Your Body Isn’t the Enemy: Reading Symptoms and Reclaiming Self | with Inna Segal

Michael Unbroken: One of the things that we have got to reconcile in our journey is that when we are on this path of healing isn't just the physical pain, it isn't just the emotional pain, it isn't just the spiritual pain. It's all of the encompassing things that impact us through our experiences and through our journey.

And today I'm super excited to have Inna Segal on the show because we're gonna talk about that path, that journey, and ultimately how you step into a deeper healing, not only now consciously and subconsciously, but how you make sure that you do things that stay intact and congruency with who you are for the remainder of your life.

One of the things that I know personally over the years I have struggled with, and so I'm very excited to get deeper into this. Inna, my friend, welcome to the show. How are you today?

Inna Segal: I'm great. Thank you so much, Michael. So beautiful to be here with you.

Michael Unbroken: Yeah, I'm super stoked in this. You know, one of the things I'm curious before we jump in, because I know there's been tons of conversations, you've been on tons of podcasts. Why should anybody listen to our conversation today? What are they going to walk away with from what you and I discuss?

Inna Segal: I think one of the things you already touched on is creating a foundation. What does it actually mean? What does it look like to do things step by step without rushing, without running, without skipping steps?

And the fact is that most people do skip steps and then they crash and they don't know what to do. And so I'd love to have a conversation around this and where can we go, what does it mean to heal for real, you know, to heal in a way that is. You know, that allows you to keep moving forward and growing and expanding in a way that is exciting for you, but also foundationally sound.
So that you're not just going, you know, I'm stuck and I don't know where to go. But you actually understand that healing goes through many stages and each stage has an opportunity for lessons, for growth, for a deeper dive into who you are. And I feel like when you decide that this is interesting to you, then you can never really kind of be depressed even because if you are, that is interesting to your life becomes fascinating.

Michael Unbroken: Define stuck. I'd like to start this. Very simply by creating context around the depths of where we're going to go today. And I think that one of the big things, most people, I'll say most people, but I'll definitely include myself in that without having a definitive understanding of what it is that we're trying to navigate. There's no way to actually navigate it. And I think that we live in a space, unfortunately, where people are so quick to apply label, but really don't understand definition. So let's start here 'cause I wanted define a few things as we go, 'cause I think it's gonna ultimately be beneficial. What does stuck mean? Let's define that. Let's start there.

Inna Segal: Well, I really believe that stuck can mean lots of things, but essentially, we're often stuck in that freeze response where we. Maybe are blaming other people or circumstances in our life, or maybe we just feel like I have no idea what step to take next, and I am in suffering.

I'm struggling and I have no idea where to go. And I keep repeating this same thing over and over and over again, and every day feels like we're in that repeat cycle because I'm just not moving forward anywhere and I cannot see, like you said, where is my path? Where do I go? Why am I here? I guess is the question that shows up. You know, am I here for something or is my life useless? And I think that when people. Focus on, maybe I'm useless, maybe there's nothing I have to contribute because I don't know anything. I don't know what to go. I know what to do. This is the definition of softness for me, which is also great suffering, I'm gonna say.

Michael Unbroken: I would agree with that. I think being in that place where you are uncertain about your next action is a tremendous place of suffering and hurt and loss. And you know, for me, when I was 30, heading into 30. I just was looking at my life and realizing that it was so self-serving.

There was nothing about my experience that led or lent towards being a benefit to anyone other than me. And I also think that stuckness in a lot of ways can be a really selfish moment of time because we forget that we are communal and we're here to be a part of, not only making our lives better, but the lives of those around us as well.

Here's what I think is so fascinating about it though. It's not until you start to step into looking at your journey and your personal challenges, do you actually see the stuckness, but then also the opportunity to serve. I'm not saying necessarily everyone has to, you know, do podcasts, write books, coach people, but there are soup kitchens, there are homeless shelters, there are afterschool programs.

There's so many different ways where I'm like, if you're stuck, go sit in the nursing home. Go see what it's like to actually be connected to another human being. But that's also much easier said than done, I think for a lot of people. 'cause often we need to rip off the bandaid. I know for you a lot of your journey and your story in a sense is the ripping off of the bandaid, being like, I am going to walk this path.

I'm going to be of service. I'm really curious how you leveraged your stuckness to actually take those experiences to not only create these modalities that you have now, but also how you serve people on the backside of that experience.

Inna Segal: Beautiful. And it just remind me actually that, my children, when they were still teenagers, one day my son took my daughter around, various streets where there were beggars and literally sat there with her and she was pretty young at the time, still maybe 12, and talked to them and connected.

