51 - Nicole G. - Emotions Are Not Our Enemies
/Transcript
Full shownotes: https://www.adopteeson.com/listen/51
Haley Radke: You're listening to Adoptees On, the podcast where adoptees discuss the adoption experience. This is Season 3, episode 11: Nicole G. I'm your host, Haley Radke. Throughout season 3, we've been touching on healing through creativity, and today I invited Nicole Gfeller, an art therapist, to share her story.
She dives into some of her childhood experiences and talks about how she went from being shut down emotionally to reintegrating her feelings. Nicole also gives us some practical ways we can start doing art therapy on our own, if seeing an art therapist maybe is not quite in the budget.
She and I actually recorded while she's on a five month trip back to Peru, where she was born. And she'll tell you more about that right away, but I wanted to let you know, you will feel like you are in the city there with her. You'll know what I mean when you hear the sounds of the city.
We wrap up with some recommended resources, and as always, links to everything we'll be talking about today are on the website adopteeson.com. Let's listen in.
I'm so pleased to welcome to Adoptees On, Nicole Gfeller.
Nicole Gfeller: It was good. You were perfect.
Haley Radke: I did okay. Okay. Now, why don't you repeat your name so that it's exactly correct, and yeah, welcome to the show.
Nicole Gfeller: Thank you. My name is Nicole Gfeller. Yeah, it's hard to pronounce in English because it's a Swiss German name, so a lot of people have difficulties, so it's okay.
Haley Radke: Well, thank you for being so gracious with me, and we are Skyping from very far away. So I'm in Canada, and where are you?
Nicole Gfeller: I'm in Cusco, Peru. Cusco is at 3,300 meters above the sea level, and it's really high, and I'm doing my volunteer work here for five months, working with children that for some reason were separated from their parents. So I'm working with those children and youth, doing art therapy.
Haley Radke: Yes. Oh, I'm so excited to get to talk about art therapy with you. But why don't we start out with your story?
Nicole Gfeller: I was adopted from Lima, Peru, in 1980. So I'm 37 now. And so when I was one month old, my birth mom gave me up for adoption, and I grew up in Switzerland with my adoptive parents. And I had two siblings. Also, they're not my bio siblings, but I grew up with them. And, yeah, we spoke French and German. These are the two languages I grew up with. Then English and Spanish came later.
Haley Radke: So you speak four languages.
Nicole Gfeller: Yeah, so I learned some Italian at some point, but it's not very good anymore.
Haley Radke: And were your siblings adopted as well?
Nicole Gfeller: Yes, they were adopted and they're all from Peru, from Lima. And it's funny because they look much more typical Peruvian than me. And that was always a problem for me because I didn't really look Swiss, but I don't really look typical Peruvian either, because I have green eyes and my hair is brown. And so often here (also in Cusco now), they think I'm a gringa like they say I'm a tourist. So because of that they make me pay more for taxis and everything they sell to me. So I have to defend myself as a Peruvian here sometimes.
Haley Radke: What is that like, to grow up— And so you don't necessarily look like your adoptive parents and you don't even look like your siblings who are all from the same country?
Nicole Gfeller: Yeah, that was really hard. Even though at the time, I repressed a lot of things. So I didn't really, I wasn't really conscious about that. It only came to my mind when I actually came to Peru and realized that they all really look different. But when I grew up, what happened is that I never really talked about my emotions. It was very difficult, very challenging for me to grow up.
A lot of—Like every adoptee, asking about, wondering about what happened and, “What's the story behind…?,” and where I belong. And so when I was 12, more or less, that was the year everything came up flooding. Because I remember there was this trigger point in school where a teacher asked me where I was from, in front of the whole class. And I remember, for me, it was horrible having to say in front of (they were all Swiss), having to say in front of everybody that I was from Peru. And then I hated that teacher for a long time. It was real terrible.
But of course I didn't tell anybody. I didn't tell my parents that this happened. And this is when everything came up for me. And so this is—I started, being very rebellious, starting to turn towards alcohol to soothe the pain, responding more to my parents. And not being the well-behaved Swiss girl that I used to be until then, also starting to feel depressed at times and having some suicidal thoughts also sometimes.
Yeah, it was very tough growing up in Switzerland in this family. Even though I knew that they loved me, but I was quite a handful, I think, for my parents. Yeah.
Haley Radke: And were your siblings also a handful, or no?
