Afleveringen

  • How Self-Care Became a Tool of Tyranny and Fascism — And You Didn’t Even Notice. You Got Played and Lost Moral Clarity!

    How Self-Care Became a Tool of Tyranny and Fascism — And You Didn’t Even Notice. You Got Played and Lost Moral Clarity!

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    “Fascism doesn’t begin with guns. It begins with people whispering affirmations while their neighbors are deported.” "Tyranny doesn’t begin with guns. It begins with disinterest." "Self-care without moral clarity is just another form of self-abandonment."

    What if the obsession with self-care is no longer care—but emotional neglect, disguised as healing?” In this critical episode of Exiled and Rising, trauma therapist Ana Mael examines how the booming self-care industry is creating generations of emotionally numb individuals, eroding moral clarity, and paving the way for societal apathy—the fertile ground for tyranny and authoritarianism to rise unchecked.

    Ana is not speaking as a critic of rest, boundaries, or nervous system healing—she’s calling out the dangerous overconsumption and spiritual bypassing that’s replacing collective care with curated healing aesthetics.

    If you've ever felt like something is wrong—even while doing all the “right” healing rituals—this conversation is your mirror, your wake-up call, and your invitation back to human responsibility.

    Key Takeaways Self-care without social awareness becomes emotional neglect

    Overconsumption of healing content creates internal fragmentation, not wholeness

    Spiritual bypassing enables emotional numbing and disengagement from justice

    Apathy is not neutral—it is the breeding ground for tyranny

    Tyranny does not begin with violence—it begins with silence, distraction, and spiritual delusion Real healing includes moral courage, not just nervous system regulation

    The self-care industry profits from your emotional disconnection—and your silence

    Insights & Quotes

    “Numb individuals create numb societies. And numb societies create the silence in which tyranny grows.” – Ana Mael

    “Fascism doesn’t begin with guns. It begins with people whispering affirmations while their neighbors are deported.”

    “You cannot reclaim your nervous system while abandoning your neighbor.”

    “If healing doesn’t bring you closer to justice and community—it is not healing. It is performance.”

    Who Is Ana Mael?

    Ana Mael is a Somatic Experiencing™ trauma therapist, genocide survivor, and founder of the Somatic Trauma Recovery Center. She is the voice behind Exiled and Rising—a thought-leading podcast for survivors of war, injustice, and emotional displacement. Ana speaks not only as a professional but as someone who has lived through exile, war, and systems of silence. Through powerful language, somatic insight, and sharp cultural critique, Ana is building one of the most morally grounded, trauma-informed, and politically awake platforms in the mental health world today.

    PRE SALE FOR ANA TEACHINGS STARTS NOW ( SAVE $70 ) https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/offers/zBFUnBg3/checkout Get the Book: The Trauma We Don't Talk About : https://amzn.to/41SjKKL

    Premium Podcast Membership. FREE https://exiledandrising.supercast.com/

    ❤️ Please donate . This podcast is independently run. No production teams or fancy edits. Only a truth & storytelling. https://buy.stripe.com/3cscOqbbXfZp0sU7ss

    Support & Subscribe: This podcast is ad-free and listener-powered. If Ana’s voice matters to you, help amplify it: ❤️ Share this episode with someone who’s been gaslit by the healing world

    Learn about the Somatic Trauma Recovery Center: https://www.somatictraumarecoverycenter.com/

    Chapters(00:00:01) - What If Self-Care Is No More than a Means of Abs(00:10:18) - Self-Care as a Cult(00:18:00) - Exiled & Rising: The Need for Self-Care
  • Tyranny Can Begin Because You Lost Your Humanity to the Self-Care Industry

    Tyranny Can Begin Because You Lost Your Humanity to the Self-Care Industry

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    When self-care becomes a lifestyle brand instead of a path to embodied truth, we begin to shrink. We forget to protest. We ignore each other’s pain. We starve while smiling. With piercing clarity and somatic wisdom, Ana Mael challenges the healing world’s obsession with self-love, self-mastery, and self-optimization — and asks what we’re losing in the process. This isn’t a rejection of healing — it’s a reclamation of what healing is meant to be: relational, justice-centered, and rooted in moral clarity. I

    n this powerful episode, Ana Mael dismantles the modern self-care industry and its shadow side: spiritual bypassing, emotional gaslighting, and the slow erosion of solidarity. Takeaways: Self-care becomes harmful when it disconnects you from your community and numbs your moral instincts. Spiritual bypassing is not neutral — it upholds abusive systems. Real self-care includes justice, action, and relational responsibility.

    Summary of Ana’s Position: Ana Mael is not against healing — she’s against healing that ignores injustice, isolates people in self-performance, and gaslights those who are suffering into silence. She calls for a return to somatic integrity, political agency, and human connection — especially for those who have been exiled, silenced, or marginalized.

    1. The Weaponization of Self-Language Ana’s repetition of “self-love, self-care, self-mastery…” mirrors how the language of healing has become a mantra of avoidance. It’s a critique of: Performative wellness culture Healing as self-branding Bypassing suffering in the name of “positivity” or “manifestation” Key Line: “My friend, everything will be fine. You just need to know how to manifest.” Takeaway: This culture keeps people sedated while systems collapse. It privatizes emotional survival and ignores collective trauma.

    2. Collapse of Solidarity and Kinship Ana points out that the pursuit of self-optimization has replaced acts of care toward others — even in life-and-death moments. Key Line: “You, my friend, can starve.” Key Line: “A stranger dies, but I need to protect my time for self-care.” Takeaway: The self-care industry’s ethos has eroded our relational ethics. We lose the instinct to help, protest, feed, and protect each other.

    3. Tyranny + Bypassing = Perfect Storm She draws a direct link between apathetic spiritual culture and rising authoritarianism. Key Line: “Because tyranny can begin. I am in my own frequency.” Key Line: “Do not let spiritual bypassers… shame you, confuse you, or put fear in you.” Takeaway: Moral clarity has been replaced by personal branding. This makes it easier for regimes to rise unchecked because citizens are focused inward, not outward.

    4. Moral Clarity as Embodied Resistance Ana reframes trauma healing as an act of social and political integrity, not just private relief. Key Line: “We became so obsessed with us that we lose a common sense of solidarity.” Takeaway: Real healing is not about feeling better in isolation — it’s about becoming more alive, awake, and relationally engaged.

    Key Quote: “Self-care without justice is self-delusion. And it’s killing our solidarity.” “You, my friend, can starve. But at least I’ve mastered self-compassion.”

    PRE SALE FOR ANA TEACHINGS STARTS NOW ( SAVE $70 ) https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/offers/zBFUnBg3/checkout Get the Book: The Trauma We Don't Talk About : https://amzn.to/41SjKKL Premium Podcast Membership. FREE https://exiledandrising.supercast.com/

    ❤️ Please donate . This podcast is independently run. No production teams or fancy edits. Only a truth & storytelling. https://buy.stripe.com/3cscOqbbXfZp0sU7ss

    Support & Subscribe: This podcast is ad-free and listener-powered. If Ana’s voice matters to you, help amplify it: ❤️ Share this episode with someone who’s been gaslit by the healing w...

