Expand Your Fempire Podcast #27 Transcript

Overcoming Patriarchy Stress Disorder with Dr. Valerie Rein​

Welcome to Expand your Fempire with Caterina Rando, the podcast for women in business on a mission. Sharing ideas to support you to grow and thrive. Now here’s your host, Caterina Rando.

Caterina Rando: [00:00:00] I want to let you know a little bit about our guest today, Dr. Valerie Rein. She is the discoverer of Patriarchy Stress Disorder® (PSD), and this is a science-backed system for helping women achieve their ultimate success, happiness, and fulfillment.

[00:00:45] She holds a Ed.M. in Psychological Counseling from Columbia and a Ph.D. in Psychology from the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and we are going to have a very informative and thought-provoking discussion in this episode. Be sure to give it your full attention.

[00:01:09] This is Caterina Rando and welcome to another episode of Expand Your Fempire. I am so excited. Today we have the super-smart, lovely, kind, amazing, and very insightful, Dr. Valerie Rein.

[00:01:33] Dr. Valerie Rein: Thank you for the warm welcome.

[00:01:35] Caterina Rando: Dr. Valerie is the author of Patriarchy Stress Disorder. My friends, whatever you’re doing, stop, because you are going to want to give your full attention to our discussion today. Dr. Valerie, I want to hear about you and your life and your work. Before we do that, though, let’s go ahead and define for our listeners what is Patriarchy Stress Disorder?

[00:02:05] Dr. Valerie Rein: Of course, Patriarchy Stress Disorder is intergenerational collective trauma of oppression that serves or rather forms an invisible barrier to women’s happiness and fulfillment. It shows up in the ways of self-sabotage, in ways that we experience low energy, a mental fog, or different imbalances in our body that are connected to stress.

[00:02:35] But underlying the stress really the true root cause is the centuries of traumatic experiences that women have had around our power. And now that we have the opportunity to exercise our power in all these brilliant and amazing ways, our nervous system tends to be constantly in the state of over-drive as our subconscious interprets all those wonderful opportunities to be visible, to make lots of money, to love who we love, even do self-care, as dangerous.

[00:03:13] Caterina Rando: Wow. Dangerous. Okay. That is very upsetting, my friend for, for lack of a better word right? Now Dr. Valerie, share a little bit about your story and how you came to this work because I want to, of course, talk about this. Also, though, I like to talk to all women entrepreneurs and find out what brought them to entrepreneurship and what was your path like?

[00:03:42] Dr. Valerie Rein: Absolutely. My path to this work began when I was a little girl and my life was defined by the question, “What’s wrong with me?” I kept getting these messages, ” Don’t laugh so loud, no one would like you. Don’t be so smart, no one would want to marry you.” And, it just kept on pushing me to walk this tight rope that I kept failing at being able to do.

[00:04:14] And so on my quest to discover “what’s wrong with me?” I got to studying psychology. Well, what else would I study? And after two graduate degrees in Psych I had the life of my dreams. I had a thriving private practice in New York. I had a family and home I adored. And one day while on the phone with a client, I noticed that I was smiling only with the right side of my face, while the left side of my face just hung in there, as did my left arm.

[00:04:54] And I ended up in the ER with symptoms of a stroke. Which thankfully after scanning me up and down for a whole day, they determined to be my official diagnosis, just stress. And that relieved me of course, and also puzzled me to no end, because Caterina, I actually did not feel stressed. I did not feel stressed.

[00:05:23] My life was normal. My life was good. And if you had asked me, “Valerie, are you happy?” I would have said, “Of course, I’m happy. I have everything I’ve ever wanted. I’m doing the work I love. I love my people. I love my life.”

[00:05:37] However, unbeknownst to me in my system, the level of stress has been building up to these dangerous and disruptive levels that knocked my whole left side of my body offline. And that brought me to this inquiry, “What the hell is going on? What is going on in my system?”

[00:06:00] And as the security blanket of stress was slipping, what was underneath it was very uncomfortable and unsettling. Because that question of “what’s wrong with me?” was still alive and well underneath all achievements. And deep down inside I was not feeling as happy and fulfilled as I looked on paper. And that was disheartening. That was devastating, in fact.

