Growing Tall Poppies

No More Regrets: Transforming Grief Into Purpose

• Dr Natalie Green • Season 2 • Episode 65

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In this powerful and soul-nourishing conversation, Dr. Nat Green is joined by grief and transformation expert Dr. Michelle Peticolas. 

Dr. Michelle is an international bestselling author, award-winning filmmaker, and life transformation coach, and joins us to share her journey and expertise. Learn about Dr. Michelle's unique S.E.R.V.E. framework designed to help you transform complex grief into a path for achieving your soul's purpose. Explore powerful insights on dealing with grief, reconnecting with your true self, and living a life free of regrets.

Together, they explore how grief — especially early childhood and intergenerational trauma — can manifest in the body, and how reconnecting to our physical and emotional selves is key to true healing and post-traumatic growth.

Dr. Michelle shares her personal story of feeling abandoned by her father at the age of two and how that shaped a lifetime of disconnection from her body and emotions. She opens up about people-pleasing, spiritual practice, body-based rituals, and the transformative power of storytelling. They also discuss the "three brains" (head, heart, and gut), curiosity as a healing force, and why your trauma — big or small — is always valid.

Whether you've experienced complex grief, early loss, or you're on the path of healing, this conversation is full of wisdom, compassion, and real-world practices that will inspire and empower.

This episode is packed with valuable advice for anyone looking to achieve post-traumatic growth and live a life filled with purpose, self-awareness, and deep inner peace. Listen in for inspiring stories, practical strategies, and a wealth of wisdom on navigating through trauma and beyond.

This episode covers:

  • Why grief doesn't just live in the mind but also in the body, and how to start listening to its messages
  • The difference between complex grief and “normal” grief
  • Dr. Michelle’s morning ritual to reconnect with her body
  • The role of people-pleasing and how it can become a hidden superpower and a gift
  • How storytelling heals, — and crafting a new ending — is a transformative process and helps reframe the past
  • Many trauma survivors "live in their heads" as a coping mechanism. True healing involves reconnecting all three of the — head (logic), heart (emotion), and gut (intuition) — to restore wholeness.
  • The three most important values for healing and growth: peace, faith, and excellence
  • How spiritual practice supports post-traumatic growth
  • Why curiosity and willingness are essential qualities for transformation.

🔗 Connect with Michelle:

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Intro and Outro music: Inspired Ambient by Playsound.

Disclaimer: This podcast is intended for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be deemed or treated as psychological treatment or to replace the need for psychological treatment.

Dr Nat Green:

Welcome to the Growing Tall Poppies Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Nat Green, and I'm so excited to have you join me as we discuss what it means to navigate your way through post-traumatic growth and not just survive, but to thrive after trauma. Through our podcast, we will explore ways for you to create a life filled with greater purpose, self-awareness, and a deep inner peace. Through integrating the many years of knowledge and professional experience, as well as the wisdom of those who have experienced trauma firsthand. We'll combine psychology accelerated approaches. Coaching and personal experience to assist you, to learn, to grow and to thrive. I hope to empower you to create deeper awareness and understanding and stronger connections with yourself and with others, whilst also paving the way for those who have experienced trauma and adversity to reduce their suffering and become the very best versions of themselves. In order to thrive. Thank you so much for joining me on today's episode. I am super excited today and grateful to bring you our next guest on the Growing Tall Poppies podcast. It's my absolute pleasure to welcome a lovely lady who I met last year in some podcast training. Actually. She has experienced some trauma and adversity throughout her life and has agreed to come and chat with us today. About her personal and her professional experience and has beautifully offered to share her wisdom with us. So let me start by welcoming Dr. Michelle Peticolas. Dr. Michelle is an international bestselling author of Step Into Your Brilliance, as well as several other books. She's the award-winning filmmaker of Secrets of Life and Death, a professional speaker and life transformation coach. Dr. Michelle helps high achieving midlife women who have been thrown off track by a major loss to release their complex grief and transmute it into fuel for achieving their soul's purpose. Using her unique framework S.E.R.V.E., she guides her clients through their grief healing, mindreset, and reconnection to their authentic brilliance. So let me welcome Dr. Michelle.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Thank you Nat. It is my pleasure to be here.

Dr Nat Green:

It's an absolute delight to finally catch up again,'cause I know it's been a little while. So I know that I gave a brief introduction, but could we start with you giving us a bit more of an intro of who you are and what you do in the world?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

I would be happy to. So a lot of people ask me why I work. With people around grief, what compels me to do that? Mm, well, it goes back to an experience I've had most of my life about waking up in the morning in a state of panic and fear. Mm, and this what I used to handle it with was to jump outta my bed right away and get on with my life. But I started to think at one point that maybe in a past life I had been murdered in my sleep.

