How to Build Resilience After Trauma with Jennifer Buljan [The Sacred Style Podcast-Ep. 7]
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What we cover:
[00:00:00] - Welcome to the Sacred Style Podcast
[00:02:08] - Journey to a Vibrational Therapy Practitioner
[00:07:35] - Trip to a Holistic Dentist
[00:11:58] - When the Soul Knows it Knows
[00:23:40] - How Sound Works
[00:26:00] - We All Have a Separate Master Vibration
[00:37:06] - Emotion is a Vibration
[00:44:03] - Shame is not an Organic Emotion
[00:47:26] - Final Thoughts & Where to Connect
Daniela:
Hey, there, and welcome to the sacred style. Podcast. This is a safe space for empaths, intuitives, healers, and artists, where we get real and go deep to explore the intersection of spirituality, entrepreneurship, personal branding, self expression, and the fine art and journey of being human.
So I'm your host, Daniela West, artist, designer, brand, coach, and astrologer, as well as founder of the Humanista Co. Where we transform spiritual brands into spiritual magnets to amplify your purpose, impact, and abundance. So in today's episode, we're going to be diving into a powerful conversation around building resiliency and perseverance from trauma and the healing power of vibration. So, to expand more on this topic today, I'll be speaking with Jennifer Buljan, a certified vibrational therapy practitioner who specializes in helping people connect back to the wisdom of their bodies through sound and vibration. So, Jennifer, I am so excited to have you here. How are you? How are you today?
Jennifer Buljan:
00:01:09 Hey, girl, I'm doing good. I am so totally psyched to be here. This is kind of surreal looking at you in this seat, and just so awesome. And I'm so excited. This is like 2 friends just talking.
Daniela:
00:01:26 I know.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:01:27 This is kind of like a normal conversation for us, except.
Daniela:
00:01:34 No, literally. So Jen and I. We go back. We go back many years, we have known each other as friends and entrepreneurs together, cheering each other on on this journey, and pretty much every time we talk, we have deep conversations that I've been saying for years needs to become podcast episodes.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:01:54 Oh, that's true. You have always said that.
Daniel:
00:01:58 Right.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:01:58 Oh, true. Yeah. Yeah.
Daniela:
00:02:01 Literally for years. I'm like, Jen, this is gold we got. We gotta share this wisdom with the world.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:02:02 Yeah. And here we are. And here we are.
Daniela:
00:02:02 Yeah, we are. Yeah, it's gonna be a super fun episode. Well, fun, but also deep.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:02:05 Yes. I'm ready.
Daniela
00:02:08 She's ready. Y'all, so, Jen, I would love to hear more about you. I know our audience would love to hear more about you. Can you tell us a little bit more about your story? Your journey, that kind of led you into being where you are now as a vibrational therapy practitioner.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:02:26 Yes, I would love to. So right now, I'm currently living in Croatia, which is temporary. I've been here for, I think it's been just about a little over 5 months now, and so I was actually born in Croatia, and I was adopted. So I was in an orphanage until roughly around the age of 3, so I was adopted by an American family by 3 and a half, and brought to live in New York City. So I was raised in Queens, New York.
So I come from a family of a lot of dysfunction. My father was an alcoholic, a narcissistic alcoholic, and my parents got divorced when I was 6 years old They had a very volatile relationship, very bitter, lots of fighting. Even after the divorce, there was never a moment of peace between the 2 of them. I also have a brother. He's not blood related, and he was adopted also from Croatia. And the both of us were caught between a lot of dysfunction. My brother became very violent, and so there was a lot. I grew up in a household where there was a lot of emotional abuse, physical abuse. A lot of neglect, a lot of wounded people trying to live together in one household.
So, as much as I resented my father and his absentness, and his abuse and his alcoholism. I definitely followed in his footsteps, so as an early teen, I started drinking very early on, and alcohol was definitely my escape. So alcohol, cigarettes just escapism all around. I went out, and I partied all the time. And I had kind of a reckless life in my teenage years, and was pretty estranged from my mother and brother a lot of the times. We could never find moments where we all fully connected. So I grew up in a household where there was not an opportunity for me to express, to have a voice to be heard, and fully seen. I didn't receive the emotional. My emotional needs were not met. My parents were incapable also, before I continue, you know I don't say this with any judgment or blame anymore. I've actually come to a point in my life where I've forgiven both of my parents.
My father is no longer living. I have currently a what I like to say a good relationship as best as it can be with my mother right now, and I'm happy with that. And so when I talk about these things, there's no sense of real blame. I've fully taken on the responsibility of healing, and when you do that, you have to forgive. And so is my responsibility to heal. So I just want to put that out there that it's important forgiveness is a big aspect of it.
But anyway, continuing on in my life, I think I always knew something was wrong with me. But there was something wrong with me that I couldn't quite pinpoint. I went from relationship to relationship, constantly seeking some sort of savior or some sort of validation. I seeked external validation through every relationship, every job, every opportunity I possibly could, because I deeply did not love myself, and I had no self-worth and I was just riddled with my addictions, and I started fires everywhere I went, you know, and I would start these fires and then leave, and then just be like screw this, you know, and I'm off to the next thing, and, you know, blamed everybody else for my problem. I was just a shit storm of emotional, just a shit storm of emotions, you know, and it wasn't until I was in my early thirties that I first hear the term complex trauma.