And I think that's so beautiful, you know, in what you're saying as well. And for me, I feel like the journey is daily, it's daily connecting to myself and. Looking at challenges that show up and saying to myself, okay, I'm hearing myself struggle through something. Is there growth? And then how do I use that to inspire others?
And that could be my children, that could be somebody I'd meet. My daughter said to me the other day, she said, mom, one of my really close friends is really struggling with some intense health issues and I dunno, anyone else that I can talk to about this except you, would you help her? And I was like, of course, let's explore. As I was going through my own journey, I awakened my capacity, I guess, to seeing to people and to see what causes them to be sick, what causes them to struggle. It's almost like I am there to put all the pieces of the puzzle for them to help them and also essentially to encourage them to figure out how to do it themselves.

But you know, as I can really feel this, I guess, you know, this gifting to someone of their journey, and I think I've heard you say this before, Michael. It's almost like my own struggles and pain and suffering that I've been through becomes kind of worth it, you know, because I am using that to really guide people towards their own understanding of who they are, not just healing. I always feel like people kind of think healing, you know, is about trying to get rid of pain, but so much of healing is about how do we actually grow in a way that we wanna wake up every day full of something. To me, that is spiritual as well. So I guess, you know, I try in every way that I can to touch people, whether, you know, whether it is through teaching, which I do a lot of, but it doesn't have to be it's just daily for me. It's something that I live daily.

Michael Unbroken: Yeah, I love that. And it's, it's one of those things too where it's. You have a decision to make whether or not you go out and you attempt to make the world a better place than it used to be. And it's not that we have, I mean, to some capacity, I do think that. We as individuals have a moral obligation to be of service, especially if we have been able to overcome and then the other part of me is like, you have no responsibility. Do whatever you want. That's the best part about being a human. Maybe just don't make the world shittier. You know, it's like you don't have to necessarily make it better, but if you could leave neutral, that probably isn't the worst thing in the world.

I wanna know more about your story and your journey because, you know, I think that a big part of what you've been able to come overcome in your mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual healing is really powerful. So I'd like you to take us back a little bit so we can explore kind of the challenges that you faced.

And the reason I ask this question is because I think that a lot of time. People can feel, beyond human in a lot of ways because they're on the other side of the journey and they're, instead of being in the moment, they're now past it and they're now being of service. And so we forget like, Hey, that was really difficult.

What was that like for you? Because I really is, I wanna bring you down into really deep human level for a few minutes and explore how difficult the journey was for you. Not to pander to the experience by the way, but just so that we can understand the baseline and the frame of where you come from.

Inna Segal: Well for me, I come from a family that has come through a massive amount of trauma. So my grandmother, was born as part of a family of eight children and. Her mother actually had this incredible clairvoyant capacity to where the whole village would come and, you know, bring food to their house just to kind of get this reading from her. And when my grandmother was 12 and her mother said to her, I need to have a conversation. The war is coming. I can see it. And unfortunately, I'm not going to be here much after the war starts. And neither is any of the other children. You're the only one who's going to survive in the family, and so will your father who's gone to war.

And I'm gonna have to hide you so that you are, you know, that you survive. And so my grandmother was hidden from different people. but then. When the Germans kind of showed up her mother and all the children were gathered except her brother to, you know, to be taken away. And my grandmother somehow, you know, she was 13 at that time, ran out and essentially her mother took, her, you know, gave her own life and was shot several times to give my grandmother a chance to live.

And my grandmother survived four years on her own in East Europe in just minus 40 degrees in the forest. Then she didn't really talk about it. She just suppressed it all. And my grandfather ended up in Siberia in a work camp for something he didn't do again for 10 years of his life, from 14 to 24 with a gun at his head.
And so many times and absolutely starving. And when I was very, when I was born, I was one of those children, and I think many of us are. But I definitely was this, you know, kind of sponge. I would sponge anything that wasn't processed, that anything that was in the environment that people hadn't dealt with and I would somehow pull it into myself.

And so I started with pretty intense digestive issues where I'd end up in the hospital and the doctors just did not know how to deal with the fact that I was in this agony and, you know, and just wasn't digesting food. And this kind of followed me for quite, for many years in my life. But then my parents decided to leave, Eastern Europe and come to Australia where I live.

And the reason they did was because my brother was dying and he was three at the time. So again, there was this trauma and I was absorbing a lot of this into myself. And when we came to Australia, I didn't know one word of English, and I didn't know that if you were from Eastern Europe, you were seen as kind of almost the enemy, even by the children.

And you were attacked for it constantly and put down and abused. And as I was going through this at school, I started getting psoriasis all over my skin. I was just really, you know, struggling with this. And then when I went to high school. my parents really wanted me to succeed 'cause they were like, you know, we've gone through all of this to move you here.

We need you to show us that you're, you know, you're gonna use every opportunity. We'll pay for your school, we'll take you to the school. And unfortunately, what they didn't understand was that particular school, again, I wasn't just kind of, let's call it abuse 'cause that's what it was abused for, being from Eastern Europe.
I was also. Put down for the fact that I didn't come from a very wealthy family. I, and in fact, I came from a very poor family and the most of the people in that school were very wealthy. And the only reason I could even be there was because the school had to kind of say, well, we'll take a few people who you know, who can pay a lot less, but you know, we're gonna look good.
And it was a real struggle to be treated like you and nothing, you know, and to be constantly looked down on. And that is when I really feel like my back pain started. You know, and so I, my parents again were just, you know, my mom took me to doctors, she took me to physiotherapist chiropractors, but she didn't really understand anything to do with the alternative healing.

