Hey there, it's Melissa Brunetti and welcome to the Mind Your Own
Karma podcast. Hey there Karma crew.
Thanks for joining me on another episode of Mind Your Own Karma,
The Adoption Chronicles. Today I have another adoptee
guest for you. Her name is Carissa St.
Laurent and she is an adoptee from Korea.
Let me tell you a little bit more about Carissa.
She was given up for adoption at three years old and moved to the
United States to be raised by a new family who didn't look,
sound, or act like anything she was accustomed to.
This created a deep sense of abandonment and uncertainty
about her identity. She adapted.
She had to, and in the process locked all of her needs, hurts,
and traumas away where they wouldn't interfere with the
success of her life. Another childhood traumas piled
up upon an already shaky foundation.
There were some dark times, but thankfully Carissa has been
asking herself some big questions, such as who am I and
why am I here? As she explored different
metaphysical, religious and spiritual philosophies, this
curiosity carried her spirit to study abroad at the University
of California, Irvine and on to an epic adventure with an
unintended spiritual awakening. On a mountainside in New
Zealand, she experienced the oneness of all that is the light
of the universe enveloping her and emanating from her.
She was given the knowledge she was seeking, that she was
everything, and her purpose was to light up her world and her
life and help others do the same.
This is my interview with Carissa St.
Laurent. So we are welcoming Carissa to
the show today. Hi, Carissa.
Hi, Melissa. I love that our name's rhyme.
I know, I didn't notice that. That's great.
We were connected through Simon and his podcast Thriving
Adoptees, and he saw a common thread with us.
So I think this is going to be a great conversation, but we are
going to cover your adoption first a little bit and we'll get
into some other things. So I was looking at your website
and the first sentence of your website says, who am I?
And it says I have been asking myself this question my entire
life. So who is Carissa?
Yeah, it's it is a big question to answer.
The very short and simple answer I've come to is that I'm a star
in this body, I'm a soul here on a mission, and that the
identities that I've lived through and constructed and
pretended to be are all roles. Identities, earthly constructs,
things that I've either been foisted into or have created out
of protection or have just, you know, played because they're
fun. And all of those things,
although I feel like they make up my persona, personality, my
character of Carissa, they're not really who I am.
Yeah. So you were put up for adoption
at the age of three. What happened?
Why was it so late being put up for adoption?
My birth mother had the, and I'll start by saying that prior
to the age of 35, I didn't know anything about my birth history.
My parents were told that I was abandoned naked at a police
station and so I was given a name and a birth date and that
was where my life began. And until I went to the
orphanage in Korea and learned of my actual history and got
information from them, I didn't know any of this stuff.
So what I was told there and then now have since
corroborated. I was with my birth mother until
I was three years old. She had been divorced from her
first husband. And it was A single woman living
in Seoul, South Korea, met a man who was a Japanese businessman
who lived in Seoul, you know, for short periods while he was
on these jobs. And they met.
They fell in love. And I use air quotes because I
don't really know they actually loved each other or just lusted
after each other. But they had a moment, and in
that moment I was conceived and. He helped her financially for
the first two years and then he had, through the story, had gone
back to Japan and said, you know, I I can't support you and
her any longer. I've got a family back in Japan,
nine other daughters. Oh my gosh.
Support. And he just couldn't do it
anymore. So she, living in 1970s Korea,
had very few options. And was then met with that
What's difficult for I think a lot of unwed mothers in South
Korea who are in the situation many of them do give up their
kids for adoption because they are trying to do its best like
what would be best for the child to have this better life of what
they consider a better life and. In South Korea, you know when
you are fatherless, you're the lowest of the low.
As far as social strata goes, you are kind of a pariah.
So she was facing that for herself because unwed mothers
are also looked at that way often times, at least back then.
I'm not sure how much it's evolved.
I know it's gotten better. Not.
Gotten to a perfect place, but I know it's gotten better there.
But back then, unwed mothers would be fired from their jobs.
Often times their families would denounce them and and kick them
out of the house if they happen to live there.
And you know, all of these things.
She was an older woman, you know, older.
Meaning she was in her mid 30s when she got pregnant with me.
So she already lived on her own. But still, it was a social.
Situation in that country that did not make it comfortable or
there weren't also no social programs, they were no welfare
programs like we have here in this country for her to even tap
into, so as soon as. He was unable to help support
her financially. She felt in this bind.
And then the kind of, I guess, the straw that broke the camel's
back, if that's the right metaphor to use.
His woman befriended her and said she's going to be much
better off. If, you know, you adopt her out,
if she's raised by another family, started to really
instill this idea in my birth mother that this was the best
thing to do. And she would come over and she
would bring these American snacks and be like she, she
likes them. She's going to be well taken
care of and she's going to be fine.
And she also told my birth mother that she would be
reunited with me when I was 16. And so all of these things we've
now found out were not true. But that's what led up to her
relinquishing me. So you said that this story was
you were left at a police station.
Did they just make up a birthday?
Do you know when your real birthday is?
They just made-up a birthday. They said, you know, I'm a Jane
Doe, right, A Korean Jane Doe. So I was given the name and
birthday. My parents always knew that
those were assigned. So it wasn't like they were
trying to pass that off of oh, this is who she is and here's
her birthday. They told my adoptive parents,
these are assigned names, birthday and because of my
abandonment with nothing at this police station.
And. We in both going to the
orphanage and then also meeting my birth mother.
I now know that that's untrue. And then, and I do to answer
your question, no my birth date to my real birth date.
So how long did it take for you to know when your birthday was?
How old were you? We went to Korea when I was 35
years old. My husband being the amazing man
that he is, when we decided to go to Korea and also Japan for
our honeymoon, he said, well, if we're going to Korea, we've got
to go to your orphanage. Then we've got to try to make
contact. At the time, I was still
reticent. I'd always had very far off
curiosity about searching, but I believed the story that I was
abandoned. No information.