00:06:13 Her complex post-traumatic stress disorder, which is very different than Cptsd, is very different than Ptsd. And I heard it through a friend of mine that also had it and spoke about her dysfunctional family that she grew up in. And to be honest, on the outside, I saw what a mess she was. Yeah, but she was just a mirror, really. And when she spoke about complex trauma, I really did not want to accept at that stage in my life that I had this because and it wasn't from a place of ego or pride, I knew that accepting responsibility for complex trauma would mean.
00:07:40 Then it's a responsibility to heal. Then it's an awareness and a responsibility, and it's going to take everything out of me. And I wasn't fully ready to stop being a shit storm. And so I was like, we're not going here yet, you know. And so I went on with my life, and I quite by accident. I got an abscessed tooth. If anybody has ever experienced that you need emergency oral surgery. My face swelled out, and I went to the only holistic dentist I could find in Manhattan.
00:07:35 Her name was Dr. Bran, of the Bran Wellness Institute, and I will never forget her, and she is the first person to introduce me to sound therapy, a dentist. And so I went to her dental office with my face fold out, and I it felt like a spa. She had spa music on. She had books on energy healing. She had like sound therapy stuff, and all this stuff which just did not mix with my idea of a dentist, you know, so I'm like what the what is going on here. And when I met her, I needed so much dental work done, and so I would see her every week, for, like the next 3 months. And what can you do? You're in the chair, you know, throughout Hope, and so she's proceeding to tell me her life story, basically. And she started to tell me about her struggle with chronic Lyme disease and the co-infections of Lyme disease. And and she. She battled it for 20 years, and she really ran the gamut of Western medicine, trying to find a cure for herself.
00:08:24 A friend of hers brought her a Tibetan bowl one day and was like, I don't know. Maybe this can help you. And she said something really interesting which I didn't understand at the time. But I understand fully now, she says, when you're dealing with chronic illness, and you can also say trauma when you're dealing with serious trauma or chronic illness. There comes a point in your life where you absolutely lose your ego. And if someone told me, Jen, this is going to be the cure for complex trauma. Go eat this squid or something, I don't know, and I would do it. You know what I mean, like you lose. You're just so like, what does it take? You know what I mean?.
00:09:12 And so she was at that stage in her life where she was like all right, give me this damn bowl like, what? What is it going to do, you know? And what she found was it started to do something to her mentally, and it started to have an effect on her on her brain waves, and then from the brain affected her body and her central nervous system. And and she started working with these bowls more and more, and she started to find that was offsetting the symptoms of chronic Lyme disease without medication, using sound and frequency.
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Daniela:
00:09:46 Wow!
Jennifer Buljan:
00:09:46 Yeah, long story short. So she enrolled in courses and she became certified sound practitioner, and then she incorporated it into her dental practice. So this is where she kind of sold me, you know, essentially, is that she lost her business entirely through chronic Lyme disease, and she lost, you know, people, friends, family. She lost a lot of money, stability.
00:10:18 And it was in that moment that she was given this big, you know, this gift to try something different to totally delve into this area, and it changed the course of her life. And so now she's a dentist. Yeah. So she switched to holistic dentistry. So she changed her practice, and she started healing people. So after a dental session, she would use tuning forks on me. And she would teach me about Tibetan and bowl healing and crystal bowl healing and binaural beats and frequencies, and how they heal the body.
00:10:51 And so, she shifted me, and when I started to experience the sound in her dentist chair, you know, and she would have this. I remember the first time she put tuning forks to my ears. My brain went apeshit, just absolute apeshit. And then, all of a sudden, silence, and I had realized from that stage on in my life I had never had a silent mind. Not once. There was never a moment where there wasn't chaos here. And I was floored. I said, you know, afterwards, like I had no thoughts like Whoa, you know. And so, anyway, I started to really feel the change in my body, leaving my dentist office, starting to feel this, this elevated. Feeling.
00:11:40 Long story short, she introduced me to so many books, so many practices. I ate up everything, and after our time was finished, I felt renewed, like. I felt like I had a sense of purpose. I never before had something called to me in such a way. And yet, being completely unknown to this, like not even knowing what it's going to do, or you know, not even being a hundred percent completely sure. But that's the soul.
00:11:58 You know, when the soul knows it knows, and you can't. There's no rationalizing that. There's no, you know, mentally trying to work that out. You just go. And so I found a school, and it was called the Vibrational Sound Association, and they're based out in Nebraska, and all I know is, I saw those bowls you did hands on work. You got a certification. I was like I'm in. And I signed up, and they travel around the world. And it was so by chance that right? When I signed up, they were coming to Queens, New York, like, nobody comes to Queens, New York. Okay. So like, they were coming to Queens, New York and and giving this whole big course. And I signed up, and it was literally the next month. And so I enrolled in that course, and I can tell you this as a person who deeply traumatized person. The first couple of days, you know, we worked with people. So we got hands on work. We got to have the bowls on us and work with us.
00:12:56 And I spent the first couple of days just crying my eyes out. There was all this repressed emotion just coming to the surface nonstop, and I couldn't even identify what was happening or what I was feeling. I just knew my body desperately, desperately needed this. You know, that started my path in my sound healing career, or I guess, or journey was that? And then, after that, I kept getting certification after certification, I could not stop learning. I think the learning part was more important for me, because I was a traumatized person. I was used to what's called dissociation.