And then we fast forward and I got to a place where I met, my first husband and he was very open to alternative healing. And so he started taking me to all these different places. But I was showing up with this sense of, you know, almost entitlement that because I'm paying and I know nothing and I'm stuck, that somebody else is gonna do it for me.

And this changed, I had another trauma that occurred where I got pregnant when I was 20 and I did not know what to do. And after a lot of emotions and thinking and feeling into it, I decided to keep the child. And then at eight and a half months when I was pregnant, I had this really strange feeling that not everything wasn't okay.
And I went to see the nurses and they said, no, you're wrong. 

Everything's fine. You know, you're just being anxious. 'cause I had a lot of anxiety. And a few days later I went into labor and the child died, which was on top of everything. Kind of came back all around into this ancestral trauma of just deep plus, you know, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I didn't wanna be alive, and my back just seized up to a point where I could not walk.

And so this is how I showed up at this chiropractor's office. After seeing him for some time, I just, I was so stuck. I did not see a way forward. I didn't want to move forward. I didn't see what the point was. And when I showed up with this attitude again, with that way of feeling at his office, he just said to me, you know, your body's stuck.

And I said to him, yeah, I know that, but what can you do to help me? And I felt, I feel like there was a moment where he kind of had to think about it. And, you know, he was silent. And he just said to me, I personally, actually there's nothing I can do for you because your body wants to be stuck. I. And that was my life changing moment 'cause when I went home, I was, oh my God, I was enraged. I came in. I didn't wanna be there. I didn't wanna be alive. I was so depressed. When I went home, I was enraged. And it occurred to me at that moment that I'd been holding on. I'd been holding on for my family. I'd been holding on for me. Nobody in the family wanted to talk about anything real or honest.

They just pushed everything away. And I needed to make a decision. You know, it was like do or die moment for me to be honest. And so I was in agony. I decide, I knew that I wasn't even breathing. I was holding my breath the whole time. And so I thought. This first step I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna start breathing a little deeper with the pain.

And I've heard you say, Michael, it's like sometimes it's brushing your teeth or just taking that one step forward 'cause there's nothing, you just don't know what to do. And then from that step, you go to another step and it's almost like something opens up for you And for me, as I was breathing into this pain and I had my hands on my back.

It just occurred to me that maybe I need spiritual help. And it was very difficult and painful to even think about that. 'cause there was a part of me that blamed what happened with this child on God, on the spiritual 'cause. I kind of thought, well, how could you, how can you do that to me? I trusted, and this trust has been broken.

I don't, I don't know, I don't know how to even trust, but I'm gonna ask because I don't know what else to do. And when I did ask from the depth of my heart and soul with that skepticism and fear, I felt this warmth move through my body. And I felt like there was this, I had my eyes closed, but it was like this golden light was there.

And at that time, it occurred to me to ask. For whatever reason, can I see into my back? What would that look like? And in that moment, it was as if somebody switched the light on and I could see my back as if I had this X-ray vision. And I asked why, but not from the victim for the first time in my life.

But from really wanting to know. And everything that I just spoke about flashed in front of my eyes. You know, my grandparents and what they've been through the schools, the trauma of loss. I was feeling through it. I was crying. I was, I could feel an unwinding because I finally could understand what this was about for me in a deeper way.

And in that unwinding, I fell asleep. And the next day when I wake up, about 70% of the pain was gone. And. I knew something different had happened. I knew that I was out of stuckness, and so I thought to myself, I'm going to work on just connecting to myself and discovering, because that's all I could do.

And as I was doing that over the next several weeks, my psoriasis completely disappeared. My back pain disappeared, and none and never came back. My anxiety went right down and my digestive system improved dramatically. And so, and I realized that I could see into people's bodies, not straight away, but over time.
And I went, okay, I'm gonna have to work with this and use this, you know, to help others because that's my purpose now.

Michael Unbroken: Yeah, I mean quite the story and I appreciate you sharing that, and that's the reason I wanted you to is so we could. Really create some context about your experience. And you know, when you're speaking, so many things ring true to my own story, right?

That we absorb this tremendous amount of energy. I certainly, and I didn't realize it until I realized it. 'cause that's how life works. I'm very empathic. I can read people, it is a superpower. it's something that also was a survival mechanism. But I can look at someone and experience someone for a very small period of time, and I can understand what's happening with them.

And so I relate again, a lot to what you say. I think that's one of the reasons that I've seen so many amazing transformations with people in my coaching practice because, well, one, I don't pull any punches, so there's no bullshit happening. but two, because I can see the unsaid, I can hear the unsaid, I can see the un, the unmoved, right?