Nicole Gfeller: No, not really. And that was something else. I remember they were often like, “Nicole, but why don't you just shut up and just don't trigger anything.”
And so it was hard, because I was the only one that was rebelling like that. I thought there was a lot of injustice done against me in the family, and I thought I was fighting for my rights, and for not being controlled (in a way). But that didn't really happen that much for my siblings, no.
So I felt even more lonely, because I didn't have anybody to talk to. We didn't really learn in my family to talk about emotions. And at the time, there was no counselor at my school. I didn't know any other adoptees. So it was very lonely. Yeah, I remember.
Haley Radke: I think I've heard that from many different adoptees, right? There's the teenage rebellion or the very compliant. It seems to be like almost always one or the other. Not every time, of course, but…
Nicole Gfeller: Yes. And I feel like I was jumping from one to the other. Like I was also a very—I was a people pleaser, totally a chameleon. I was very good at finding out what people wanted and analyzing their emotional state, and what I could do to have them like me or love me more. But then suddenly, something got triggered, especially with my mom, of course, because I did a lot of projection on her. So it was back and forth. I did, I had both within me. Yeah.
Haley Radke: You talked a little bit about, “We didn't talk about emotions at home,” and now your career is an art therapist. Like, where did that come into play for you?
Nicole Gfeller: What happened is that later, like in my 20s, I was still not doing really well. I was just—All my emotions, like I said, were repressed. But I started noticing that when I was not doing well, I really liked painting, actually. I remember that I liked that in school, but I didn't continue, really, until I started feeling really sad and angry. And so I would really just put all my emotions on this piece of paper, and I just felt really better afterwards.
And I didn't know that this was art therapy. I just didn't ask myself what it was, I just did it. And after the drawing I would usually write some poems, and they were usually very dark, and very sad, with a lot of grief in it, but after some time I just noticed I felt better. It was almost like all of the things I felt inside were outside of me. I externalized them and they were now on this piece of paper.
And then sometimes when I would look at the paper the following day, I would be scared sometimes of the paintings that I did. Sometimes it looked scary with red and it looked bloody and very, very painful. Most of the time, those drawings, I didn't keep them because… I didn't show them to anybody, either, because there was still a bit of a shame around that (around my feelings that there's something wrong with me). But at least I had found something that would help me feel better for a while.
And yeah, what happened after is that first of all, I studied—I went to university to become a teacher. So I was an ESL teacher for about six, seven years. And this is where I really learned to interact with youth. It's quite an art to, I find, to be a teacher and to have this authority, but also be kind to them and have them collaborate with you. So I really like that connection. And after a few years, I realized I don't like the system of giving grades and having to evaluate them based on their skills (intellectual skills). I was much more interested in how they were feeling.
I saw a lot of things happening with those youth, like with drugs, drug taking, or suicide attempts, or eating disorder, or depression. And I realized that with my job as a teacher I wouldn't be able to have access to those emotions with the youth; it was just not my job at the time. So this is where I decided I would like to be a therapist. And because I was still making art with myself and I knew I felt better, I looked it up and I found out that there is such a thing as art therapy, where it's therapy but using the arts. And I was like, Oh my God, this is wonderful.
So I also wanted to go abroad for a while, because I was an English teacher (ESL teacher). So I wanted to improve my English. So I decided to go to Vancouver, Canada. And I looked it up and they had an institute for art therapy. And so this is how it all started. I went there, studied art therapy for a year and did a practicum in a school again, but this time, not as a teacher, but as an art therapist working with children and youth. And I just loved it.
I really noticed how I connect easily with children and youth. And so of course, because I was doing that training, we did a lot of work on ourselves as well. And so this is where I learned also for myself to start acknowledging my emotions, feeling them in my body, because I was very disconnected to my body, my sensations. And then to start exploring them, and expressing them, and shifting them.
Haley Radke: So some of what you're doing right now in Peru is using those skills that you've learned, obviously, and you're working with youth there. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Nicole Gfeller: I see—I'm working in two different places. One is a transition house where women that went through domestic violence escape to this place with their children, and I'm working with the children (also with some of the moms, sometimes). And the other place is this foster home/shelter. It's a place where the children that were separated from their parents and their life until they're either adopted or reinserted in their birth family, if possible, or they stay there. So I see about nine children there.
