A couple of months ago, I got the opportunity to interview one of the top holistic psychotherapists.

Her name is Stacy Hoch, and I found her on YouTube as I was deep within the abyss of my dark night of the soul.

I had moved back in with my family to focus on my physical and mental health, and in the process of bingeing tarot readings and astrology reviews, I came across her YouTube channel where she speaks deeply and openly about some controversial and confusing topics in the therapy realm. Her work is based around her expertise with narcissistic abuse, codependency in relationships, substance abuse, and childhood trauma.

She gracefully threads in a spiritual perspective in her talks and she speaks from the heart, with absolutely no filter. She’s not your typical therapist archetype—more a relatable badass who you can talk to like a friend with some really potent and raw advice.

That’s the thing with therapists, sometimes they just sit there, nod their head, and agree with you or ask questions to beat around the bush. There is none of that with Stacy. My interview with her completely cracked open my mind to the truths that I haven’t been aware of when it comes to healing childhood wounds, and toxic ways of thinking or perceiving self.

We dropped in hot and heavy straight from the gate so when you tune into the podcast episode linked below, be sure to have a notebook handy, you will want to take notes and reflect on what comes up during this raw conversation. Consider it more of a personal and collective therapy session for you, because I made sure to ask her questions not specific to my personal life, but questions I have received in my Instagram DMs and emails based on what my listeners are going through.

Stacy gets vulnerable, and she shares personal stories about her upbringing and family dynamic, which is why she is such a powerful force. This type of speaking is much needed in the therapy and psychology space because it brings reality to life. She brings a human and trustworthy frequency to her sessions.

Stacy’s approach to viewing depression and self-isolation helped me realize that a lot of the trauma I am dealing with isn’t even mine—it’s my parents, grandparents, and ancestors. The archetypes of mothers and fathers play a huge role in the development of how we act in the world and in our relationships.

Stacy is an expert in narcissism and codependency. Like I said, she is not your typical therapist, she speaks the cold, hard truth in a helpful and positive way. She helps her clients rewrite their stories in real ways, and brings practical ways of utilizing it all and integrating it into life. One huge takeaway I got from this interview is that accepting the past instead of feeling the pressure to release it and heal it, actually frees us of all the expectations we hold to ourselves to head trauma in a certain way.

On childhood trauma:

I loved her take on how when we are children and go through trauma it doesn’t feel like trauma until we are adults. The “trauma” effect is when it settles in and we are seeing the situations that occurred in our new perspective as an adult. That is when trauma enters the psyche. When we process our childhood trauma, there is what she calls a “whiplash effect.”

She speaks a lot about sexual abuse in children. Child on child sexual abuse is one of the most shared common “traumas” of many adults, and being able to make amends with the trauma is a challenge. Stacy explains the Samoan culture and how they allow their children to play in a sexual way basically from the time they are babies, and that in itself, has eliminated the label of sexual assault because it is accepted and normalized for children to do these things.

We are not in trauma usually when we are experiencing the “trauma”—it’s not until we look back as an adult and say “holy sh*t!” and label it as not normal, which can come with shame, guilt, and other self-depleting energies.

On depression and isolation:

I talked with her about my experience with how I have been in an intense isolation and solitude phase of life far before the quarantine and pandemic crisis. Many of us can feel as though the past has tainted us. Now, I’m healing and integrating myself back into society with new ways of looking at myself other than attaching to past toxic relationships. She speaks openly about how isolation isn’t bad, and it’s a form of discernment.

This approach and perspective around depression and isolation is comforting, validating, and is truly understood from an acceptance view rather than thinking there is a “problem” with self-isolating. This is one of my favorite “ah-ha” moments of the interview. She helped me realize that my outlook on depression was a bit skewed. Yes, depression can feel like you’re walking around with an open wound, but it doesn’t mean that we are “bad” or unworthy—if anything, it makes us more attuned to who we let into our lives.

Her wild honesty is refreshing. She also dove deep into how hard the process can be when dealing with the masks we wear around family and friends. She says:

“We are biologically wired to transform ourselves to the nervous systems of the people we are around and this is how impostor syndrome exists because there is a lack of connection to the nervous system.”

At the end of the interview, she gets emotional over a story she shares about her mother, along with her perspective on Saturn Return and the pressures that millennials are going through especially in their late 20s and early 30s. I listened to this episode three times before launching it because it was so powerful, and I absorbed new information from it each time. After launching the episode, I received so many messages from listeners saying how much the episode helped them see issues in their lives in a new way.

This is the perfect episode to listen to if you’re feeling alone and needing professional therapeutic advice from the comfort of your home. If it triggers you, I invite you to breathe deep and journal through the episode. Take notes of when you are feeling waves of emotion and what memories or traumas rise to the surface. She has a way with words, and her warm energy is so strong you’ll be able to feel it even if you are isolated during quarantine.

Biggest takeaway on isolation and depression:

Instead of creating the inner pressure or resistance to isolation, why not invite it in with open arms? Why is it so looked down upon to spend time alone? If no one has come into our lives or no one has made you comfortable enough to create an intimate friendship or relationship, there should be no reason to force yourself to create these daydreamed relationships.

Biggest takeaway on codependency:

“If we are unhealed as a codependent, especially if we are empathetic with other people, we are addicted to the sensation of saving the world from the wound that we ourselves wanted so deeply to be saved from.”

Everybody has multiple personalities, everybody has many different parts and that’s integration. That’s the point of therapy.

~

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