    Chapters(00:00:00) - Wake Up! Self-Care Industry is killing us

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  • You Lost Your Humanity to the Self-Care Industry

    You Lost Your Humanity to the Self-Care Industry

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    With piercing clarity and somatic wisdom, Ana Mael challenges the healing world’s obsession with self-love, self-mastery, and self-optimization — and asks what we’re losing in the process.

    When self-care becomes a lifestyle brand instead of a path to embodied truth, we begin to shrink. We forget to protest. We ignore each other’s pain. We starve while smiling.

    This isn’t a rejection of healing — it’s a reclamation of what healing is meant to be: relational, justice-centered, and rooted in moral clarity. In this powerful episode, Ana Mael dismantles the modern self-care industry and its shadow side: spiritual bypassing, emotional gaslighting, and the slow erosion of solidarity.

    Takeaways:

    Self-care becomes harmful when it disconnects you from your community and numbs your moral instincts.

    Spiritual bypassing is not neutral — it upholds abusive systems.

    Real self-care includes justice, action, and relational responsibility.

    Summary of Ana’s Position:

    Ana Mael is not against healing — she’s against healing that ignores injustice, isolates people in self-performance, and gaslights those who are suffering into silence.

    She calls for a return to somatic integrity, political agency, and human connection — especially for those who have been exiled, silenced, or marginalized.

    1. The Weaponization of Self-Language

    Ana’s repetition of “self-love, self-care, self-mastery…” mirrors how the language of healing has become a mantra of avoidance. It’s a critique of:

    Performative wellness culture

    Healing as self-branding

    Bypassing suffering in the name of “positivity” or “manifestation”

    Key Line: “My friend, everything will be fine. You just need to know how to manifest.”

    Takeaway: This culture keeps people sedated while systems collapse. It privatizes emotional survival and ignores collective trauma.

    2. Collapse of Solidarity and Kinship

    Ana points out that the pursuit of self-optimization has replaced acts of care toward others — even in life-and-death moments.

    Key Line: “You, my friend, can starve.”
    Key Line: “A stranger dies, but I need to protect my time for self-care.”

    Takeaway: The self-care industry’s ethos has eroded our relational ethics. We lose the instinct to help, protest, feed, and protect each other.

    3. Tyranny + Bypassing = Perfect Storm

    She draws a direct link between apathetic spiritual culture and rising authoritarianism.

    Key Line: “Because tyranny can begin. I am in my own frequency.”
    Key Line: “Do not let spiritual bypassers… shame you, confuse you, or put fear in you.”

    Takeaway: Moral clarity has been replaced by personal branding. This makes it easier for regimes to rise unchecked because citizens are focused inward, not outward.

    4. Moral Clarity as Embodied Resistance

    Ana reframes trauma healing as an act of social and political integrity, not just private relief.

    Key Line: “We became so obsessed with us that we lose a common sense of solidarity.”

    Takeaway: Real healing is not about feeling better in isolation — it’s about becoming more alive, awake, and relationally engaged.

    Key Quote:

    “Self-care without justice is self-delusion. And it’s killing our solidarity.”

    “You, my friend, can starve. But at least I’ve mastered self-compassion.”

    Exiled & Rising – FRE...

    Chapters(00:00:00) - Self-Care, Self Love, Self Development
  • Use This to Be Seen, Heard, and Validated: Statements List. Somatic Trauma Healing.

    Use This to Be Seen, Heard, and Validated: Statements List. Somatic Trauma Healing.

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    If you've ever struggled to express what happened to you—or needed the right words to feel seen, heard, and validated—this episode is your lifeline. In this powerful episode of Exiled & Rising, Ana Mael shares a deeply moving list of healing statements and trauma-informed boundaries every survivor needs.

    ❤️ Support Your Healing Journey and Exiled and Rising Podcast by buying a digital PDF download of Statement List: " How Do I Heal:" https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/offers/y9GmYJYw/checkout

    Print, Practice and Share!

    Ana unpacks the somatic impact of emotional abuse, how silence becomes a mechanism of trauma, and why reclaiming your voice is a revolutionary act of self-respect and intergenerational repair. Whether you're healing from childhood trauma, narcissistic abuse, generational silence, or spiritual bypassing, this episode gives you the language to speak your truth and begin the somatic healing process.

    What You’ll Learn in Exiled and Rising podcast: How to recognize emotional abuse and internalized silence Why voice, movement, and relational witnessing are core to trauma recovery

    A step-by-step guide to using healing statements and trauma boundaries in daily life

    The difference between true spiritual healing vs. spiritual bypassing

    How to break free from loyalty-based family dynamics that protect abusers

    The power of co-regulation, grief, and integration in somatic trauma work

    Ana Mael is a leading expert in trauma recovery, somatic therapy, and nervous system healing. Her work helps survivors across the world reclaim their truth after years of gaslighting, emotional neglect, and complex PTSD.

    Leave a comment: Have you experienced being silenced in your family, relationship, or community? What would it feel like to finally speak the truth of what happened?

    ❤️ Support Your Healing Journey and Exiled and Rising Podcast by buying a digital download of Statment List: " How Do I Heal:" https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/offers/y9GmYJYw/checkout

    Please share!

    Subscribe to Exiled & Rising to join a Free global community of survivors, therapists, and truth-tellers committed to trauma justice, emotional healing, and somatic empowerment. https://exiledandrising.supercast.com/

    Your healing matters. Your voice matters. You are not alone.

    Chapters(00:00:00) - What Do I Need For Healing?
  • It Was Just a Normal Childhood… Wasn’t It? For All Adults With Childhood Trauma

    It Was Just a Normal Childhood… Wasn’t It? For All Adults With Childhood Trauma

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    This episode isn’t just healing—it’s cultural critique, political advocacy, and nervous system literacy woven together.

    In a landscape where "healing" is often watered down into Instagram platitudes or spiritual bypassing, this episode reclaims trauma work as justice work.

    What if going home never felt safe?

    In this raw, unedited, and deeply embodied episode of Exiled and Rising, Ana Mael revisits her viral piece “Walk Back Home” and reflects on the haunting truth of what it means to be an adult carrying unresolved childhood trauma—especially when the home you were raised in eroded your safety, your voice, and your sense of self step by step.

    This is not a healing episode in the polished sense.
    This is a truth-telling episode.
    A reckoning with the body.
    A ritual of witnessing what was never named.

    Ana takes you into the somatic landscape of the child who didn’t grow up in their family—but shrank down in order to survive it.

    In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

    What it means to shrink down in childhood instead of growing up

    The nervous system symptoms of covert trauma and emotional neglect

    Why your dread of going home was not drama—it was wisdom

    The long-term impact of invisible abuse, subtle disconnect, and ritualized betrayal

    How the walk from school or work to “home” can trigger collapse, shame, or vigilance—decades later

    Why your healing starts with truth, not forgiveness

    How to recognize children who are shrinking, and how to respond

    Who This Episode Is For

    Adults with unresolved childhood emotional abuse or neglect

    Survivors of covert trauma or passive-aggressive family dynamics

    Those who feel guilt or dread around visiting family or going “home”

    People struggling with chronic fawning, self-abandonment, or shame

    Therapists, teachers, coaches, and caregivers who want to better support trauma survivors and children

    Ana’s Core Message in This Episode

    “You didn’t grow up in your family. You shrank down. That shrinking happened at the soul level, the emotional level, the body level. And that’s the trauma we don’t talk about.”