And that used to be something that freaked me out because I'd be like, what is this shit? What is happening right now? And I realized like, actually what it is, it's like my superpower. Some people can dunk basketballs, some people can read people I, you know, and that, and that's how I think, it's funny though, because the thing that I wrote was very much my experience that kind of shifted everything for me.

The chiro said your body wants to be stuck. There is something so foundationally true about the idea that we continually choose consciously or subconsciously to exist in the space of pain, to exist in the space of illness, to let our dis disease become disease. And I think a big part of that is innately as humans, and I've been trying to solve.

You know, we're years and years into this podcast, almost a thousand episodes. I've had conversations with hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people, and the one thing I'm always trying to figure out is why do we as humans, for whatever reason, find some kind of sick pleasure in our own suffering? And it's weird to me that we can sit in front of it, we can see it, we can feel it, we can touch it, taste it, smell it.

And yet we still are just in it. And you're like, holy shit. And I asked myself this question. One of the things that has pulled me out of the stuckness many times over the years, it's like, what are you doing, man? Like, what the hell are you doing? You're gonna keep letting this be your life. But it's so much deeper than that because it's rooted in us.

It's generationally rooted in us, it's in our DNA, it's in our paradigm. It's in the architecture of who we are as people. But I want to go a little bit deeper because I know people. Who are listening could be suffering right now with pain and illness. Can you talk about a little bit more about why pain and illness shows up in different parts of our body and is there any indication about where it starts?

I want to go a little bit deeper into understanding like why this pain exists. Why are some people sick and some people aren't. Some people's backs hurt and some people's don't. And then where it comes from and what we do about it?

Inna Segal: So it's almost like it. Everyone that is born.
Maybe as a concept to have a superpower that you're talking about. We need to have a weakness inside of us. If we were completely strong, would we really grow? Would we stretch ourselves? Would we have new discoveries or would we stay comfortable? You know, because I haven't seen many people grow in comfort.

I mean, I'd love to, but I just haven't. And so it's almost like we need suffering in order to deepen, in order to have compassion, in order to discover, in order to go somewhere that we would never usually go. And one of the, I guess things that I have discovered that you've just mentioned in this architecture of who we are, and it is an architecture, is that in that particular weakness.

Let's just talk about that for a moment. That to me, meets my soul meets my ancestry. So it's almost like, what is it that I bring as a soul into this existence that also meets what my family have gone through and their own weaknesses. So in my family, everybody has digestive issues, everybody. And so I've kind of gone, well, what's that about?

You know, what is that area really about? What's the wisdom there? And it's like, well. It's about taking life experience and then somehow being able to assimilate it and gain this wisdom from it. And if you don't, then you start having these digestive issues. And when I've looked at my grandparents and, which is why I start share, started sharing with that, they didn't really do that.

And I remember having this moment. It was life changing moment for me where I, when I was 22 and they had their 50th wedding anniversary, and I was walking up to this restaurant where they were, and all of a sudden I could only see souls. I could not see people as human physical bodies, and I'd never had that experience before.

And as I walked in and I looked at my grandparents, I had realized that my whole life I saw them as victims of what happened to them and just like pointless suffering. That's, that was my perspective. And at that moment I changed my perspective to, oh my God, these people were so courageous. I don't know if I would be, you know, they survived something that.

You know, is almost unsurvivable. And they became good people. They became loving people, very giving people very kind of pure of heart people from that suffering. And from that moment I became, I started admiring them. And what I found was also that my digestion started to improve even more as I changed that perspective, because I started being able to digest my ancestry.
That it wasn't just all trauma and pain and horrible experiences. There was growth from, you know, from courage. They were courageous. They were so courageous that I started thinking to myself. Oh my God, what can I do in my life that is courageous? Because I have an example of not just victimhood, which is what I thought before that, but of courage.

And that changes everything I feel when we discover, you know, this connection. And so it's almost like I can say, yeah, I can work it even, you know, back further where I can go, well, what causes you to digest? It's actually communication. So when my family didn't communicate about what happened, because there was fear when I moved countries, I didn't have the language to communicate.
My body was trying to communicate and get messages to me. I didn't wanna hear it. I didn't know how to hear it until the chiropractor mentioned it. So. Where it actually all started was communication. It, you know, it came out as back pain. It came out as psoriasis. It came out as digestive issues, as anxiety, but all of it was undigested communication, understanding.

And so when we start to trace things back to what's it really about this issue that I'm having, then we can use that, you know, and we can turn it into, I turned it into courage, you know, courage to speak, courage to share my story, courage to help other people, courage to show up, go to different countries when I didn't know the language as well, and still show up.

And so when we start connecting the pieces together. We transform this weakness and victimhood, which is stored in every part of the body, essentially in some different way to, into something that allows us to become these amazing people, you know? And to offer something to humanity. I don't, I really believe that the soul comes in with a purpose.