00:13:41 And dissociation is when usually happens in childhood. Trauma. This is when it's learned, is, if you grow up in a house of abuse or trauma, or neglect. You disconnect from your body. And the reason you do this is because you don't want to experience the emotion, so your mind will tuck it away, and it'll get stored in the cells of your body. And you think, Oh, I'm not going to deal with this. But what happens is you are widening the gap between you and your physical body. And and so, because I had learned to dissociate for so long. When I finally went into these sound sessions, and I received vibration on the body. It was a flood of emotions that was all stuck throughout my body. And so I became fascinated with this, and when I finished the course, the certification I wanted to work on everybody I knew, like my passion was at a thousand, and I just felt so deeply moved by by this work. And I, even though it was only moments of feeling this peace within my body. I never knew you could feel this peace. I never knew that this was a natural state of being, and so I knew that at some point I would balance out, and I could feel this for long periods of time, and I could give this to other people that was also traumatized.
00:15:12 And so that journey has taken me everywhere, and I was discussing with you earlier. One of the proudest moments of my life is, I just finished writing a book, and I wrote a book on 4 sound practitioners on the importance of being trauma informed, because I spent the last 8 years in sound healing, and it has taken me everywhere. I've gotten to work with cancer patients, people with Ptsd complex trauma, severe depression. I've got to work with kids, you know, sound baths, and our great friend Lynn. That's a trauma formed Yoga therapist, you know. We worked in collaboration, having all these trauma workshops helping people get trauma out of the body, stored trapped trauma out of the body. And so, yeah, it's kind of taken me everywhere. And it's still something I'm so passionate about. And I took a break about 7 months ago, I because I deal with complex trauma. I also suffer from burnout very easily. And 7 months ago, I reached another point where I reached Burnout, and I made the decision to come back to Croatia because I knew that there was still a core wound that I needed to face, and that was my abandonment issue and the wounds surrounding my upbringing here. And so that's where it's taken me. And that's kind of where I am now. I know that was like a mouthful.
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Daniela:
00:16:31 No, that's okay. First of all, I want to say thank you for being so open and vulnerable about your journey so far. I know you know. Something that brought us together as friends several years ago was we had so many commonalities in our upbringing, in our backgrounds, I mean, growing up in a dysfunctional home, you know, witnessing and experiencing different forms of abuse and addiction, and Cptsd and all that fun stuff, I mean. But you know, we have these commonalities in our backgrounds. And I think that's that's 1 of the things that brought us close together. In the first place, one thing I want to comment on is. I think, when people come together and bond through trauma, one of 2 things can happen, and maybe you've experienced this as well or noticed this in some of your friendships, where. I have come across people with, you know, similar traumatic upbringing. Either I have trauma bonded with them. And we just continue. You know, we just mirror back and forth the similarities and the pain, and we sort of just perpetuate and reflect and cycle through the similar painful stories, but I have noticed that in staying in that trauma bond, it can create so much stagnancy.
00:18:01 It can almost it can just kind of trap you in the same narratives that are keeping you caged from your fullest expression and fullest expansion. And so either you stay in the trauma bond and just kind of get stuck on that trauma hamster wheel. Or if both people have the desire to grow and heal, and expand beyond the limitations of trauma. Through the mirroring of that connection, both can find the resiliency to break free from that trauma. Either in mutual support of each other. Or sometimes there does come a crossroads where people might have to break off separately and go on their separate healing journey. With the understanding that you know people with similar trauma can all serve as teachers and mirrors for what? What needs to be healed from within? And you said something really interesting, I mean, so many interesting things in your story. But one of the things I heard was with this dentist, for example.
Have you ever Have you ever heard of the hero's journey where, let's say, like you're Luke Skywalker, right?
00:19:25 You're Luke Skywalker, you! You've got the power, you've got the special gift inside of you. You've got the force, but you're unaware of it. Right? It's from you. And you're you go through all this struggle and all this pain, like a horrible, painful toothache in your case, is what you go through all this pain, and suddenly you kind of hit Rock bottom. You're in so much pain. You're blind to yourself and what to do. Then in comes Yoda. In comes Yoda to illuminate this power that you actually have inside of you that just needs the right environment, the right tools, the right training to unlock it.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:19:26 Yeah.
Daniela:
00:19:26 So I feel like in your story that led you into this work. This dentist was your Yoda.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:19:47 I love how you put that, that's spot on. Spot on.
Daniela:
00:19:53 Yeah. And now, how beautiful is it that you get to actually play the role of Yoda in other people's lives?
Jennifer Buljan:
00:20:01 That's so cool. I never. That's a great analogy. And I never thought it that way. But yeah, it is. And I think, you know, there had to be a stage. You have to reach the Yoda point, right, I guess. Like, you know, you're not ready. You're not ready until you're ready, like the student becomes the master. And you know all of that kind of thing. And one of the things that I write in this book before I start. The book is, I wanted to stress the importance of your personal story because it was always people's personal story that inspired me. And it wasn't that she was so magnetic in talking about sound healing. It's what she overcame and how she healed herself. It was her story in the reciting of her story to me that was inspiring, you know, and I think my whole life I've come across people like that that have always been the Yoda, and you know, and showing me that, like, you know, they they've cultivated this power within when nothing else was working, no matter what they did or what they tried, and that's also the soul's journey to make us go all the way around, only to come back home. You know, this is, you're exactly where you need to be. You just have to love and accept yourself and know that you have the innate ability to heal yourself, you know. So yeah, I love how you.