And it's very touching. I really understand now why I went through this history myself, because it helps me now to connect with them. I just understand them really well. I have a lot of empathy for them. And sometimes to normalize their feelings, I just quickly mention, “I really know what it feels like, because I've been through something similar.” And I can see in their eyes that it really lands with them.
Yeah, so I work, I do art therapy because I also studied counseling and expressive arts therapy and somatic therapy, I'm also adding some of that in there. So I'm doing a combination of everything. Yeah, so what I'm noticing with the children already is— It's so interesting the way they're drawing, there's many things that you can observe. And there's already this need for perfection that you can see. They're always asking me if I have a ruler to make straight lines and perfect lines. And I never have one. And so they’re, “Ugh!”
Yeah, when they have to cut something out, it has to look perfect. And you can just see and ask, “How do you feel if it's not completely straight, this line?” And they're like, “Oh, I don't like it. I don't feel good about it.” So I'm doing different types of interventions, of course, but for perfectionism, I just did one last week and it was funny. I asked this child to make the ugliest drawing ever. And he looked at me and he was like, “What do you mean?” I was like, “Yeah, try to make the ugliest thing ever.” And so it was amazing to see how he opened up and he was… At the beginning, he was very inhibited, and then near the end, he was like, “Oh…” and he was making those movements and cutting paper, this way.
And sometimes I like using humor, also, sometimes in my sessions to keep it light and not always have it so deep. So I'm like, “Look at this, you could really be doing better. This is still good looking. You can make it worse.” And so he's like, “Okay.” It was really, really funny.
Of course there's that. There's a lot of need for control. There's a lot of grief. You can also see in their nervous system, how it's often activated. Some of them really have problems focusing for a long time. And sometimes it's a little bit hard to work with them, because they get up and walk up and look everywhere. So I'm also working on that a lot and emotional regulation helping them connect more with their sensations in their body, because this is something that I wasn't able to do. I was very dissociated. So I was really shut down emotionally, everything was repressed. And we work a lot on that too.
And then building more self esteem by, for example, drawing a tree and on each petal, there's something that you like about yourself. And then I have them read that out loud and ask how it feels. And then I read it to them, and often that triggers something else, and there can be some sadness and grief coming up, because this is something that you didn't really have, someone that believes in you. So it's almost like the wound shows up together with the healing. It's very, very powerful.
Haley Radke: That's amazing. And so as you are walking through this with them, and you're remembering what you've gone through as well, and what you've learned and experienced— Can you talk a little bit about that, and your journey to healing and connecting back with your body, and your feelings together, and what you've done to do that?
Nicole Gfeller: First of all, with making art myself, that was the first step that helped. Second, the second most important thing I think that happened to me is that I had a partner that talked to me about spirituality (and I don't want to go too much into detail about this here. That could be for another show, maybe). But it helped me understand that my soul had a purpose here. So I came here to this life because I needed to learn something.
And yeah, that really changed my whole perspective on being adopted and feeling like, This happened to me. I had no control! And it did–I'm not saying it didn't, but it gave me the motivation to start looking at, What is it that I can do from my end? Instead of, you know, being angry–-angry at everything: angry at my birth mom, and angry at my adoptive families.
So there I realized, There's something I can learn and what I need to learn here is to love myself first, unconditionally, be able to love others, and to believe in myself. Because self esteem was something that I was really struggling with (and I think a lot of other adoptees have that belief pattern as well that, “I'm not good enough.”) So this really helped me shift and it's almost when you find meaning to something, it helps you go through it, even if it's painful. And so that was another step.
Then of course, I did work with different therapists. I also tried more alternative therapy, and I think the culminating point was when I wrote my book. It was very, very cathartic, and I can tell you a little bit more about that, if you're interested.
Haley Radke: Yeah. Yeah. So what's the name of your book, and what's it about?
Nicole Gfeller: Yeah. So the name is The Untold Story of My Heart. It's the story that I never talked about to anyone before. Because as I said, as I grew up we didn't talk about the emotions. I never talked about my pain, the wound that I was carrying inside.
So in this book, I decided to put everything out there. And I decided to do that because—Do you remember when the movie Lion came out?
Haley Radke: Yes.
Nicole Gfeller: And I was there watching the movie and I remember I was crying my whole soul out. It was so touching and, but I could see how people in the room (and I don't think that they were all adoptees), but everybody seemed to be crying and everybody seemed to be really touched by that story.
