Resonance & Repair: Healing Attachment Wounds with Sarah Peyton
Welcome to Light Warrior Radio, where our mission is to empower sensitive souls to harness their superpowers and shine their light. So together, we can cocreate heaven on earth. I'm your host, doctor Karen Kan, author of the number one best selling book, Sensitivity is Your Superpower, and founder of the Academy of Light Medicine and the TOLPAKAN Healing Method.
Dr. Karen Kan:Thank you for joining me. Hello, and welcome. Welcome, everyone, to Light Warrior Radio. I'm so excited that you are here today because we're we're gonna be talking about resonance and healing attachment wounds.
Dr. Karen Kan:So, there's a lot of stuff going on in the world. And, yeah, people are noticing there's a lot of healing happening and sometimes it's not very comfortable. And so I thought I'd bring in an expert today. So Sarah Payton is our expert today in light word radio, and, let me share a little bit about her before we formally introduce her. So she teaches and speaks internationally about the ways that relationship and language transform the brain, how they prevent and heal trauma.
Dr. Karen Kan:And I'm really into this language relationship stuff. I'm actually gonna be taking a little course on, non violent communication and things like that. I And, you know, she's an expert in that as well. So by applying, complex neuroscience concepts to real life, stories, role play, research, meditations, engaging dialogues, audience members lead Sarah's presentations with more wisdom and self compassion and often making sense of themselves, you know, for the first time. So she has been a presenter in businesses, universities, nonprofits, conferences, prisons, hospitals, churches.
Dr. Karen Kan:And she's available for keynote speeches, of course, workshops, plenary talks, podcast, webinars, and, of course, in person and online trainings. And, also, constellation work for families and groups of professionals, which I actually have, I went to, of course, for that and role played a little girl, which was very interesting on family constellations. It was fascinating, fascinating work. So I think this is perfect for today. So welcome, Sarah.
Dr. Karen Kan:Thank you so much.
Sarah Peyton:Thank you so much for having me, Karen. What a pleasure to be here.
Dr. Karen Kan:Oh, yeah. The pleasure is mine. And I I think that's, the the kind of things that you do are really important. I mean, it's not that it's not important before, but I think now it's even more important when there's so much turmoil. And you can even say like, they say solar flares are gonna be worse than 2025, and that and it flares people's anger, and the relationships can be threatened.
Dr. Karen Kan:So yeah. So I let me ask you first, like, tell us your story. Like, how did you become who you are today?
Sarah Peyton:Oh, well, you know, I was just thinking this morning about the the things that happen with trauma and about how how when we're little kids and our parents are kind of rocked by trauma or fractured by trauma, they can be kind of harsh and rigid with our little tiny beings and punitive. And then we can grow up to I mean, even just becoming 3 years old. I remember becoming 3 years old and having my consciousness dawn of a of a self, a sense of self, and how I thought that myself was not good, because I was already had already been treated so punitively that I that I, didn't know. It's like when we're treated punitively, we become hard and angry. And I I remember not liking my mother and thinking I was a terrible person because I didn't like my mother.
Sarah Peyton:And then I had to kind of, you know, figure out how to live with that. And then I remember the day that I was, I was 50 something, and I was in a in a I was listening to a lecture about early childhood, and they said, if a baby is treated punitively and harshly, then, of course, they don't like their mother. You know? And I was like, oh. And what that did was it allowed me to rediscover my communion with her, my sense of, of just loving her, that she was my world and that I loved her so intensely.
Sarah Peyton:It it was like it it when when these kind of trauma related things that make us think we're bad people start to become revealed to us, we begin to we begin to heal attachment wounds. We begin to reach back into a sense of ourselves almost as as love incarnate. And that, of course, being little love incarnate embodies what happens to us impacts us and impacts our ability to access that love. So that's kind of a little bit of a very wild and intense origin story for you. How did I do?
Dr. Karen Kan:That's great. Well, there's definitely similarities, there as well. My, although I I very very close to my my mom and, but it's just very dramatic. You know? And, thank goodness for the personal growth because I used to take things really personal.
Dr. Karen Kan:And as a child, like, how can you not? Yeah. How can how can you not, take things personally? So, yeah, yesterday, she just texted me that I'm being overly controlling, which I just laughed out loud because I'm like, the apple does not fall apart from the tree, I guess. You know?
Dr. Karen Kan:I I didn't say that. I didn't say that. So, let's talk about, you mentioned attachment wounds. So can you kind of flush that out a little bit? Like, what is what is that?
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. So attachment wounds are, well, we're just, like I was saying, kind of made to be love. Mhmm. But but because it hurts when love is not returned or when, we are treated punitively or harshly, or when we're ashamed or ridiculed, or somebody doesn't talk to us for hours or days, then we we start to kind of develop a fortress that stops us from being in relationship. That's one way we can go.
Sarah Peyton:It's called a. We can develop a fortress that keeps us safe from relationship because relationship has been so painful. Yep. And nonresponsive. And then but another thing we can do is we can become anxious.