    This episode doesn’t offer you a ten-step healing plan.
    It offers you something more sacred: a place to stop minimizing what happened.
    To feel what your body has always known.
    To begin—slowly, gently—walking back to yourself.

    Mentioned in This Episode

    The original reading of Walk Back Home (now page 93 in Ana's book)

    The difference between covert and overt abuse

    A breakdown of somatic survival cues: posture collapse, dread, breath-holding, body shame

    The concept of "ritual betrayal" as a daily trauma for children

    Introduction to Ana’s mini-course on projected shame and somatic restoration

    Private community access and deeper resources for trauma-informed healing

    Join the Community

    Exiled & Rising – Premium Podcast Membership. JOIN FOR FREE: https://exiledandrising.supercast.co...

  • You Need Justice, Not Breathwork: How Silence Shaped You & Society (Part 2)

    You Need Justice, Not Breathwork: How Silence Shaped You & Society (Part 2)

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing
    Ana is not just teaching about trauma.

    She’s renaming the moral and political architecture that protects it.

    She dismantles:

    Silence as safety

    Strength as suppression

    Healing as isolation

    And replaces them with:

    Voice as birthright

    Co-regulation as repair

    Justice as embodied integrity

    “Your voice isn’t too much. It’s exactly what was missing.
    And it’s time to speak — even if your voice shakes, even if no one taught you how.”

    PRE-SALE FOR HER TEACHINGS STARTS NOW — Save $70

    https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/offers/KDmX3bhu

    Get the Book – The Trauma We Don’t Talk About
    https://amzn.to/41SjKKL

    Support the Podcast – Independent, unsponsored, unfiltered
    https://buy.stripe.com/3cscOqbbXfZp0sU7ss

    Join the Free Premium Membership
    https://exiledandrising.supercast.com/

    CORE THEME

    “Silence is not just absence. Silence is the mechanism by which trauma survives.”

    Ana reframes silence as complicity, disconnection, and a system of harm — not emotional maturity or grace.

    KEY INSIGHTS & TAKEAWAYS1. Prolonged Silence = Stored Trauma

    “If you were able to talk, you would be able to process what happened to you.”
    PTSD isn’t just from pain — it’s from being denied the right to speak about pain.

    2. Somatic Freeze = Silenced Expression

    “When someone has no voice and no movement, we know they have trauma.”
    Body shutdown isn’t weakness — it’s survival adaptation.

    3. Confusion = Early Symptom of Emotional Abuse

    “Feeling confused all the time is a trauma state.”
    When someone rewrites your truth, you lose the ability to trust your instincts.

    4. Silence Is the Fertilizer of Intergenerational Trauma

    “Notice how silence was the fertilizer of your trauma and how it was cultivated and passed down.”
    Silence isn’t neutral — it’s a behavior passed down like inheritance.

    5. Spiritual Bypassing = Complicity in Oppression

    “Spiritual bypassing is not grace. It’s abuse in white gloves.”
    Ana critiques how “love and light” language is often used to silence survivors.

    6. You’re Not Dysregulated Because You’re Weak

    “You are dysregulated because you were silenced.”
    This quote shifts blame off the survivor and onto the structures that failed them.

    7. What Real Trauma Processing Looks Like

    Ana outlines a somatic, embodied roadmap:

    Safe relational witness

    “Someone to say: Your experience was real.”

    Co-regulation during grief

    “Grief needs to be met in the body, not solved by the mind.”

    Time and space to integrate

    “The body takes 7x longer than the brain to integrate.”

    SYSTEMS ANA EXPOSES

    Loyalty cultures: “Don’t speak. He’s still your father.”

    Silencing systems: “Don’t be dramatic. We don’t talk about that here.”

    Spiritual industries: “It’s for the higher good. Your trauma is your gift.”

    Chapters(00:00:00) - Start Speaking Out(00:09:54) - Being silenced in trauma recovery(00:18:58) - Betrayal in the Spiritual World(00:31:32) - Exiled and Rising: Moral Courage
  • If You Fear Tyranny or Dictatorship: Welcome!

    If You Fear Tyranny or Dictatorship: Welcome!

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    Exiled and Rising isn’t just healing. It’s human rights. It’s survival. It’s resistance. It is :

    A refuge for the unseen

    A movement for displaced, exiled, and silenced voices—not just a podcast

    A justice-centered somatic space, not a self-improvement brand

    This is not just another podcast about trauma healing.
    This is a sanctuary for the unseen.
    A movement for those displaced, silenced, exiled, or made invisible—by war, by borders, by systemic injustice, or even by their own families.

    In this episode, I share what Exiled and Rising stands for—and why it matters now more than ever.
    If you have been forced into exile, or if you carry the invisible exile inside your body, this space was created for you.

    Here, we move from trauma to resilience.
    From wound to resistance.
    From silence to voice.

    Whether you are a survivor of war, genocide, displacement, oppression, or emotional exile—you belong here.
    This is your place to rise.

    A Quiet Act of Resistance

    Exiled and Rising is not about individual self-improvement.
    It is about rebuilding dignity, voice, and safety in a world that punishes vulnerability.

    Here, we refuse to abandon the sacredness of our stories.
    Here, we rise—not alone, but together.

    Join the Membership Community

    If you are ready to stop surviving in silence and start rising with others who understand, follow the link in the show notes to join our private paid membership.

    Inside the community, you’ll find:

    Exclusive somatic practices, courses and workshops

    Embodied healing frameworks rooted in justice, dignity, and comapssionate care

    A space where your story is honored, not pathologized

    Book ClubLive Somatic Prayer Room

    You are not invisible here.
    You are not alone.
    And you are welcome.

    Join the Exiled and Rising Community Here

    Exiled & Rising – Premium Podcast Membership. Years of unlearning in one place, start with FREE membership : https://exiledandrising.supercast.com/

    Get the Book: "The Trauma We Don't Talk About ": https://amzn.to/41SjKKL

    ❤️ Please donate https://buy.stripe.com/3cscOqbbXfZp0sU7ss

    This podcast is independently run. No production teams. Fancy edits. Only a truth storytelling.

    Meet Your Host – Ana Mael

    Ana Mael is a genocide and war survivor, somatic trauma therapist, and founder of the Somatic Trauma Recovery Center. She has dedicated her life’s work to helping survivors reclaim their identity, dignity, and self-trust after war, displacement, systemic oppression, and complex trauma.

    Her podcast, Exiled and Rising, is not about surface-level healing. There are no platitudes, no quick fixes—only deep, uncompromising truth about what it takes to move from wound to resistance, from trauma to resilience, from exile to rising. Ana’s voice is a powerful force in the trauma field, bridging somatic therapy with real-world survival.

    She is also the bestselling author of The Trauma We Don’t Talk About,...

  • Haunting Truth: For All Adults with Childhood Trauma

    Haunting Truth: For All Adults with Childhood Trauma

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    In haunting “Walk Home,” Ana Mael delivers something that is rare and profoundly necessary:

    A Language for the Unspoken

    This piece gives voice to the invisible pain of children—and adults—who dread returning to a place that is supposed to feel safe. She does not explain the trauma. She names it. She feels it. And in doing so, she makes it real for those who’ve never had the words.