There is a destiny for us. And like you said, it is to make this world better in some way, you know, before we pass. And so the question is, we have freedom and we can choose not to do that. But if we can turn this pain into something else, then essentially we'll want to do it. We will want to.

Michael Unbroken: Yeah. That's powerful. And it's very true. I love, I wrote this down, I said to have, you said this, to have a superpower, we have to have a weakness. I've never thought about that before. And it's so true. It's like right there in front of your face. Yeah. You have to have that. And that weakness not necessarily is something about you, but it's an experience.

It's a way that you see the world. It's something that has informed the way that you move. And it's one of those things that when you decide to overcome it, like communication. I mean, I'll give you a perfect example of this in my own life, when I was 26, 27. I kind of started the healing journey. I'm doing therapy and coaching and reading the books and all these things, but I was still having five panic attacks a day.

Like it was brutal. I was physically incapable of doing almost anything I was holding on for dear life. Like my body was effectively shutting down. And it wasn't until I started talking like literally, like physically using my words and sharing the experiences that I had did my life start to change.

And I realized one day I was on, I was on this road trip, I decided to move across the country to go work with this trauma therapist who refused to see people online. And we had Skype back then we didn't have Zoom. He is like, I don't do Skype. You have to go in person. And I was like. Well, I guess I'm packing up my whole life into this rental car.

I'm gonna go across the country, and so I'm on my way. And one night I stop over in this hotel in the middle of nowhere, Idaho, and I'm like, dead broke. So it's the cheapest hotel you can imagine. I'm like literally sleeping on top of the blankets in my clothes because it's that bad. And as I'm laying there, I realized one of the reasons why I was having panic attacks is because I was a liar.

And lying again, oddly enough, was a superpower because what does lying do for you? It gives you the ability to navigate circumstances out of your control. Right. Especially when it comes to your phys potential physical harm. And so I learned to lie to keep myself safe, which so many people do. One of the very first things I always address with my clients is I say, you gotta be honest.

We're not allowed to lie anymore, no matter what. So the ina the craziest thing ever happened, believe it or not. I stopped lying. I started telling the truth, the panic attacks went away. And I went from five a day. And that is not an exaggeration. I was crippled by it. I went from five a day to none, and in the last 10 years, I've probably had two, right?
And so I look at that. And I think about what you say, and I'm like, yes, absolutely. It's like we are conditioned to walk down this path to not communicate effectively, and our lack of communication brings suffering. And so I'm wondering are there indicators, right? Because I look at it as human beings and we talked about archetypes, which will architects texture, which we'll get into a little bit more, but I look at us from a physical perspective like we are hemispheres, right?

As humans, you look at any diagram from Old Eastern medicine to modern western medicine and everything in between, everything is built into these hemispheres, right? Is there anything like, let's say for instance, if your stomach hurts on the right side versus your left shoulder hurts versus your right big toe versus your left cheek.
What does that mean? Anything? Are there indicators to the experiences that you're having? I don't really know where I'm going with that question, but it's something that came to mind. 'cause I'm thinking about, you know, with us being humans in the way that we are built, if there are indicators, IE if you lie, you have panic attacks. Are there other indicators where it's like, if X equals Y, how does that exist in your physical body? Does that make sense?

Inna Segal: Absolutely. Makes huge amount of sense. 

Michael Unbroken: Awesome.

Inna Segal: So if we're looking at the body, it's a map. That's why I keep saying to people, it is a map.

So if we're looking at the left side of the body, for instance, So the left side of the body is the feminine, whether you right with your left hand, right hand, it is nothing to do with that.

It's actually to do with the fact that your heart is, you know, more on the left side of your body. And so whether you're a man or a woman, it doesn't matter because this is what the feminine part of you is talking about. And Jung spoke about this. It's, it's all about your inner self. It's about your feelings.

It's about how you personally experience life and how it impacts you is the left side of your body. It's also your. Ability to use your talents in a creative way. So not necessarily actually taking action yet, but recognition, nurturing of the talent, embracing of it. It's how you show up in terms of flavors and colors that is completely different to anybody else, or how you shut that down.

And you know, I love archetypes because they, and metaphors, because they really literally show us things. So I feel like most of us are born into this castle that has all these colors and all these aspect of us that is about a feminine. It's about. Why am I unique? What do I have to bring to this world that is so potentially vulnerable and different and refined and, you know, has never been here and that is that feminine and it's part of this cuss.

But because it's so vulnerable to be that and to step into that, what happens is that we're, you know, and we spoke about this, we're so affected by everybody, especially in our family. So what we do is we go, oh, I'm not allowed to express myself in this way, in this household, and these people don't, so I'm gonna copy them and I'm gonna shut this part of me, you know, away for now, maybe forever, but maybe just for now.

Because they, these people don't allow, let's say, truth, ruthless honesty is what I call it. So they don't allow truth, they fake it, they pretend they play games. So. I can't be me, so I don't even know me. I'm just gonna shove this away and this color and this color. And by the time, as you were saying, people get into their early twenties, it's almost like we are living in this two- or three-bedroom apartment and we have massive anxiety because all or depression or whatever it is because all these different parts are banging on the door.