Dr Nat Green:

Oh my goodness.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

That's what I thought. But then later on when I met my second husband, when we were first getting together, I realized I had abandonment issues. Whoa. Well, certainly my first husband abandoned me for another woman. But then I realized that it went all the way back to when I was two years old and I had bonded with my father, and then he was transferred by the US Army to Japan. And for a 2-year-old, even though it wasn't a long time, it was traumatic and my mother was not able to step up and help me out because she was busy moving a household and three kids to Japan. Mm. So the time was long enough that I decided I lost my trust in my father. Mm-hmm. In love and in myself. And I decided to take life into my own hands. And I made an agreement with the world that I would give people what they wanted, and in return I would get the attention that I craved. Mm. And so I became, I guess what you could call a people pleaser.

Dr Nat Green:

Yes.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

And Nat, it worked really well for many years. Worked really well in school and went all the way to the PhD. Mm-hmm. I can imagine accumulating those awards and those recognitions. Yes. And then it stopped working well. Okay. It was like the universe had conspired to wake me up. Mm-hmm. So when I met my current husband, I realized I had an issue and I actually did some early childhood program healing. And what really, really woke me up was when my mother was dying. Okay. First my father died, and then six months later my mother was dying of breast cancer and I went back home to help her finish up business. She was. A toy designer. She and my aunt went to major toy companies in New York City and sold their designs. So in some ways she was like the poster child for living your life. Passion,

Dr Nat Green:

absolutely amazing.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

But I didn't appreciate that back then. Anyway, I was in her studio going through her papers, and I picked up one, it was one of her designs, a Xerox copy. Really. And I handed it to her and I said, do you need this anymore? And she looked at it. She said, uhoh, I guess I'll never finish that project. Oh, her words pierced my heart.

Dr Nat Green:

Oh, they would've,

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

It just gave me goosebumps. Yeah. In that moment, Nat, I understood what deadline really meant.

Dr Nat Green:

Mm. That's a really powerful Yeah. Moment for sure.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

It was a powerful moment.

Dr Nat Green:

Life changing.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

It was, unfortuNatly, my emotions were just beginning to come online again. I tamped them down when I was two years old. Yeah. And I was afraid, so I took the paper back and I said, we don't need to deal with this right now. That moment, Nat, that moment I craved with my mother all my life. That close intimacy was lost forever. She died two weeks later,

Dr Nat Green:

Oh dear,

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

but it woke me up. Her little regret became my huge regret. Okay. And what I realized is that if she who was my poster child for living your passion could have regrets. Where did that leave me? The people pleaser. I made up my mind right then and there. I would not live my life with regrets. I.

Dr Nat Green:

Beautiful. I love it.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

And I decided I was gonna make a film series, well, actually decided I was gonna make a film about death and it became a series. Ah. But what I wanted to do was to wake other people up to this life and that it's short and that you never know when it's gonna end. And if you don't live it, you're gonna end up with regrets. Hmm. And then that got me into hospice. And then I got into, gradually into realizing that I had this calling for grief and loss. I'm telling you, I just went to a party, um, on 4th of July for, you know, the United States. And people were telling me their, their, their life stories, their trauma. I was like, why do I have a sign on me? Yeah.

Dr Nat Green:

Normally I'm the one that has that sign all over my head when I go out. It's like, really?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Yeah. Yeah. They, it is like, they just know, it's like their heart knows that I can hold a space for them. Mm-hmm. And what a powerful gift your mom gave you unknowingly. You were able to do what so many people never get the chance to realize, because you're right. There's nothing worse than if we were on our deathbed or in our last days to have all these regrets of unfinished things and things we couldn't undo. Yeah. Um, there was a, a book by the, the woman, Bronnie Ware. I think she was Australian, wasn't she? She wrote The Five Regrets of the Dying, and the number one regret was, and it was, it's Bronny, not Bonnie, but Bronny Ware. And she wrote this book, five Regrets of the Dying. And the number one regret is not living a life true to yourself. Living the life everybody else wants for you, but not the life you want.

Dr Nat Green:

So tell me then, Michelle, as a reformed people pleaser, I'm assuming now, so living your life as a people pleaser, then having this huge realization that life is short. You can't live with regrets, so you have to live in the moment and live every minute of the day. Did that change your people pleasing pattern?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Well, it is deeply embedded, but it has made me more aware mm-hmm. Of that tendency to please others. Yeah. And to recognize when I'm doing too much. To pull back and to say no, and to learn to say no.