    A Somatic Mirror

    Ana is not giving a lecture. She’s holding up a mirror to the listener’s nervous system. She brings the listener into their body's truth—the posture collapse, the dread in the chest, the weight in the legs. This is somatic education without jargon, without hierarchy, and without shame.

    A Radical Form of Witnessing

    Instead of asking “What happened to you?” or “What’s wrong with your family?”, Ana meets the listener in the moment of collapse itself—that quiet, heavy walk back home. Her message is not “heal quickly.” It’s:

    “I see you. You’re not imagining this. And you were never weak for feeling it.”

    This episode is a somatic witnessing, not an intellectual unpacking.
    It’s about naming the unnamed.
    It’s about inviting you to feel what you weren’t allowed to feel as a child.
    It’s about breaking the isolation that kept you silent.

    What Ana does:

    Names the experience of dread and collapse on the way home.

    Validates the somatic and emotional responses (heaviness, posture change, heartbreak).

    Calls out the pattern—that it happens every day, in the body, before the door is even opened.

    Invites reflection and compassion toward the inner child.

    Offers solidarity: "You're not alone if you still feel this as an adult."

    This episode is not about unpacking family dynamics or diagnosing trauma. It’s not about giving you answers.

    It’s about honoring the felt truth in your body—
    the heaviness in your legs,
    the drop in your heart,
    the heartbreak that happens before the front door opens.

    It’s about the children who tiptoed into homes they never felt safe in.
    The teens who carried dread instead of backpacks.
    And the adults who still feel small, scared, and unseen—every time they return to the place called “home.”

    Whether you're a survivor of emotional neglect, intergenerational trauma, war, or silence—this episode is for the part of you that remembers. For adults with childhood trauma and all children facing trauma in their so called "home".

    Ana Call for Advocacy:

    Ana gently calls on all of us to pay attention to the children in our lives who seem heavy. Withdrawn. Different on the walk home.

    Sometimes the loudest cries are unspoken.
    And sometimes, it’s not what happens at home—it’s what never happened.
    No warmth. No safety. No refuge.

    With “Walk Home,” Ana is not giving content—
    She’s offering a sacred rupture in the silence.

    She stands out because she doesn’t rush people out of pain.
    She stands out because she tells the truth no one else wants to say.
    And she stands out because her voice makes people stop, breathe, and whisper:

    “I didn’t know someone else had felt that too.”

    That is what makes her stand out.
    Not just of ideas—but of integrity, somatic truth, and trauma-informed compassion.

    <...
  • For Cold Bitches & Emotionless Men: The Strength Behind the Shield

    For Cold Bitches & Emotionless Men: The Strength Behind the Shield

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    Have you ever been called a “cold, distant bitch”? Or an emotionless prick?
    In this episode, Ana Mael reveals the untold story behind these labels and explores how what the world sees as "cold" is actually profound emotional intelligence. Being labeled “cold” is not a weakness—it’s a survival mechanism. This episode is for anyone who has been misunderstood or marginalized for simply trying to survive in a world that doesn’t always see your humanity.

    Podcast highlights from Ana:

    "I honor that person. I honor you. Because I know how the ‘bitchiness’ was born. I know why."

    Why it's impactful: This directly speaks to how trauma survivors are often unfairly labeled. It also shows that Ana’s approach is non-judgmental and deeply compassionate. She emphasizes that emotional defense mechanisms should be respected, not condemned.

    "You are not cold, you are a diamond. You are heat under pressure."

    Why it's impactful: This quote affirms the strength and beauty that arises from enduring hardship. It reframes the common narrative that trauma breaks people, instead suggesting that it can forge something powerful, just like diamonds are created under intense pressure.

    "You don’t have to prove your warmth. You don’t have to. You don’t have to prove it, because someone who knows what it means to go and live through complex trauma will see you."

    Why it's impactful: This serves as a powerful reminder to people who feel pressured to perform emotional labor to be "warm" or "likeable" despite their trauma. It underscores that those who have experienced similar pain will understand and validate them without needing to prove themselves.

    "You were not cold and you are not cold. You were very calculated in your survival."

    Why it's impactful: This redefines the narrative about emotional distance as a survival strategy. Ana emphasizes that emotional numbness or perceived coldness is not a flaw, but a purposeful and intelligent response to the threat of harm.

    "When I see someone with a flat, rigid face, arrogance, almost unpleasant, angry, shielded, I see armor. I don’t see distance. I see depth."

    Why it's impactful: This shifts the perspective on people who are perceived as cold or difficult. It invites listeners to see beyond the external appearance and recognize the layers of trauma, resilience, and survival beneath the surface.

    Links:

    New. Micro Lesson by Ana : https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/signup

    Get the Book: The Trauma We Don't Talk About – Book , Ana Mael’s bestselling memoir for survivors, therapists, and seekers of truth : https://amzn.to/41SjKKL

    Next Book Club cohort sign ups: https://exiledandrising.mykajabi.com/opt-in

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    Learn more about Ana’s trauma healing practice, somatic tools, and programs.
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    Impactful Takeaways:

    The Coldness You Feel Is Protection, Not Emptiness
    Ana dives into how people who have experienced trauma—especially marginalized communities—develop emotional armor. This armor, often perceive...

  • Social Anxiety Isn't Just Nerves: The Trauma Behind Your Fear of Connection

    Social Anxiety Isn't Just Nerves: The Trauma Behind Your Fear of Connection

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    Social anxiety is not just shyness—it's a battle within your body, a fight for survival in a world that constantly demands you to be seen. But what if I told you that the very same body that holds your fear also holds the key to your healing?

    Social anxiety is often misunderstood as just being shy or introverted, but it’s far deeper than that—it’s an internalized fear shaped by past traumas and rejection. Yet, healing from social anxiety starts not in the mind, but in the body, where our nervous systems hold the memories of those experiences.

    Ana Mael breaks down the deep, visceral connection between trauma and social anxiety. You might be in a safe space now, but your nervous system still remembers the past—and it's holding you back from experiencing the connection and belonging you deserve.

    Episode Description: In this raw, unfiltered episode of Exiled and Rising, Ana Mael takes a deep dive into the roots of social anxiety. It’s not just about being introverted or shy—it’s about your body holding onto memories of past pain, trauma, and shame. The episode explores how these old memories continue to inform your nervous system, causing panic, discomfort, and fear in social settings even years after the trauma occurred.

    Ana discusses how your survival brain prioritizes protecting you from harm, but often misfires, keeping you in a loop of social withdrawal and anxiety. But here's the truth: You don’t have to live in fear of being rejected, shamed, or judged. Your need for connection, community, and belonging is essential—and it's safe to reach for it.

    You Will Learn:

    How your body remembers past social shame, triggering anxiety in present-day interactions.

    The survival instinct behind social anxiety: your brain’s desperate attempt to protect you from past harm.

    Why being seen and heard is a basic human need—and how your anxiety is disconnecting you from that need.

    How the trauma of past rejection or humiliation affects your ability to connect with others, even in safe environments.

