Loss Before Language

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Dear listeners, you know like there is a kind of loss that happens before memory, uh before language, before you even knew that you were a person who could lose something. And yet the body remembers, the nervous system holds it. So some people spend a lifetime trying to name that what was missing. So our guest today is one of those people, and she found the words. So, dear listeners, I'm your host, Avek, and you're listening to Mind Meets Machine, where we talk about what it really takes to show up for your own life. And today's guest, please welcome Lori Kirk. So, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:36

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Thank you. Thank you so much, Lori, for joining us today. And before we get into the discussion, I'd quickly love to introduce you with all the listeners. So, dear listeners, like Laurie is a womb twin survivor who turned early abandonment and trauma into a life of deep healing, faith, and a family she built with intentional love. So we'll have a more discussion on this, dear listeners. So I do not won't take much of a time. Let's get started.

Discovering Womb Twin Survival

SPEAKER_01 1:05

So Laurie, like, I mean, most people think that trauma is something that happens to you that you can't remember. But you experienced loss before you were, I mean, you were even born. So what do people get wrong when they think about healing from something that they cannot consciously recall? What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:25

Well, it's it's profoundly interesting because I found out I was a womb twin survivor five years ago. And it was through spiritual means, or as I call it, woo-woo. And finding that out really explained a lot for me. I had always experienced really bizarre, profound loneliness that I couldn't explain. And I'd even had people say to me, Wow, you really have this loneliness that other only children don't have. It's it's just so deep. And it got worse as I got older. Even when I had married and had these five amazing kids, and I'm surrounded with love and wonderful people, I still had this sense of aloneness. And uh, I was working with a life coach on other issues, you know, general stuff, and we did a meditation, just a generic meditation. I know. And it was during that that it was I found out I was a wound twid survivor. And and it made sense to me. Uh my loneliness went away like that, just knowing that my brother was supposed to be with me. I was supposed to be, I mean, we weren't identical, obviously. He was male, but he was still like another half for me that was missing. And just knowing that was extremely healing. And it explained a lot of the things I'd gone through in my life. I'd had this, it's a sort of PTSD where you're just not like everybody else. You're very isolated, you're very sensitive to your surroundings, womb twin survivors. Some of them are really almost homebound, but you don't feel comfortable somewhere more than normal people. And just other things, just intense drive to what I didn't understand then, but I do now, is I had my drive is subconsciously, I'm trying to live two lives. I'm trying to live a life for myself plus one for my brother, because he didn't get a chance to live. I have five kids, which is kind of a lot these days. It's as though subconsciously I had kids for both of us. So a lot of that just became clear. And as a result, it was just very healing. And I decided to write about it because I really wanted to help other people, because it's estimated that 10, 15% of people are like me. And uh, that's a lot of people who are suffering from different symptoms that they don't understand and they just feel outcast and they feel like, what's wrong with me? I don't know what's wrong with me. And they try to fill that hole with other things, you know, unfortunately, like drugs, alcohol, or anything else.

When The Body Holds The Story

SPEAKER_01 4:02

So when you say that the body remembers, right? What did that actually look like for you? I mean, how did you know that something was there when there was no story attached to it? Kind of.

SPEAKER_00 4:15

Well, I always felt outcast. I always felt different, and I know a lot of people do, and there's different reasons for that. I always kept everybody at arm's length. I wouldn't get close to people. Subconsciously, it was I also at age three, my father walked out. So that was a tangible conscious loss that I had, an abandonment, but I didn't realize it was my second abandonment in my life. Yeah. So I would always keep people at arm's length because it's not safe to love people, to let people in because they're gonna leave you, they're gonna hurt you. And I spent a lot of my life that way. I mean, up until I met my my husband in my 30s. I even had kids, and I it was like creating my own family was what I did because I didn't feel like I had other family. I didn't have anybody to lean on. So I created what I wanted. And that's another reason I had all these kids. I was never gonna let a child be alone. I would the minute I had my first child, I was thinking about another one because I said, Oh, no, no, no, she can't feel like I always have. She can't. And that's before I knew that I was a womb twin survivor. So one of my least favorite phrases that is so ubiquitous that people use is children are resilient. And they are, but it's not, it's not a free, it's not free. There's there's trauma there. It I think it is often used as an excuse to put children through things they shouldn't have to go through. Um but they hold it, they hold it, they hold that trauma subconsciously and it and it can express itself in different ways that are extremely unhealthy, sometimes tragically unhealthy. Like I mentioned, drugs or alcohol. If you just feel that emptiness, you fill it with something. I personally I suffer from an addictive personality. Thankfully, God, who has always protected me, has kept me away from drugs and alcohol. But nevertheless, I do have that personality that feels that emptiness. But yeah, the children are resilient thing. I hate that phrase so much. I can't tell you.