Dr Nat Green:

Excellent.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

And, but it's hard because, you know, we're women, so nevermind. Just the people pleasing we're women. And women are taught to be of service to people, aren't they?

Dr Nat Green:

Absolutely. And then working in the area that you work, it's very much around giving, but as you said, we can please people, but it's also around having those clear boundaries, isn't it?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Well, and, and because I want my clients to get the results. Mm-hmm. I. That's what my focus is. And so I don't necessarily give them what they want. I give them what they need. Yes. And, and what is going to move them forward. And that I've developed over a number of years of doing coaching that, I have developed tools that are really effective for helping people break through their emotional blocks and change their thoughts.

Dr Nat Green:

Which is as we know, so needed, isn't it?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

It is so needed

Dr Nat Green:

and particularly so you are working mainly now in grief and loss?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

So I work with complex grief. Mm-hmm. People ask, well, what's complex grief? Like me people have wounds and trauma earlier in their life that's never been healed. For me, it was that abandonment from my father was never healed. And so when I had the loss of my parents, it magnified the intensity of the loss. It's like all the other losses that were never resolved come bubbling up to the top. Yes. And and they make it more complex and make it more difficult. And some people, they, they can get stuck. Yeah. I had a woman, a client who came to me. We'll call her Agnes. Yep. She had been grieving the loss of her husband for 20 years, 20. When I first saw her tears rolling down her cheeks, I'm like, 20 years. Well, it turned out she had experienced abandonment three times before she ever met her husband. Mm. First her father left her, then her grandmother died. Her mother was, was not available, was not responsible. Mm. And so when she met her husband, he was like the answer her, the solution to her abandonment. And then he died young. Oh, goodness. And it was like, oh. And when I met her, she was on her way to abandonment number five, because her son reminded her of her husband. And every time she saw him, she would cry.

Dr Nat Green:

So many layers. So many layers. Layers and layers and layers to peel away when you're working with someone With so many compounded issues. Yeah,

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

compounded issues. But here's the thing is that if you have an issue around abandonment, and it's probably any kind of little complex mm-hmm. Is that it will keep on, you'll keep on attracting it to yourself. Until you finally face it and work on it. Yeah.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. And it, it's a lot of that what we call shadow work, isn't it? It's that we have to face, you have to face the shadow and shadow hidden away there because if we don't face the shadows and the things that are in the dark, we're gonna keep getting more of that until we get that lesson. Really

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

That's, isn't it? Yep. That's really true. That's really true.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. So tell me a bit more then about how that works when you're working with someone like Agnes.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

So I have a system, which has the name serve. So instead of letting, having grief overwhelm you, stop you in your life, does it destroy your life. You let it serve you and you let it serve you. By taking each of those letters and, it corresponds to an action. S means surrender means you need to surrender to your emotions. Most of the people that I run into when I first meet them, they have a hard time allowing their feelings. Either they have learned to repress them. Which a lot of us in the United States are taught, taught how to repress our feelings.

Dr Nat Green:

I don't think it's just the United States, Michelle.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

No, probably not. But I, I'm not pretending to know all of the world. No. But, so that, so we repress our feelings'cause it, it's not acceptable. Mm-hmm. And or we are terrified that if we allow our feelings, that we will we'll become swamped. That we will never get out of the dark hole. Yes. So I teach my clients how to release any emotion in two minutes or less.

Dr Nat Green:

In two minutes. Yes. Yes. That's powerful like magic.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

It's, it's, it, it is. And that's what I do. And once they learn how to do that. They feel empowered and then they allow themselves to grieve. And that was what happened to Agnes was she had actually never, never really fully allowed herself to grieve. When she would grieve, she would become swamped in the grief. Yeah, because the mind likes to jump in. And tell us these terrible things and recycle the grief over and over and over again. So we have to stop that pattern and once you stop that pattern and allow yourself to actually release the emotion and just the emotion without the mindset, it really will release in two minutes or less.

Dr Nat Green:

That permission is really, really important. So acknowledging it and permission, and you know, I know a lot of, you know, a lot of our listeners are people who've been through trauma, but with that trauma is very much grief and often compounded grief that's built up and built up. And there's that fear of, if I actually deal with it, I won't cope.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

I'll never come back. I, I'll get stuck in there and I'll never come back. And right now I'm working with a client who has, depression and she's terrified of allowing her feelings because she's afraid that she'll fall into that hole and not be able to get out.