But we dunno how to open the door. You know, these are all a creative, this is me, this is who I actually am and I'm not like you or anybody else. And so that's the feminine, it's is very intertwined with the mother figure, I'll call it. 'cause anybody, you know, like it doesn't have to be your actual mother, but it is the people who look after you the most and it impacts your in particular in the first seven years of life, your reproductive system is impacted and your sexuality and how that's gonna be expressed later in life. And whether you are going to be healthy in terms of your whole reproductive system or you're going to be unhealthy and it impacts how you know, we talk about all these attachment styles.

Where do they come from? They actually come from very early on and your, and how you develop and whether all the stages of development, you know, was there any understanding, was there, was there real support or was there kind of. You know, so many issues in the family where the mother in particular was paying way more attention to what was going on with her, you know, maybe her husband or somebody else in the family than the children.
And so this creates addiction. This creates so many challenges, you know, that we then have to deal with, but they become subconscious because in the first seven years of life, we're actually developing the physical body and we have subtle bodies. And the mother has this etheric body, which is the life body that we're part of, or the mother figure.

And so this life body contains all her or his. Essentially this person's, traits that we are pulling in because we are a sponge and we don't have any protection for ourselves. And so essentially what your physical health is gonna be like is what happened in that seven, first seven years of life and who was looking after you and what you took on from that.

But in particular, it's gonna affect the reproductive system and lower back and hip area and legs potentially. And when, you know, and this whole area, this left side is all about what is my relationship with the feminine. It is, you know, whether it's feminine people, my own feminine, my ability to express my feelings and tell the truth of how I really feel inside or my lack of capacity for it. You know, my ability to hold my talent and show up courageously or to hide it. You know, my ability to nurture myself or not to my ability to listen to my body or completely ignore everything and keep pushing past every limit that I have that is the left side of the body. And it is definitely connected to our relationships with, you know, the most important people in our lives that are feminine.

You know, in particular a mother, potentially a grandmother, potentially your partner if you're, you know, you know, if you have female partners, you know, your daughter, if you have a daughter. So all the most important feminine people and how you relate to them. And also when you were younger, whether you were masculine or you know, male or female, essentially.

How did you see that feminine being expressed? Was it being expressed in a soft, loving, gentle way, or was it harsh? Rejecting? Disconnected? And again, you're gonna pull that in and it's gonna affect your body, but also your soul and who you are. And then when we go to the right side of the body, which is the masculine, this is about my gift to the world like we already spoke about.
So this is about can I have a vision and then take action on it. Can I see a structure or where I need to go step by step? And can I use potentially this feminine emotion and feminine creativity? To keep going when the emotion, right, when that emotion of the moment of excitement is no longer there, the masculine takes over and goes, I'm gonna keep going because I can see the vision when things don't work.

When things are breaking down in your life, when things are, you know, difficult, the masculine. Is the one that says, I'm gonna make a decision and I'm gonna keep my word. I'm gonna keep my agreement, I'm gonna keep going. But only again, if either you saw that from your father figure or you develop it in yourself consciously, because life is just so hard and you turn the victimhood around.

And so the masculine is about, you know, can I move forward every step? Can I see the vision? Does it become clear? How do I give my gift out to other people? How do I contribute? What is it you know, that I have to contribute? What is my legacy? What can I leave when I'm gone? All of these questions are on this right side of the body.

And you know, if we do it in a way that is step by step without. Overdoing over pushing, then we have a lot of life force that comes. But if we push in force, this is where I start seeing, and I have seen it over the years, hardening that happens. And in particular in the chest area or the liver. So there's, there's two very interesting areas.

So if you're in the female body and you push and you force, you might start, you might get a breast tumor, but if you are in the masculine body, you might, and it gets too much. You might start drinking alcohol a lot and you. Will affect the liver because the liver is that organ of movement, right?

And digesting things. And assimilating. And when you can't, and when you've been put down over many years, let's say, by your father or you know, important masculine figure, there's rage. There's rage that occurs inside, which is a liver and gallbladder. And it's like in one way you can use that rage to move forward and to actually change things. Or it turns in on itself and then you start to, and it's essentially destroy yourself and you know others around you. But it's like, you know, when we start to look at this from timeline periods as well, and you start to look at the development of you. Your developmental stages, you start seeing that kind of like that area, the reproductive area, you know, if we call it chakra, is developed zero to seven years and actually contains everything that you've experienced in life from zero to seven, but not just zero to seven, how that then impacts you every year of your life, because that's what an archetype is.

It is like, you know who, what you've experienced meets life, meets what you still feel. So let's say I was rejected when I was seven by my mother and now I'm 40 and you know, and maybe I wasn't rejected for many years and now something happens and I am, I can connect to the deep rejection of me as, I dunno, a 5-year-old.
So my 40-year-old now meets the 5-year-old in this archetype and can start creating reproductive issues because there's a seed there already of what actually occurred when I was younger. That can grow, or in whatever way it can be nurtured back into health if it's recognized. And the word here is connected connection and recognition, or it can absolutely create havoc with my hormones, with my reproductive system, potentially back, lower back pain and.