SPEAKER_01 6:25

Exactly. I mean, obviously, i it's it's humbling. I mean, really, right? I mean, we walk around thinking that we need a narrative to justify like what we feel, but sometimes the feeling is is the evidence, right? And sometimes your body is telling a story that your mind hasn't caught up yet.

Abandonment, Trust, And Family

SPEAKER_01 6:44

So yeah, I mean, this this is what I feel. And yeah, also like you know, like I mean, you have lived through the abandonment, abandonment as a child, the loss of a twin before birth, and you have also come out the other side of the family of your own. So when you look back now, what do you I mean, what do you think was actually driving the pain? Like, was it the even stem cells or something deeper about how you made sense of them? So if you can share.

SPEAKER_00 7:11

Well, as far as my like my dad leaving, I was always aware of that, and I was consciously aware of the effect that had on me. And so I worked, and also my mother never really recovered from that. So she wasn't a hundred percent available to me. So I kind of grew up without any sort of support system, and I consciously knew it, even as a small child. I learned, okay, I've got to depend on me. I can only depend on myself. And as a result, like I said, I would keep people at arm's length. But I I did eventually learn my husband who I met, God, 28 years ago. It's been a long time. I learned I learned to trust him. I couldn't trust anybody. I I I grew up not trusting anyone at a deep, deep level, but trusting him. And then of course, you have kids, you trust your kids, and they hurt you. I mean, of course they do, because they're kids and they'll say dumb things, and even when they're grown, they'll say things or do things that are hurtful, but it's different. You just that relationship is really solid. So I I just with the stuff with my dad, it was a very conscious and it was not doing that. I'm not doing this, I'm not doing that with my parents. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Yeah, exactly,

Forgiveness And Changing Self Talk

SPEAKER_01 8:24

exactly. And like, I mean, when when did that shift for you? Like, when did you stop seeing yourself through the lens of what happened and start seeing yourself as someone who could write a different ending, kind of, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

Well, with my parents, it took a long time. I held a lot of anger. My dad died when I was 12. My mom died, I was in my mid-30s, and it wasn't it was an okay relationship, but it wasn't what it could have been. I've actually connected with them on the other side and found great healing and forgiveness all these years after they've died. And they they hang around, they're with me, they're always watching over me. So, you know, well, first of all, never say never and it's never too late. You can have you can heal a relationship with somebody who's died. I truly believe that. Even if you just work on yourself and if you can't communicate with them, just the way you think about yourself with positivity. I was always in such a negative space for the first 20, 30 years. Always not trusting and negative and victim mentality. And it's just, it's just this spiral to nowhere. It's a great, you have to shift your perspective. You have to shift your mind, you have to shift the way you speak, you have to speak things into existence. Literally just say, when you feel miserable, say, I'm happy, I'm happy, I'm grateful. Even when you're not grateful, say I'm grateful. Just saying it out loud, it just gives you a little bit of a boost. Just the way you speak to yourself. And I was always just negative, negative, negative. And when I turned it around and realized I'm responsible for how I feel, the things that my parents did, they did, and now I know you know they did their best. They didn't have the resources we have today that you and I have if we had a problem or if we had a an issue to deal with. And so it's easier to forgive. Forgiveness is about you, it's not about them. And you can forgive people and still have them out of your life. That doesn't mean you have to tolerate anything. Somebody's toxic and poisonous, get them out of your life, but forgive them just to lighten your own load.

SPEAKER_01 10:33

So if I mean, obviously, that's that's a turn. I mean, not pretending the past didn't happen, but refusing to let it be the only thing that happens. I mean, you get to be more than your uh wounds that takes the real courage. But if you talk about in our daily life, I mean, you you said you have said that writing and faith have been your outlets.