Dr Nat Green:

And it's a real feeling. We've that a lot. Yeah. And it's, it's understandable, isn't it, that it Totally, that you've been through so much that you try to, to contain it because it's, you know. Like a river that will not stop flowing. I remember when my mum passed away and I was in my twenties and we knew, you know, she was dying, but I still remember my sister six years younger than me, and I was crying yet again because my mum was dying and I was very. Difficult experience, but I remember my sister's words very clearly. Oh, you've cried enough. You've cried a river of tears for goodness sake. How much more can you cry? And I thought, oh, okay. So it was almost that not being allowed to continue to cry. I still did. Right. Because I couldn't help it at the time. Right,

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

right, right, right. Yeah. But again, those,

Dr Nat Green:

those words. Stick with us.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Yeah. Yes. Find that. Yes, it's there. That's right. It's, it's definitely there. And it, and then of course we model after our parents. So if your father was really strong and, and stiff upper lip or whatever and, and would not allow us feelings, we will, we'll take our, our lessons from, from our parents. And so that happens.

Dr Nat Green:

Absolutely. So sorry I waylaid you, I took you on. Oh, no, no.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

So, so the E is engage all loss and it doesn't have to just be loss from death involves the loss of relationships and connections. Mm-hmm. We forget, especially in the United States, that we are social. Beings. Yes. And that we are literally wired to bond with other people. Mm-hmm. So when you lose somebody, you're triggering a survival response in your body. A fight, flee, freeze. Yes. Literally triggers the same chemicals in your body. Mm-hmm. Because we survive better in community. So one of the first things I have to work with after we get through the emotions is reconnecting my clients to their community, to other people. Mm-hmm. You know, if they've lost somebody that they're really close to a lot, you know, in the United States it's like, you know, it's just, the pair, the husband and the wife, and, and then the rest of the people, are irrelevant. And then you lose that person and suddenly you realize that you were all alone. And you have to reach out to people and make new connections. So that's, that's the E is to engage with other people and to create that, that container of support. I. So then the R is reframe and this is also hugely important. Because when we go into grief, the mind works over time to try and make sense of things. And oftentimes has a very negative mindset about what your prospects are for your future. Mm-hmm. And it can really. And, and it'll remind you of all the things that you did wrong. And shouldn't you have told your husband or your spouse that they were sick and shouldn't you have done more and shouldn't you have shown them how much you love them and all that. You know, it goes on and on and on. And, so we have to work on the mindset.'cause it can drive you crazy. Mm-hmm. It's, it's a brilliant brain. It's really useful, but it needs to be tamed. Yes. It needs, needs to be minded. Mm. So that's reframe. And we actually go so far as to reframe the person's whole life, okay. So that they look at everything and see how everything has moved forward to this point in their life, and actually provides the foundations and the clues to where you're going. Hmm. And so the ultimate after that is The next one V is vision. What is it that you want in your life? Where do you wanna go next? And this is so important, Nat. Yeah. Because I have met women who got stuck in the grief, and that became their new identity. Mm-hmm. Oh, I'm the widow who lost the love of my life. Yeah. And that became their whole sense of who they were. Mm-hmm. And they told their stories and they reveled it in it, and they, you know, and they enjoyed the special perks that come from being the grieving widow. Mm. But they're like stuck in the past. Yes. So vision is v

Dr Nat Green:

a very important part.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Very important is to, to get the client moving forward into where they're going next. Yeah. And then the final one is another E and that is to express. So it's not enough to have a vision. You have to materialize it, you have to bring it into being, and you do that by expressing it, of putting it into, to the world. Either in, you know, like me, I put it into film. Or it could be dance, or it could be a book, or it could be a, a program, some way in which it gets manifest and helps other people in the world because that's what we're here for.

Dr Nat Green:

I love that so much and really hearing you talk about it and, and such clear. Parts and that it moves forward and that they know who they are and who they were and who they need to be. Now is so important, and particularly with the listeners who have been through trauma. We know that a lot of people who've been through trauma want to go back to who they used to be before their trauma

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

uhhuh. That makes sense.