Until I start creating these connections and see them as pieces of the puzzle that are being put back together, I'm gonna suffer and struggle.

Michael Unbroken: That I think is a ton. I mean, you basically just gave us a masterclass. I literally just took like four pages of notes. 2 things come to mind. I think they apply to both.

One of the things that I hear is that when you're not living into whatever feels true for you will see the onset of whatever issue it may be. Two, I hear, well, if you force or push it also will lead down this place of discomfort. Okay, so both of these things hold true both of these things if you don't do the thing, but then if you push the thing, there's problems.

How do you navigate not pushing the thing and allowing it to exist while also not ignoring it and pretending to be someone else? Ultimately, the thing that I see here is getting to this place of equilibrium and truth. So how do you do that?

Because I think ultimately, like that's, that's the crux of this, right? it's a kitschy word. I know it exists everywhere, but authenticity is like the buzzword of the 2020s, right? But I also know that not being true to yourself is one of the worst things that you can do. IE being a liar, I associate not being true to yourself as I'm being a liar.
Not being true to yourself means not being vulnerable enough to actually speak your truth, to lean into the reality that you want to create, to be the creator. It also means that if you're pushing and you're not following the path, and you're forcing again, you're again in authenticity. And so we have these two things that both compete with each other, but are also the necess, the necessary element to actually building a life that works.

So how do you, how do you actually like do it? Like if you were to break this down and we were looking at it. I mean, is it just telling the truth and doing the thing? Sometimes I think like, you know, the old acronym, keep it simple, stupid. Like that's when I hear what you just laid out to us. I lead down this path that goes, well, just fucking keep it simple.
Tell the truth. Do the thing that you want to do. But you and I both know, life is not that simple, especially for people with complex trauma, especially people who got fucked up. Right? So how do you navigate this? How do you navigate this with all of the things happening in the world? How do you get to that place where there's, equilibrium and balance in this experience?

Inna Segal: I think step one is you gotta slow down and you've gotta, you've gotta make a decision that. It is, you know, again, it is a little bit cliche, but this is a journey and that you've gotta make a decision that you don't, you're not in a race and that you don't need to skip steps. Right? Because I feel like what happens, why we do force and push everything is because we don't know how to sit with something and we dunno how to be in that discovery of discomfort, so to speak.

So it's almost like in the discomfort, it is also very layered. Right? And each layer presents something powerful and potentially profound to you. But what we want, and this is something I have a real issue with, is we wanna go to that. Like, let's get to the root cause and then it's all over because I don't wanna be here.
As opposed to, well, I don't believe in root cause. I believe in foundation that there's foundations that were created, and from there everything's become layered. And each layer is basically saying to you, the only way you can get to your so-called root cause or the real foundation of, you know, what was created is by sitting with this one and not needing to force it, not needing it to be something different.

And that is our biggest challenge because we are so uncomfortable with that. 'cause we just, we just go like, where's the change? I want the change now. I'm not seeing the change, so I must be stuck as opposed to. Okay, so I am, and I'm writing a book on this at the moment, about these different stages of healing, and that in each stage you may feel stuck in many of these stages, but by recognizing what's actually going on and where you're at, you can move through each stage with, let's call it gracefulness in some way.

Because rather than judging yourself and guilt tripping yourself and saying, oh my God, I am, I'm in the wrong place, you actually start talking to yourself in a way where you go, I am in the place where I need to be, and that's okay. I'm curious, I'm curious to find out what this layer is and really discover it and then go to the next one and discover that and go to the next one.

And this is where I learned about how to work with archetype. Because what happens is, obviously when you're in these layers, you feel a lot of emotions and emotions are hazy. Like we are. We are very good with understanding, thinking. We are not very good with understanding where feeling comes from a will, right?
We actually don't really know it very well. And so because feelings are so hazy, we kind of go, okay, but I felt this feeling. And what I say to people is, well, hold on a sec. If we're gonna start to get more subtlety into it, then we realize my anger in my heart. Is not the same anger that I feel in my soul Plexus.

It's not the same anger that I feel in my liver. They're not the same, they're bad. They have different storylines, they have different experiences. They have different layers to them of my perspective of what happened, of why something happened in the way that it did. And that perspective actually keeps you stuck or it keeps you moving.

And you cannot just mentally get this right. You can't just jump and to it and go, I think my perspective is this. You have to discover it. And essentially the way that I found is to create a structure around it and to create, you know, to go. So if I have a feeling, I'm gonna have a thought, I'm gonna have a perspective.

If I have a thought, feeling and perspective, I'm gonna have a story. And. Potentially not one, but many because once I've created, so this is what people don't get. I've created this seed of, or it was created of trauma or a difficult experience. Everything that happens to me is colored by it and is built on top of that.