Daniela:
00:21:43 Yes, we all have the innate ability to heal ourselves. One of the other things I heard in your story. Was when discovering sound therapy, discovering the bowls sitting in the dentist's office. It was the first time that you ever experienced true silence, and in your mind. And I can definitely relate, you know, growing up in a traumatic household. It creates this like constant restlessness and chaos, and desire to escape your inner world. It's what I experienced before going on my healing journey as well, and going back to the bowls. I'm hearing like the biggest transformation that it created for you was was inner peace for the first time ever.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:22:34 Yes, it was inner peace, but it was also a reconnection to self. I did not recognize how disconnected I was to self into my physical body. And so when I say it's a journey of bringing people back to the wisdom of their body. Sound is very empowering that way. Because it makes you the healer. You know. I'm just the person with the tools, and I've had the experience and the journey. But you're to be empowered in my presence. I'm not here to save you, and that's kind of what I really loved about sound, because a big part of my journey was about empowering myself and stepping into my own power. And so when I'm in a session with somebody. I really tell them nothing. I let the bowls do the work. Of course I you know I have to be in a state of, you know, calm, and I hope that I hold that I have their trust, and that there are. You know, I have a level of empathy, and that's another beautiful thing my trauma has given me is a depth of empathy and compassion for people, and to sit with people and hear their darkest, deepest shadows and traumas coming out and being able to sit with them without judgment, and allow the space for them to express something that they've never been able to express.
00:23:40 Can I talk a little bit about how sound works? So maybe if they aren't familiar, they get a better idea. So I think most people are familiar with sound therapy or sound baths, because it's kind of all over the place now. But 8 years ago, when I started, there wasn't so many sound practitioners, and nobody really knew what sound baths are, now that we're kind of inundated with sound. It can also be really overwhelming. And I can understand people do not really know what it does and how effective it can be. And so my first certification it was called vibrational, sound therapy practitioner. Even in the placement of those words. It's very important. Vibration always comes before sound. And so if you ask. What's the definition of sound in basic terms? Sound is anything that vibrates. And then what's the definition of vibration in basic terms? Anything moving up and down, side to side causes. Friction creates sound simple, right? Okay. So, for us to know how sound and vibration heal us. We have to also understand the human body. And so we think we're these things right, these things in these meat suits right? Which we are.
00:24:57 But essentially, if you put a big old microscope under us. Everything in our body is in constant movement, so everything down to the smallest molecule. The smallest cell is moving the cells in our body, move right? And so the molecules in our body move. So they're vibrating on top of that, all the organs in our body move our heart. You know it's beating. Our lungs are constantly in moving, pushing, breath out. And so they're vibrating the liver, the pancreas. Everything is in movement; on top of that, our body is 70% water. So that means the body is in constant flow. Even when we're at rest. And we're still, it's like the ocean, even when the ocean is still, there's still movement because it's water. And so everything inside of us is vibrating and moving constantly. Our lungs the same with our voice, our most powerful vibration, which is our voice. So the lungs push out air particles, they rub together, they come up through the throat, they create a vibration. That's our voice.
00:26:00 So even though each individual person has all of the same things going on inside of them, we all have a separate master vibration, and that master vibration is dependent upon how we nurture and nourish our body. And that's not just with food. It is our emotional state. And so there's a very famous book called The Body Keeps the Score. If anybody is trauma informed, they might be familiar with this book, and what this book tells us is that every single experience that we've had is stored in the cells and the tissues in the organs of our body. If it's not brought to full expression. It's stuck in the body and so understand it. This way, like neuroscience teaches us, it takes 90 seconds. This blows my mind, 90 seconds for an emotion to flow through the body, so emotions are created in the mind for those that are not familiar. We, an emotion, is created after an experience we experience something. The mind creates a response to that which creates an emotion. Right? So the mind analyzes the emotion, sends a signal to the body. And now all the body has to do is viscerally feel and express that emotion in neuroscience. They measured this. It takes 90 seconds, 90 seconds. That means if you're angry about something in 90 seconds should be gone. How many people, how many? I've held on to anger for a long time. Yeah, yeah, or grief or heartbreak, or you know any of these.
Daniela:
00:27:47 Years and years, some people for me, years and years.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:27:47 Yeah, my mom be upset about things for 25 years, like, it's.
Daniela:
00:27:49 Grudges. Yeah, that's when grudges happen. Decades of holding on to the emotion. Huh!
Jennifer Buljan:
00:27:52 Exactly so when the okay. So if we know that, so if the body does not get an opportunity to fully express an emotion, then there's a disconnect between the mind and the body. This is where dissociation happens, right? And so think of over the course of your life. Just you in general, how many times you've not expressed an emotion out of fear of upsetting someone else, out of fear of using your voice, out of fear of making somebody else feel less, out of the fear of getting in trouble, whatever it is. So now imagine how much stored emotion is in the body, and so over time. What happens is all that emotion gets stuck in cells in the body, and it creates clusters. So cells cluster and they create blockages in the body, so oxygen can't flow through, so other emotions can't flow through. So you become this big, heavy weighted, you know, sandbag of feeling and emotion, right? There was a stage in my life where I felt like I was just walking around like a sandbag, like just heavy.