Dr Nat Green:

We hear that so often, but the reality is we can't be that person again. Because we have the learnings and the lessons and the experiences as a result of what we've been through, that help shape us and they can, as you've said, they can be a really great gift because then we can see the value, what's important to us, what really matters like you did with that moment in your life with your mom. Yeah. It helped shape everything you did moving forward.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

It did. It really did.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. So knowing that you are covering off that identity of who they are and who they need to be is really powerful. I love that.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Well, and I, I help them to see who they really are. Mm-hmm. That part of themselves that gives them goosebumps. That excites them and provide them with that social support. It's like I'm the initial social support that helps to encourage them to embrace. Mm-hmm. Their true feelings, their true self, their true desires.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. So let's go back to some of your story then. So what were some of your biggest roadblocks or obstacles that you faced during your healing journey?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Well, the first obstacle I had was that I had shut down my feelings. Now, not completely, because it turns out that I am super sensitive, Nat. Yeah. I actually can feel other people's feelings. Mm-hmm. If they have blocks in their body, I feel it in my body. I'm super sensitive, but I, because of that trauma of having my father disappear overnight. I shut down my sensation and I hung out in my head. Any of you out there hang out in your head? Well, I loved my head. I loved my brain. It was so smart and it had so many great ideas and it was so entertaining. But it would be, it would take effort for me to get back into my body. Mm-hmm. And so that was the first thing I had to learn was how to, to feel. And I, to this day, I have a, I have a morning ritual that involves putting oil on my body and massaging it into my skin to sensitize the nerve endings in my skin.

Dr Nat Green:

Wow. What a great way to reconnect with yourself.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

It is, it is really, it's exceptional. And then of course, I do yoga and all sorts of other things. Mm. But it, it is a conscious effort for me to stay in my body. Mm. To to remember it. and to recognize it. And acknowledge it. And that is what I teach my clients because that is key to healing grief is to, because the body has so much wisdom.

Dr Nat Green:

Mm. It certainly does. And after we go through trauma or significant grief, we do. Tend to disconnect. Well, I always talk about the three brains, the head, the heart, and the gut. And you gave a very great example around how you went into your head because that was safer. Yeah, because it hurt. Was too painful to feel. Yep. So your heart, brain disconnected.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Yes.

Dr Nat Green:

And that gut brain, you said you used to be really intuitive and could feel how other people operated and what was going on for them, but you would've likely switched off that gut brain as well because it was safer, and you stopped trusting yourself, trusting others. And that's what happens when we go through something significant and it's about reconnecting our three brains, the head, the heart, and the gut. So you've very beautifully

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

identified that. So this is the interesting thing, is that the gut was what enabled me to suss out what other people wanted from me. Mm-hmm. That's why I was so good at it. I would go into a classroom, I knew exactly what the teacher wanted and I would give it to them and they loved me.

Dr Nat Green:

I bet they did. Worked right into your people pleasing ways, didn't it?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Oh yeah, I just played right into it.

Dr Nat Green:

Mm-hmm. So you were still connected, but not necessarily not for reading that,

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

not for me. I wasn't connected to what I needed, you know, so, so, but that, that is so part of the process of learning who you are is recognizing that some of the things that you see that you think are detriments might actually be attributes. Mm. That is, that the people pleasing also taught me skills for being able to help my clients to really see them. Mm. And to, and to understand them and feel them. So it, it's like it, there's a lot of benefit in some of the things that we, you know, we wanna discard them, but actually they, we may be able to bring them forward into our new vision.

Dr Nat Green:

Oh, I'm a firm believer in that, that our experiences teach us so much. They are full of learnings and lessons and not all bad, that they're almost that double-edged sword. It's like, well, yes, that's that shadow side, but what's the other side? How can I use that in a, in a healthy, helpful way

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

But back to the heart, you know, you talked about the three brains and the heart. So part of my problem was that in becoming a people pleaser, I had shut down my heart. I'd shut down my heart with my father. Mm-hmm. I wanted to control what came to me. And I believe that my first husband left me because he had issues about not being loved by his mother. And there I was the reproduction of his mother.'Cause I wasn't able to. Love. But I have done a lot of work around that and I am much more loving, much more aware of my heart. I do a spiritual practice that's all about love, that that is emphasizes connecting to the heart.

Dr Nat Green:

Mm. And you've touched on two big things that a lot of my podcast guests have shared that are, I believe, have shown themselves throughout. Just over a year that I've been podcasting have shown that community is really important, as is some sort of spiritual practice. Doesn't have to be a religious practice, but some sort of connection to something outside ourselves.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Yes. Yes, absolutely. Very important. Thank you for, for mentioning that. It was a big part of my healing was, and I've been doing a spiritual practice for over 40 years, study with a teacher and, reconnected to my body, reconnected to love. That's how I was able to, to find my current husband and be able to connect with him at that level.