[00:06:29] Because I had done it all Caterina, not only in the, in terms of achievement, but also in terms of seeking and looking for ways to heal myself. I had been in therapy for years. I read every self-help book I could get my hands on. Lots of personal development and workshops, and I really didn’t know what else I could do.

[00:06:55] Caterina Rando: Dr. Valerie let’s stay right here because what you said was, you know, you thought there was something wrong with you.

[00:07:03] Dr. Valerie Rein: Yeah

[00:07:04] Caterina Rando: That’s why you pursued psychology. By the way, Master’s in Psychology over here.

[00:07:10] Dr. Valerie Rein: Wooo! I see you sister!

[00:07:12] Caterina Rando: I understand that right? And of course, we could say this for all of the sisters all over – this idea that we feel at some point, if not all the time, “what’s wrong with me?” And I love that you said in your book, and I want to also say to everybody, there is absolutely nothing wrong with you.

[00:07:34] That you are enough. You are lovable. You are… if you’re listening to this, I’m assuming you’re super smart. And this whole thing about women, about not feeling enough, about that there is something wrong, that this is a fundamental, I call it a core wounding that we want to acknowledge. And this is what part of what your book is all about.

[00:08:00] Now Dr. Valerie let’s hang out here for a second because, you know, some ladies might think, “well, I’ve never had an abusive partner who beat me. I’ve never been raped. I didn’t grow up in a home where I saw my dad hit my mom. So no, I don’t have any trauma.” And you and your book expand the definition, and I think very accurately, for what trauma is.

[00:08:26] And let’s take a moment for you to share that because we have experienced a lot of trauma, we just don’t think of it that way.

[00:08:36] Dr. Valerie Rein: Yeah, indeed. I didn’t think I had any trauma just like most, if not all of the clients that we work with. I had a quote unquote, “normal childhood,” quote unquote, “normal life.” And yet I was experiencing these symptoms of trauma. And so were my clients. And I’ll comment on what I mean by that.

[00:09:00] When I looked at my clients in my deep despairing moment of what else I could do, I noticed something that they were doing that they were accomplishing that I wasn’t. And they were breaking out of that state of numbness and stepping into the fullness of their lives. And so, what I was doing with them that I wasn’t doing for myself, I was offering them mind-body trauma healing tools.

[00:09:29] And really, they would have never said coming to me that they had any trauma that they were aware of. And the reason I wasn’t doing it for me, because yeah, I didn’t think I had any trauma. And that was that moment of seeing the evidence being so undeniable and asking the next question of, “Could we all have some kind of trauma that we’re not aware of?”

[00:09:56] That’s when the discoveries in the field of epigenetics were coming into my view, showing that traumatic experiences are genetically transmitted. And that was that big light bulb moment connecting the dots.

Women have been oppressed for thousands of years, for thousands of years. Our bodies did not belong to us. We couldn’t survive without being attached to a man. We couldn’t make our own money. We couldn’t love who we love. And that’s what I termed Patriarchy Stress Disorder, that intergenerational collective trauma. – Dr. Valerie

[00:10:11] Women have been oppressed for thousands of years, for thousands of years. Our bodies did not belong to us. We couldn’t survive without being attached to a man. We couldn’t make our own money. We couldn’t love who we love. And that’s what I termed Patriarchy Stress Disorder, that intergenerational collective trauma.

[00:10:33] And this is one kind of trauma that we carry in our systems that doesn’t discriminate, because while patriarchy has been around for thousands of years, we have all come from this background and have all experienced things and our systems have created survival mechanisms around those.

[00:10:54] And in addition to that, we have all experienced moments and events that made us feel unsafe in our fullest authentic expression. And that is how I have come to define trauma – as any experience, be it emotional or physical experience, that made us feel unsafe in our fullest authentic expression and led to creating trauma adaptations to keep us safe going forward.

[00:11:27] And if we take a moment to scan through our life experiences, suddenly that changes the picture from, “Oh yeah, I was never held at a gunpoint,” to “Oh, well, have I ever felt safe in my fullest authentic expression,” right? What does that even mean?