Sarah Peyton:Like, just always feeling like if only we could get the other person to respond to us the way that we want them to, then we everything would be fine. And so we can kind of that's another way that we can we can develop an attachment wound is to to be really kind of worried all the time about whether or not we're being liked or whether or not we matter, whether or not our voice matters, whether or not we're we're safe, whether or not we can ever be loved, whether or not, you know, the the whole inside of us that was left by the communion that we came out of the womb capable of was able to be manifest or not. And and so then the 3rd those are the 2 big organized responses to trauma. Then the third response is to is disorganized. It's traumatic attachment.
Sarah Peyton:And with with traumatic attachment, then things become really unpredictable. One minute we're kind, one minute we're crazy. You know? One minute we're Oh. Yeah.
Sarah Peyton:One minute we're stable, one minute we're clawing off the handle. One minute we're totally loving. Another minute we're raging with jealousy. So one minute we're there. The next minute we're like, I can't do this relationship.
Sarah Peyton:I'm out of here. All of that unpredictability is the result of the chasms that appear within the kind of the attachment matrix of the human brain, which is supposed to be kind of a a if you could you could think of it as a a beautifully woven piece of material that has, you know, lots of warp and weft and, you know, is tightly woven. It's Egyptian cotton. You know? 1200 thread count.
Dr. Karen Kan:Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. It it actually that that actually sounds like more like my mom's so called personality, because there was some major trauma, like, when she was growing up.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. But
Dr. Karen Kan:it wasn't like she was the focus of the negative energy, but she witnessed it.
Sarah Peyton:Oh, yeah. That leaves traces in the brain. We can see this.
Dr. Karen Kan:So she has this off on, like, happy like like, really unstable and unhappy, and they're really gonna sound like, what is going on?
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness. And we have to respond by often, we respond by becoming as much ballast as we can to center and ground our mothers. Yep.
Sarah Peyton:Yep. But then also we have these chasms within ourselves in the places where she wasn't able to be predictable, and we ourselves also can kind of carry forward that unpredictability.
Dr. Karen Kan:Wow. Wow. That's very, very interesting.
Sarah Peyton:This is finish that metaphor of the Egyptian cotton. It's supposed to be Egyptian cotton with all these thread with high fry thread count. But when we're traumatized or when our parents are traumatized and are are unpredictable with us, it's like knife slashes through the Egyptian cotton, whereas secure attachment is just, you know, lovely warp and weft, 1200 thread count, beautiful, smooth, say easy sailing. But we can the good thing is that we as we do the work that both of us teach, it starts to restore that that fabric of connectedness.
Dr. Karen Kan:Mhmm. Wow. That's great. So, I love that visual, you know, of of the material and it being tightly woven and beautiful and even, and, that would be, like, the stability of of that connection. And then it the trauma being literally, like, rips, and then we are, like, repairing.
Dr. Karen Kan:Reminds me of that, cartoon Brave where she slashes the family.
Sarah Peyton:I don't
Dr. Karen Kan:know if you've seen that cartoon. She Oh, okay. Yeah. In a in a fit of anger, she slashes this tapestry. Her mom becomes a bear.
Dr. Karen Kan:And until she weaves it back in, her mom has a limited time to become human again. So spoiler alert, people. But, yeah, it's similar to that. That's so interesting.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. Yeah. And in a way, the time span that we have to weave our mother to weave the fabric back together so our mother can become human is our lifetime. Yeah. Because we can continue the work of reweaving even after our mothers are dead.
Sarah Peyton:We can reclaim them from beardom. Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. From beardom. Yes. Oh, so true. So, now some people I noticed, Sarah, they're not consciously aware of trauma.
Dr. Karen Kan:And trauma is almost like a hip thing to have, you know, these days. So there's the other camp that are like trauma? I don't have trauma. So how would one recognize there was work to do in this realm without necessarily labeling themselves as trauma? Like, are there some hints of maybe there's some things here.
Dr. Karen Kan:Maybe the the word wound or trauma is too dramatic for certain people. Like, what are some patterns that you see that would be helpful to go into this kind of work?
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. Well, if we're looking for, you know, the the this really sort of beautiful, steady, tight weave, then our question is, you know, are we is is the weave within our brains steady and sweet and beautiful enough for us? Or is there some way that we're attacking ourselves or that our brains are not cozy places to live in? I mean, the ideal the I in in the ideal world where we've started to heal our attachment wounds, our brains become really warm, welcoming places for ourselves and for others too.
Dr. Karen Kan:Okay. Now some people are not gonna necessarily identify with their brain. I know you have a lot of learnings in neurochemistry not neurochemistry, you know, neurology, that kind of thing. So what would it feel like to not have that stable brain blueprint, if you will?
Sarah Peyton:So a number of things that tell us that it's not cozy inside of our brain. One is, if we always need to be, eating or smoking cigarettes or playing video games.
Dr. Karen Kan:Okay. Eating, playing video games.
Sarah Peyton:Smoking cigarettes, drinking. Yeah. Drinking. Okay. Weed.
Sarah Peyton:Whatever it is, if we're if there's something that we're doing habitually, always having Netflix on, if there's something we're doing habitually that takes us away from ourself, then it means that our brain is not a cozy welcoming place for us.