    The empowering message: The people who harmed you don’t get to deprive you of the love and connection you deserve.

    Impact on Trauma Healing and Nervous System: Ana's somatic approach emphasizes the connection between trauma healing and nervous system regulation. By acknowledging and releasing the trauma held in the body, you can begin to break free from the grip of anxiety and fear. Ana’s healing philosophy integrates trauma justice, recognizing the systemic factors that contribute to emotional harm and providing actionable tools for recovery.

    Quotes to Emphasize in the Episode:

    “Your survival brain has one important job: to protect you from harm. But when it misinterprets current experiences as threats, you stay stuck in the past.”

    “Social anxiety isn’t just about being shy or nervous—it’s about your body’s deep-seated fear of rejection and harm, and that fear is rooted in past trauma.”

    “The people who harmed you don’t get to deprive you of all the good, genuine, and kind people who would welcome a connection with you.”

    Listen to this episode if:

    You experience social anxiety and feel like your past keeps you stuck in patterns of isolation.

    You're ready to understand the root cause of your anxiety—what's really triggering you, and why.

    You're looking for a way to break free from fear and reclaim your right to connection and belonging.

    Resources Mentioned:

    The Tr...

  • Prayer for Love - Without Losing Yourself

    Prayer for Love - Without Losing Yourself

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    A somatic prayer to call in love that holds, honors, and does not erase you.

    In this deeply soothing prayer of Exiled & Rising, Ana Mael offers a somatic prayer for those seeking love that does not cost them their truth, their boundaries, or their body.

    This is not a prayer of performance.
    It is a prayer of presence—an invitation to receive love that meets the listener as they are, not as they’ve been taught to perform.

    Through her uniquely somatic cadence, Ana guides the listener back to the wisdom of the breath, the stillness of the nervous system, and the truth of the soul that remembers:

    Why Somatic Prayer Matters

    Unlike scripted affirmations or cognitive self-help tools, Ana’s somatic prayers are crafted with a trauma-informed, body-rooted approach that:

    Helps regulate the nervous system and reduce internalized relational anxiety

    Cultivates safety in the body around love, intimacy, and visibility

    Restores connection with the Divine, without bypassing human pain

    Allows listeners to receive prayer not only with their mind—but with their breath, cells, and heartbeat

    Her voice—slow, steady, and spirit-led—creates a sanctuary where listeners feel held, not hurried.

    Join Ana’s next live Somatic Prayer Room

    Sing ups for the next live prayers: https://www.somatictraumarecoverycenter.com/somatic-prayers-room/

    For those who want to receive this kind of prayer more often, Ana offers a private subscription space:
    The Somatic Prayer Room.

    It is a sacred refuge for those ready to move from survival to sacredness.

    Inside the Prayer Room, you will receive:

    Live prayers for grief, piece, health, love, safety, rest, and reclamation

    Gentle somatic cues to guide the nervous system into deeper integration

    A rhythm of care, reflection, and embodiment—away from the noise of algorithms

    A growing archive of spirit-rooted, body-led healing tools for everyday regulation and emotional truth

    This space is especially valuable for survivors, HSP's, immigrant hearts, exiled souls, and all those learning to feel safe inside their own softness and boundaries.

    ❤️ Support the Podcast – Please donate to sustain a focused, distraction-free space— no content overwhelm, just deep, distilled micro lessons and truth.
    http://bit.ly/3YiCDWo

    The Trauma We Don't Talk About – Book
    Ana Mael’s bestselling memoir for survivors, therapists, and seekers of truth.
    https://amzn.to/41SjKKL

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    Years of unlearning in one place.
    Get unfiltered episodes, deeper teachings, somatic tools, and extended micro lessons not shared anywhere else.

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  • A Prayer for When It’s Too Much to Carry: Held in Grief

    A Prayer for When It’s Too Much to Carry: Held in Grief

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    Whether you are mourning the loss of a loved one, the loss of home, the loss of safety, or the loss of faith in your country or community—this prayer is for you.

    In this sacred and unedited episode of Exiled and Rising, Ana Mael offers a somatic prayer for those carrying grief that is too heavy to hold alone.

    This episode is a place to lay your sorrow down.

    It is not a lesson in letting go.
    It is not a demand to rise.
    It is an invitation to be witnessed in your grief, exactly as you are.

    What Is a Somatic Prayer?

    A somatic prayer is a body-rooted invocation that meets you in your emotional, physical, and spiritual pain.
    Unlike traditional prayers that ask you to transcend your pain, this prayer brings you into your body, into your breath, into your mourning.

    It is where:

    Divine presence meets nervous system truth

    Spirituality holds sorrow—not bypasses it

    Loss is honored—not rushed

    This is a space for grief that has no timeline, and healing that has no deadline.

    What You'll Experience

    A gentle invocation of Divine Spirit, ancestors, and light

    A guided prayer that can hold the death of someone you love

    Language for the grief you carry when the world no longer feels safe

    Permission to cry, tremble, ache, and still be whole

    A reminder: You are not alone in your sorrow

    This episode can be returned to when words fail, when the weight is too much, or when your soul needs to be reminded it is still held.

    Support This Work

    Join the Premium Membership for unfiltered discussions, extended episodes, and exclusive somatic tools: Subscribe here

    Support Ana’s ad-free mission: Donate here

    Read Ana’s book: The Trauma We Don’t Talk About

    Why This Episode Matters Now

    The world is trembling.

    Wars rage. Economies collapse. Trust in systems erodes.
    Many of us no longer know what to believe in, where to place our hope, or how to make sense of the silence from those we once trusted.

    Whether your grief is from a recent loss, or the chronic ache of watching the world unravel, this episode gives language and presence to:

    The grief of losing someone you love

    The grief of losing the illusion of safety or justice

    The grief of watching your values be abandoned by the people or country you trusted

    The grief of not knowing what side to stand on anymore—and feeling lost inside the silence

    Ana Mael offers a grounded, spiritual anchor in a time where many are emotionally unmoored.

    Ana Mael doesn’t offer answers. She offers presence.


    She holds the sacred tension between personal loss and collective rupture—and invites you to grieve in a body that’s often told to be silent.

    “This isn’t a history lesson. This is your self trying to find home again.” — Ana Mael

    This Is a Prayer for a World in Crisis

    This episode is not just about personal sorrow—it’s about global soul fatigue.

    We are witnessing multiple layers of grief, often without clear paths to resolut...

  • I Survived Genocide: This Is What I Didn't Survive—And You Won't Either

    I Survived Genocide: This Is What I Didn't Survive—And You Won't Either

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    In this unfiltered, soul-witnessing episode of Exiled and Rising, Ana Mael reads directly from page 185 of her memoir The Trauma We Don’t Talk About. This is a reading and reflection—not from the past, but from the living, ongoing truth of what genocide does to the body, the nervous system, and the identity.

    In a world where genocide is happening in real-time, and where survivors are still being erased in therapy rooms, courtrooms, and spiritual circles, Ana Mael offers a rare and urgent voice—as a licensed somatic trauma therapist, a war refugee, and a genocide survivor.

    Her words come not from theory, but from the bones of lived experience.
    From decades of witnessing the aftermath—in her own body, in her clients' stories, and in the nervous systems of those who were never fully seen.

