Starting Over with Shannon Jenkins

Ep.6 Anesthesiologist on trauma, shame and PTSD w/ Dr Heather Abernethy

February 08, 2022 Shannon Jenkins
Starting Over with Shannon Jenkins
Ep.6 Anesthesiologist on trauma, shame and PTSD w/ Dr Heather Abernethy
Show Notes

While Dr Heather Abernethy’s main day job as an anesthesiologist is to numb people’s pain, her own journey with PTSD after an unhealthy relationship forced her to confront her own, at a time she too wished she could be out cold, numb, asleep… Through her own healing journey she is now passionate about discussing and destigmatising trauma and shame, as well as equipping her clients with the tools to release their stored trauma and feel safe in their bodies. 

In this episode we do a deep dive into trauma and shame - what is it? How can we recognise it? Is it stored in our bodies? How do we heal it? What do we do to try and ignore its existence? How can we help someone we know who is struggling? 

A snippet of my favourite quotes: 

  • “No one ever thanked me for giving them 150 milligrams of propofol… It was always thank you for listening to me. And I realized how important that is for healing and that's what we all need: attunement”
  • “If we notice our suffering when we are suffering, our suffering will diminish. Awareness is healing”
  • “You cannot metabolise someone else’s pain for them. You can hold space for them. You can sit with them. You can guide them, but only they can heal what is inside” 

If you liked this episode, I would love for you to share it with a friend and leave a rating on your platform of choice!  

You can connect with myself and Heather on the links below: 

Shannon's instagram

Shannon's website

Heather's website

Heather's instagram

Music by: Flood (Instrumental) by RYYZN https://soundcloud.com/ryyzn

Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0