[00:11:44] So that became that next question that I’m exploring now in my life and in my work with our clients. That question that I define as “How good can it get?” Right? How good can it get? How much can we find that safety through trauma healing and express authentically in every area of our lives.

[00:12:06] Caterina Rando: And this is so important for women because I think that when women feel like, well, they haven’t had this terrible thing happen or that terrible thing happen, then, you know, ” how come I don’t feel good or how come I don’t feel safe?”

[00:12:20] Well, it’s all of those times that you were screamed at in your own home, or on the job, or unwanted advances, or even the looks that made us feel unsafe in a situation. So, all of these things that we’ve experienced, not to mention, as you say, what our mothers experienced, what our grandmothers experienced, what the women before us experienced. That it’s all impacting us right now.

[00:12:51] And you know, a couple of things. One is that you mentioned in your book the freeze, fight, or flight. And we all understand that. One of the things that I have heard before, which I want your opinion on Dr. Valerie, is the idea of appease.

[00:13:11] Dr. Valerie Rein: Yes.

[00:13:11] Caterina Rando: And that I know in my life, I guess I’ve done the freeze, and sometimes the fight and sometimes the flight, but mostly I found myself appeasing someone to just kind of try to calm them down or make the situation safe again. And what are your thoughts about that? Because I think that that’s what a lot of women do in these types of situations.

[00:13:39] Dr. Valerie Rein: Absolutely. I’m so glad you brought this up. This is actually something that we do teach in our programs. In the book, I kind of stuck with the most like the simplest conventional way of describing it. And there is so much that I have learned even since the book came out, because we’re always learning.

[00:13:57] Caterina Rando: Right.

[00:13:57] Dr. Valerie Rein: Learning from new advances in science, our experiences, our client’s experiences of what’s possible with this work.

[00:14:05] Appease is the first trauma response in women. The first response that we usually would go to because it is the most socially acceptable one, and we’re really conditioned to hang out there. It is not often that we can exercise the fight response or even the flight response. It’s not like we can fight or run away in most situations.

[00:14:31] So most likely we would go to appease, and if it doesn’t work into freeze. So most of us actually our nervous systems hang out in freeze most of the time. And we don’t know that necessarily, but we begin to discover it when we begin to do this work. And it’s amazing when we begin to thaw. Oh, how much freedom, how much self-expression becomes available. But it’s not when it feels unsafe.

This is not some kind of a character flaw. Our system is doing its best to keep us safe.

-Dr. Valerie

[00:15:04] Freeze, like any other reaction and appease as well, they are there to keep us safe. This is not some kind of a character flaw. Our system is doing its best to keep us safe.

[00:15:15] And so I want to speak to something that I hear in personal development a lot like “Stop people pleasing,” or “I’m a recovering people pleaser.” I just want to hit a pause button here and say, this is not you. And there is no shame in that, it is not some kind of a thing you need to correct in yourself. But recognize it is your system reacting. You are getting triggered. You’ll go into appease as a trauma defense.

[00:15:45] And hopefully with these understandings, looking through the trauma lens, we can start unwinding from even personal development making us feel bad about ourselves, right? The entire patriarchal field is constantly making women feel wrong and like something is wrong with us. And this is really the core message of this work. There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with us and there is something we can do about all of these things.

And this is really the core message of this work. There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with us and there is something we can do about all of these things.

-Dr. Valerie

[00:16:13] Caterina Rando: And let’s have our listeners hear that: there’s absolutely nothing wrong with who we are and that we can learn some tools, right Dr. Valerie…

[00:16:24] Dr. Valerie Rein: Absolutely.

[00:16:25] Caterina Rando: …to improve for the future. And I want to get to those tools shortly.  I want to mention something. I was listening yesterday to an interview with Mariah Carey, the singer. And of course, you know, everyone knows she’s had incredible success. And in her book, she has a chapter called “Princess Prisoner.”

[00:16:49] She was in her first marriage in a power couple. They have the most beautiful house, beautiful success, not house…estate. And she says that, you know, only one person in that relationship had any power and it wasn’t her. And that she felt like a prisoner.