So I was like, Huh, it seems like there's some kind of interest. People are touched by that. And they seem to be interested in these types of stories. And many people had told me before already, “With your story, you should be writing a book or they should make a movie or something about that.” And I was like, “Yeah!”
But after that I was like, I think it's time for me to write things down. And so I started. It was just after I finished my counseling training and I wasn't working for a while. And so yeah, I took my laptop, I sat at my favorite cafe in Vancouver every day. I would just remember stories and emotions that I went through when I was younger. And I would try to go back as early as I can (but I don't remember much from my childhood), but I started more like in adolescence.
And I wrote everything down and all those emotions came up again. I remember sometimes I would start almost crying in the cafe, so I had to go home, because it was getting too vulnerable. And one thing that is really interesting, which already happened (and I could talk about this more later), is when I met my birth mom for the first time.
I had this cough for months, it just wouldn't go away, and I knew it had to do with emotions. And so when I wrote the book, the same kind of cough came up again. And I looked it up, and in Chinese medicine, lungs are connected with grief. It's sadness. All of this came up and it's almost like my body also was purging that and showing, “There's work for you to do here.”
And so I wrote down everything. I try to do it as self-responsibly as I could, because the last thing that I wanted to do is to blame anyone. I didn't want to write a book blaming how I grew up and what other people did to me. So that was sometimes a struggle of—I still have a little bit of that. I don't want to hurt anybody by telling my story. But I think I found a way to do it where I could still express my emotions, but without criticizing anybody. It was just amazing to externalize that again. It's like doing art therapy. It's writing; it’s outside of you.
And by the end of the story, I just felt this change where I was like, I think I'm done with this book and I don't feel like I need to go back to my past and feel sad about what happened, or didn't happen, or what I would have wanted. I really felt it in my body: I'm ready to move on. I'm ready to go forward and now do something. Help other people.
So the primary aim was for me to do healing on myself, basically, and to tell my story. The second goal was also to give a voice to other adoptees and hopefully through my story, have the story, have my book help normalize their emotions, and normalize what they're going through (because this is what was lacking when I grew up). I would have loved to know, “This is normal, with what you went through. It's normal to feel those emotions.” And the third goal was to inform adoptive parents. also. I find that, and also in my case, my parents didn't have some kind of insight into my mind, or my brain, or my heart, because I just never expressed it. (Also, they didn't really ask a lot about it.)
But I think that if adoptive parents had some kind of insight about the beliefs that we have, the thoughts that we have, and what's going on in our hearts, it could help them (first of all), have more compassion, more empathy, and understanding where their child is coming from when the child reacts in a way that (for them), seems completely— (you know, how do you say?)--- which doesn't make any sense. So, to help adoptive parents also understand their adopted children better and therefore also parent them and be able to support them better.
Haley Radke: Is there one or two things you would say to adoptive parents about that?
We were talking earlier about how there's the rebellious teen or the compliant teen. Sometimes, the advice we're giving them is, “You should be asking them. You should be bringing these topics up and…” But like it's super hard with teenagers, right?
Nicole Gfeller: Yes, yes, yes.
Haley Radke: And a lot of us don't even necessarily know that's what we're experiencing in the moment. So do you have any advice about that?
Nicole Gfeller: Just offering to your adopted children that if they want to, they can go to them and talk to them about emotions. It's an offering, and then the adolescents will take it or leave it. But from time to time, just reminding them, “There's a place here for you to come and speak to..” Just that, I think, would already be amazing. If that never happened before, this is like a new door. Then it's up to the teenager to take it, right? (or not).
I think what would help also, is that because children (and also early adolescents), they, like you said, they're not really aware of what's going on inside of them. So having a parent name that for them would help also. For example, “Wow, it seems like you're really sad right now.” Or, “It looks like you're really angry right now. Do you want to talk to me about this?” Or just expressing that and naming that emotion would already give a language for the teenager. And then again, it's up to them to take that or not. (And also of course doing that nonjudgmentally).
To allow the adolescent to have all kinds of feelings, and not just allowing for the “good” emotions and shutting down the negative ones like anger, for example. Because that makes it really hard, especially because we often want to please our parents. So if one emotion is not okay, we're just gonna shut it down, and we're gonna carry it around, and have more and more of that emotion being piled up. And then later when you're 30, suddenly, it's gonna explode.
So I think it's really important to help them expressing those emotions safely, naming them, and telling them that it's normal to have them. Because emotions are not our enemies; they're here to tell us something.