Emma Jane Doe. So I allowed that story to kind
of give me this false sense of security, like, oh, well, you're
never gonna know anything anyway, so you might as well
just put it out of your head and not go down that road.
And isn't life better without that for anybody who's gone down
this road of actually searching for birth, family?
And obviously the results can be.
All sorts of different things, right?
All sorts of stories there which you cover on your podcast, and
I've met many adoptees now and had those conversations and
there's so many different stories.
Mine is, I would say, mostly positive in what we were to
discover. But the crazy part about it if
when I contacted the orphanage before going over to see if we
can meet with them, if there was any information that they could
tell me. They wrote me back, gave me a
date that, you know, we could come and visit, and then said we
have information on your birth mother.
And I was like, wait, what? How you know what it Where did
this come from? And I ended up like rifling
back. All these questions because of
course, that was the first time any mention of my birth mother
had ever come up. That's almost like she didn't
exist. Because when you're told you're
abandoned, it's like, oh, she's dead or she's, you know, long
gone or she didn't want me, you know, That's all.
So she's out of my mind, this mystery.
But that line in that e-mail just completely rocked me.
So we went to Korea. I go to the orphanage, we meet
with a social worker and she opens up my file and starts to
tell me all about my life before I was relinquished, All about my
birth mother, about the story of how she came to bring me there
and all these details and information.
And I'm like, wait a minute, at one point I stopped and I was
like, why was I given a different birth date?
Why was I given a different name?
And the woman says, well, this is where it gets a little.
Complicated. Or she may have used the word
confusing. She said your parents were going
to adopt this person and she's like, I don't know what
happened, but something must have happened to where that girl
could not be adopted out. So they sent you instead, and
this is your information. That just got filed away with
her information, the one that was going to be adopted.
So my parents were given false information about a person, or
they were given information that ended up being false, meaning it
wasn't the girl they ended up with, but they were never told
that. And they were even given a
picture of the person they were going to adopt and that.
I mean, they and me, when I finally saw it, we all were
like, that's a boy. It's just very clearly a little
boy. You know, It wasn't like an
infant where you can't tell sometimes like, oh, that's a
little boy and or a girl dressed up like a boy and looking like a
boy. So we have that picture.
I still have that photo and now I have the actual photo of me.
From that age, from the orphanage that they gave me when
I was there. And that's very clearly me.
And when I showed it to my adoptive father, he was like,
oh, that, there you are. Like, that's you.
Because they didn't know, you know, they like, have the photo,
like, photo of me. I come off the plane, they're
like, here's your daughter. And they're just like, OK, Like
they gave the paperwork. They were handed a child.
And they were like, all right, well, she don't look like that
picture, but OK, I guess that's her, I guess, question it.
And there was nothing else for them to know.
The orphanage and the agencies weren't giving them any other.
So that was it. Yeah.
Do you remember leaving your mom in Korea?
Do you have any memory? I don't know.
And I thought maybe being there, some memories would flood back
and I would have. Some recollection, both in Korea
and at the orphanage. Yeah, maybe like some memory
will come flooding through or or the language will start to be
able to speak the language again.
I studied some Korean language before we went because I wanted
to be able to. I do that anytime we travel to a
foreign country. Just basic phrases and nothing.
Clicked for me, nothing came flooding back and when I was
there nothing came flooding back.
So I have no memory or it's it's very, very locked away.
How was that finally getting the truth of some of that and having
a whole new script written of the life that you thought you
were living and all the things that you were told?
And then it was just kind of flipped.
How did that feel? Yeah, I'm still unraveling all
of that. You know, this is now 15 years
ago I went there. And then I guess 13 years or 12
years since I've met my birth mother and still it's still
unfolding of how it is, you know, at being there and finding
out that information. I was completely dissociated.
I remember even viewing myself from.
This above place, yeah. And experiencing it from this
removed, you know, I call it this protective bubble.
I was in that projective bubble. I was, thank God my husband was
there because the way that it went down in the room with the
social worker, she would give me a little bit of information and
then she would stop and say, what else would you like to
know? And I would say okay, and I
would come up with some more questions.
She'd answer those questions. Stop.
What else would you like to know?
And I was just like, it was a pressure cooker because I wasn't
sure of what else I wanted to know.
I didn't know all the questions I want.
And I was so afraid that I would not remember to ask.
These very pertinent questions and I just wanted to scream and
be like just fucking tell me like just read.
It I want to know everything. Yeah, and but it's just not the
way it's done or not the way that she was conducting it.
I really honestly believe that she ended up telling us a lot
more than what probably what she was supposed to.
And it got done that way that it was just.
No, because she asked me. I had to tell her so she was
what else would she like to know?
So my husband was there and I would just look at him and it
was like a deer and headlight, you know, just frozen, just
like. And he would say, well, and he
would come up with a question and OK, OK And then I we I'd ask
that question and then it would trigger more questions for me.
Having him as an advocate for me was incredible.
And. So the process of being there, I
was really removed. Emotionally.
I was, it was, I was really more in that heightened, like this is
an adventure and I'm finding out all of this stuff and it's so
interesting and I'm so curious and I'm delighted in the
adventure of it all. But I wasn't at all sitting with
the gravity. Right.
And really feeling it then or even in the the years between.
Being there and meeting my birth mother, and even after meeting
my birth mother, it's just it's like I said.
It's just been this unraveling of my experience and just
feeling, feeling deeper and deeper into myself as the years
go on and as I do more processes and more healing and more
uncovering of what is deep, dark and in below all of the.
Below all of those constructs, you know, kind of like what I
was talking about with the identity.
It's like all of those being constructs, so are the
constructs of I am happy, I feel good, oh I'm depressed or
whatever. These those are labels too.
And states of being that I've needed to get underneath all of
that as well to really be with it and really sit with it.
And then of course in the doing of that, you know, you meet or
I've met my 3 year old self. I've met my infant self.
I've met these parts of me that had been rationalized away.