    And that’s what makes this episode so politically vital:

    She is one of the only trauma professionals publicly naming genocide from both inside and outside the field.

    She speaks not just of healing—but of truth, justice, and dignity as non-negotiable parts of trauma recovery.

    She refuses to sanitize or spiritualize violence to make it more palatable for systems that benefit from silence.

    In a time where:

    Genocides are denied

    Survivors are dismissed

    Wellness spaces avoid politics

    And therapy often demands forgiveness without accountability…

    Ana does something radical.
    She tells the truth.
    She calls for justice.
    She names what others are too afraid—or too removed—to touch.

    This is not just a podcast.
    This is testimony.
    This is somatic resistance.
    This is advocacy through the nervous system.
    And it’s what makes Exiled and Rising one of the most politically and spiritually relevant trauma podcasts of our time.

    ❤️ Support the mission & keep the podcast alive and ad FREE: Donate

    Join Premium Membership for deeper dives, distilled micro-lessons and therapy takeaways for this episode.

    Core Themes and Lessons:

    Surviving genocide is not the whole story. Ana survived three wars, like her parents and grandparents. Fifty-eight people survived—but what wasn’t survived was the genocide of the self: name, childhood, innocence, and humanity.

    Resilience comes with a cost. The fear wired into bones doesn’t disappear. What looks like strength to others may feel like unlivable tension inside the body.

    This isn’t a history lesson—it’s a nervous system reality. When your body has prepared itself to survive genocide, it does not unlearn that readiness easily. It carries that into daily life, decades later: into work, relationships, parenting, and even moments of stillness.

    Identity trauma is cumulative, not just personal. If the genocide of your ethnicity, religion, and humanity is never acknowledged, your children will inherit the silence. Your grandchildren will inherit the somatic residue of shame and loss.

    What we don’t say becomes our sickness. This episode...

  • You Need Justice, Not Breathwork: Imprisoned By Others – Part 1

    You Need Justice, Not Breathwork: Imprisoned By Others – Part 1

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    Why healing becomes a prison when it doesn’t include justice, relational repair, and acknowledgement? In this direct, unfiltered episode of Exiled and Rising, Ana invites you into the truth that most trauma spaces avoid: healing alone is not enough. Drawing from lived experience and years of working with those displaced by war, harmed by family, or erased by systems, in first part you will learn why

    “Doing the work” often keeps you stuck

    Praise like “you’re so strong” is not empowering—it’s dismissive

    Spiritual language can become a tool of silencing

    Your nervous system knows when repair hasn’t happened—no matter how much breathwork you’ve done

    Some healing spaces are not meant to be “inclusive,” and why that’s not a flaw—it’s a boundary rooted in dignity

    This is not a conversation about love-and-light healing. This is a reckoning with the deeper layers of trauma: relational, systemic, and embodied.

    This episode is not gentle—but it is honest.
    It is not about rising above—but about refusing to carry it alone anymore.

    You’ll feel called in, not called out.
    You’ll hear the truth you may have needed for years:
    You’re not broken. You’re not too much. You’re not behind.

    You’re navigating a healing world that often tells you to meditate your way out of harm while refusing to name what actually hurt you.

    This episode gives you language for what your nervous system already knows:
    Breathwork can’t fix betrayal.
    Affirmations can’t replace accountability.
    And healing without justice isn’t healing—it’s another abandonment.

    If you’ve ever sat in a wellness space and felt invisible…
    If you’ve ever been praised for your strength while still bleeding inside…
    If you’ve ever wondered if your pain was your fault—
    This episode is for you.

    It’s a reckoning.
    It’s a remembering.
    It’s an offering of truth, rage, and relief—on your terms.

    Key Topics Covered:

    The myth of solo healing and how it becomes a trap

    Why spiritual bypassing and “positivity” can retraumatize

    The difference between internalized and externalized abandonment

    The body’s demand for relational justice, not just regulation

    What it actually means to seek justice—without revenge

    Ana’s radical truth: “Healing is not your job alone. It never was.”

    Lessons & Takeaways:

    ✔️ You are not failing at healing—the model may be broken
    ✔️ Your desire for repair, truth, and justice is not a flaw
    ✔️ Healing must happen in the context of what hurt you
    ✔️ You have a right to say: “I need acknowledgment. I need justice.”
    ✔️ You don’t owe anyone your strength. You deserve to be held in your truth—not admired for your endurance

    If this episode stirred something in your bones…
    If you’ve been made to feel that your pain is personal failure...
    If you’re tired of carrying everyone’s comfort while your wounds remain unnamed...

    Share this episode. Leave a review. Support the work.
    This isn’t just a podcast—it’s a space for truth, justice, and radical repair.

    ❤️ Support the mission & keep the podcast alive and ad FREE: Donate<...

  • Your Wound Is Your Medicine: Turn Harm Into Resistance, Justice, and Power

    Your Wound Is Your Medicine: Turn Harm Into Resistance, Justice, and Power

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    “Everything that was done to harm me became the medicine to heal me.” Ana transforms her lived experience—statelessness, war, violations—into a global invitation: your pain can become your political and spirtual quest for justice.

    “When I was humiliated, I healed by honoring the person in front of me.”

    Ana’s poetic yet grounded declarations are rooted in real trauma, real politics, and collective memory. Here’s what she teaches through lived truth:

    Oppression

    “When I was oppressed…”

    Refers to her survival of authoritarian regimes, war, and systemic violence. The trauma of state violence and patriarchal control lives in the body while living under censorship, exile, surveillance.

    Medicine: Protecting others still in systems of oppression and voicing what others fear to name.

    Humiliation

    “When I was humiliated…”

    The internalized shame of being stateless, judged for ethnicity, accent, class, or gender. Humiliation is a tool of erasure. This is the wound of dignity for all exiled people.

    Medicine: Offering reverence, respect, and dignity in every human encounter.

    Being Discarded

    “When I was discarded…”

    Capitalist and cultural disposability—being treated as unworthy due to economic status, trauma history, or displacement. Abandonment—by systems, by people. It signals dehumanization, invisibility, and being treated as expendable.

    Medicine: Advocating for those seen as burdens by dominant systems.

    Mockery / Being Laughed At

    “When I was laughed at…”

    Reflects the pain of being ridiculed for difference—often experienced by immigrants, neurodivergent individuals, and racialized bodies.

    Medicine: Becoming a voice of celebration and affirmation for the “othered.”

    Censorship

    “When my voice was censored…”

    Survivors of war, immigrants, and trauma often lose their voice in silence, assimilation, and authoritarian culture. Points to both literal and metaphorical censorship—Due to Ana identity, her message, her activism. She speaks of growing up in cultures of obedience, surveillance, and exile.

    Medicine: Writing and speaking as a radical act of resistance and remembrance.

    Silence

    “When I was silenced…”

    Represents spiritual, cultural, and interpersonal silencing. A form of erasure that numbs the body and kills the soul. Deeper than censorship—this is the inherited trauma of submission for survival. It implies internalized trauma and generational disempowerment.

    Medicine: Breaking generational silence and allowing grief, anger, and truth to be heard.