Haley Radke: That's such a good picture: just making space for them, making space for them, and just having the opportunity. And it doesn't mean that every time you bring it up, you have to have this super in depth conversation. Like you said, this is just opening the door and just making sure they know it's there, whenever.
Nicole Gfeller: Exactly.
Haley Radke: That's great.
Now, I think that really transfers to us as adults, for ourselves. How do we make those openings, and space, and opportunities for doing some of the creative work that you have been briefly touching on through our talk, so far?
Nicole Gfeller: There's a lot of arts therapy, art-based interventions that you can do by yourself (because this is how I started as well). Because if someone hasn't really done any work on themselves, if you start exploring the pain, a lot can come up at the same time. So I would really start (and this is how I work with the people I work with as well), with establishing some resources and some emotional regulation, for example, so that later when you go to the more difficult work, that you do have some coping skills and resources to fall upon if needed.
For example, one of the first interventions that I do with children and adults is called “Drawing a Safe Space.” It's quite simple, but it's also very, very important. So especially for people that are dealing with a lot of anxiety, and fears, and also stress in their nervous system, that is a very good one. So basically, it's a self soothing technique. So first of all, you draw a safe space for you. It can be a space that you know, can be, for example, outside in the forest, or near a lake, or a sea. It can be wherever you want. And if you don't have such a space, because that sometimes happens, you can also invent one. You can imagine one. So I've had people draw themselves in the clouds and that painted sky, so that would work as well. As long as you can really immerse yourself in that safe space and imagine yourself there, then that's the most important thing.
So first of all, you draw it, you make it as detailed as you want. It's really important to ask yourself these questions so that it really works well. So first of all: “When you're in that space, what do you see? What do you smell? What can you hear?” And also, “What can you feel, like touch around you?” Because we all have all of those senses; we usually have one or two that are a little bit more prominent than the other.
So that will also help, for you to really imagine yourself in that space. So because when you have that drawing in front of you, and you have answered these questions, then what you could do is to visualize yourself in that space. It's like a guided meditation. And it's usually nice if someone else does it for you, but if you're by yourself that works, as well. So you basically close your eyes and you really imagine yourself somewhere in that drawing of yours. And then, like I said before, start smelling things, hearing things, and touching things, and really allow those sensations to be really felt in your body.
Notice also your emotions, the calmness and tranquility that will pervade your body. And doing that really helps calm your nervous system. Basically, to stop thinking about all the worries and all the fears. This also works a lot for anger. It works for everything. It's really a way for you to center, press the restart button, and then you can continue your day feeling better.
So that's a really nice one. And depending on the client, sometimes it really works well with the guided meditation, and sometimes it's more the visualization (that's the drawing). So that's up to each person. But that's a very good self soothing technique to start with.
Haley Radke: And so you can always come back there, right? You're making this space so that you can always come back if you get really uncomfortable or triggered or... Wow. I love that.
Nicole Gfeller: Exactly. When I do the guided meditation for someone else, I always tell them, “Okay, this is a place, this is your private space, your secret space. And you can always come back to it whenever you want. It can take one minute or two to just quickly close your eyes, imagine that space, and then continue your day. Or you can make it longer, that's up to you.” And knowing that they can always go back there is really also soothing and comforting. Yeah, it's really a resource.
Then there's a lot of other interventions. So for example, for self empowerment and self esteem, what I often do with my clients is have them draw a flower (if they want, or it can be a tree), and then the petals of the flowers or the leaves on the trees will be like a strength of that person, or something positive about themselves, something that they're good at.
And sometimes it takes some time to find that. And so what I asked them is to think of something that their friends told them to help them find positive things and to start writing it down. Or you can also write just cards of positive self statements to you. I used to do that (not here in Cusco right now, but in Vancouver). I have a lot of different cards and Post-its around my house, where I talk to myself those positive statements like, “You can do it.” “You are more than good enough.”
And whatever you need to hear when you're in a situation where you're struggling. Find out what works for you. If it's going to be a drawing or a tree or just some Post-its, or some cards that you carry with you in your bag. Some people do it with a rock or some stones, and you can draw, you can write a word on it. And then remember what it means and then you can have it with you, and during the day if you are struggling, just hold that stone or that rock. And again, really feel—the most important thing is really to feel in your body, because it tells your nervous system, It's okay, I can relax. That will be something else for self empowerment and self esteem.