Dr. Karen Kan:Oh, so those things are self soothing activities? Or
Sarah Peyton:They're very soothing. They're very restorative in the short term.
Dr. Karen Kan:Uh-huh.
Sarah Peyton:Our disrupt our brain patterning that has been disrupted by trauma. So if our we have like different colors in this fabric that we're weaving. We have a color for healthy anger. We have a color for healthy disgust. We have a color for healthy, love and care.
Sarah Peyton:We have a color for healthy, play. We have a color for healthy, sexuality and authentic expression of the self. And so our addictions or our habits will tell us where the fabric of self is disrupted. So if we really find that we turn to either, sugar, salt, and fat or to opiates, then we can guess and and and alcohol is all purpose. Then we can guess that we can guess that we've been disrupted in the area of play and love I'm sorry, of care and love.
Dr. Karen Kan:Okay. So they're like surrogates, but, obviously, they don't heal.
Sarah Peyton:Right. They're trying to they, like, try to put little patches on the fabric. Ah. That's like what patching that fabric of attachment.
Dr. Karen Kan:Like the scarecrow. Right? Like, just patching them.
Sarah Peyton:And and if we're smoking weed, then we're putting patches on the play circuit. We're putting
Dr. Karen Kan:patches on the
Sarah Peyton:play circuit. Yeah. On the on our ability to it's it means that our ability to play has been compromised. And and, if we're, relying on it's it's a little more complex than that. We can also go toward, towards balance and homeostasis, but play balances and creates homeostasis for our bodies.
Sarah Peyton:It's quite a lovely
Dr. Karen Kan:Well, let me let me ask you about play for a moment here. Because to me, play is relative. So so meaning that, you know, if somebody else outside looking in to my life, they'd be like, wow. You're really in front of that computer a lot.
Sarah Peyton:Mhmm. You know?
Dr. Karen Kan:Yes. You go skating. Yes. You do CrestFit. And, yes, you, you know, sometimes make candles.
Dr. Karen Kan:And my latest thing is herbal salves, which is super super fun. But most of the time, I'm creating stuff online and and doing that kind of stuff. But the thing is, it's not like a 9 to 5 job where people don't like what they do, and it's work. To me, that is play. So whatever's happening to my brain, I I get so enthused, and it's so fun.
Sarah Peyton:Uh-huh.
Dr. Karen Kan:And sometimes, like, even my husband would be like, are you coming out? Like, take a break. You know? But for me, it's like, I've been playing so much.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. Of course. So You know, like Yeah. That's not I need
Dr. Karen Kan:to play board with you.
Sarah Peyton:That kind of expression is is play, but it's also the expression of your true self. Emergence. It's your sexuality. It's it's your authentic being that's coming out in what you're doing. So, I mean, that's pretty powerful double double whammy of expression there, both play and who you are.
Dr. Karen Kan:It can look like not play though. I can understand that right from other people's perspective, because they're not feeling what I'm feeling.
Sarah Peyton:Right. It takes us to the video games and and part of what video games are helping us do is it video games pop us out of our default mode network, which is the automatic voice of the brain.
Dr. Karen Kan:Mhmm.
Sarah Peyton:So, it puts us in our seeking circuit and lets us balance dopamine. So it's like a little patch on our we're talking about these patches on, on our attachment fibers, and this patch is a patch that patches up the seeking circuit and makes us feel like we're getting things done. So what we what we really wanna know is, is, like, when you wake up in the morning, do you feel a sense of delight that Karen has arrived in a wake awaken. That's what what we wanna know.
Dr. Karen Kan:Like to sleep in. But,
Sarah Peyton:When you shower, is there a sense of wonder and happiness and welcome for your physical body when you're doing self care? Is there you know, that's what we wanna know. We find the question the answer to this question you're asking, if we don't know that we're carrying the aftereffects of attachment wounds, how might we guess that we are? We carry the aftereffects of our attachment wounds in the moments of quiet where where we notice, oh, is there anxiety? Is is it hard to just rest and goof off?
Sarah Peyton:Do when we start to hang out with family or friends and and people are laughing, do we start to just feel, like, really nervous and really wanna go work? You know, we wanna know we wanna know whether the inside of your own brain is not just welcoming your emergent expression of the divinity of your message and your work in the world. We wanna know whether your brain is is kind of creating this reverberating echo chamber of love for you and, of course, for the people around you. But
Dr. Karen Kan:Okay. That that's really helpful. Like, I I was at a a little party, the other day with with my friends, and I just felt like I wasn't thinking about work. You know? So, you know, it's really cool.
Dr. Karen Kan:First of all, I was giving away my bomb, so I wanted to know what they thought of it. But, you know, we're exchanging, you know, presents afterwards, and we just had a lot of fun. You know, just like being present and playing games and stuff is some of the things we do with some of our local people. So when it's planned out, and I know I have a lot of work, but when it's planned out, I'm able to do that. I can thoroughly enjoy that and not think about I got this to do over here.
Dr. Karen Kan:So that's much better than it used to be. Uh-huh. Like before, like, decades, I would feel guilty
Sarah Peyton:Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:Because I would have things to do, and I would be over here planning this get together, whatever, and then but I'd be like, oh, but I have this loads of things to do over here. So it just seems like that's not it's not encroaching on that playtime. So that's good. Yeah. That feels healthier these days.
