having material basic needs met, such as shelter, clothing, food. And in our society, I believe there is a narrative that supports the assertion that if someone is homeless or addicted, it’s their fault. It is a result of bad decisions. So if that is the accepted narrative, in my experience, having your material needs met requires that you participate in that narrative. So the answer to your question is both yes and no. It might help someone get a bus ticket to take on that narrative. Like, yeah, yeah, I know. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, I know, but I’m getting better. This might get them what they need in that moment. And that’s not a comment on them, that’s a comment on the system and the structures that we put in place in terms of social services, health services, educational services, etc. That there is a common accepted narrative. And that if people in need do not essentially toe the line with that narrative, then it’s very difficult for them to access those services.

00:32:57 Kevin

The thing you reminded me of Tamara is my father has worked with Alcoholics Anonymous, I was with him last night and he says he’s 43 years sober. And but he often he gets angry with the fact that this is in in the north of Ireland where I’m from, that for people to access addiction services, for example, is the we have a drying out ward where people can go into hospitals drier, and for people to get into the drying out ward, they need to be 4 weeks sober. The irony of that to accessing services that people need to help them. They have to already be 4 weeks of work. And he says, who is going to go into a drying out ward after they’ve been four weeks sober. What is that even about? And like you said that sometimes people need to perpetuate the perceptions of them to access the services that they need to get basic needs back and that is wrong.

00:33:51 Tamara

It certainly doesn’t promote healing at all, and I worked not-for-profit long enough to also understand how that system operates. And it’s really important to keep in mind. How are social services funded? I used to speak a lot and I would say especially in terms of mental health, the things that are required of someone to access mental health are exactly the things that their, let’s call it condition, or what they’re experiencing are not allowing them to do. So for example, asking someone to keep track of the day and time enough to show up at an appointment where they may or may not have transportation.The things that people are asked to do are the very things that they’re seeking help to do. It’s like someone showing up at the hospital with a broken leg and being told that they have to go to X-ray on the 5th floor but there’s no elevator.

00:34:50 Kevin

Yeah.

00:34:51 Tamara

Well, the help,  OK, the help is available, except it’s not accessible. The question is, is it actually available?

00:34:57 Kevin

Yeah, thank you. And Tamara I’ve read words about you. Activist was one of the terms that described you. And I hear you call yourself an educator and I, I know you worked with the Windsor Centre and worked with homelessness for a long time. And, and I want to swing back to your current work as well. At some point in this conversation. I think we might need another two or three interviews tomorrow, but let’s see how we go because I also want to talk to you about music and art and content creation. And so there’s lots for me to talk about. So with what you just said, the help is there, but it’s not accessible. The things that we’re denying people help with are the very thing that they need help for,  being on time, having an address so that they can get Social Security, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. With your work then in the Windsor Centre, with your approach as an activist, with your voice, how are you disrupting that? How are you helping people that are struggling to use this help that’s already there?

00:35:41 Tamara

My experience has demonstrated to me that the most disruptive thing we can do in terms of disrupting ineffective systems and structures is to be honest and to use every platform available to us to be honest. And I’ve often said, in a number of ways, the systems that we have in place are not actually serving people’s needs. 

And in fact, when we talk about if somebody has to conform to a particular narrative in order to get their needs met, then what we’re doing is we are teaching people how to be dishonest. So talk about interfering with somebody’s healing, to require dishonesty to be able to have your basic needs met. And that might actually, that situation might actually mirror lots of peoples early childhood experience, right?. There were many masks that I was asked to wear as a child. So I think that what propelled me to start the Windsor Centre was this rage inside me that was unresolved from my childhood and so, great that it did, because it was a great experience and there’s a wonderful agency here that’s still operating. I had to actually leave because that rage was unresolved and I had put myself in the same situation but on a bigger scale, and I withdrew. And now after Compassionate Inquiry and, and the other healing work that I’ve done, I am present in that same very unjust situation, working with people who really are very vulnerable members of our society, but much differently. I’m working much differently and honesty is the forefront of everything. And what I’ve come to understand is that honesty, it’s honesty that creates safety. When I’m at the admission, the downtown mission, I don’t really necessarily have the option of sitting with someone in an environment like my office where I regularly work, where I have control over that environment. And so in order to foster safety, in order to even introduce safety into that conversation, then I have to establish safety within the relationship. I have nothing else to rely on and there is nothing that can, I think debilitate safety so much as dishonesty. And especially with people who are so vulnerable, who feel so unsafe much of the time, their radar is always on, their BS detector is always on and they know. And this is exactly why I really value working with people who are experiencing homelessness and addiction is because there’s very little filter. There’s so much honesty often, and in fact it’s somebody that I met through the Windsor Youth Centre who was so absolutely honest with me. He literally didn’t let me get away with my story that I was telling myself about myself. And to this day, I’m grateful to him because it forced me to have a closer look at the story I was telling myself about myself. And I couldn’t perpetuate that story anymore. I really think honestly, and it’s actually that’s how I got. That’s how I started paying attention to Gabor, whenI read In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and I thought, wow, this man is telling the truth. In my experience, what he was doing was telling the truth about people and addiction and homelesness. And he has access to a huge platform, right? He has access to a huge audience. And I was so profoundly impressed and respectful of him that he used his the attention that he receives, he used it to tell the truth. And he still does. And I, I think that we need more people like that in the world. And I think that there are more and more people. I’m also aware that’s my perception too. And my reception has probably changed in the last few years. And I see the world as a profoundly more optimistic place and, more welcoming place than I did a few years ago before Compassionate Inquiry. But, and it was that same person who told me, he said you got to tell people stories. He said people in poverty have no voice. And he said, but you do, you have a voice. He said Tamara people listen to you. You’ve got to tell these stories. And so what he said helped me to write the book of poetry I wrote? And yeah. And it it also it, it helps to alleviate some of the shame too that comes with that vulnerability hangover. Because I have this beautiful person’s voice in my head saying it’s we’ve got to tell our stories.