One thing that I was really struggling with was hope. I was very pessimistic. I didn't have a lot of hope. I didn't have a lot of motivation to do things because I was like, I prefer being pessimistic, because if it's not going to happen, then at least I'm prepared and I'm not going to be hurt. So I had this whole philosophy, which I also describe in my book. Hope was really hard for me.
There's also something you can do there. You can draw and start visualizing that hope as well. I just did it like two weeks ago with an adult client that I'm working with. And she also has that wound of abandonment. And it was just amazing to see the shift in that lady during the session. So I asked her to draw first her hope as it is right now. And then on the side, the hope in the future, the hope that she would like to have. And then we talked a little bit about both and we explore the drawings. I will always ask questions and then I asked her, “Okay, now, so how do you end the drawing?”
It's always like staying in the arts without therapy, not trying to make too quickly a link to your life, but staying in the arts, staying in the imagination and the creativity. So I asked her, “How can you move from one–-from this first drawing of hope to the other one?” But by staying in the creativity (and it took some time), but then she was like, “Ah, I could actually draw a bridge.” And she drew a bridge, and she drew herself on one side of the bridge, still with the kind of hope that she has now (which was really the lack of hope).
And then again, staying in the art, I asked her, “What do you think could help this woman here in this drawing to start crossing the bridge, or to put one foot on the bridge?” She felt a little bit stuck. She was like, “I don't know. I don't think she can do it. I don't think she can really move to the other side.” So we were talking a little bit about that feeling stuck and not knowing if it's going to work.
And I asked her, “But there's something maybe you can add in the drawing. You can cut something out. You can add more color or you can glue something on it. It's very free.” Her face lit up and she added her children on the other side of the bridge and she added some bubbles and they were like, “Come on, Mommy!” You know, “Cross the bridge already and we're here waiting!” And I could see her whole complexion and the way she was breathing, everything shifted. And she was like, “Yeah, I think… Yes, with them saying that I'm going to cross the bridge.” And then at the end, I did another visualization where she really stepped into this future hope of hers and feeling it. And it was amazing to see the shift in her body and feeling that hope.
So this is something that people at home can also do, like drawing hope and seeing what happens there. I find it easier if you have someone that witnesses that with you, but yeah, I think for a start, you can also do that on your own.
Haley Radke: That was beautiful. That was my tear up moment.
Nicole Gfeller: Okay.
Haley Radke: Do you want to do one more?
Nicole Gfeller: After establishing those resources and this emotional regulation, then you could go a little bit into the more difficult work, which is really going in and exploring those emotions.
So one intervention would be to draw the different parts of ourselves, the different emotions that we have and so you can start naming them. For example, for me I had the sad one. I had the one that felt abandoned, the angry one (and of course in this is also joy, right?). But you start naming all of them, and then you start making drawings for each one of them. What do they look like? What color do they have? What size do they have? What shape? This is all very personal. There's no right or wrong way to do that, really. That's important to know with art therapy. It's not an arts class. It's just a way of expressing yourself.
All of those emotions are really—We all have them. They're really normal to have, there's no good or bad emotions. They're all here to tell us something, to give us some kind of message. And it's important to start listening to them. What I would have people also do is to start writing what that emotion has to say. If it had a voice, what would it say? And who knows what will come out of that. It's really, it's talking to you, and then you can answer by writing… You can write a letter to that emotion, or you can write a poem to it, or you can start having (those different emotions), having a dialogue with each other.
What I do with the children often (and the youth), is that joyful part of you, if it had to help (for example, sadness, or anger, or fear), what would it say? And then they come up with the dialogue, trying, so one part trying to help the other part. It's all in the imagination and creativity. And right now it might not make a lot of sense, but when you start doing it and when you're really immersed in that work, it's just amazing the depth and insights that you get out of doing this kind of exercise.
Because art therapy is really tapping into your right brain hemisphere, where the creativity is. It's nonverbal. The arts making and all of that is on that side. And it's really different from our left hemisphere brain, which is about the rationalizing, and the analyzing. So sometimes even talking and explaining what art therapy is (from a left hemisphere perspective) to you (that is also right now in your left hemisphere), listening to me and trying to understand what I'm saying is sometimes hard. So that's why I'm saying the best way to really feel what it's like is to do it yourself.
Haley Radke: And we talk so much about how, adoptees, our trauma is preverbal.
Nicole Gfeller: Totally.