Sarah Peyton:Good. It's really a sign of the growth that you're talking about.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. It's really interesting. Well, I, you know, I was talking to a loved one, and and at the time of this recording, my my father's not doing that well and could potentially pass away at any moment, supposedly. So the loved one was, you know, talking about how, she hasn't been sleeping because of worry. And I thought back to I used to be the poster child for being worried.
Dr. Karen Kan:Like, I would not sleep at night. I was a a young person, a teenager. Like, I would just stay up all hours because I was worried.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:And that was normal. That was my default. And then when she said this about what's happening now, understandably, right, it's a loved one, and, I thought, woah. I've come a long way.
Sarah Peyton:That's wonderful.
Dr. Karen Kan:You know? Because I can go to bed and have that faith that yeah. I could yeah. Maybe he would die. Maybe not.
Dr. Karen Kan:I don't know. You know? But it's like, I'm okay, and everything's gonna be okay. So I'm not going to bed worried that, you know, somebody might die. This might happen or this might happen.
Dr. Karen Kan:Like, I was the what if girl. Like, I I I was supposed to tell, so I could be so anxious about I wouldn't call it anxiety at the time. Yeah. I have
Sarah Peyton:a friend of yours updates, brain change notifications. Is it that we are that as we grow and we can do new things and we notice all this is so different now than it was before.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. It's kinda neat having the contrast Mhmm. You know, of that. So what about this pattern of, like my current understanding is sometimes the the people around me will reflect back to me some unhealed parts of my shadow.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:So, you know, if, for example, my partner is playing video games. Right? The maybe there's a that part of me that is like, well, you could be more productive. Don't you have a mission or something? You know?
Dr. Karen Kan:You know what I mean? There there could be a judgment there. So what what is that about, this reflection that's coming back and the judgment that might be coming back? Well,
Sarah Peyton:we first of all, when somebody is playing video games, they disappear into them, and they lose their relational connection to people who aren't in the video game with them. So our experience of being with somebody, it's something we're all sort of sliding into having a fortress around ourselves about to come back to one of the types of attachment wounds. When someone else is paying attention to something that's not us and we're in the relational space, then we start to try to accustom ourselves to not being met, to not being to kind of experiencing a kind of alarmed aloneness. So the person a playing the video game is managing their default mode network any way in which they have anxiety or an internal voice that's unpleasant. They're able to turn it off most completely with especially first person shooter video games take people out of their automatic inner critic voice most completely.
Dr. Karen Kan:Really?
Sarah Peyton:Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:That's interesting. Why why why is that if it's a first person shooter game? Or
Sarah Peyton:It activates the salience network and the visual attention network of the human brain, which is comp completely a different network than the internal rumination network.
Dr. Karen Kan:Okay. Yeah. I I heard about the default salient network recently from a friend of ours, Jeff Virginia. I can't believe it helps brain stuff as well. Like, an expert like yourself.
Dr. Karen Kan:And that was the first I've ever heard of it. Like, it like, he was explaining it was like the default.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:And and, also explaining that the, anterior anterior midcingulate cortex, that if there's something that we think would be good for our highest and greatest good to do, but we don't wanna do it. But if we go, I'm gonna do it. So an example would be, you know, my husband and I do, like, this cross fit type exercise. And, you know, some of the people who were just practicing, he would say to them, look, I know sometimes you wake up, you don't wanna exercise. You just don't wanna do it.
Dr. Karen Kan:Right? It's cold out, you know, whatever. He's like, just do the warm up. So so what happens is you do the 10 minute warm up, and by the end of the warm up, you wanna do it. You wanna do the rest of the workout.
Dr. Karen Kan:So that and so Jeffrey was saying, if you do that, you're actually you're actually, turning off the default salient network, and you're actually amplifying or growing the anterior midcingulate cortex, that conscious part of ourselves. And that's a good thing. You know, that that discipline, I guess, does that. We're not talking about forcing. We're not talking about, like, forcing us to go to work while we hate going to work.
Dr. Karen Kan:That's not the same thing. So it's fascinating.
Sarah Peyton:Yes. Yes. So there we are, person a, playing their video game. Not any part of their no part of their brain that does relationality now is online.
Dr. Karen Kan:Mhmm.
Sarah Peyton:And the same thing is true. This is why I say that we're all developing this fortress because whenever somebody looks at their at their telephone at their mobile telephone, they're managing their, they're managing their seeking circuit. They're managing dopamine. And and each time that we do that, we we move away from our person. We're not in relational space with our person.
Sarah Peyton:So so then person b has to put start to begin to put up a fortress to defend themselves against the constant sense of that that that person a is not available.
Dr. Karen Kan:Oh, it's not available. Okay. Well, isn't that similar? I'm gonna be, you know, angel after the get double that kid, whatever you call it. Whereas if I'm in if I'm online and I'm doing work online, whether it be a team meeting or a course I'm creating or an email sequence I'm writing, something like that, how is that different than somebody going and playing a video game?