Dr Nat Green:

Oh, that's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that with us. So how would you say the experience that you've been through in your life, particularly around the time when your mum was about to pass away, how has that transformed your perspective on life, on relationships, on your personal values?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

It's, it's interesting. I, uh. I have told my story of my mother many times because I'm a Toastmaster and I actually participated in some of the contests and I have told the story so many times that it has changed my perspective of my mother. It is healed. It has healed my relationship with her and I understand her so much better because of the work I, the early childhood work I did, and because I believe that storytelling is healing, I. Then when we tell our story, especially when you have to tell a story as a speech and it needs to have a beginning, a middle, and an end, you have to structure it. You know? And I think that's why I have people tell their live story is that they have a beginning, a middle, and now what's gonna be the end? We gotta get a good ending, right? We all like good endings

Dr Nat Green:

You can write your own ending. I love that. Yeah.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Yes. And you can write your own ending, but people don't know that they can. But once they learn, it's like, oh my gosh, I can have the ending I want. So that, that has been, a very powerful, awakening for me is realizing that, but I forget exactly what your question was. Do you remember, have I answered it?

Dr Nat Green:

Yes, yes. You've answered it. It was, um, how else your perspective on, and I think you've done that as we've been talking on relationships, you sought relationships in a different way after that. Yes. And what about what's important to you as far as your values go as a result of what you've been through?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Values such a, a funny word, isn't it? It's. my value from the get go, and I don't, I must have gotten it from my parents, was to be well responsible, but my teacher taught me the, the three most important values. And that is, peace is to feel peaceful within yourself. Yeah. That is to have that calm and peacefulness and not do, um. To get your life into like a drama story all the time. Mm-hmm. Which we sometimes do. Yeah. And then the next one is faith. But it's not faith in a religion, it's faith in oneself. It's trusting in yourself and your own intuition and that you are going in the right way. Beautiful. Right. And then the third one, which I love because it fits with who I am is excellence. That is that. Mm-hmm. Everything that I engage in, I try to do my very best.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Not to be perfect, which of course I'm a perfectionist, so I would tend to do that, but because Yes, I hear you. Because that is a value to me is to do my best. Yes.

Dr Nat Green:

Mm. So excellence, not perfection. That's right. Excellence not perfection. Oh, very, very powerful values. So peace, faith, and excellence. Yeah. Isn't it beautiful? Yeah, very much so. So, and this might lead into my next question for you is really around, and you've touched on this already as well, are there any specific qualities or personal attributes that you would see as being. Important for someone moving from trauma into post-traumatic growth?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Absolutely. Number one, curiosity. This will take you very, very far. And this has taken me very, very far. Yeah. Is that my own curiosity about what is, oh, what's going on inside of me? Sometimes I'll have, you know, like a, a difficult time, whatever it is, something that's upsetting me and part of my mind is gonna be saying. Oh, you know what? I think my clients deal with this. I better take notes. Mm, yes. You know what I'm talking about, right? Absolutely. I love that. My God. It's like, oh, okay. Thank you universe. I needed to learn this. Thank you. Yes. Now I,

Dr Nat Green:

yes. We're never done learning are we?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

We're never done learning. So curiosity about. Instead of trying to repress your feelings, being curious, oh, this person just said something that triggered me being curious. Mm-hmm. Why was I, what, what was it about that statement or that person why? Why did I get triggered by that? What's underneath it And curiosity helps to step you out of that reactivity Yes. Into a different place. Of course, I told you I was heady, so the, the head would love to come in, sort of, yes. Problem solve what that is. But it's really helpful that that particular, and then of course, for my clients is being willing to try things out. Yes, you gotta be willing because I'm gonna ask you to do stuff that you're gonna say, but if you just try it out and see what happens, what's the result? It will have a huge impact.

Dr Nat Green:

Mm. So getting them to agree when they come in as your client, that they're willing to give it a try.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

That's right. Well, It's part of the contract. Yeah. They have to, they have to follow the program, and the program has got very specific exercises that you need to do to, to change.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. And I would imagine that, you know, as someone who's had fair bit of grief in my life, that that's. Part of it, isn't it? That you need to be willing to come in and give it a go, but you're gonna be uncomfortable. Yes. You're not gonna like it one bit when you have to go outside your comfort zone and and feel stuff that hurts.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Yes. So it's, somebody was using the word the other day, tolerance, that you have to tolerate a certain amount of discomfort in order to get to the next place. Isn't that beautiful?

Dr Nat Green:

Hmm. Yeah. And as psychologists we would talk about that window of tolerance. Yeah. Yeah. And what it's like when you're outside that, particularly after trauma or grief, very similar.'cause you know they're interwoven, aren't they? A lot of the times, yes. Under grief is always some layer of trauma that's unhealed or unresolved. That's

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

right. and you know, sometimes the trauma seems like a little trauma. I mean, you know, from the outside my particular story seems like minor, but that early childhood injury was huge and they and psychologists have done studies of children who go through a traumatic experience like that. And it has a huge impact on your life and it can reverberate throughout your life. So those of you out there who've had little traumas, don't beat yourself up and say, what's the matter with you? Look at this person. They've had much bigger trauma. What the hell's the matter with me? No. We all have our own journey and our own story.