00:40:31 Kevin

Thank you. Tamara we started this conversation chatting about you and we’ve moved through a little bit of your history and your work and I would love to spend maybe our last 10 minutes chatting about you again, if that’s OK. But something I’m noticing that as you talk is the when we use the word honesty, and that there’s a big word in Gabor’s work and in the work of Compassionate Inquiry, and we call it authenticity. And for me, it seems that you’re interspersing. Is that the right set, the right terminology? You’re using honesty for authenticity, or we could use the word authenticity. When you say honesty, when you’re sitting with people and they’re often highly sensitive people, they’re often on high alert. They’re often their BS radar is up. And what I hear you saying is that you are authentic. Just be authentic and would that be fair to use the word authentic in place of the word honesty?

00:41:25 Tamara

Yes, I think it’s fair. I say for me, authenticity is an ongoing process. I keep becoming more and more aware of different ways in which I’m still not authentic. I think maybe they’re overlapping because honesty also has to do with being honest about my experience. So for example, a few years ago, before I was doing Compassionate Inquiry, I had a couple of people living with me who were who were using crystal meth and fentanyl. And I knew that. And one of them overdosed in my apartment. And she didn’t die, she survived. And I was literally cooking homemade chicken soup in the kitchen at the time, and I heard one of them shouting my name and I ran into one of the bedrooms in my house. And this young woman was blue in the face and one of my  friends brought her to the the couch and I was on the phone with 911 and it was a really terrifying experience. I remember the 911 operator asking me to let me know when she takes a breath, let me know when she takes a breath because I had an a narcan kit and waiting for that breath felt like decades and it was probably only I don’t even know how long. But so I guess when I say honesty, that too be able to stay say to somebody, I’ve had someone overdose in my house. And it, I think it, it removes the myth that addiction is something that just happens to people who look or think or act a certain way or have a particular kind of education or lack of education. So yes, authenticity in terms of me being honest about what I’m actually feeling and thinking at the time, but also being honest about my experience and overcoming the fear. So we come back to fear of what will people say if they know that happened in my house?

00:43:39 Kevin

Yeah, like Tamara, you know, the idea of homelessness and addiction and shame and pain and trauma and brief. And I don’t want to spend too long on it, but I just want to share with you either that my own sister died 18 months ago by an accidental overdose. And and for me, it was a by suicide, except the suicide took her about 15 years to commit. She just slowly committed suicide. Yeah. That this perception, misguided perception that this only happens to people who choose that lifestyle. When we were in Vancouver a few years ago and I was walking down Hastings St where Gabor’s book came out of the dog came to me, was when I saw people who were deeply addicted and almost naked lying on the street in November in Vancouver and there was not a pretty sight. And the thought that came to me is that whatever they’re running from to them is worse than this. How bad, how difficult of a life must it have been for it to be worse than what I’m looking at right now? And nobody chooses that. So I appreciate your story and the idea of authenticity and honesty and being able to say that it’s really touchy. Tamara I, I want to use our last few minutes. A little birdie has told me that you have completed a book of poetry, spoken word. I would love you to speak a little bit about that before you go, if that’s OK.

00:45:05 Tamara

Absolutely. It’s OK. Before we go, thank you for sharing what you shared about your sister.

00:45:11 Kevin

Like tomorrow.

00:45:12 Tamara

Absolutely. It’s OK. Before we go, thank you for sharing what you shared about your sister. It’s called Coffee and Crystal and it’s a book divided into three parts. The first part is stories written through spoken word that are personal, stories of the beautiful people that I grew to love, that I met through the Windsor Youth Centre and some of the people who have asked me to speak on their behalf, interspersed with political commentary, which seems to be interspersed in everything I do and say. And then the middle part is a sort of integration that’s very short. And then the third part is a series of columns that I wrote throughout my Compassionate Inquiry, training and my healing with somatic experiencing and other modalities. Then actually, it encompasses so much of me and my work over the last years, as well as my life, my experience, really growing to love and appreciate the people I’ve worked with, as well as documenting what healing looks like for me as a process. And it was finished just in time for this year’s conference. 