Dr. Karen Kan:Because I'm on a screen away from that person. That person feels abandoned potentially. I'm not projecting that. But
Sarah Peyton:Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:So how how is that different?
Sarah Peyton:It's not.
Dr. Karen Kan:It's not.
Sarah Peyton:It's not. And often people when people are looking at their video their game their telephones, not their video games, but when they're looking at their telephones, they're often working. They're often checking work email.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. Yeah.
Sarah Peyton:There's no difference. Not no difference at all.
Dr. Karen Kan:The other person can still feel abandoned, can still start to, you know, make that fortress, so that they're like, I'm I'm not great about being abandoned.
Sarah Peyton:That's right. That's right. Right. Wow. Yeah.
Sarah Peyton:And since we're so since we are I mean, can't remember what the statistics are on how often an average person checks their phone a day.
Dr. Karen Kan:A lot.
Sarah Peyton:600 times or something. We're all in this kind of spotty attention place that's somewhat different than what it was before the advent of of mobile phones. I mean, people have always been able to be workaholics. So mother was always able to start canning the peaches instead of having a, you know, conversation with their child or trying to multitask and have a conversation with their child while they're getting their peaches. And it's, you know, it's it's always been there as part of what we of what we're juggling as humans.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. So I I don't think technology is gonna go away anytime soon. And certainly, you know, good or not good, we are becoming more reliant, you know, on them. Just like nobody that I know uses a washing board to wash their own clothes anymore. Right?
Dr. Karen Kan:I mean, we still utilize like, you know, as technology improves, we're we we, generally speaking, adapt the the technology, and we get faster and faster at doing certain things. And yet we still find time to be busy and not connecting necessarily.
Sarah Peyton:I mean, the relational space is the space that's most open to trauma. Mhmm. So we're really, you know, I mean, we really protect ourselves by working all the time or by playing games or by checking our cell phones. We're kind of walking a little tight rope above that slashed fabric, You know that we may carry within us as an after effect of our mother's traumas and our father's traumas and their unpredictable behavior.
Dr. Karen Kan:So if we're not thinking about like, for example, I feel like there's a lot of stuff in the past that I've really come to grips with and feel like I cope much better than I did as a child, certainly getting more sleep. You know, so I'm not as worried anymore. So if I'm still having these habits, which many of us do, looking at our phones, being online, that kind of thing. I'm not a video game person, but, you know, movies. Like, are we re traumatizing ourselves then?
Dr. Karen Kan:Like, in our society?
Sarah Peyton:No. No. We're managing our trauma. We're not retraumatizing ourselves. K.
Sarah Peyton:We're walking the tight rope above the torn fabric. Okay. And the work that we do, you know, of being self connected, of of bringing healing to to those slashed places, lets us kind of lower ourselves off off the tight rope that we're walking and begin to, you know, have that kind of interpersonal play that's goofy and spontaneous and and is not does not had has no object, has no no goal. It's just, you know, enjoyment of the of the moment.
Dr. Karen Kan:Oh, yeah. That's a challenge. Oriented. Are you kidding me? Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:I see what you're saying. So, you know, if people say, okay. I recognize that, yeah. I'm I'm using whether it be phones, video games, weed, whatever, to patch up or or to temporarily, alleviate myself of some of these symptoms, of past trauma, and and I desire to wanna really heal them so I don't have to have these other things. So how would they start?
Sarah Peyton:Well, I love to think of all the different healing modalities as kind of a giant orange. Okay. You can start with any segment of the orange, and and no matter which segment of the orange you're starting with, it's wrapped in that white orange stuff. You know, that the the the that goes right down the middle and all around the outer edges. And and that's the healing part, you know, that the healing comes through any modality.
Sarah Peyton:Mhmm.
Dr. Karen Kan:So, so
Sarah Peyton:if people start to study with me and they're like, oh, gosh. I really love relational neuroscience and what we learn about the brain and how it makes me easier on myself. And they and they say, and I really love learning about how language changes a brain and heals trauma, and I'm just gonna dive right into this. Then as we, as we dive, in, into the healing modality, then the brain, the, the, those fabric, the fabric begins to repair. And it can repair through time travel resonance, you know, where you go back to talk with your inner child and do a resonant response with the inner child.
Sarah Peyton:It can be healed through traumatic through, somatic experiencing. You know, Peter Levine's work where people are not working really verbally or are working with the body and its responses. Yoga starts to change the body's relationship to trauma with with intentional breathing and and sort of strengthening and stretching of the of the of the fascia of the body, energy healing, where we have this sense of just being really, you know, surrounded with light, being held, be, being in a warm space, having the healing, the different colors of light that come to us, whatever it is that we're working with, it's going to start to make a difference in how in how we are with ourselves.
Dr. Karen Kan:Okay. Yeah. See that. So what you're saying is that it's there's no that you there's no you have to do it this way or you have to do it that way. There's so many modalities really tuning in to figure out, like, what what do what do we resonate with?