Real Time Tools For Hard Days

SPEAKER_01 10:55

So but I'm curious like about the everyday stuff. Like when you are in the middle of a hard week or your nervous system is activated or old patterns start coming back, creeping back in. What does healing actually look like in the real uh time? What do you say?

SPEAKER_00 11:12

I had a couple days recently that just were garbage days. You know, a couple things went wrong, and I went into the old spiral. Well, you know, you start the self-talk. Well, of course it went wrong. Every, you know, just you know, this this terrible mental spiral down into these horrible depths. And the best thing for me these days, it doesn't happen very often. I'll shrug off something bad that happens now. So I'm like, okay, that happened, whatever, let's move on to something good. But I had a couple days where just a couple things happened and it just was, I was going off tilt. And so I had to work, it was work to come out of it. I find that one of the things that's very helpful, I think, for anybody who's having a depressed mood or a bad movement, any kind of movement, walking, stretching, anything where you're moving helps because when you're feeling like that, you just want to sit and curl up and just curl into a ball or lay down on the couch or watch TV. Any kind of movement you can do helps. That's been very healing for me. Deep breathing as well, just deep, deep, deep breaths. Hold it for a second, let it out. Those simple things are so healing. And uh sadly, we're not taught these things as small children. Can you imagine if if little kids were taught, you know, when they're having a bad, you know, breathing and meditation? What a great place we'd be in. But but sadly, we're not done that.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

So I mean, it's really helpful, I would

Write It Out And Create

SPEAKER_01 12:41

say. So if you have to give one advice to the listeners today, what will you give?

SPEAKER_00 12:45

Well, my advice is always understand, accept what you're feeling, whatever it is, even if you know it's negative or toxic for yourself, but you know, just stop for a second and say, I'm feeling this way. And it's okay. Don't beat yourself up for it because we all do it. Just redirect it. Now, I used, I'm also an actor, so I've been acting for some time, but the writing has helped because I've worked out a lot of the stuff with my parents. I wrote a comedy TV series about my life and ghosts coming and living with me and stuff. And when I started to write it, I didn't know what it was going to be, and it turned out to be comedy. And it's like, this, okay, I guess I can make this funny. I deal with things with humor or horror, like with Baby Marvin, my novel. Just I encourage people to start writing. Even if you don't ever try to publish it or show it to the the public, just start writing down, write, write your thoughts, journaling. I was never, ever gonna journal. I always thought, oh, I can't do that. I can't do that. I'm not gonna do that. Now I journal. And it just free form, just stream of consciousness, let it out, or try to create something. Draw. A lot of people draw, paint, anything. Creative arts is great for drama.

SPEAKER_01 13:59

It's a great habit. Like, I mean, if someone is also starting right now, it is also a great habit as well. Yeah, I do myself, I do write myself, and I can really feel about that, like what you're saying. It really helps. It really helps. And uh it comes comes your uh your mind also, right? So it helps you think in certain direction, like how uh you want to go ahead and how you can control your emotions sometimes. Because when you think of writing, you are on not only writing, you're also thinking a lot of things, you're focusing. So a lot of things comes in. So I mean it's it's a great advice, I'd say. Thank you so much

Where To Find Lori

SPEAKER_01 14:35

for that. And if also listeners want to connect with you, how they can connect.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Well, I have my website, thelarikirk.com. Also, my book, Baby Marvin, the psychological horror thriller, just came out in May. And you can read more about that. It's it explores a lot about fractured identity, duality. It's funny because after I wrote that book, I was done and I was like, oh, this is about me. That's weird. So writing can open up all kinds of doors into your own psyche that are that are interesting. So Baby Marvin Official also will take you to my website. I'm the Laurie Kirk on TikTok, Instagram. So that's the best place to get to me.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Amazing. Amazing. So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything into the show notes for your easy reference. And I'll just say, like, you know, like healing is not about erasing what happened. It's all about refusing uh to let it be the only thing that defines you. So thank you so much, Lori, for sharing all of this so openly. And it is really, really helpful as well. And dear listeners, like, I hope that you carry this with you that no matter what you have survived, you are not finished being written. So you get to be the author of what comes next. So uh thank you everyone for being here and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Thank you.