Yeah, that oh, she had to do it because it did this, this and
this and all the conditions in Korea.
And ah, you know, it's like we intellectualized the meaning
behind and even can say words like I was traumatized, words
like it was hard for me, but not feeling into the actual.
Depth of how hard it was for me until I did that, I had not
really faced what that seminal moment set in motion.
So what was it like growing up in your family and not looking
like them because you came to the United States?
I'm assuming they were white parents.
Yes. And how was that?
It was. Very difficult.
And, you know, and that's when the dissociation started,
really. You know, I was coming to them.
This part I don't remember. So this is, you know, what's
told to me. I came off the plane and I'm
with, you know, like 30 other Korean adoptees that are all
being brought over. You know, we landed at JFK.
My parents and I have a brother so similar to your story at My
parents had a child and he was four when I was adopted.
So they were there to pick me up.
And I came off the plane with all these other kids and they
said that all the other kids were screaming and crying and
some of them were just like rolling around on the ground and
like hitting their head on the ground and like, just awful
seeing, right? And I was just stone cold, just
stoic and calm, and I just walked calmly where I needed to
be. My parents would tell this as a
a source of pride that I was. Calm and and good-natured and
you know, you show she was so skied, everybody else was
freaking out and she was just like I was frozen to death, you
know, I was completely scared to death and that was my way of
coping there. Those kids were letting it out
and screaming and crying and. I couldn't.
I was completely frozen. So that's what I don't remember.
I also don't remember when I got into my family home, my parents
said that I would just at night be in night terrors.
I would be screaming, crying and they couldn't wake me up, so
they would just hold me until I like fell out of the fit.
But they couldn't wake me up to be like, hey, you're safe,
you're safe or whatever. I mean, they would be saying
that in English and I can't even understand them because I speak
Korean. So all of it is just a
nightmare, right? Even if I had woken up, what the
hell would have that done? You know, I probably would have
screamed more because I'm like, who are these strangers, you
know, holding me? Right.
Those are the things I don't remember, that I know, of
course, shaped deeply who I am, and I locked all of that away.
And then? The things I do remember are
growing up in, you know, guess the white family in a very white
community. I grew up in a suburb of a city
in New Hampshire, so very white and homogeneous and you know,
it's safe and lovely town. But there was just nobody else
that looked like me, and certainly nobody else that
culturally was like me. So I was erased.
I mean, I was just completely erased and in order for me to
survive that I had to adapt and just make myself into a perfect
citizen, a white citizen, which I still see myself as what I
mean, I now see myself. Yes, I see myself as Korean and
Asian and from. It looks perspective, but I
don't have the customs, I don't have the culture.
I'm very white and so that's what I grew up in.
And similar to you, I know culturally you feel Italian,
right? Because that's what you grew up
in. It's it is so powerful.
This, even though I had three years, I spoke the language, ate
the foods, I lived there in the country, all of it was just
erased and I just became white kind of overnight.
I mean, it took a month for me to learn English.
And you know, I'm eating all the foods and loving my chocolate
milk and Donuts and all these things that I was given and I
seemed on the surface of happy child.
My parents would describe me as happy.
I didn't have any outward signs of trauma to where they were.
Like we need to get her into therapy or something.
Like some adoptees I know have been sent back to their
countries of origin because of how.
How traumatized they were. And it was not stuffed away like
mine was, you know, they acted out.
Yeah, so I didn't knock out. I was perfect little child, you
know, I and then become a straight, A student and
cheerleader and blah, blah, blah, you know, all these things
that masked really the truth of what was going on beneath the
surface. And so it was difficult for me.
Once I realized it was difficult right now, I didn't know that I
was. So fractured.
I didn't know how dissociated I was until I knew it.
I remember a happy childhood, but that's only what And I and I
have very few memories of my childhood, so that's another
thing. I know that is sign or symptom
of the fact that things were not right because I don't remember a
lot of it, but what I do remember was.
Mostly happy and mostly good. However, my adoptive family is a
fairly dysfunctional family and you know, they got divorced, my
parents when they were when I was 14 or you know, 13 going on
14. So, you know, it wasn't like
that was all, you know, wonderful and right.
And your mother ended up moving away and so you didn't get to
see her. And that is a crucial age to
have lost another mother. Yeah, being a teenager.
It was. It was a really, you know,
second abandonment. Even though, again, I didn't
realize that it was then. Everything, just it just piled
on the trauma. I was fortunate enough to have
had a massive head injury when I was 16 and through this accident
I was connected to my soul. And I didn't know that's what it
was. But in the hospital, I'm 16
years old in intensive care, my parents aren't there.
I mean, they would come to visit, of course, the time, you
know, during the day when they could.
And. But my mom was living in Los
Angeles at the time, so she had to fly back.
And I don't even remember, honestly, the weeks that I was
in intensive care, if she was there the whole time in New
Hampshire, if she had gone back to.
I can't remember that. But the times that I was alone
in the hospital, which was a lot.
This voice came through me and started speaking for me and
advocating for me and was telling the doctors what I
wanted done, what I didn't want done.
Questioning them about these procedures, these pills.
What was I getting done? Why was that necessary?
Is it necessary for my healing and I'm just kind of again
dissociated or just out of body in that protective bubble
watching this all happen and going, what's going on?
Like, wow, who what is this voice?
And. I completely trusted it, but
also didn't know what it was, where it was coming from, and
the voice followed me back home to my recovery because I had to
be at home gosh for months and months before even I could go
back to school for part time for a little bit.
But I was at home for months and.
My dad had to construct this makeshift hospital bed.
Basically it had to be at a 45 degree angle because I had a
skull fracture and a traumatic brain injury and and the
cerebral spinal fluid couldn't flow out of the fracture.
So I had to be upright in this bed.
So I would lay there and. The voice would be there.
And I eventually figured it out that it was my voice.
It was my inner wise self. It was my soul that was speaking
for me, that was advocating for me.
