Phyllis Leavitt- Truth to Internal Freedom

Welcome to the Internal Shift Show. I'm Debbie

Longo. This show looks at how the internal choices

we make influence the direction our lives and

work take. Today's conversation brings real experience

into that space, exploring how internal shifts

quietly change outcomes over time. We have a

very special guest today, Phyllis Levitt. Good

afternoon, Phyllis. Welcome to the show. Well,

thank you, Debbie, so much for having me here

with you. You're welcome. I'm going to ask you

to tell a little bit about your story and something

that happened in your life or a few things, any

type of traumatic experience, for example, or

something that you needed, that you needed to

get to the other side to and how you did that

and what was your process exactly. Now, I need

to show for a few different things. And one of

the reasons is that I want to get people to understand

that there is a way out for them. So if they're

stuck in negativity or maybe a certain situation

that's happening in their life, they don't have

to stay that way. Okay, they don't have to sit

in the negative. They can go from negative to

positive. And this is a main reason why I have

this show. And I want to bring people in, guests

in, like you and a few other guests that I've

had that explain all different situations. We're

not going to have one person do the same thing.

It's going to be all different situations, all

different stories, because everybody's story

is their own story. So it's personal to them.

That's the whole thing. Totally. So if you could

do that a little bit, tell us about your story

a little bit and how you got through these different

things that you have in your mind. Well, let

me just start by saying that many people remember

the things that happened to them that were traumatic,

but like me, many people also don't. If the things

that happened that were traumatic happened at

a really young age, that's what happened to me.

I had some significant child abuse that happened

to me pre -verbally, so I had no memory of what

happened to me, but what I had was symptoms.

And I was a child at a time where nobody really

talked about anything psychological at all. I

had tremendous fear of the dark. I had this just

inordinate fear of bugs, but mostly spiders.

And I was really uncomfortable in my body. And

I had no language for that because nobody talked

about those things when I was a child. Nobody

even in my family, people didn't even actually

talk about how they felt. We just had certain

expectations of what you were supposed to do,

go to school, get good grades, clean your room,

make your bed, that kind of thing. And we really

didn't talk about our internal experience. And

so I had no language for the feelings of disconnection

that I felt, of fear that I felt, and of feeling

like, and I think I don't think I'm alone in

this at all. I think many people have this feeling,

especially when there's been some kind of abuse

in their childhood of Feeling like I didn't belong

anywhere, like I was just some kind of a misfit,

that I was born flawed is what I actually felt,

although I don't even know that I could have

told you that when I was a child. And as I grew

up... I just tried to hide those feelings. It

felt like there was just something wrong with

me. I didn't know what it was. And I tried to

look good on the outside. I was a really good

student in school. I took care of I dressed well.

I did the things that I thought would make me

appear like I was OK because I really didn't

know what else to do. And by the time I went

to college, my life began to a little bit fall

apart. Now, I want to just back up and say that

Within what I was dealing with as a child, periodically

I had these amazing experiences of what I could

only call some kind of spiritual connection,

like deep feeling of connection of love and belonging

in nature, and moments of just profound... All

I can say is profound connection to something

higher, not necessarily to other people. But

I didn't know how to pursue that. And since I

was a child of the 60s, and that's when the sort

of spiritual revolution happened in the United

States and it happened around me, I was very

attracted to spiritual teachers and I learned

different meditative practices, which were all

great. And they didn't heal what had happened

to me. And so I had somewhat of a breakdown in

college, but I pulled myself together and recovered

and went on. I joined a spiritual group. I got

married. I had children. And then my life really

did fall apart because as like many people who

have unresolved childhood trauma, we get attracted

to people who aren't necessarily good for us.

And that was the situation for me with the man

that I originally married and had children with.

it was it was not a good relationship and and

I really just went into this dark night of the

soul when my children were very young and that

brought me to therapy and I was starting to have

memories and they were coming mostly through

body sensations but I knew I began to know that

something had happened that made me feel these

very deeply distressed and dark feelings that

I had been carrying around my whole life. The

long story short is I went to therapy. It was

revelatory because I did begin to remember some

of the trauma, and I remembered enough to make

sense of myself. And I understood, oh, I'm not

a flawed person. This is the result of being

hurt. These symptoms that I have, the fears that

I have, the feelings of not belonging, the feelings

of not being lovable, were all just symptoms.

They weren't who I was born to be. And that was

huge for me. And actually, it was. having those

memories that allowed me to leave that marriage.

I was a single mom for a long time and I became

a therapist as a result of that experience because

it was so profoundly life -changing for me that

I wanted to help do that work with other people.