Daniela:
00:29:04 Me, too. Me, too. I have felt that.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:29:08 Unexpressed emotion. And so the beauty and those things can cause over time. Unexpressed emotion over time is autoimmune disease. It's cancer, and it's a multitude of other things, that's all it is. And so when you use vibration on the body or around the body, what happens is you vibrations are sent out. It goes deeply within the body, and then it shakes up everything in the body. So you know those little Christmas ball. I forget what they're called.
Daniela:
00:29:43 Oh, the snow globes.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:29:44 That's just a good visual. So if you take a snow globe, it's like vibration hits, and you shake it up. That's everything in our body starts to shake up, right? And so now you're loosening all the cells. Now you're breaking up all these clusters, and it's getting deep inside you. And now all of this emotion comes to the surface to be released. And so if somebody is traumatized and they've experienced trauma over a long period of time. It's going to be overwhelming. But it's also going to be a lot easier than talk therapy than sitting and trying to process all of this stuff, and a lot of times, a person's emotional expression will just be a big sob. And they'll feel 30 times lighter. You know what I mean. So this is how vibration works essentially, and it works in 3 distinct ways, and so it has to get through the power of the mind first.st So when you hit an instrument, it creates a vibration which then creates a sound. That sound goes to the ears, and it goes through the brain, and it has to get through the chaos of the mind. First, st if the mind is not relaxed, the body will never let go, and the body will not relax. So once it stabilized, the brain waves in the mind, and once the mind feels calm. It sends a signal to the nervous system like, Hey, we're safe. You can let go. And then the nervous system lets go, and that's when vibration and sound do the deepest work. That's when it starts to really get into the body and do all of the healing work.
Daniela:
00:31:12 Wow!
Jennifer Buljan:
00:31:13 Yeah, it's fascinating.
Daniela:
00:31:14 Yeah, Jen, I have. I am familiar with sound, sound healing, sound therapy, but I never heard it explained like that, like so clearly in such detail, and it's so fascinating. I'd love to hear a little bit more when you mentioned talk therapy, for example, like the effects of that or the speed at which that can be effective compared to you. Know what you practice. Through vibration and sound. I mean, I'm just going to take a wild guess. Let me know if I'm onto something. But what I was getting from. That was the way that vibration works. It seems to penetrate the trauma at a cellular level. 0:32:05 Yeah, that's sort of the image I was getting, whereas talk therapy, I mean, when you're speaking about your trauma. It triggers all kinds of things, and it's so hard to keep talking about something that just traps you in that pain forever and ever. It's like, how could you possibly relax the body enough through just talking about something traumatic versus allowing a modality like sound to actually go in on the deepest level, to shake it up and start to clear it out. I'd love to hear your take on that. You know that versus talk therapy, for example.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:32:31 Yeah. And I think, you know, everything in in kind of balance, right? And and I'm not saying talk therapy is bad. Whatsoever. And you need a healthy balance of all things absolutely. But, like you put it, trauma is at a cellular level, and if we ignore the body, then we're never going to fully release trauma. And so that's what I mean about getting people back to the wisdom of their body. The whole reason our bodies are riddled with trauma is because we get stuck in this place. We get stuck in the mind in this loop of trying to analyze it and talk about it. And you know, and that's why things like somatic therapy and breath work and yoga and anything that brings you back into the body where you can shake up and get things released is like really where you want to be. And so it's got to be a healthy mix. And so when you deal with really deeply traumatized people, I think you have to understand that there's a fear of going into the body. There's a fearful aspect of going into the body because you're afraid to feel. And that's what it comes down to. But what you don't realize is that when you actually feel something to the full capacity, when you feel an emotion to its fullest capacity, it's gone. It'll never, ever come back again. I used to teach children sound, and I used to give this example. I've learned so much from children. Little people are my teachers, and the beauty of children is, they know how to express an emotion fully.
00:34:15 And I always give this example. If you've ever seen, or if you've ever been that child who loses their shit in the supermarket or has a nervous breakdown right and has a complete temper tantrum, and starts kicking and screaming, and they're screaming. They're flailing their arms, they're kicking their legs. They're feeling something that they do not like that their body literally wants to reject. So they are acting actually in a very organic in a very natural way. Because that emotion to them is like a toxin. Get it out. I don't want to feel this, so they're kicking their legs. They're screaming. They're using everything to get it out. And then what happens after they lose their shit and they have a temper tantrum. They're like, I want ice cream. They're good because they got it out. Yeah, and so it's Kind of funny, you know, as adults, we have all these. We have ecstatic dance. We have yoga, we have, you know, screaming therapy of all this stuff because we weren't able to be that child that expressed everything we needed to express. So now we need all these modalities to help us get it out of the body. But kids are a wonderful example. They don't like something. You'll know it.