That was then telling me that I was going to be okay and assured
me that I was going to be completely healed and completely
fine. And then as I trusted it and and
realized wow, this is what it is.
I would lay there for hours because I had nothing to do
right. And it taught me myself, taught
me. I taught me how to visually heal
myself. I would.
Vision myself as a fully healed person, doing all my normal
things. Running, dancing, cheerleading.
Again, all because it was a cheerleading accident.
I don't know if I mentioned and, so I would just visualize my
healing. Visualize laughing and running
around and playing with my friends and cheerleading and and
driving and, you know, being independent, normal teenager,
yeah. And it wasn't until years later
that I realized that I was actually self healing and had
learned how to do that. Then I just thought, oh, this is
me. Thinking positively or this is
me, you know, hoping for the best.
But I would tell my dad that I'm fine.
I'm actually better than fine. I know that.
I'm 100% healed. Nothing's going to be wrong with
me. He was so scared to like, let me
out of the house, which of course I would be too.
But I knew, knew that I was fine.
And that was my first opening to both my soul.
And beneath the surface of all my trauma.
So that's why I call that accident a gift.
Because everything that had been locked away, it was finally, now
ready to be examined. It's not like I just was like,
let's look at it all, let's, you know, heal everything, Let's go
down this path 100%. But the box was open.
I couldn't, couldn't deny it anymore.
And that was an incredible. Shift for me, yeah.
It's either we have to give ourselves permission.
I think a lot of adoptees don't think that we can open that
Pandora's box that we're not allowed to until we either
realize that we can or we see other people doing it.
And it's like, I can do that. I can have feelings about being
adopted. What do you mean?
You know, I've been told. To be.
That I can't, Yeah, by giving yourself that permission is
huge. But you said a little bit
earlier about adapting and you said that you had to.
Can you expand on that a little bit?
Yeah, I think in order to survive the trauma that I had
been through, I feel like I had to adapt.
I couldn't at all explore. I didn't feel safe to.
And maybe this is again my soul knowing that.
You're not in a family and in a situation that would be safe for
you to explore this. They're not open to and or
capable of handling your trauma. They are capable of providing a
roof over your head and wonderful food and, you know,
nice clothes and they're capable of showing love, but they were
not capable. And and who knows maybe had they
been served that up they would have stepped up and been able to
you never know because I think the life is infinite
possibilities And and then had that they were presented to them
that could have triggered something to where they were
like who didn't know I was going to face this in this lifetime.
But here I am and I'm I'm stepping into it that that could
have happened, however knowing. Both of them, you know, for the
last, you know, 47 years now, it is my strong feeling that they
would not have been able to deal with that.
And my mother, even more so than my father.
My father's maybe less emotional, but that's where my
mother's. Falls apart.
She's she's much too emotional. She's a mess.
My dad has a lot more strength than my mom, but my mom maybe
showed more love than my dad, you know?
But the the, the irony is that my dad is the one who has been
able to continue to be in my life because he's able he with
that strength. Mix with the love that he of
course has. For me, he's been able to stick
it through really some rough times because as I did start to
heal and uncover and discover and and go down the deeper,
darker paths of my healing, I of course brought some things to
him and faced, you know, darkness with him and he was
able to handle it and was able to also.
Apologize and live up to things that had happened within our
life that he felt he was responsible for or had a part
in. And he could, he could stand
with me and say I'm sorry, I'm sorry that that happened.
Whereas my adoptive mom, you know, she just had no capacity
for that at all. Well, those types of people that
have those emotional roller coasters, those emotional roller
coasters can be make other people in their lives limited.
It's very controlling and we be having that emotional roller
coaster because you react to their emotion and then you maybe
act a different way because you don't want to be on that roller
coaster with them. Exactly.
And in therapy, specifically regarding my mom, you know, I
know that I had to pack away my problems because her trauma was
so big. It was the only thing that
energetically took up space. Like it was the only thing that
mattered. Even though she wasn't dealing
with her trauma, it was just it was very present.
That was all we could make room for.
Wasn't she adopted as well? Yeah, she was.
She had an extremely traumatic upbringing, early childhood, so
you wonder how much of A role that played in the mothering you
know? Yeah.
I mean, she had no good model for mothering.
She also had so much trauma from her experience and my heart just
deeply goes out to her and always did.
But it got to a point where I couldn't carry her burdens.
And yeah, yeah, so you admitted to having some dark times.
Where were those related to adoption in any way or what was
going on? Yeah, definitely related to
adoption. Again, not knowing that it was,
not knowing that I was so deeply traumatized by that.
And I would say started in high school.
It started before the accident that I talked about where I was
drinking and had a bad boy boyfriend who was not good for
me and good for my. Really.
Broken heart. The thing about it is that he
was so broken that it allowed me to remove the lens that I could
put on myself and focus it on him.
Yeah, just complete denial of myself by being in relationship
with him. And so there were a lot of signs
and and bad turns. While in high school, although I
still was outwardly performing, you know, and doing the the
dance, so I was, you know, captain of the cheerleading
squad. You know, the next year after
that accident, I, you know, it was, you know, National Honor
Society, all this stuff, right? I was a good girl in in many
respects and played that role really well.
But I also was in deep rebellion and also deep pain.
You don't think anyone rebels because they really want to.
I think they rebel because they are calling out to their
caretakers or to the world at large being like, help me, help
me. I can't handle this on my own
and get to this place of where it's like, well, F you if you're
not going to help me. Because I didn't.
I never outwardly asked for the help.
I didn't know how. I didn't know that I needed it.
But my soul was screaming out right help.
I need this help and so. That's where it all started.
Then I got to college and life just kind of started to get more
dark there. And you know, drinking the drugs
got heavier and for the very first time had thoughts of
suicide. Never to the point of where it
was serious, like when I'm planning something or.
But thoughts of suicide and if you looked at my behavior, it's
like that was. Also self-destructive enough
that it is almost like suicide. Like I could have died in so
many situations that I put myself in.