    ❤️ Support the mission & keep the podcast alive and Ad-Free, Junk-Content-Free Experience – No distractions, no unnecessary content—just focused healing insights.

    Donate

    From Trauma to Resilience. From Wounds to Resistance!

    Takeaways & Transformations

    Your wounds are not flaws. They are portals.
    Use them to reconnect with others, resist injustice, and rebuild nervous system safety.

    Healing is activism.
    Naming what harmed you—without apol...

  • Prayer as Resistance: For Marginalized, Censored, Ostracized and Unseen

    Prayer as Resistance: For Marginalized, Censored, Ostracized and Unseen

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing
    This Is Not Just a Prayer. This Is a Protest.

    This episode is a somatic and spiritual response to systemic exclusion. In a time when book bans, anti-immigration laws, transphobia, genocide, censhorship and the rise of authoritarianism are threatening the safety and dignity of marginalized people ( and everyone with voice), Ana Mael offers a counterspell of embodied belonging.

    "For all exiled and undocumented citizens who live in fear and uncertainty like I do, may we find safety, justice, and the recognition of our inherent dignity and human rights."

    This episode is your space to pause and reclaim your place—without performance, forgiveness, or silence.

    ❤️Support the mission & keep the podcast alive and Ad-Free : Donate

    Ana Mael’s Prayer for Outsiders is powerful because it is not just a prayer—it is a form of embodied political resistance, a somatic intervention, and a spiritual homecoming for those who have been historically marginalized, censored, and erased.

    Here’s why it hits so deeply:

    1. It Names What Is Often Left Unspoken

    Ana doesn’t generalize suffering—she names it: exile, racism, statelessness, queerphobia, mental health stigma, immigration status, poverty, appearance, and accent. These are the exact reasons people are cut off, and in naming them, she performs a radical act of witnessing.

    “For all exiled and undocumented citizens who live in fear and uncertainty like I do…”

    This specific, intersectional witnessing creates an immediate nervous system drop in for the listener: “She’s talking about me. My story is here.”

    2. It Offers Spiritual Language Without Spiritual Bypassing

    Many trauma survivors have been harmed by religion or silenced by spiritual platitudes like “forgive and move on.” Ana refuses that. Her prayer reclaims the sacred without demanding silence, forgiveness, or peace.

    “You do not owe anyone forgiveness if it doesn’t feel right for you.”

    This is soul-level validation for survivors who have long been forced to carry the weight of healing without justice.

    3. It Uses Voice and Rhythm as Somatic Co-Regulation

    The cadence, pace, and pauses in the prayer are intentional. They create a safe rhythm for listeners to slow down their breath, drop into their body, and feel less alone.

    In a time of crisis, regulation is revolutionary. The prayer becomes a nervous system intervention—especially for those experiencing:

    Anxiety and hypervigilance

    Emotional overwhelm

    Dissociation or shutdown

    Chronic loneliness and grief

    4. It Is Both Personal and Collective

    By saying “like I often feel” or “as I sometimes am”, Ana merges the individual and the collective. This is trauma-informed solidarity—not as a performance, but as co-regulated presence.

    “You belong to all of us with so many differences… even when you feel alone.”

    This line undoes internalized alienation in real time.

    5. It Reclaims Prayer as a Form of Advocacy

    Prayer here is not a performa...

  • For the Anxious Hours When It's All Too Much: Somatic Prayer With Divine

    For the Anxious Hours When It's All Too Much: Somatic Prayer With Divine

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    Use somatic prayer for the moments when your nervous system feels pushed to the edge. Ana Mael offers more than words—she offers a relational space with the Divine, where overwhelm, fear and anxiety softens and the body remembers safety.

    This episode is not instructional or analytical—it is experiential. Ana Mael guides the listener through a deeply felt, somatic prayer invoking the Divine as a holding field—a co-regulatory presence where pain can be witnessed, grief released, and softening begins. It is a trauma-informed spiritual immersion.

    “In the pregnant pause, you’ll start to feel. In relational space, relief will show up on your face.”

    This poetic, minimalist episode—“The Day With Divine”—serves as a sacred pause, a gentle invocation to enter relational space with the Divine for grief and anxiety release, nervous system softening, and trauma-informed self-attunement.

    When you’re overwhelmed, anxious, or triggered—this isn’t only about calming down. It’s about being witnessed.

    Main Takeaway

    Healing begins in the pause—not in the fixing, striving, or explaining.
    It is in the "pregnant pause,” the felt relational moment, that softness, grief, and trust can begin to re-emerge.

    “Let that happen. Soften and lean into the holding with the divine.”

    ❤️ Donate What This Gentle Prayer Can Offer Your Nervous System

    A co-regulatory somatic space for listeners with trauma, dissociation, or emotional overwhelm to lean into tenderness rather than collapse.

    Spiritual safety for those harmed by religious or authoritarian spiritual environments, by offering the Divine not as judge, but as witness.

    A felt sense of acceptance—not through words, but through presence.

    For listeners with trauma histories—especially marginalized, exiled, or emotionally neglected individuals—this offers a rare space of non-demanding, embodied belonging.

    How to Use Somatic Prayer

    As a grounding practice during moments of overwhelm or disconnection

    At the start or end of therapy sessions, particularly somatic or spiritual therapy

    In spiritual trauma recovery, as an alternative image of Divine love: not patriarchal or moralistic, but co-regulatory and tender

    In grief work or emotional release sessions, to help attune the nervous system to presence and safety

    Repeatable Practice

    This prayer is meant to be replayed—not just heard once. Its healing potential lies in repetition and nervous system re-patterning through gentle voice tone, rhythm, and poetic cadence.

    You can:

    Play it during morning or nighttime rituals

    Use it to reconnect with their breath, heart, or tears

    Build a consistent ritual of “being with”—rather than bypassing or fixing

    Ana’s Unique Offering

    This episode reveals Ana Mael's rare ability to blend somatic wisdom with poetic invocation, offering both the spiritual attunement and trauma-informed sensitivity needed for authentic healing.

  • You Don't Need To Forgive: Privileged Tool Of Silencing

    You Don't Need To Forgive: Privileged Tool Of Silencing

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    You don’t owe forgiveness to anyone who hurt you. In this unapologetic and deeply validating episode, Ana Mael dismantles the harmful myth that forgiveness is a requirement for healing. With clarity and compassion, Ana speaks directly to marginalized, BIPOC, and harmed individuals who’ve been told—explicitly or subtly—that their healing must include forgiving those who caused their pain.

    Instead, Ana offers a radical truth: you do not owe anyone forgiveness—especially if doing so betrays your dignity, survival, or truth.

    This radical truth reclaims your healing from shame, spiritual pressure, and performative peace.

    Social, Cultural & Political Significance

    This episode exposes how the expectation to forgive is often a covert mechanism of control, especially when applied to BIPOC, marginalized, and oppressed individuals. Ana Mael challenges the dominant narrative with this unapologetic truth:

    “You do not owe anyone forgiveness if it doesn't feel right for you.”

    This is not just a personal declaration—it is a political one.

    Racialized, Gendered, and Class-Based Expectations

    Across cultures, marginalized bodies have been forced to carry the burden of peacekeeping. They’re expected to “rise above,” to be spiritual, graceful, non-reactive—even in the face of dehumanization. But as Ana says:

    “This is another white privilege thing we are facing. Forgive… so I feel better. Forgive… so you don’t become a potential threat.”