Daniela:
00:35:41 Yeah, no, that's such a good example. I mean, it just it kind of makes it reminds me of basically what my overall experience was in childhood, and maybe you can relate, maybe a lot of listeners out there can relate to this idea that as a child, you know, you're not meant to be seen or be heard. You know it's not. It's not acceptable. It's not okay. It's not polite to be expressive in your emotions. That is definitely probably the biggest limiting belief that stuck with me, that stuck on to me throughout my childhood, you know, was thinking that my voice didn't matter, or that I wasn't meant to be heard. I wasn't, you know. My feelings didn't matter because when they were expressed as a kid, they were dismissed, or they were totally ignored, or they were denied, or you know, they were criticized for existing. You know what I mean. So I think this is just such an incredibly valuable, powerful conversation, especially for anyone who's listening, who may also struggle with this idea of being seen, of being heard, of having someone tell you it's okay to feel. And in fact, it's necessary to feel and express those emotions, that energy in motion, we have to let that energy be in motion, so it can be released and and basically free ourselves. The control of these emotions.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:37:06 Yeah, you said it beautifully, and that's all. It is. Emotion is a vibration, it is energy in motion. It needs to flow. It needs movement. It just needs to have a space to move, and that's essentially all it is. And what you said about your childhood, and not thinking that your voice is important. That's so. I'm so glad you shared that. Thank you, because that, I think, is at the core of so many people's childhood wounding is that they grew up in an environment where they were led to believe, despite what the trauma was, that their voice is not important, and that right there will stop you from your goals. It will stop you from being the best human being you possibly can. It will stop you from creating success in your life, it will stop you from getting the right partners. It will get you into abusive relationships and in situations that are not good for you because your voice is not important. And so when I was also working with kids, I did this fun little trick where I told them to put their hand on their throat and to hum so they could feel their own vibration. And that vibration is the throat. In Kundalini Yoga. They refer to the throat as the seat of the soul.
Daniela:
00:38:34 Oh, wow, yeah.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:38:35 The connection of the voice with also the heart. So there's the heart and the voice right there, and this is all interconnected. And so, you know, you're a singer. You know, there's such a beauty when somebody, when somebody sings that the authenticity of the voice, it's why we're brought to tears by somebody that sings from an emotional place because it's authentic. It's real. It's the real voice. When I find the most spiritual people are not the ones that are all own and like, do all the yogas, and do all the things, the most spiritual people are the most authentic. They have the most authentic voice meaning. They're unapologetically, radically who they are, express themselves despite what anybody else feels, and they are not afraid to shine. And they are not afraid to be, even if you feel insecure or uneasy around their presence. And you know, I think you know you and I, Danielle, have had many conversations about what it's like to dim yourself.
Daniela:
00:39:41 Right, and tell us, Jen, tell us yes.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:39:43 And you know we learned this in childhood, you know, and it's the little things don't speak so loud. Don't be angry, don't raise your voice. It's all of that, you know, and it's all it is is repression, repression, repression. Do you know what depression is? It is the repression of emotion that is depression. When a person is. It's because they've learned to repress everything they've ever wanted to feel or express.
Daniela:
00:40:16 Wow!
Jennifer Buljan:
00:40:17 Yeah, it's unbelievable, that expression, you know. But really, we're souls. And if you think of a soul. A soul is big, it's expansive. It's fluid. Yeah, it's this fluid, beautiful thing, like, think of the wind. Think of like, I don't know. What do you think of when you think of a soul like
Daniela:
00:40:45 I mean. My first thought was a dragon. Powerful and limitless, and like, just beyond what we could ever imagine. And beyond any power we could imagine.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:40:51 Yeah. So imagine the soul trying to sit in this rigid ass body. Right? That's why we want to move. That's why we want to dance. That's why we want to be fluid. That's why we want to be open. That's why we want to express, because the soul is colorful. The soul is so much bigger, you know, and so we have to match it. We have to match that intensity that is the soul. And and if we don't. This is where disease comes from, and this is where depression comes from and anxiety. It's just because we are not in full expression of the soul.
Daniela:
00:41:28 And because of that, we are not in full connection with ourselves. And who we came here to be.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:41:31 That's it. Yeah.
Daniela:
00:41:33 And it's honestly for me. When I realized this, during my spiritual journey so far, it was one of the most heartbreaking moments. I incarnated into this life to be the fullest, boldest, brightest expression of myself. And taking stock of my life, you know, from from the day I was born until now, and and being able to zoom out and see it from a bird's eye view, and recognizing, Oh, my God like this is when I started to believe this narrative, and this is when this narrative stuck to me that came from my dad or came from my church, or came from my mother because of what she was modeling for me, you know, in her behavior and her language, in the emotion she would express to me. I just formed so many beliefs about myself and what I am, what I am capable of doing in this life. That was all a lie. It was all based on other people's experiences. It had nothing to do with me.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:42:39 Oh, my God! So true!
Daniela:
00:42:41 As a kid. I thought it all had to. It was all it was all what I had to believe, you know, like everything must be true if the people in my life are telling me this. Of course, I'm going to believe it. I'm a kid, you know. So just thinking about this concept of the soul, and how passionate and alive and fully expressive and just incredible and limitless it is. It's it's it's mind blowing to even. But, and I think we owe it to ourselves as human beings, to make our souls proud.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:4:15 Yes, yes.. 100%. We owe it to them, and you know the soul is is will always guide us, you know, will always guide us, and we often have these long journeys that lead us, you know, like we've talked about to face a lot of heartbreak and a lot of hard truths about everything that we've repressed like you so beautifully put about. I know you realize that you were just expressing everybody else's restrictions. You were just a result of everybody. Sorry, a result of everybody else's restrictions. My God, that's gold! And that's the truth. And and that is why we go through such inner turmoil, because deep down inside the soul knows hey, what the fuck? This is not who you are.