And yeah, spirit wants me here. Yeah, it didn't, but I could
have, yeah. So those dark times were lifted.
The veil of that time was lifted when I was 20 years old and I
well, actually I was probably a year earlier.
I was probably 19 and things got so, so bad where I knew I needed
to do something. I didn't know what.
I was lost last completely and I hated myself so much even
though. I had always not liked myself in
my appearance and the very kind of fabric of who I am.
I didn't know myself as soul. I knew myself as this Korean
girl, you know, trapped or this what I felt like created girl
trapped in a Korean body. Like I didn't.
I My identity was so fractured that I didn't like myself before
all of the bad behavior. But then pile on all this.
Awful self-destructive behavior and I had gained tons of weight
and I was just like gross. I just felt and was gross and
not caring for myself at all. Something some things.
My soul spirit called me to this study abroad office and I went
to the office and I don't know, I can't remember the actual
circumstance around, but I ended up in there.
And I was having to study abroad.
I'm going to go out of the country.
I'm going to on the surface, I'm going to leave my problems
behind. But deep down, I knew it was
going to be transformative for me.
I just didn't know exactly how. So at 20 years old, I'm in New
Zealand and I have my first very, I mean to some first.
But it was a. Conscious and also unaided
spiritual awakening. And I say unaided because I had
been experimenting with psychedelics for years prior to
this moment. But this was a sober moment on a
mountain. I'm hiking and I came out out of
the trees and took off my backpack and I had been
grumbling for hours because. I was so tired and I was so out
of shape and I just felt like shit.
And I didn't like my body. I didn't like being in my body.
I felt like a complete impostor. Like who am I to be having this
experience? Like, I I don't deserve this
experience. I don't deserve to be here.
And I'm just like grumbling. And I literally put my hand on a
tree to like, help myself up. I got stung by a bee.
I had never been stung or I guess once in childhood I'd been
stung. But you know, I get stung by a
bee. I'm just.
All pity party and I got out of the the woods part of this hike
and I'm on this Vista and all of a sudden I see where I am just
like oh I'm on this part of this mountain and there's this valley
below and it's just gorgeous and everything's open and the sun's
finally hitting me. And so I take my backpack off
and I I pull out my journal to write some and journal about,
you know my my experience and. This card falls out of it.
It's my memorial card for my grandmother's death, as she had
died two or three years earlier and I had been, you know,
carrying this card around with me.
It was in my journal and it fell out as I opened it up.
So I went and picked it up off the ground and when I came up
the entire space around me exploded in light and knowing
and complete oneness. And I was just floating in.
It just couldn't I? I felt so at peace, so in love
with everything myself, the universe, the trees, the the
air, and in complete knowing that I was a part of this, that
this was me. And I was experiencing the vast
and expanded part of me as part of this whole.
Wide, expansive universe. But that I was only this this
this piece of it. And then I heard the voice that
said and shared this mission of that I needed to heal my heart.
Find my gifts and then share them with the world.
And I was just that that was the okay.
Yes you are this expanded oneness.
But you're here on a mission, and you are this individual who
needs to go and. Heal your heart.
Find your gifts, share them with the world.
Go. And then everything came back to
being. I like landed on the ground.
I was back in that moment and fell to my knees, just like in a
spiritual epiphany, like fell to my knees bawling and just
couldn't believe it and knew in every inch of my being that.
This is who I am, and this is what I need to do.
But then, like, as immediately as I knew that, all the fear
started flooding in. Like, how am I going to do
where'd you go? Voice?
Like, I know I need help. I don't know what to do.
So I was 20 years old when that happened.
And then it's taken 30 years, honestly, to really fully come
into this full reunion with my soul.
It's always been there. I've had lots of dalliances with
my soul over the last 30 years. Moments of miracle, moments of
healing, lots of moments. But those moments have also been
cut in by still like the demons of my trauma.
So it's just taken this many years to deal with that and
understand the trauma and the demons and everything that has
been constructed over just the dealing with that, to then come
out on the other side of feeling like the whole person that I am.
So I know my healing journey's been kind of like feeling my way
through what feels good, what feels right.
And then if that door shuts, then you just make a U-turn and
take the next fork in the road. What did your path to healing
look like? It was like a roller coaster, so
many stops and starts, so many highs and lows, just like what
on the surface looks very messy, but it's all perfect.
And I know that, you know, I know that it is just been the
most perfect unfolding of it all.
From that moment in New Zealand when I was 20, I came back, I
graduated from college and then I moved to San Francisco.
And that's really when I started to dig deep, go to see different
healers. I was exploring a lot of
different religious philosophy doing my own self help.
I was very selfled. I did not become part of any
type of indoctrinated system, although I looked at many
different systems and gleaned a lot of information and knowledge
and wisdom and truth from so many different teachers and
systems. However, never went in and and
then became a devoutee to anything specific and went deep
and started to uncover and unmask some things which in the
process of that led me to a very pinnacle moment with my adoptive
mom of finally getting to a point of where I could face her.
It was like facing the dragon honestly.
Like this scary fire breathing mythical beast.
And I finally faced her and came out with my strength, with my
what had been healed up until that point self and said no
more, no I no more of that. I'm not going to be treated this
way. I'm not going to be deal with
you. I'm not going to be under your
thumb. I'm not.
I'm no longer going to take your bullshit or abuse and then our
Rd. you know, has and then roller coaster, Ryan continued.
With her and and certainly with my healing and all of the, you
know, things unrelated to her as well.
But it was that first facing of her that was very of a pinnacle
moment. But then you know, the healing
was mired by my own refusal or denial of the healing.
Still that self denial, Self destruction, Still the drugs,
just different drugs. Still the bad boyfriend, but not
as bad as the other one. Still lots of me dabbling in
yeah my healing and dabbling in this space of spirit and selfish
soul and. But it took well, I don't know.
There's not anyone thing. It's all of it combined, really.