Dr. Karen Kan:Like, maybe somebody resonates with EFT. Maybe somebody resonates with, you know, what I do, Toby and Healing. Maybe somebody resonates with, you know, coaching, counseling, or, like, you know, some of the modalities that you mentioned. And it's that doorway in to reweave our fabric.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. Yeah. We need to find what works for us. So so being open and experimental. I mean, some people find healing through their devotional practices.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. There's something greater than themselves. And some people, find healing through becoming musicians and playing music and and discovering new avenues to connection with themselves and others emotionally. There's so many different ways to go. It's kind of amazing.
Dr. Karen Kan:Mhmm. That's the that's the real plus there that healing doesn't have to come in one size fits all because it doesn't.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. I have a friend in Ireland who says that people who said that song singers song song singers were the first psychotherapists.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. I believe that.
Sarah Peyton:The songs that tell the truth about emotional experiences, I brought him to the US once to to talk to us about the songs of Irish immigration because there are we can still sing the songs that people sang, wrote, and sang, made up and sang passed around and sang about this huge you know, there were so many millions of of Irish people that moved out of Ireland to go all over the world in response to the Irish potato famine. Mhmm. And and at that time, there were no cell phones. There was no email. You would write a letter.
Sarah Peyton:You would have to travel by ship. You you know, you'd have contact with your family once a year or not at all. And so there was, like, having to manage this incredible loss and disappearance, and it was able to be named and shared and touched and healed healed by naming the truth in the songs. Gotcha.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. I just I never really respected, that piece of of about songs and until I was recently reading the, Sasia series, the Russian ring ringing cedars books from Russia, where she talks about the bards. And then she that the I'm paraphrasing, but, you know, elevating the bards to the level of, like, some of the highest vibe people on the planet to to share the history, and also to teach and heal, you know, through their stories, through their songs. And I even have, not that I remember, but supposedly, I have a past life in the Myria where I was what's called a singer. So a singer would go town to town, and, sing the the true history of the people of Lemuria, and then we would have someone called a repeater.
Dr. Karen Kan:And the repeater would copy word for word, song by song, what the singer would say. And then they that way, they could spread it out, you know, throughout the land. But the repeater could not make up their own stuff, which is very interesting, because they would lose that job. If they if they twisted or shift it or distorted anything the original singer said. So there was really something to that.
Dr. Karen Kan:This the song and the the yeah. So it's really interesting what you shared about the Irish. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:I took
Sarah Peyton:him into the prison with me. I was I do, before COVID, I was doing a a bit of volunteer work inside of a women's prison close to where I live. And I took him in with me, and he taught them a song that the prisoners in the Irish prisons used to sing in the in the late 1800. And and so there's some there was some kind of, you know, like, an honoring of life experience also through song that I found very interesting there.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. Wow. That's really, really cool. Let's talk a little bit about the language piece. Mhmm.
Dr. Karen Kan:What what is that about and how that how how can that help us heal?
Sarah Peyton:It turns out that giving each other advice is not actually something that restores that fabric.
Dr. Karen Kan:Giving sense.
Sarah Peyton:Giving each other advice, instead of giving people a sense of being making sense and belonging together gives people a sense of separation. When we give people advice, they have to build their fortress.
Dr. Karen Kan:So it's
Sarah Peyton:reinforcement of attachment trauma to give advice and to try to manage receiving advice. It creates a flood of cortisol in humans instead of, giving them a a flood of do dopamine, which would help them take action. It it gives them what's really a shot of alarmed aloneness.
Dr. Karen Kan:It it's really challenging. Right? Because we see someone suffering and they seemingly unnecessarily have to do whatever they're experiencing. And we wanna give them advice because we're like, oh, you could do this so much easier, or I can help you with this, or someone so could help you with this. And and then, you know, that's why I got the text message last night that said my mom's like, you are controlling.
Dr. Karen Kan:Stop controlling. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. Give you know, I'm I guess the apple doesn't fall from the tree. But I realized it's exactly what you were talking about right now. Because I was subtly, not so subtly, you know, sharing that, hey, you know, you're really stressed about, you know, this logistics organization.
Dr. Karen Kan:I'm calling a phone call. I can't remember people's names or their titles, occupational therapist, and all that kind of stuff. There is someone here who could do that for you.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:You know, I'm happy to pay for it. You know, like but, no. That that got her fortress going.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. Right.
Dr. Karen Kan:Because she was feeling like I was encroaching on what she felt like was her life. And how dare I, you know, suggest that somebody help her with that outside of family. So I was like, oh, okay. I was not expecting that feedback, but okay. I I had a good I used to take everything personally, but, you know, I just thought it was really funny.
Dr. Karen Kan:You never say, you know, I was controlling them. Like, oh, okay. I heard that one before.
Sarah Peyton:Right. Right. And hey. Yeah. And I grew up with with you, and this is how you manage all these, stress.
Sarah Peyton:So that's such a an interesting place to to invite us to start is, like, what kind of language instead of, hey, mom. You could do this instead of that. What kind of language might, support the fabric that's torn within her? Right. And
Dr. Karen Kan:And and and I'm I am practicing this new thing, but it's difficult on chat.