Daniela:
00:44:02 It's not it.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:44:03 You're meant to be this colorful peacock, like you're not. You can't fit in this box, you know, and that's the thing we can't fit in a box. And I think this generation, now our age group, and you know, and coming up, even the next age group. We're seeing how uncomfortable it is. I'm in an area right now that's rooted in tradition. And you know, religion. And these constructs keep you in a box, and we have to. You know you can never reach your full potential if you're constantly dealing with shame. If you are ashamed of yourself, if you are ashamed to be this, if you are ashamed to be that, listen. If there's anything I learned in vibration and in learning about emotions through vibration. Shame is not even an organic emotion. It's foreign to the body, and it's the one that we have the most difficulty with, because it's foreign to the body.
Daniela:
00:44:55 Oh, I haven't heard of that. Shame is foreign to the body.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:44:48 Yeah, so shame is not something we organically produce. Shame is something that's put upon us. And so that makes it so, like emotions, like anger, sadness, happiness, joy, that all comes from the human experience. Shame is something like oppression. It's put on. It is like a shackle, or like a disconnection to the self, a separation from self, a, you know, looking at the soul and saying, No, you know, you know there's some disconnect so.
Daniela:
00:45:29 Like a barrier.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:45:30 A barrier. Yeah, yeah, it's a shame, is meant for you to disconnect with yourself. It causes separation, and shame is often at the root of all of our trauma, no matter what your trauma is.
Daniela:
00:45:43 Wow!
Jennifer Buljan:
00:45:44 And it's like this. I call it Quicksand. It's always at the pit, you know. It's the hardest one to get out. It's because it's not ours. It's not organically. We are not ashamed of ourselves, but we're taught to be.
Daniela:
00:45:53 That's powerful.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:45:56 Yeah. Learning about shame was like, mind blowing.
Daniela:
00:45:59 That's powerful. Because I had been. I had been thinking of this idea of a shackle. You know how, as we grow up, and take on other people's restrictions and their limiting beliefs. It's like we take on other people's shackles every time we believe, which seems to be all those beliefs are rooted in shame, which not natural.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:46:20 Yeah, not natural at all. It's shame, simply tells you to deny the self. The self as a whole. Can you imagine, when you are ashamed, you are literally denying yourself of anything, of being, of living, of expressing. Joy. Yeah.
Daniela:
00:46:40 So. Oh, my God, what a powerful oh, my head is tingling! I could literally talk to you for like hours and hours. But unfortunately, the limitations of technology and people's attention spans kind of on my mind these days. So I would love to give our audience one more juicy nugget of wisdom. So for any listeners out there who can relate to your story, and maybe they've experienced some form of trauma, some form of Ptsd family dysfunction, addiction, abuse, the list goes on. What kind of advice would you like to leave people with from this conversation, for how to cope?
Jennifer Buljan:
00:47:26 Well, I would say, if you can change the narrative of the wound itself to the empowered self through looking as your trauma as a gift and having gratitude. You can see how you can help others. You can turn this pain into purpose type thing. You can really do the alchemy, but it takes a shift in mindset, and I know for a lot of people, practitioners, or people that struggle with personal power and being seen and heard. There's always this underlining thing of I'm an imposter, you know, this imposter syndrome. This like, you know, I'm not capable my whole life. I thought I was so wounded that I couldn't possibly be making any kind of change. I convinced myself I used other people's shame, you know. I convinced myself that I was not worthy, and all the time realizing I can still have some battle scars, and still also be this, this light being that helps and brings healing to a lot of people. So your wounds kind of make you a warrior, and to not feel bogged down by trauma, use it to persevere. Use. You know some of the greatest people in the world, and no matter what field. The most powerful thing is their story and how they persevered. If you can look at your trauma in a way and say, Okay, yes, I am afflicted with all of these things. But how can I? How can I empower myself and others by actually talking about these things and helping others through them? Whatever you have, whatever gift you have, and we all have a beautiful gift. You know, we just have to get past the point of thinking. We're not worthy of expressing and having a voice and being out there and sharing our gifts, because every single person out there has a beautiful light. I don't care. Your darkness is there, but you know what there's. There's a wonderful book. I read it. It's called The Beauty of a Darker Soul about a soldier that went through a near death experience, and he had to deal with Ptsd and all these things. But he turned. And you know, instead of getting bogged down in his trauma, he said, How can I help others? How can I do that? And he first started by sharing his story. So get a platform, get on YouTube, speak, write poetry, start expressing yourself just for yourself, not for validation. One thing I started doing is I started drawing again. Cooking, having fun, cooking, dancing, while I'm cooking, you know, and like writing things, you know, poetry, whatever it is that your soul needs. Do it until you get the confidence enough to feel like you're ready. You're ready to come out and shine, you know.
Daniela:
00:50:17 Yeah. Oh, my God, that's such a powerful answer. And if I could just add to that for a minute, I couldn't help but think from an astrological perspective when it comes to our deepest wounds. You said wounded warrior, and I couldn't help but think of Chiron, the Chiron, please. In our birth charts. It's such an incredible thing to explore, because when you discover what your Chiron placement is, it is telling you that this is your deepest wound that you were, you were destined to experience it in this incarnation in order to learn how to transform it into your deepest medicine.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:5:55 Love, that.