[00:17:10] And I mention that because everyone knows who she is. I know that many women feel this way or have felt this way. Can you talk about a little bit about what you call prison guards in your book and maybe, Dr. Valerie, how somebody can recognize that they have a prison guard?

[00:17:31] Dr. Valerie Rein:  Oh, this gave me chills and it’s so disruptive and so healing when a woman shares her story. And when a woman with a powerful platform and a woman who is a role model for so many, has that bravery, that courage to share her story. She helps so many women look at their situations and know that they’re not alone.

[00:17:54] And so we are talking about a couple of different things here that are distinct. Being a prisoner in the relationship where there is an imbalance of power and a patriarchal relationship. And that’s a separate thing, right?  It is and it isn’t.

[00:18:09] We also have our own invisible in the prison of trauma. And what I refer to as prison guards are those trauma defenses that have evolved over generations and generations to keep us safe. And so, in some circumstances, those trauma defenses also are accountable for women ending up in relationships that on the one hand feels safe, like this man is going to protect me, is going to take care of me. And at the same time, not rock the boat because that feels unsafe, right?

[00:18:45] Again, that appease defense, that is also one of the prison guards. And I love that you ask the question in this way, because whatever our prison guards know from the traumas that we have inherited, know about what a safe, what is unsafe, and that knowledge is outdated by the way, because what is safe and unsafe in the world for women now is very different from what it was a hundred years ago.

[00:19:14] But those same things in our nervous system and our subconscious they regulate what choices we make now. If they will allow us to be more visible, to make more money, to have a relationship that is truly an equal partnership, to receive that love and give that love. That is all predicated on whether or not it feels safe to our system.

[00:19:41] So, here is another aspect of this, women are told, “Oh, just like create a vision board and everything would work out.” And I have a lot of love for manifestation.  This is great. And I vision myself. And it works when it works in conjunction with doing trauma work and making sure that what we are visioning actually feels safe to our subconscious, not just to the conscious mind.

[00:20:08] Because you may envision yourself on a big stage or making millions of dollars, having the love of your life, but your subconscious may be “No, no unsafe!  It’s unsafe to be in the partnership. It’s unsafe to attract attention to yourself.”

[00:20:22] And when we work with these prison guards… and in my system, this is one of the steps when we learn to recognize them. And then we evolve them from prison guards to bodyguards. So that the same biological mechanisms can keep us safe on the journey to our dreams, to creating the life designed by our desires versus keeping us stuck.

[00:20:43] And when we do that, the circumstances of our lives also change. Because hey, if it feels safe now to have that conversation with your partner or to exit the partnership, if the partner is not amenable to growing with you [00:21:00] where you need to go and how you need to authentically unfold, right? That changes circumstances. You’re no longer princess prisoner. And that goes for every area of women’s lives.

[00:21:11] Caterina Rando: I love that we can take these internal aspects and turn them from prison guards to bodyguards. I love that. And maybe then in our life, we cannot seek out the prison guards, but begin to attract the bodyguards on the outside too.

[00:21:31] Dr. Valerie Rein: Exactly, exactly.

[00:21:33] Caterina Rando: I love that Dr. Valerie. Now here’s what I want to say first. This is the Expand Your Fempire podcast, right? This is for women on a mission, who have businesses and choose to serve through their businesses as you do and I do, Dr. Valerie. And the listeners might be listening to this and thinking, “why are we talking about this?”

…when you have a business, who we are and our whole life impacts our business.

-Caterina Rando

[00:21:56] And I have my own many ideas about why we’re talking about this. Well, I will say because when you have a business, who we are and our whole life impacts our business.

[00:22:08] Dr. Valerie Rein: Yes.

[00:22:08] Caterina Rando: And from your perspective, Dr. Valerie, why is this an important conversation for women entrepreneurs to be having their attention on?

[00:22:20] Dr. Valerie Rein: The simplest way I can think of answering this question is that we are building and we are running a successful business that is growing fast, having a great impact and 90% of the work is hearing and then 10% is showing up. And that 10% is easy when the 90% is handled.

[00:22:45] And just to give you a little indication about how deeply those things affect us, they did a study with school aged girls. And in the study, they had two groups of girls take a math test, and both groups filled out a questionnaire before. And the only difference between the questionnaires – one group had a question “your gender” and check either F or M. That’s it, otherwise identical, okay?