Haley Radke: And so that's why it's so important to access those feelings.
Nicole Gfeller: Exactly. And with art therapy, because you're in that right brain hemisphere, a lot of implicit memories can start coming up. So I'm just going to explain quickly what implicit and explicit memory is.
We start developing our hippocampus, which is the place where our memory, our explicit memories, get stored at the age of two, more or less. And so everything that happens before that, there's no hippocampus around to actually store those emotions, so everything goes in the implicit memory. Also with trauma, if something really overwhelming happens (even after you're two years old), if it's too traumatic for your body, then it will also be sent to the implicit memory. So that's why you have some people that are older and that forget about their abuse or traumatic situation, for example, because it was just too much, too soon, at the same time.
As adoptees, we have a lot of implicit memories. And I remember for myself that sometimes an emotion would come up and I wouldn't really understand why. This is how the implicit memory works. It's like it's triggered by a sound, or by a smell, or by a face that we see, or something. So it's very— We can't really control it. It's like the unconscious.
And so I remember for myself, that when I would hear Peruvian music in the street in Switzerland when I was walking (with the pan flutes, typical Peruvian music), it would bring up this sadness, this grief. And I didn't understand why. First of all, I was very ashamed in the street to suddenly be tearing up and starting to cry. So of course I was repressing it, but I could feel it coming up. And it's so interesting, because that's a kind of implicit memory. I must've heard that before I was adopted. I was in Lima. There's always music, this type of music around. And that came up when hearing that type of music again.
So with art therapy, what happens often is that it's going to bring up some implicit memories. And for it in order for it to not be a trauma anymore is really to start changing that implicit memory into an explicit one, so that it's stored in your brain as an explicit one. You can start making sense of it, you can process it. And it's no longer controlling you, with showing up unconsciously, out of control, (or wherever you are).
So that's one of the advantages, also, of art therapy. There's many others, but, yeah.
Haley Radke: That's a really critical one. So thank you. Thanks for explaining that.
Okay. So you mentioned briefly, you have met your birth mother?
Nicole Gfeller: Yes I did. Yeah.
Haley Radke: Okay. Do you want to talk about how you found her and that?
Nicole Gfeller: Yes. I had given up on finding my birth mother, because I went to Peru a couple of times and I looked for her. And the barrister that took care of my adoption, he said he didn't have any papers anymore. And then I forgot that maybe I should have paid him something a little bit, because sometimes it helps for them to suddenly come up with something, or remember.
And he said, “I think I remember you! There's two versions. Either your mom was poor and she was like 15 and your dad was from Serbia. And he was a sailor that came to the harbor of Lima. Or you came from a rich family, and it happened out of marriage, and therefore that's why they didn't want to keep you.” And so, “Okay.” So for a long time, I thought I was half-Serbian, but it's not true. It wasn't true, eventually. Anyways, I thought I was a compatriot of Novak Djokovic, the tennis man. Yes, but it was wrong.
So yeah, it was interesting, because I went— I like going to those alternative types of therapies and I went to a psychic. And she told me that there was information around my birth mom in Switzerland, I just needed to look for it more. And I was like, “Oh wow, I didn't know, I didn't think– I didn't go there for that.” But this is what she told me. And so I started looking, and making phone calls, and writing emails. And it was a little bit of a hassle, because my brother and I were adopted at the same time. So they didn't want to give me the information, because I could see my brother's information. And then he had to send a letter.
So it was all a bit complicated, but eventually I did receive her name and I looked her up on Facebook. I found her, but then she never answered back. And so I decided to go to Peru. First of all, my partner at the time helped me find her phone number. Everything on the Internet nowadays is crazy. And so we called her. It was so scary and so weird. And also because my Spanish wasn't very good, it was hard to converse with her at the beginning. And also it was really hard to talk to someone that is your mom and starts crying on the phone, and tells you that she feels sorry, and that I should forgive her. And it was overwhelming for me at the time on the phone.
But so I still decided to go to Lima and to meet her in person. I had this idealized image of what it would be like to meet her, because I had met some other Peruvian women here. And they're very kind, and loving, and tender (I find here). And so I was expecting some of that when I was there. And when I arrived, it wasn't like that at all. There was a little bit of disappointment, because it was more distant, a little bit more cold. And later, I understood why: because of course, she never got that nurturing, and tenderness, and warmth, and love herself. So of course, she wouldn't know how to give it to someone else.