It's not like it's different. It's that on top of, you know, and so these are the layers that become an archetype. And people say to me, well, I can't, I don't wanna go back into trauma and remember it. And I agree with that. We don't necessarily want to retraumatize ourselves, but we need to understand what is the perspective that you're stuck in, what is being held, and if we can go, okay, by seeing the body as a map, we can break it down and go, okay, my archetype of zero to seven is the inner child. however, this is also an area that we use, you know, to co-create our reality in a way, and also to express sexuality. And so I've looked at it and I've gone, well, what's an archetype that's connected to this?

And to me on the shadow, it's the prostitute archetype, which often comes in after the age of 18 around that comes into you. It's also about telling the truth. You know, am I going to do what my parents or my family expects me to do? Or am I going to choose to do what I wanna do? And that archetype holds it.

And then as we go through, we start to see that here in the, so in the sacral, kind of your, you know, where your digestive system is the archetype of the seven to 14-year-old self, which is again, the teenage, you know, moving into the teenage state. So it's not the completely young archetype, but is it, is that part of you that starts to, begins the development of, how am I different to my family?
And how did the family affect me? So this whole area, the intestines is literally your impact, you know, your family impact. And then we start to go into the solar plexus, and this is where we have the archetype and the voice also of the victim meets our victorious self meets. I can either spend my whole life being in the victim, in, you know, in my kind of, my gut, or I'm going to be, I'm gonna keep choosing to turn it around.

I'm gonna keep choosing decisions 'cause when you tell the truth, you have to make decisions that are very difficult. Right? That's why we don't tell the truth. 'cause it's not just the telling of the truth. 'cause once you tell the truth, you can't UNT tell it and then it actually moves into the will. You have to act on it in some way.
You cannot just sit with it and do nothing. And so this victim meets victorious is then going, either it holds you into where you are at and makes you continue there. Or it says to you, no, you can do this and you can change your perspectives. And this is how and every part of our body has this and is connected to a time.
And that time gives us a lot of insight of how to work on ourselves.

Michael Unbroken: That is also powerful. And there are so many layers here and so much more depth that we can go into. But I don't want to overwhelm people beyond where they might be already. And I have a feeling. Yeah. if somebody's listening and overwhelmed, you should listen to this episode again and then do what I did and just take pages and pages and pages of notes. 'cause like this to me is learning. And I think that so much of it is in the learning, and so much of it is in the, really recognizing a great way to phrase the journey.

I want people to be able to connect with you, to learn more with, about you, to learn more with you. Where can folks find you and do that?

Inna Segal: So the best ways to connect to me to is to go to my website, which is innasegal.com and as you are navigating the website, firstly, definitely put your name into, you know, and send us an email for, in terms of your, our email list, because we're constantly sending things out from parts of my books to something that I'm thinking about and discovering to podcasts like this, to you know, it could be a part of the day just to kind of shift your perspective.

And also, I do a lot of free master classes where I give you processes and connect, you know, a theme that you can look at where, you know, it might be just on the inner child archetype, or it might be how do we work with different health conditions or how do we, you know, navigate, this healing journey in different stages of healing or archetypes.

So there are many free master classes that you can start with to really understand yourself and taking your time with them and doing processes with them. So again, you will see that on the website, which is inner siegel. com. And then I've written, you know, several books as well that people can explore, and I'm sure I'll be writing more as they go.

Michael Unbroken: Amazing. Yeah. And guys, don't forget, go think unbroken podcast. com. Look up Ana's episode where you'll find all of that information in the show notes. My last question for you, my friend, what does it mean to you to be unbroken?

Inna Segal: For me, it's all about seeing life, I guess. You know, I see it as a puzzle. So to me it's, seeing each piece. What we might judge as being hurt or even, you know, wounded in some way and going, this part has wisdom.How can I learn from it? How can I grow from this? How can I strengthen from this? So that, and I guess for me, it's always so that I can be one more of who I am, but also so that I can be. Of service to others in some way or form on a daily basis. And I mean it on a daily basis, not necessarily, you know, where everybody claps and sees you, but in all the moments where they don't, in all the moments where you are giving and nobody knows necessarily what it, you know, like where it came from, but you can, because you also listen to your own self and you sat there with that hurt part of you and you brought it back to yourself.

And that part that you may have deemed as broken before became your superpowers you've said. And it grew because you connected to it.

Michael Unbroken: That's so true. I mean it is a puzzle and that's one of the most beautiful things about it, is it can be solved and it can be healed and you can do something more, my friend. Thank you so much for being here.

Unbroken Nation, my friends. Thank you guys all so much for listening. If today's episode brought any value to your life, please share this with a friend because I can promise you someone else is trying to solve their puzzle. You can learn more about thinkunbrokenpodcast.com and tell then my friends, take care of yourself. Take care of each other.

Be Unbroken. I'll See You.