And I also want to say that I’m so grateful to people like Jan Peter, who I presented with at the conference because he works with people in homelessness. And so I’ve met so many peers and when I remember applying for the Compassionate Inquiry online year long program and all I wanted to say was, I really want to be a part of this program because I need a community. I was so embarrassed and I was ashamed say that and so I made-up something which I guess was. believable

00:46:49 Kevin

I just felt my heart melt a little bit there tomorrow. I just felt a real aware of emotion. Thank you. Sorry for interrupting. I just wanted to follow through.

00:46:55 Tamara

No. Thank you for interrupting. Absolutely. Yeah. I was just too ashamed to say that I needed a community and wanted a community and it even took me a few years to be able to openly say I’m here because I don’t want to be alone anymore in the world and down to be welcomed. That’s all it takes to be welcomed into this community. And that was unfamiliar and new to me, still is. It still is hard to get used to sometimes. I still anticipate the phone call or the e-mail that says actually we made a mistake. You, you really don’t belong here.

00:47:33 Kevin

Talking about me again Tamara.

00:47:35 Tamara

Again, we’re talking about each other and ourselves. Maybe we will have to have a few more conversations.

00:47:42 Kevin

I absolutely put you on the spot and I don’t know if you have a copy of your book at hand and if you do, would there be something, a little short piece that or a paragraph that you would read from it? I just wasn’t prepared, so you’re welcome to say no.

00:47:59 Tamara

Absolutely, just give me two seconds. Let me just have a look here. So I had the beautiful fortune of being in Sanjgs bi-weekly for my year long training and I remember in the integration session between levels 1 and 2, the Sanjog came on and said, today I would just like to ask all of you what you need from me moving forward. What are your needs for level 2? And this was so early on in, in my experience of being in this community. And I just burst into tears and I, I couldn’t see and I couldn’t stop crying. And I remembered thinking, Oh my gosh, I think this might be the first time that I’ve heard someone say, what do you need? And like with sincerity or maybe even ever? I’m not sure. And and I’m not pointing a blame. I know the reasons why I didn’t receive that as a child. Absolutely. And I have so much of an understanding of a lot of what went on. But I think that’s a word in my experience when I talk to clients or work at retreats, etc. That’s a question rather that is unfamiliar to a lot of people. What do you need? And consequently, when I interned for her later on, I also cried through that whole level 1 interpretation session. So I guess I hadn’t finished crying yet. But. So this is actually called integration and I’ll just read the first stanza and it’s “Where do these tears all come from? Must be that place where the time all goes, that black hole that accommodates, makes room for seconds or centuries, and everyone of my years collates chaotically, files my memories at the tip of my fingers or just out of reach. This recall is out of hand, haphazard, confuses the facts, but tells the truth. It’s an honest autobiography with an emotional chronology.”

00:50:16 Kevin

I just want to tell you that you’re awesome. Thank you. Thank you, thank you., thank you for being here. Thank you for reading to us. Thank you for sharing with us. Thank you for teaching us. It has been an absolute pleasure to start what I imagine will be like a 6th month along conversation that we need to have about things. So we just started and yeah, it’s been a delight to chat to you Tamara. So from all of us here, the gifts of trauma and I don’t want to speak for the whole composition and quarry community, but I think we’re lucky to have you. So thank you for being here.

00:50:39 Tamara

Yes, absolutely, we need to have another conversation. This has been an honor and a pleasure and I want to make sure that I’m sending out also my gratitude to all those people who have been beside me and enabled me to do, the work that I do, the healing that I do, and just the friends that I have with me now.

00:50:57 Kevin

From all of us here at The Gifts of Trauma, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading to us. Thank you for sharing with us, thank you for teaching us. Thank you for being.

00:51:12 Rosemary

If you’ve been listening to our podcast and are curious about the Compassionate Inquiry approach developed by Doctor Gabor Mate and Satram Kara, you can apply to the next professional training program by December 15th. It begins in February. You’ll learn how to use compassion to support your clients in their most vulnerable moments with greater empathy and authenticity. You’ll also deepen your own internal process. Applications are open now, so if you’re interested, look for the link in the show notes or visit compassionateinquiry.com. Click the Training Programs tab, then use the Professional Training link to access more information. Applications close on December 15th. The Gifts of Trauma is a weekly podcast that features personal stories of trauma, healing, transformation, and the gifts revealed on the path to authenticity. Listen on Apple, Spotify, all podcast platforms, rate, review and share it with your clients, colleagues and family. Subscribe and you won’t miss an episode. Please note this podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for personal therapy or a DIY formula for self therapy.