Meeting my husband was preceded by two years of intensive
healing. And I had done, like I said,
different healing, different exploration.
But I had spent prior to meeting him, two years of this very
intensive healing, both in experiencing it for myself as
well as learning processes and therapeutics to teach and share
with other people. And when I came out of that, I
ended up in lo and behold meeting my soul mate, meeting,
you know, the man that I was meant to be with in this
lifetime. And in the process of our
relationship unfolding, so much of myself more deeply has
unfolded and he's been amazing mirror for me, someone who's
challenged my petulance and also has seen me as the best version
of me and forced me to live up to that.
Yeah. And.
And I did the same for him, you know.
And that's why we're very suited.
Yeah, in this lifetime, because we've been able to do that for
each other. Yeah, I think through the
process of healing, especially for adoptees, the big deal that
I found for myself is having compassion for yourself through
the process of learning, because there are a lot of decisions
that you're going to make that aren't.
Going to serve you well, but you'll figure that out and then
just grab for something else and eventually you'll find that
healing combination and everybody's combinations
different. So just keep trying, but have
that compassion for yourself through that process because
you're not perfect and you've been through a lot and, you
know, look at those parts of you and just honor them because they
helped you survive, you know? Zach Yeah.
So we were talking before we started talking here on the
podcast about what we are doing with the hypnotherapy.
And I'm doing the somatic mindful guided imagery and
you're kind of doing something similar.
You call yourself the soul guide.
What do you mean by that? What does a session look like?
What are you doing with that? I've practiced and learned and
been in part of different traditions and trainings and
everything that I've ever experienced for myself.
I've also been very hungry to learn it, to share with others,
and I know that it's part of the mission, right?
Find your gifts, share them with the world like okay.
I am not in this for myself. I'm in it to share this with
others and and I hope continue to help awaken other people that
they are their own healer, they're their own guide in this
life. So the Soul guide work is about
connecting people back to that inner knowing that they are
their own mentor, healer, creator, guide for themselves.
And that all the different practices, all the different
teachers, the lineages, the medicines are helpful tools.
You know, they're there to support you like a crutch does
when you need it. But then as soon as you can walk
on that foot, that's bad. Don't use a crutch anymore
because you're actually not going to fully heal if you
continue to just use that, right.
So it's similar in that all teachers and teachings and
medicines I found to be not just helpful but vital at certain
moments. But then I needed to learn how
to walk on my own 2 feet from that moment forward.
I needed to trust in my soul that I could move through this
and handle this. And then yeah, that might lead
me to another teacher, might lead me to another medicine.
But it was listening into that inner guidance that really was
the turning point for me of remembering myself.
The turning point that, oh, I'm not broken, actually don't need
to be healed. I am fully healed.
I just need to remember that, oh, I'm not traumatized.
I'm just continuing to tell the story of my trauma.
I'm retraumatizing myself. Oh shit, I'm going responsible
for that. Like okay.
So it's a lot of self responsibility, a lot of looking
in the mirror, a lot of just taking full responsibility for
myself in this life and being led by soul.
And so that's what I've discovered through everything
that I've experienced and then learned and and learned to
teach. So the sessions are essentially
combination of the practices in a way that help people get into
a place where they can connect into that inner knowing.
Each session might look different from the one before or
the one after. It's really about me reading the
room and reading the person or people that I'm working with
energetically connecting to them.
So there's what we say and then it's who we are, right?
It's what we appear and come forward as, and then it's what's
behind all of that, right? So it is.
I use my intuitive gifts to be able to actually see what's
really there. Yeah, see what's most present.
There's a lot of things there. All of it is the wholeness of
that person or people is all there.
But as you know what is most present for them, what wants to
come out, what actually wants to be exposed?
Because the things that don't want to be exposed, it's no good
for that individual or that group of people to expose that.
What does want to be exposed and what are they ready for?
So it's a lot of reading into the person or the people.
And then what it might look like on the surface is guided
meditation, visualization and walking.
Talking people through and into a place where they are
reconnected to their inner self, their inner being, their soul.
To then go and find and bring back the gift, bring back the
answer, bring back the healing, bring back whatever it is that
they need in that moment. So on the surface, calling them
guided meditation visualizations.
I also have been toying with the idea of calling them
motivational meditations because people have a very specific idea
of what a meditation is and unless you meditate.
Because once you meditate, you know how vast meditation is.
But if you don't meditate, you kind of think it's just one
thing. Yeah, And you feel like you need
to relax and you need to don't think of anything, you know,
don't let the left brain talk. You got to be quiet and all
that. And that's not not what you and
I are doing with our hypnotherapy and meditation.
It's not like that. You can relax, but you might.
That might not be what. It's going to happen a lot of
times. You want people to get relaxed
so that they're slowing down their brain waves, right?
And getting into that hypnotic state, that data state hopefully
and that's that's great to get them relaxed to be in that
place. But then it's very active, it's
a very lot of visualization, a lot of use of imagery, a lot of
actively talking to yourself, going in, creating scenes for
yourself that you are stepping into and allowing things to
unfold. So it is a very active process
versus a Lotus position. Remove all thought.
Yes, I always tell people the great part is all the answers
are already inside of you. The bad part is all the answers
are already inside of you. You just have to want to access
them. And that's the big hurdle right
there is. Do you really want it?
Are you really ready for it? Because there's a lot of people
that don't want to. I mean, for me and you, if we
want to heal, we want what's next.
Show me what's next. How do I get to the next level
or how do I get to the next healing, you know?
And I think once you start eating that dish, it's like, I
want more. But if you don't even take that
first bite because you're scared what it's going to taste like,
then you're stuck. So I think that's kind of what
we're trying to do through these hypnosis and guided imagery and
things is to kind of get past that.
And a lot of adoptees don't trust themselves.
They don't even know who they are.
So if you don't know who you are, how are you going to trust
yourself? And the answer is that you are
giving yourself. So those are the huge hurdles
that I see that adoptees have in the healing process.