    Forgiveness, in this context, is not healing. It’s containment.

    Psychological Impact: Survivors internalize the message that their pain is inconvenient, their anger dangerous, and their boundaries selfish.

    Behavioral Adaptations: This can result in chronic people-pleasing, freeze responses, emotional repression, and dissociation. Over time, these adaptive responses erode self-trust and the ability to recognize harm.

    Forgiveness as a Tool of Power Preservation

    “Forgiveness has become more and more of a tool for privileged ones, for entitled ones... to overlook injustices done to minorities.”

    This insight cuts to the heart of power dynamics. Ana exposes how forgiveness becomes another “respectability test,” used to protect perpetrators and institutions while bypassing the survivor’s reality.

    In churches, wellness spaces, and families, survivors are told to forgive not for their healing, but to ease the discomfort of others.

    Ana names this clearly:

    “Many times people tell you to forgive so they can feel better. It is for their convenience, not yours.”

    Spiritual Bypassing and Colonized Healing

    “Many spiritual communities betray our healing journey.”

    Ana dismantles spiritual bypassing as a form of emotional gaslighting wrapped in sacred language.

    Westernized, appropriated spiritual teachings often turn forgiveness into a status symbol of moral superiority, where “if you forgive, you are evolved.”

    But this creates moral hierarchy and re-traumatizes those still in the process of metabolizing their truth.

    As Ana warns:

    “If you're not ready or if you choose not to forgive, that relational field is not safe, and healing is not happening.”


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  • Terrible Knowledge: What Trauma Taught You That No One Else Can

    Terrible Knowledge: What Trauma Taught You That No One Else Can

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    Ana’s own history as a genocide and war survivor roots this episode in lived experience, offering not abstract theory—but guidance forged in lived pain.

    What if the hardest parts of your life—the pain, the silence, the survival—taught you a wisdom more powerful than any degree?


    In this episode, Ana Mael calls it Terrible Knowledge—the kind of embodied truth that only trauma survivors carry, and the world desperately needs.

    This is not about minimizing your pain. It’s about reclaiming the deep, lived expertise born in survival, silence, hyper-awareness, and loss. Ana challenges the dominant narratives that label trauma survivors as broken and instead honors their embodied intelligence.


    ❤️ Support the mission & keep the podcast alive and ad FREE: DonateWhat You’ll Learn:Why trauma survivors carry “terrible knowledge” no university can teachHow your lived experience holds value in healing, leadership, and social changeSomatic practices to begin honoring your body’s wisdomWhy “making space for the truth” is a radical act of healing and resistanceHow reclaiming this knowledge rewrites the story of your identityKey Insight from Ana:

    “50 PhDs can’t accumulate the knowledge you gained by living with trauma.”

    Who This Episode Is For:Survivors of trauma, war, displacement, or systemic oppressionAnyone who’s ever been told they’re “too sensitive” or “too much”Therapists working with complex PTSD and marginalized clientsListeners seeking real trauma healing—not surface-level fixesCommunities reclaiming ancestral, cultural, or embodied knowledgeResearch & Therapeutic Framework:Neuroplasticity in trauma survivors (Teicher et al.)Somatic Experiencing & titration (Levine, 2010)Embodied resistance as a social justice practiceRadical visibility & post-traumatic growth theoryThe role of narrative and identity in healingTakeaways You Can Use Today:Make space for the “terrible knowledge” your body carriesBegin witnessing your lived wisdom without minimizing or dismissing itUse Ana’s journal prompts and somatic practices to reclaim voice and presenceJoin a trauma-informed community where truth is honored and healing is embodiedTrauma Type Explored

    Complex Trauma (C-PTSD): Ongoing exposure to neglect, control, or abuse—especially in childhood.

    Systemic & Political Trauma: Exile, genocide, censorship, surveillance—often dismissed by Western therapeutic models.

    Cultural Displacement: Having to survive in environments that erase or invalidate one’s truth, accent, heritage, or resistance.

    Ana’s own history as a genocide and war survivor roots this episode in lived experience, offering not abstract theory—but guidance forged in lived pain.

    Want More?

    Join Exiled and Rising Premium Membership to get:

    ✔️ Bite-sized somatic learning summaries
    ✔️ Therapy-ready takeaways for journaling or sessions
    ✔️ Research-based trauma tools...

  • Withdrawn and Lonely: The Trauma of Not Being Welcomed

    Withdrawn and Lonely: The Trauma of Not Being Welcomed

    · Exiled & Rising: Trauma Recovery & Somatic Healing

    Withdrawal is a deep somatic adaptation to chronic unsafety, invisibility, and social erasure. Ana identifies withdrawal not as a symptom to be “fixed,” but as a brilliant survival strategy when someone has never felt safe, welcomed, or truly allowed to exist as they are. Welcome to Exiled and Rising. Please follow and rate and always share to others who need to hear this.

    Social and Cultural Relevance

    Ana’s work becomes a mirror for our time. In 2025, with rising political authoritarianism, cultural censorship, and the silencing of minority and independent voices, this episode is a somatic protest.

    “If you have been silenced… Welcome.”

    She provides language for the body in a time when language is being censored, surveilled, and politicized. This is particularly potent for:

    Activists and whistleblowersImmigrants and undocumented peopleTrauma survivors who were never given words for what they endured
    ❤️ Support the mission & keep the podcast alive and ad FREE: DonateSOMATIC IMPACT OF WITHDRAWAL

    Withdrawal is not avoidance or passivity—it’s a nervous system shutdown in response to:

    Chronic unsafety (home, society, or internal landscape)

    Unwelcome identity (race, body, accent, orientation)

    Invisible pain (displacement, exile, suppression)

    Types of Trauma Addressed

    This episode implicitly and explicitly names multiple intersecting traumas:

    Attachment trauma: lack of welcome and relational safety in early development.Complex PTSD: from systemic oppression, long-term abuse, or exile.Social trauma: caused by racism, xenophobia, colonialism, ableism, etc.Intergenerational trauma: observing parents or ancestors living in submission, silence, or fear.Political trauma: living under surveillance, censorship, or erasure.

    Ana Mael connects each of these to somatic responses—specifically the state of withdrawal—which becomes the body’s last defense in the face of repeated invisibility or harm.

    Ana’s reference to “pleasurable contact” is deeply significant.

    “There is no contact, there is no pleasure. There is only threat.”

    This suggests a complete loss of social engagement and safe sensory input—essential components for neurobiological repair.

    Without pleasure, safe touch, or welcome, the nervous system cannot down-regulate. Over time, this can lead to:

    Low vagal toneSuppressed immunityDigestive and hormonal dysregulationChronic fatigue and inflammationPsychological and Somatic Framework

    “We withdraw when nothing around us is safe.”

    Ana reframes withdrawal as a biological response to terror, not a flaw. This is aligned with polyvagal theory (Dr. Stephen Porges), which describes how the dorsal vagal shutdown leads to freeze, collapse, and dissociation when safety is chronically unavailable.

    The Somatic Roots of Withdrawal:Disconnection from engage...
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