Sarah Peyton:Oh, yeah. Totally.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. So person to person, it it's easier because you have the body language. Right? And I could literally, like, I hear you say, you know, and I could even, like, if, you know, if mom was afraid of me, I say, you know, what I'm hearing if you know, correct me. What I'm hearing is that you think that I'm controlling because I'm trying to give you advice over this and that.
Dr. Karen Kan:Is that true? And you feel x. You feel frustrated. No. I don't feel frustrated.
Dr. Karen Kan:Okay. So, you know, I feel sad or whatever. Right? To allow them to communicate how that is. So that's still pretty new for me.
Sarah Peyton:Yes. You know, it is not new. It sounds like you're practicing nonviolent communication that you're Yeah. Just feelings and talking about feelings and needs. And that's one type of language that really does touch the fibers, those broken fibers.
Sarah Peyton:And people can be like, no. Why didn't you say that? Why didn't you say I was frustrated?
Dr. Karen Kan:Because Yeah. And I and then it's like, oh, okay. You know, oh, it wasn't that. What was it? You know?
Dr. Karen Kan:Exactly.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. So, Oh, oh, don't
Dr. Karen Kan:you like this one, Sarah? I'm not angry. I'm not angry. And you're like, okay.
Sarah Peyton:No kidding. Oh, and so so one of the things we can do is we can we can use feelings and needs. We can make impossible dream guesses. You know? Would you love it, Mom, would you love it if there was, like, an entire like, a little a little army of helpers who could make phone calls and remember all the things and track all the names?
Sarah Peyton:Or it might be a metaphor guess where we'd say, oh, mom. Wonder if if trying to deal with all this stuff is like being in the middle of a of one of those ice storms where the little pieces of ice actually cut cut your cut your cheeks when the wind is blowing them. You know? And so those are some of the ways that we can talk with people where it's almost like we're standing right beside them, not trying to solve their problems, but being right in the middle of
Dr. Karen Kan:I love that. The the metaphor and, that what did you call that? The dream questions? Yeah. Imposs okay.
Dr. Karen Kan:Dreams? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I you know, I think that the other piece of it is and it's so clear, and I don't think it's just mine.
Dr. Karen Kan:But just to go, wouldn't you love to just be able to sit there and hold dad's hand and just sing to him or be there all day and not have to worry about calling this person and that person and who's buzzing and remembering their names. You know? That that would be my version of that impossible dream.
Sarah Peyton:What a beautiful guest that is. It just it just sort of makes some part of my heart ease and relax when you even say it. Mhmm. Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. Thank you.
Dr. Karen Kan:Thank you. This is gonna be super helpful.
Sarah Peyton:The so there's research, you know, that takes a look at the brain and sees where it's light what kind of language lights up which part of the brain. Oh. So the advice stuff and telling people what to do and being directive lights up the left hemisphere. The the instrumental brain, the seeking circuit. And the this other kind of language, actually, they see it lighting up the right hemisphere.
Sarah Peyton:This relational language lighten up the right hemisphere. The right hemisphere is where this fiber these fibers of attachment are.
Dr. Karen Kan:Okay. Yeah. Okay. So we used to before call the left brain the logic brain and the right brain the the intuitive brain. So these are other titles or names of
Sarah Peyton:to talk about it is to say the instrumental brain and the relational brain.
Dr. Karen Kan:Okay. Instrumental brain, relational brain. Okay. Okay. It's done.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. That's cool.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. When we kinda get done, we're not pausing for relationship.
Dr. Karen Kan:Well, we are a doing society. Are we not in many ways? We're conditioned that way. So we don't get a pluses for relational expertise. Let's put it that way.
Sarah Peyton:No. We don't. It's true. We don't get a pluses. We don't get bigger salaries.
Sarah Peyton:Metals. Right?
Dr. Karen Kan:Extra money, pay. You know? Well, maybe certain people do, but but yeah. Yeah. It's, it's, it it it's the the highlighting of of this, and people now that you're saying all these things is like, oh, of course.
Dr. Karen Kan:Like, it makes so much sense. Our society is not you're not hearing this on the news necessarily. You're not hearing this in our movies. Right? You're not and our media is not promoting this complete other piece, which is so important for us to be happy and well.
Dr. Karen Kan:The relationship with each other.
Sarah Peyton:And the sweet thing about resonance is we don't have to leave anybody behind. Like, it's nobody's responsibility to become the the engine of resonance. So we'd also wanna catch you and your mom, you know, in in the moment where your mom is telling you about how completely overwhelmed she is with everything she has to do, and we wanna catch you too. You know? We wanna say, oh, Karen, do you need some acknowledgement that when your mom is upset and and, overwhelmed that it that that is I wonder if it's anything like all of the little leaves on your tree fluttering in a kind of a strong wind when your mom is upset.
Sarah Peyton:And if you just really would love there to be ways that, that where our elders are totally supported and cared for, where it didn't have to all fall on us.
Dr. Karen Kan:Mhmm. Yeah. That's beautiful. Yeah. That's beautiful.
Dr. Karen Kan:And and, you know, it's funny because I was asking my family, whether they would be open to or consider, someone who is, we call them end of life practitioner or death doulas or end of life doulas. Because my left brain was like, well, they do logistics. They do all that kind of stuff. The right and and then, of course, the right brain was also like, well, they're really good with people.