Dr Nat Green:

That is really, really important. You just nailed it because I hear that a lot that, oh, but mine's only a little T trauma that, you know, I dunno why I feel like this. And they're criticizing that. Self-criticism is huge. It's like, hang on a minute. Yeah. I throw that out the door. We don't come in here with that. It's every bit of, every experience you've had, if it doesn't feel safe. All right for you, whether it's a little T or a Big T's, irrelevant, we can't compare ourselves to anyone else because if it's feeling awful for you, there's a reason you have an experience and a life of experiences that you bring. You're not just the person standing in the room or sitting in the room right now. You've got a lifetime of experiences, and as you've said. Other experiences from our parents, our grandparents that have been handed down, that intergenerational stuff,

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

that intergenerational stuff.

Dr Nat Green:

And you talked about waking every morning thinking, oh, had you been killed in a past life? I can imagine that would've gone through your head, particularly when you're in your head all the time. Have I been through something like that? And. Who knows, but it was your body because we know that all our experiences, good and bad, are held in our nervous system.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

That's it. That's it. And when you're two years old, you don't have the cognitive, development to hold it in your brain. So you hold it all in your body, and then you have no idea what's going on because there's no, there's no interpretation. You know, and your mind is like trying to make sense of it, and it's like. Why? Why am I, why am I feeling so much anxiety when I wake up in the morning?

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah. And now you know, when you get that perspective and you can see it, you go, oh, of course my body carried that. My nervous system carried that all these years and. For you, your mom, for me. There's been other things along the way that, that's almost the excuse in inverted commas. Now you can cry and grieve'cause there's a reason. Yes. But often it's like the floodgates open and all the other stuff that we've hidden for all these years comes out as well, doesn't it? It does. It does. And you would see that with your clients.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Yes. But for me it's a, I celebrate it, you know? I say, oh, this is fantastic. Oh, you're finally clearing this whole stuff out. We're cleaning out the house.

Dr Nat Green:

Exactly. Definitely

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

making space for a new life.

Dr Nat Green:

Exactly. Making space, clearing it out. And as you said, clearing clearinghouse. I love it. Oh, so if you were to give, share one thing. That would help our listeners as they navigate from trauma to post-traumatic growth, what would it be?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Well, to be friends with your body, to be re friend your body. And I understand that with trauma you might really want to leave your body. I certainly want to leave my body, but your body has so much to tell you. And one of the things that I teach. Work with my clients around is how to listen to your body and hear what it's saying. And I've studied, psychosomatics and psychosomatic symptoms. And so each part of your body where the trauma is, where it's stuck, has a message for you. That's where that curiosity is, okay, what is he telling me? And, and. It has a lot. So start listening. Oh, you have an ache in your elbow. Okay, what does that mean? Or, oh, your heart hurts. Or you have your, your neck hurts. You know, or your, you, your, there's congestion in your throat, or you have a hard time speaking. These all have. Very, very common sense meanings and usually they're spot on. The body is like, isn't trying to be hide from you. It's like hello.

Dr Nat Green:

The body keeps the score Good. Old Bessel VanDerKolk tells us. Yeah, totally. Oh, very true, isn't it? So you've shared an absolute wealth of wisdom today. I am so grateful that you've been able to come on. Now, I know we talked about grief and complex grief, and you've shared a little bit about that, but I'd love for you to share. I know you've got a really cool. Checklist or assessment? Yes. Tell us about that.'cause I know that there's a lot of people that definitely, with their trauma come grief, so, right. Yeah.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

So the checklist is a list of 20 questions about your grief and about how you've been handling the grief that will help you to identify. Whether or not you have complex grief and how it is affecting you in your life, and so after you finish the checklist, you get a report from me that helps you to unpack your results and understand how it affects you and what your options are moving forward. So how do you get it? So how do you get it is you go to www.complexchecklist.com and there it is. You go to a landing page, you fill out the form, you go to the checklist and you fill out the checklist and then you get the report.

Dr Nat Green:

Fantastic. And I'll put that in the show notes for our listeners anyway, so they can go and check it out themselves, because I know that there would be very few people. If you're human, that hasn't got some level of grief. And I know for many of us who have had trauma that it's highly likely there's some complex grief going on.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Now, sometimes you might have a loss that's not complex or it doesn't trigger the complex stuff behind. Mm-hmm. And that, you know, you just need to grieve it. Maybe it's the loss of, you know, a family friend and you feel close to them and it brings up stuff. Always be curious, but it might not put you into that deep grief, like, you know, a close partner or a child. Or a parent. Mm-hmm. But that's okay. You know? Do you like. Just, you just wait. Universe will provide you with the grief you need.