[00:23:15] The outcomes were devastating. That group that had the gender question and checked the box F, only by reminding their subconscious that they were female and women are not expected to be good at math, they did significantly worse on the test, than the other group that just had the leverage of not being reminded that they are somehow not good enough, right, as women.

[00:23:45] And this is so deep in our subconscious, and we are brilliant. I know every listener of your podcast, every woman I know is a business genius.

[00:23:56] And what is shielding her from truly. Playing in that zone of genius are those prison guards is the PSD conditioning, understanding that it’s never been safe for a woman to play in that arena. A woman’s power has always been a punishable offense on the patriarchy.

[00:24:13] So there is a lot in our system that we need to heal and clear, so that we can play full out and not pay the price of adrenal fatigue, of our autoimmune and relationship crisis and et cetera, et cetera. Not sacrifice our lives to die on these barricades of building a business. It can be easy. It can be profitable. It can be fulfilling, and our entire lives can be thriving.

[00:24:42] And this is what I found to be the missing link in my life. And in our clients’ lives. And I am just hell bent on this mission of creating a new precedent for this is what success looks like. It’s a whole life success and I believe that’s why we’re having this conversation, Caterina.

[00:25:03] Caterina Rando: That’s why. Absolutely. One of the things I appreciate that you say in your book is you call us “high-achieving women” and you never use the term “overachiever,” which is something that I often educate people around. And I love that because when we call someone an overachiever, we’re putting a judgment, we’re putting a limit, on her success and high achieving women that’s who most of us are.

[00:25:32] And it is to be celebrated rather than shamed by calling someone an overachiever. And why did you decide… was there any thought to that? Maybe this is how you’ve been operating all along, but was there any thought to that?

[00:25:48] Dr. Valerie Rein: It has not occurred to me to call it otherwise. I so appreciate that you’ve given it thought and unpacked the judgment around overachieving and how that really limits women.

[00:26:01] Caterina Rando: Right. Beautiful. Well, thank you for that. Okay, so we’ve talked about all of these things and, everybody, if you’re still listening and you’ve been thinking about your life, you’ve been thinking about your past, about your lineage.

[00:26:16] Let’s give the ladies some super tips, dr. Valerie. Let’s tell them now, what can they do to uplift their lives other than reading your book, which I highly recommend. What can they do? Let’s give them some super tips to uplift themselves in this area.

[00:26:35] Dr. Valerie Rein: Hmm. I love this. Well, first of all, if you’re curious about the book, you can dip the toe in by downloading the first chapter. And it’s free on my website, Drvalerie.com/book. And right there on that same page, you can actually download our starter kit of tools you can start implementing right away.

[00:26:57] Caterina Rando: Great.

[00:26:57] Dr. Valerie Rein: Yeah. Start rebalancing your nervous system. Start getting in touch with that authentic desire. I like to say there’s nothing more dangerous to the patriarchal status-quo than a woman who is in touch with her desire.

I like to say there’s nothing more dangerous to the patriarchal status-quo than a woman who is in touch with her desire. 

-Dr. Valerie

[00:27:10] And that’s why, you may hear it from women who come to work with you too, that “Oh my gosh. I just don’t have clarity. I don’t know exactly what to do.” And a part of this is that that authentic genius is shielded by prison guards, because it is so unsafe right? Remember power equals unsafe until we start to heal.

[00:27:32] And you can get your hands on those tools and start playing with them. And then the book gives you the information and that in itself is the beginning of the journey, but then to take it into transformation, you need to have that experience.

[00:27:48] And that’s why we actually started offering three virtual retreats, which we call the Thriving Experience. And this is an event that attracts women, high- achieving women, from all over the world who grew up in different cultures and yet receive the same conditioning from overarching patriarchy. And together, we start exploring in our bodies and minds, what it feels like, what it looks like, to shift from survival to thriving in business and in our personal lives.

[00:28:24] Caterina Rando: That’s wonderful. Well, I’m definitely going to be at one of your upcoming events, Dr. Valerie. Here’s the thing though, okay? The ladies are driving in their car. They’re going to go get the book. They’re going to read it. They’re going to come maybe to the retreat, but what super tips can we give the ladies right now that they can use?