I was listening to Simon's podcast and you said you believe
your soul or your essence is unwoundable, just like he does,
And I do too. Why do you think adoptees lose
their essence or lose their authentic selves?
How does that happen? The trauma of adoption, which a
lot of people don't like to talk about, right?
I think it is a very taboo subject societally, not just
within the adoption ecosystem. I think it's just a taboo such
as like, Oh yeah, you you were in a bad situation and now
you're in a better situation. Period.
End of story. Be grateful.
So there is the initial trauma of being not with your birth
family anymore or with your birth mother specifically.
And then there's the re traumatizing of the Oh well you
are not able to talk about that. Be grateful you you're better
you're told. It's like you're in this.
Psyop like you're told this is better.
You were saved then saved and you're like this feels not
better. Like this doesn't feel right and
you know, and everyone has their own layers of that or I guess
different intensities of that. You know, some people it's like
it's it's way, way worse in their adoptive family than than
what maybe they had left from. And other people it's like,
well, it could be better and in all of these ways.
But we cannot deny the fact that we have been torn from the very
essence of our birth mother, the exchange of DNA, the exchange of
hormones that goes on during that process.
That something very, very fundamental has been taken away
with no explanation. I mean, one kids at those ages
couldn't understand it. So then it's just confusing.
You're so confused. So there's a fracturing that
happens, right? Which happens in really all
psyops, right? You just you, you become this
other person here I I am this me, this adopted person.
I'm no longer me, this original birth from my original family
person. I can't be that.
It's too painful. And then I can't go even deeper
back to my true essence. So people like us, we come with
some added difficulties, baggage, barriers to returning
to our soul, self and our true essence.
Everybody in our culture has those barriers because we're not
raised to believe that we are souls in a body having this
experience or that we have any sort of power, that we are the
Divine. No one tells you that.
No one teaches you how to access that or work with it or live
from that place unless you grew up in a very unique situation.
It's not the normal thing. So I think it's fairly typical
for people to be removed or distracted away from this
miracle of self and our experience here.
And then for adoptees, just that added layer that is in the way
that needs to be dealt with first.
And so there's a lot to dig through.
And then like you were saying earlier, not everybody has the
strength of resolve to go there and deal with it.
And maybe that's just their soul's path, this lifetime that
it's just not the time for them to.
They came here to experience it, but you know, maybe it's next
lifetime that they're going to actually deal with it.
Do you believe that our trauma or our triggers can be
treasures? Absolutely, 100%.
If we go through life experiencing everything as an
opportunity to grow and learn and love more deeply, life is
beautiful and amazing. And so I have chosen to believe
that it's not only the successes and the wonderful things that
happen in life that are the gifts.
It's also the tragic, traumatic, awful moments that happen that
are also gift. And not even just because, oh, I
learned this amazing thing about myself after processing it, but
in that full experience of life to go, wow, this is what full
feeling is. This is the full spectrum of
this human experience. I get to experience that.
I get to have all of that and trusting that it's not going to
break you and you or that if it does, you're still going to be
okay is the place to get to if you want to live from that
place. And I'm not suggesting people
need to live from that place. I have just chosen to live from
that place. And what I've experienced is a
depth of joy and of love and of understanding and compassion and
meaning. That is so.
I call it magic because it's magic.
Also, it's a loaded word for many people, but I call it magic
because it feels that way. It feels like there's just this
magical energy around life when lived in its full expression.
Yeah, I think if we can. Turn our thinking around.
When we get triggered, we're already pointing a finger at the
other person or somebody else or our circumstances or whatever it
is that triggered us. But really for me, I feel like
it's almost like a warning light on a car.
Where why is that triggering me? It's kind of like the little
beacon that's saying there's something that you need to deal
with. Look in the mirror.
You know, so if you look in the mirror and you're pointing your
finger, you're pointing the finger at your back at yourself.
And that's totally, I think, what needs to happen instead of
projecting out. And you see it all the time on
Facebook and social media where people get triggered and they
just start spewing all kinds of hate and everything else.
And it's like that's just a part of you that needs your attention
that you're not. Focusing on and it's really
screaming, you know? Yeah.
And the ones closest to us can trigger us did most deeply
right. And it's just like who pay
attention to that. Look at that.
That's your, you know, just invitation to explore what that
brings up for you, why that scares you, why that pisses you
off, why that is so deep for you.
So we have all these incredible opportunities to enrich our
experience here by not only understanding the depth of
emotion and the depth of feeling and the depth of experience, but
then actually becoming more enlightened through it.
Yeah, not only for ourselves, but you.
Then you start to reflect back out into the world and you see
that, oh, this person is going through this because I've
experienced that. And then you just gain a ton of
experience that. You then have a much more
compassionate view of the world because you've been there, done
that, like oh, I've been there. I've lived it.
I know it, I experienced that. And so every one of those shitty
experiences just going to, I think.
It makes us more in tune. Yeah, and even from being a
child, when you're angry that emotions labeled as bad.
There's emotions that are labeled bad and good.
And really, they're all just trying to tell you something,
right? They're not bad or good.
It's just another warning light that's trying to get you to look
at something. And the great thing is, the
universe loves you so much that it's going to keep sending you
that same signal until you finally get it.
Because it wants you to feel whole.
It wants you to fulfill your purpose, it wants you to give
your gifts to the world, and it's not going to let up on you
until you do. So you can put the brakes on all
you want. And that warning lights still
going to stay on. It's not going anywhere until
you look at it. You're going to repeat what you
don't release, what you don't heal.
So that's what's great though, about the universe.
It loves you that much. Your essence loves you that much
that it's not going to stop trying to make you whole, right?
I always kind of end on a question of what do you want
struggling adoptees to know that they are whole, but they're not
missing or lacking anything that is real truth.
The things that they're most likely seeking are right there
within, waiting for them to welcome them back.