Dr Nat Green:

Yeah, great. Thanks for that. Put that out there,

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

but enjoy, you know, whatever. So, when that happened to me, I had somebody who had died, who was a friend of the family, is very close and. I actually flew all the way back to New Jersey to participate in his memorial service because he had had an impact on me. And I wrote a blog about, snow days that when we were children, we would take snow days and wasn't it wonderful? We would take a day off. Right. It was so great to treat these griefs that, you know, normally we'd like, well, it's not my mother, it's not my father, it's not my brother, it's not my husband. That we still have grief to release and to take a snow day.

Dr Nat Green:

Oh, I love it. Snow days. I like that. Does it matter if you don't get snow?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

No, it doesn't matter. You don't get snow. Snow? I live in California. We never get snow.

Dr Nat Green:

We call it a beach day over here.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Yes. Well, but, oh, I grew up on the East coast and, and I remember as a child looking out the window at night, watching the snow come down underneath the street lamp and saying, Ooh, maybe we won't have school tomorrow. We'll have a snow day.

Dr Nat Green:

What we all wished for.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

We did. We did.

Dr Nat Green:

Oh, too funny. So as we move to wrapping the conversation up, where can our listeners find out more about you and find you online?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Well, I am, on Facebook. Mm-hmm. under Michelle Peticolas and I'm on LinkedIn under Michelle Peticolas and or Peticolas I told you to pronounce it. Peticolas'cause it's French. And but if you sign up for the complex grief checklist, you'll get on my mailing list and then you'll hear lots from me.

Dr Nat Green:

Excellent. Oh, that's very exciting. Now I like to finish. Oh, sorry. You were about to,

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

oh, I wanted one more thing. Yeah. I do have a website and it's called Secrets of Life and death.com, named after my film series. It's in the process of being redone. Mm-hmm. A long process of being redone, but there is some really great blogs in there and there is, the trailers from my films are there as well.

Dr Nat Green:

Oh, excellent. So I'll put. All of that in the show notes so our listeners can go and check you out and, and connect with you.'cause I know you love connecting and you're happy for them to message you and you'll message back. So that's good. Absolutely. Now I like to finish our podcast with what do you think your youngest self would think of what you've done now?

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

I think my younger self would feel totally held and supported by me that she would feel finally seen and loved and cherished. And so she would be, she would really be cheering me on, but mainly she'd be feeling loved.

Dr Nat Green:

Oh, that's so beautiful. Who would ever have thought that little 2-year-old who shut down everything could get to the point that she's at now? That's so beautiful. Yeah. Look at you. Go. And I think that that's a really clear message for our listeners, that anything is possible. That you can go through terrible times and really find your way back to you who you were always meant to be.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

Well, actually, I believe that's the purpose of our lives, that we come in, in a particular circumstance to give us our hero's journey. And in that hero's journey, we find out who we are and we gain tools and skills and capacity, and we get to pass that on to other people.

Dr Nat Green:

Nailed it. I love that. So you can be the hero in your own journey. You can be the, and you can write your ending,

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

and you can write your own ending. Yeah.

Dr Nat Green:

I love that. Thank you so much for coming along today, Michelle. It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Dr Michelle Peticolas:

It was a great enjoyment for me as well. Nat, thank you for remembering to invite me on your show. I really appreciate it.

Dr Nat Green:

Thank you for joining me in this episode of Growing Tall Poppies. It is my deepest hope that today's episode may have inspired and empowered you to step fully into your post-traumatic growth, so that you can have absolute clarity around who you are, what matters the most to you, and to assist you to release your negative emotions. And regulate your nervous system so you can fully thrive. New episodes are published every Tuesday, and I hope you'll continue to join us as we explore both the strategies and the personal qualities required to fully live a life of post-traumatic growth and to thrive. So if it feels aligned to you and really resonates, then I invite you to hit subscribe and it would mean the world to us. If you could share this episode with others who you feel may benefit too, you may also find me on Instagram at Growing Tall Poppies and Facebook, Dr. Natalie Green. Remember, every moment is an opportunity to look for the lessons and to learn and increase your ability to live the life you desire and deserve. So for now, stay connected. Stay inspired. Stand tall like the tall poppy you are, and keep shining your light brightly in the world. Bye for now

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Dr Natalie Green

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