Daniela:
00:50:55 Your greatest gift is found in your greatest wounding. So when I discovered this, it was actually one of the most empowering moments of my life, because my deepest wound had to do all with my own voice, my self expression, and communication. And now I've been able to turn that wound into like an entire business.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:51:19 Amazing. Yes, yes.
Daniela:
00:51:20 And then a podcast, you know, to give others a platform, to share their voice and communicate their gifts and their message to the world as well. And so I think what you're saying about, you know, just turning to your natural expression, you know. Are you called to do poetry? You're called to dance. You're called to cook, are you called to write? Called to teach, write, you know, photograph whatever you're called to as a creative expression. Start doing it right. And even if it's just in private, like, just for you, you know. And just give yourself permission to express just for you. There's no other goal. There's no achievement. There's no grade. There's no test, you know it's just for you just to start freeing yourself a little bit more each time to your greatest gifts found in your deepest wounds. I have goosebumps all over my body. From how incredible this conversation has been! Jen, where I bet people are super riled up and amazed by this conversation, and your wisdom, your knowledge, and your wisdom is really, really incredible and powerful. And really, yeah, I'm so grateful that you showed up and didn't shared all of this with us.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:52:39 Thank you for having this platform and for using your voice powerful. And it's creating change. And look at you, you've done it. You've done the alchemy, and it's I'm very proud of you, my friend, and you're very inspiring, really, really inspect.
Daniela:
00:52:54 Thank you, Jen. It's so beautiful to have connections where we could just inspire each other through our own growth. I know I love it.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:53:01 And me too.
Daniela:
00:53:05 Jen, where can people find you? How can they get in touch with you? I know you're writing an ebook, you mentioned? Tell us, all the goods.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:53:14 Yeah. So right now, I'm off of social media. And that was a conscious choice. I'm in the process of a rebirth. I don't want to call it a renewal. It is a full on rebirth, and I will be back in that. I just needed to come back and do this healing. But I do have a lot of my sound meditations, which are a mixture of sound bowls and nature. Nature is another big healing factor in my own CPTSD recovery, and it's on an app called Insight Timer, which is a pretty well-known international meditation app. And you can find me on there. Just look up Jennifer Buljan, and my meditations will come up, and the ebook that I'm doing. I'm going over the last stages of the so probably by Wednesday it'll be completed, and that'll be available on. It's through Kindle on Amazon. But I can send that to you.
Daniela:
00:54:07 Yeah, we'll drop the links.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:54:08 Yeah, and it's called A Sound Experience, the Subtle Power of Vibrational Therapy in Healing Trauma. And I'm so excited I did all the graphics. I did all the photographs. I did everything in there, and it was a big, therapeutic, creative experience of my own expression. And so it has my art, my visuals, and my voice. And so and yeah.
Daniela:
00:054:32 Who's the ebook? Who is it written for? Specifically.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:54:33 Well, you know, when I was writing it, my intention was for other sound practitioners. You know, when you start a process like that, you realize, wow! It actually could be kind of for anybody. But I would say mainly for sound practitioners and just learning the importance of being trauma informed, and it starts with a lot of my story and some of what I went through, and I wanted it to be like a guide of the dos and don'ts kind of thing. And why it's important going into these, you know, we're heading into a higher shift in consciousness. Let's just talk about it. Okay.
Daniela:
00:55:08 New Earth.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:55:09 5G, okay, and we need to start taking these tools that we have more seriously. Is it enough to just play a bowl and do a sound bath? Or should you be learning everything that this ancient practice has, and using it to the best of the ability, because it is now our responsibility to continue to shift consciousness so. And that's kind of what I wanted to express. So it's all of my experience in over 8 years. And I just really wanted to share that knowledge and try to help. You know others in the process of feeling like maybe stuck, like, what else can I do with sound trust and belief? You have something you can do a multitude of things with sound. The road is infinite.
Daniela:
00:55:52: Oh, so this ebook is really to help, especially other sound practitioners kind of expand. What expands the possibilities of what they can do at their practice?
Jennifer Buljan:
00:56:02 Yes, yes, and it's through the teaching, through my own trial and error, and my own mistakes of what to do, what not to do, and also what I've learned on working with such a diverse group of traumatized people in the past 8 years. I never had a niche, and I don't recommend that for people, because it was chaotic, and I burned out, but learned so much. And now I know I can kind of be, in a sense, kind of a Yoda.
Daniela:
00:56:30 Yeah, I love it. Oh, my, gosh, wow! What an incredible conversation! Amazing episode! I'm really so grateful, Jen.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:56:38 You too, girl.
Daniela:
00:56:39 Buzzing.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:56:40 Me too.
Daniela:
00:56:41 Well, I thank you so much. And I thank you to all our watchers, our listeners out there. Thank you for joining the sacred. So, podcast and I will catch you next time. Bye, everybody.
Jennifer Buljan:
00:56:52 Bye.
Daniela:
00:56:52 Thanks.
About Jennifer Buljan —Certified vibrational therapy practitioner who specializes in helping people connect back to the wisdom of their bodies through sound and vibration
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