Like love as an entity as they So it's there waiting for you to
say yes to it. Yes, please come back, flood
back into my life. It doesn't need to come from a
parent or a family or a partner. It's coming right from within,
and we get to experience that in a depth that's beyond what we
can experience from another person once we really fully
welcome it back. All of those things are there.
All the things that that someone who's struggling might be
seeking out here, whether it's safety or belonging or love or
anything, all of it is just waiting for you.
Yeah. And the getting back to the
welcoming back of those things in your life require some work.
I mean, the struggle is very real.
And so I'm not here saying, oh, you just have to remember that
those things are in you and then boop, you're you're back.
I mean, there's work to be done. If you value life itself, not
just your own life, but life itself and or you're on the
other side of the spectrum, you're like, I just want to have
amazing, amazing life. I just want to live the best
life I can. Then you're on that precipice,
you're right there at that place of taking that first step into
welcoming that back. But then there's a lot of doors
and they need to go through and some of those doors are being
held closed by protectors in your life.
You know these guards that you've put up, that your life
and your experiences have constructed for you to keep you
safe, to keep you sane and well and all of those things in the
at the time. And it's about having some
courage to go in and face those things.
To face down and say my life, life itself is worth it enough,
My best life is worth it. Enough to go in and actually
start to walk this path open or pry.
These doors open and take responsibility for ending the
struggle. Right.
Starting that journey can be uncomfortable.
It could even be painful at times.
But if you think about it, you're helping to alleviate or
altogether end the long, enduring suffering that you're
already in, so you can stay in that suffering forever.
Or you can start the journey and maybe start feeling better, even
though it's part of the journey. Might be painful, but you know,
you might be able to alleviate it in the end.
The other thing that I'll say is that we are in this position
where we have ultimate power but also ultimate responsibility,
right. I mean that cheesy line from
Spiderman, that is so true. It's like with great power comes
great responsibility. We have that and that's the
precipice that I was talking about.
Just take that First step is to own that, to own that full
power. But also with it comes full
responsibility to actually continue to take the steps and
pry the doors open. It's a beautiful thing.
We have the power to actually change and end the struggle, and
we are the only one that has the power to do that.
So that's the other point of acceptance, is that no one else
is going to do this or could do this for you.
No one. Not the best therapist in the
world, not the best partner in the world, not the best parent
in the world, not the best promotion or whatever other
thing that you're looking towards to be a validation of
yourself. None of that is going to do
anything or can. It just can't.
You have to. And while you get to do this and
you get to have this responsibility and you get to
have this power, and it is so beautiful and fun and also
incredibly just. It's such a gift.
It's such a gift to get there. Again, not an easy Rd. for it
wasn't for me. I mean, I shared a lot of, you
know, the struggles along the way and it's certainly not an
overnight thing, but it all starts somewhere.
Yeah, it's totally worth it. I always say that.
Is a gift that you have to give the world if you're not giving
it. We're all missing out.
You're missing out, but we're
all missing out on it too. And you're the only one that can
fulfill whatever that purpose is.
And so get your ass about it. Get out there and do it.
Because I need what you have. So get working.
Tell us where we can find you. You have a website, any social
media. Tell us about that and we'll
have the links and show up. Great.
You can go to my websites, carissastlaurent.com and that
talks about me a little bit more, but also just my services
and offerings and and what I do in the world.
My Instagram is at the Everyday Mystic and that's the name of my
podcast. It's called the Everyday Mystic.
So you can check out the pod, you can go to Instagram and
check out. I share a lot of mystical woo
woo things on that Instagram profile.
From Instagram I have a link tree which links to all the
other things, but I can also share that with you to put into.
Perfect. Awesome.
Well, I've enjoyed this conversation today.
Carissa, thank you so much for coming on.
It's my pleasure. Thank you, Melissa.
And I just love these stories where I can.
Interview the person about their adoption story, but also talk
about spiritual things and healing and what is helped.
You know when we take responsibility for how our life
is going. That's the first step in making
a huge change, and you've heard me say on this podcast before
that you are one decision away from a different life.
One decision and realizing how much power you have in you to
heal yourself. It's truly amazing and I've
experienced it myself. And if you have any questions,
contact me, Contact Carissa. We can help you if you are sick
and tired of being sick and tired.
Over the traumas that you have been through in your life and
the ways that those things have affected you, please reach out.
Carissa's links are in the show notes.
Find her website, check her out, check out her podcast.
She offers a lot more than what we could cover in this episode,
so go check it out. I had a wonderful e-mail from a
listener this week through the website which is mind your own
karma.com. And just when I was kind of
feeling like, why am I doing this and just kind of feeling
tired and down about things, I get this wonderful e-mail from
this person and this person is going to be coming on the show
in the coming weeks. But I just want to let you know
how much those little notes uplift me.
The other thing I want to say is when I offered for this person
to come on the show, their first response was me.
You want me to come on your show and tell my story?
And I was just like, yes, you. Yes, come on, let's go.
And so she was brave and scheduled the interview.
And I just want you to know that if you are not sure on how you
want to tell your story, the great way to tell your story is
coming on a podcast. Because I ask you questions and
all you have to do is answer. All you have to decide is what
you want to reveal and what you may not want to reveal.
Because those are some things that you need to think of ahead
of time. But other than that, come on the
show and tell your story. I heard my new favorite quote
this week and it says the scars you share become lighthouses for
those that are headed for the same rocks you hit.
And that's the purpose of this podcast.
Come on the podcast. Tell your story.
There are people out there needing and wanting to hear your
story. It's our responsibility.
If we feel like we're in a place that we can tell our story and
want to tell our story, it really is our responsibility to
do so. So reach out to me, I'm easy to
find email.mindyourownkarma@gmail.com.
Website mindyourownkarma.com, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube
pretty much everywhere. So get in touch with me and
let's get your story on the podcast.
I hope you enjoyed listening today.
And as always, take what you need and leave what you don't.
And always remember to mind your own karma.
I'll see you next time.