But for me, it was like another loss to grieve. I was not at all as I expected at the beginning. I felt like I was, again, I was trying to help her feel better, because of her grief, and her story, and her trauma. And I felt there wasn't a lot of space for me to talk about mine and how I felt. So because I already grew up trying to make my adopted mom very happy, here I had to do that again. So that was, it was… Yeah, it was hard.
So I had to grieve that loss a little bit. And then when I went back right now, just before coming here to Cusco, I just, I felt better. I was able to have more compassion and understanding from where she was coming from. And I didn't have those expectations anymore. I just knew, I understood what was going on in her family and her traumatic past. I can now really accept them the way they are, and I don't need them to be a certain way for me to feel better, because I'm okay. I did my work around that, so that's okay.
Haley Radke: Oh my goodness. Well, I'm excited to do recommended resources because, like you said, there's more of your story in your book, which is… Because we don't have enough time to touch on everything.
Nicole Gfeller: Yes, I know.
Haley Radke: I'd love for people to check that out. Can you tell us where we can find it?
Nicole Gfeller: The easiest way, I think, is on my website. The website is www.nicolegfeller. com. And there's a link there where you can find the book; it's going to bring you to the Amazon page.
Haley Radke: That's great. I'll link to that in the show notes.
Nicole Gfeller: And I also have a Facebook page called Nicole Gfeller Counseling, where I post sometimes what I do with the children and youth, how I work with them, some interventions. So if people are interested, they can follow me there.
Haley Radke: Thank you. And what did you want to recommend to us today?
Nicole Gfeller: If people want to do more art therapy exercises with themselves, once they did what we talked about today and they want to do more, there's a website called 100 Art Therapy exercises. You can just Google that, and it's going to bring you to a page where there are literally 100 art therapy exercises. It's not specifically focused on adoptees. It's more general. It goes by theme. For example, you want to work with grief, here are a few ideas of what you could do. You want to work on self esteem, or on anger, or communication, etc. So it gives you some ideas of what you could do. So it's a more general approach, but I think it's still… Sometimes I go there myself if I don't have any ideas about what to do. I think it's really helpful.
Otherwise also on Pinterest, I just found out that if you type art therapy in Pinterest, a lot of activities come up with a little drawing also. And it's really helpful.
Haley Radke: Those are so great. And I did look at that link that you sent me ahead of time. And there's—You're right. It's 100. There's so many different things. And each section has such different ideas that if one, you're like, “I can't do that. That's too weird.” The next one will work for you, so... Such a great resource.
Thank you. You've already told us where we can connect with you online, but I just want to thank you so much for sharing your story with us and for just— I'm so excited about the work you're doing down in Peru. You're doing so many good things and I just loved your explanation for us of ways we can make our drawing the safe space, and what we can do once we've established those safe things for ourselves. So thank you, Nicole. I really appreciated chatting with you today.
Nicole Gfeller: Yeah, I loved it myself. Thank you. And if anybody has any questions about other ideas, other things that they can do (more connected to adoption), because we didn't go much into those details. I mean, if they can send me an email and I'd love to answer them and to help them out with some exercises they can do for themselves.
Haley Radke: Thank you. That’s really kind of you.
I used to blog, forever ago. And if you manage to find it, you will be delighted and amused to read some of my deliciously in the fog posts. That's not a challenge, I'm just saying if you read it, take it with a giant salt shaker. And I've been thinking more and more about writing and how I could do that, and I settled on a monthly newsletter. It's just this great way for me to share what's going on in my life and yet not have the thrill that comes with public scrutiny of blogging.
So I'd love to connect with you in that way. So, if you go to adopteeson.com/newsletter, there's a quick signup form. And my next email is going out in a week or two, so if you sign up today, you definitely won't miss it.
This episode, as always, is brought to you by my generous Patreon supporters. Thank you, friends. I truly couldn't do the show without your financial partnership. Patreon just did a little change of how they charge patrons, so if you do have questions about that, make sure you message me, and I'm happy to chat with you about it. The change was a big surprise to Patreon creators, too, I assure you.
Before we go, I need to ask you one favor. Would you tell one person about this podcast episode? I'd love it if you'd share it with someone who perhaps said to you in the past they don't really have the resources for therapy. Maybe listening to Nicole will spark some ideas in them for things they can do on their own to work through some adoptee feelings.
Thank you for listening. Let's talk again, next Friday.