[00:28:42] Dr. Valerie Rein: Absolutely. Well, first know that if you are struggling with something, you’re running into some invisible inner wall, like you are about to send out that proposal aaaaand then you have 50 tabs open on your browser, and you were doing social media research, or you’re calling your pediatrician to make a well-child appointment for a year in advance, right? All of these things become urgent.

[00:29:07] No, it’s not you. Have that mantra: it’s not me, it’s PSD. And this is not something to kind of get you off the hook. It is something to give you leverage. Because if you think it’s you, there’s nothing you can do about it, really, other than beat yourself up and that doesn’t get anybody free.

[00:29:26] But if you know it’s PSD, you get to work with that. One of the first tools that I teach I call it a “re-power tool” and we can do it together even if you’re driving, make sure you’re not closing your eyes, that is not a part of the deal.

[00:29:41] Simply drop your awareness into your feet. Feel your feet in contact with the ground. Feel the sensations in your feet. Now feel your bones, feel your tooshie in the chair, feel your back against the back of the chair and feel that gentle pull of gravity. And feel how steady, how constant, how reliable that is, always, no matter what’s going on in and around you.

[00:30:07] And then bring your awareness to your breathing and feel the sensations of your breath. Again, keep your eyes open. You don’t need to close it for this one. Just feel the sensations and feel how constant that life force is. No matter what’s going on, you’re always nurtured and supported. You always have that resource.

[00:30:27] And finally, take your five senses on the tour of the environment. What we’re doing here is sending a message to your hindbrain. This is where the fight, flight, freeze gets activated, or when we feel there is a danger in sending that proposal. And saying words like “I’m safe” is not going to cut it because hindbrain does not speak the language of the words. It only speaks the language of the experience.

[00:30:56] So to send that message that right now, there are no attackers, no saber tooth tigers in your environment, look around. Actually, do look around as you’re listening to that and take in the environment, the shapes and the colors and the light and the shadow. And then you listen, listen for the sounds in the environment. The pauses and the sounds. And then smell and taste. And finally touch. Touch your own body, touch something solid in the environment.

[00:31:32] And that is sending the message to your hindbrain that right now you’re safe and secure and taken care of, and you can send that proposal and nothing bad is going to happen, you know, in right in this moment, right? And that is where we start.

[00:31:49] Caterina Rando: I love that because I think what that would do then is bring us to the space of feeling safe, because we’ve taken that time to take a good look around and make sure that we are. That’s beautiful.

[00:32:06] Dr. Valerie, I know you have a lifetime supply of more value for our listeners. And thank you for letting them all know that they can go to Drvalerie.com/book and get the beginning, which is very good cause I recommend it. It’s very informative the beginning of your book, and then they can get the starter kit, which I’m going to go and get.

[00:32:30] And the thing about business, is that it really is an inside job – that we are never more successful than we believe and perceive that we can be. And that this whole idea for women about staying safe and not getting too visible and too powerful also would be creating limitations for ourselves. And this is something for our high achieving listeners to definitely look at.

[00:33:02] Dr. Valerie, I want to thank you so much for your research, for your book, for your voice, for being a great example of an authentic woman entrepreneur on a mission, as you are. And I applaud you for your service to womenkind. And I want to thank you so much for bringing your massive value and your big heart to us today.

[00:33:30] Dr. Valerie Rein: Ah, thank you so much, Caterina. I am melting and thank you for this delicious conversation. Thank you for your leadership and including my vision into yours and thank you to our listeners for sharing your time with us today. It’s a pleasure changing the world with you.

[00:33:50] Caterina Rando: It’s a pleasure changing the world with you. Thank you, my friend. I will see you very soon. And everybody, go get Dr. Valerie’s book or at least go get the introduction at Drvalerie.com/book, and we will pick it up next time.

[00:34:05] Remember everybody, you have massive, massive value to bring and be loud and proud and bring your massive value so you can sell more, serve more, and uplift the planet. Thank you.

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Expand Your Fempire with Caterina Rando.