Sarah Peyton:Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:Probably, you know, much more skilled than I am that that way. And, yeah, and it was, it didn't matter what I said or how I said it. It just yeah. It wasn't, going to be a popular choice. It was like I got the feedback.
Dr. Karen Kan:Well, if you need that, Karen, you go ahead and, you know, get that support for yourself. You know? I was like, I guess I could use that. You know what I'm saying? But it was just funny because, you know, it was.
Dr. Karen Kan:And but at the same time, respecting my boundaries is, like, if I don't have to do this other thing that isn't what I wanna do, and I have somebody else who's an expert who could do that, my preference would be I'm gonna hire the expert to do that while I do what's important to me, which
Sarah Peyton:is connecting.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. But then, again, meeting people where they are. If everybody else in the family is like, no. I don't wanna do that because they have a perception of it's it's, you know, expensive, not needed, an outside third party. We're gonna do everything ourselves.
Dr. Karen Kan:Then it also isn't something for me to force
Sarah Peyton:Right.
Dr. Karen Kan:Either. Yeah. So I could see what you're saying is, like, hey. There's the honoring of where they are and and, that relational space and handling that and also where I am and also, you know, being empathetic and handling this piece as well, because that's also difficult to have everybody not on the same page.
Sarah Peyton:Right.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of our sensitive souls end up in this category, where on some intuitive level, they can see sometimes see things like, wow, that we don't have to have war. We really don't. Right?
Dr. Karen Kan:But sometimes the way we come across might be just so foreign that it's just not well received. And then we could be potentially re traumatized
Sarah Peyton:Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:Or not being seen, not being heard, you know, all taking things personally, all those kinds of things. So there's a lot of great work in what you're doing right now. Yeah. Helping us all. So tell us about, first of all, your website, where people could find you, and then what kind of programs and offerings that you have to support people, especially us.
Sarah Peyton:My website is sarahpayton.com. So no spaces, just my name. And there's a set of guided meditations that you can access by pushing the start healing now button. Oh. Get the set of guided meditations that are for free download for you to be able to kind of walk you through, the steps to take to begin to make your brain a really good place to live where you can pause for enjoyment and ease and self welcome and welcome of others.
Sarah Peyton:And, and there are also lots of classes. I've written a number of books. There's, the resonant self series with your resonant self and your resonant self handbook that take you again through these just easy to do kind of steps to be able to start to change your brain so that it supports you and makes makes it sweet to be alive and to be on this planet with with our other people that we love.
Dr. Karen Kan:Oh, that's beautiful. So, we're gonna link some of those, below, this video. And, as far as, you know, live group or 1 on 1, do you do some of those?
Sarah Peyton:Yes. Absolutely. And in the beginning of August or sorry, April, April 5th to 5th 5th to 9th or something like that this year is the resonance summit, which is a free experience of getting to step into the world of resonance for 4 days with neuroscientists speaking and with,
Dr. Karen Kan:Are you running that summit? Yeah. Yeah. That's so exciting.
Sarah Peyton:And it's really really
Dr. Karen Kan:cool. So this is April 2025, we're talking about in case people are watching this. Right. But, later, but they can always go to your website or contact you, right, if if they're interested in the next one. Or
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. Yeah. And we'll have at the end of January, we'll have the sign up for that on. It's sorry. It's April 3 to 6 is this year.
Dr. Karen Kan:Oh, okay. Okay. Wow. That's good. And that's an online, summit.
Dr. Karen Kan:Right? Yeah. Okay. Very cool.
Sarah Peyton:And get to hear neuroscientists talk about the brain and get to hear other people doing resonant language and go to classes with resonant language. There are lots of classes on the website. Mhmm. Be able to take foundational classes in resonant language, to learn to talk to yourself without giving yourself advice.
Dr. Karen Kan:Oh, to talk to ourselves and others. Is that applicable to others?
Sarah Peyton:Yeah. And others.
Dr. Karen Kan:Yeah. Okay.
Sarah Peyton:And then That's great. Yeah. And then, my one on one work calendar is quite full, so it's hard to get in. It's possible, and that's also information is on the website. Yeah.
Dr. Karen Kan:Awesome. So sarahpayton sorry. Payton.com? Yes. Your website?
Dr. Karen Kan:Sarah, do you have, like, one last piece of wisdom? I won't call it advice. Wisdom to to share with with our listeners and, viewers?
Sarah Peyton:If your brain is not being kind to you, it's not truth, it's trauma. If you think you're a bad person, it's not truth, it's trauma. If you think you're not good enough or that you deserve bad things, it's not truth. It's drama. Your brain is just trying to make sense of a world where bad things have happened, and our default is to blame ourselves.
Dr. Karen Kan:Very good to know. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. Karen Kan:Thank you. You, Sarah, so much for spending quality time with us today. It was so fun. Appreciate you, and we wanna make sure that we thank everyone for viewing and listening in as well. Remember to check out the links near this video or audio wherever you are listening or watching this, and we shall see you next time.
Dr. Karen Kan:Light Warrior Radio. Bye for now. Much love, everyone.