And one of the things I want to share is that

when I first went to therapy, I really did not

believe that it would help me. I felt beyond

help. I felt like other people make a healing

journey, but I'm going to be the one who doesn't

make it. And because I did make a healing journey

and it took a while, then I felt like I could

really believe that and know that to be true

as I worked with other people. I knew that there

was light at the end of the tunnel possible.

I knew that no matter what terrible things might

happen to us, that's not who we are. We are an

essential, beautiful soul, spirit, essence, whatever

you call it, underneath whatever might have happened

to us, and whatever we might have done that wasn't

so great. or kind or loving, because we all usually

hurt people ourselves out of our own hurt. Maybe

it's not intentional, but that's kind of the

human condition. And so it was a long process

for me to really recover and make contact with

that essential part of my being. And for me,

that also reopened that spiritual connection

in my life. And I began to receive inner guidance

about what my soul was doing in the experiences

of Phyllis. And so that became my psychology,

my psychological healing, and my spiritual awakening

and opening kind of went together. And that really

began in earnest in the 90s. and has been a process

that I've been engaged with ever since. So let

me know if you want to ask anything about that

or where you want to go with that. Yes, that

was good. Thank you for that. Yeah, just the

question. How long was the abuse? how many years

approximately, and then how many years did it

take you to go through your process to get through

it? And how did that look, whatever you didn't

mention before? As much as I've remembered, and

I don't know that I've remembered it all, but

I think I remembered enough to be on a healing

journey. And I think that's the way our psyches

work. You just have to remember enough to get

it. So I believe the abuse happened to me in

infancy because, and it was sexual abuse, because

those were my memories. The body sensations were

being an infant lying kind of like on a bassinet

kind of thing. I don't know how long it lasted.

I don't think it was a one -time incident. However,

it felt like it was something deeply imprinted

into my body as well as my emotional life. And

then when I was And I don't remember anything

else from young childhood, but what the other

memory that I recovered was that I got picked

up by someone when I was a really young teenager

and sexually assaulted. And that memory was very,

that was actually the first memory that I got.

And then it took me back to childhood, to previously

what had happened to me previously. And it was

terrifying. And so I buried it. I remembered

the incident very differently from how it then

later came out through my body and my visualizations,

internal visualizations when I was actually in

therapy and in a safe place. And what I want

to say is I think sometimes you have to be in

a safe place to let those memories emerge. I

don't think I could have handled that memory

by myself. So being in therapy with a safe person

was really a key to opening up the memory that

I needed to heal. That was good. Thank you. Do

you help people that were sexually abused as

a therapist today and or have a desire to? Well,

I'm retired. I just recently retired, but I was

in practice. Well, did you? Yes, and of course

I did. And partly because sexual abuse and physical

abuse and emotional abuse are rampant in our

culture and probably in the human race today.

And so inevitably, I think any therapist is going

to... be confronted with that. And I felt, in

some ways, I felt very grateful for having gone

through my own journey with it because it gave

me so much compassion. It gave me so much patience

because I know that you don't heal overnight

from violation from other people and especially

people if they're people that you trust or you

depend on. And so it just gave me a sense of

being able to hold that place that I had needed.

to be held for me. Yes, that was good. Thank

you. One of the things I was thinking of was

sometimes, unfortunately, a trauma will help

or something doesn't necessarily have to be a

trauma, but we're talking about here, but something

that happens in somebody's life that's negative

or they want to turn it around. That thing that

happens gives the person. the ability now to

help somebody else that that same thing is happening

to them. Why? Not only because of the way I do

this show, like I had explained, right, that

somebody is going to hear your story and they're

going to know you came out the other side. But

what happens is to my experience is that when

somebody has something happen to them, then they

get through it. Now they've changed their energy.

So they have one type of energy. as they're going

through it and their process, their energy changes,

blah, blah, blah. And then they come out the

other side and now they have a completely different

type of energy. And that enables them to now

go out and help others that have the same issue

or problem or whatever it is. And what happens

then? Those people just come right to them because

subconsciously, like they're saying, I can help

you. And it could be a friend. It could be like

you became a therapist. Could be professional.

It could be at work. I mean, there's a million

different ways. There's a million different avenues

that somebody can meet somebody like that or

be able to interact with somebody like that,

because that person wants help nine times out

of 10. And if they really want it, they'll find

it. They're going to seek it. And if they seek

it, they will 100 % find it eventually. They

might have to go through it, maybe a few years

extra suffering or whatever, but eventually they

keep seeking it and seeking it. Eventually they

will find it. That's just the way that it works.

So that person is meant for. Like you became

a therapist. So now you're meant to help people

that have been sexually abused. You were that's

a different situation with you. To me, that's

the ultimate is when you can go into the mental

field like a therapist or a psychologist or a

psychiatrist where you have something mental

or something that's very traumatic experience.

And now you can actually go into that field because

that's like a given. That's like a really. That's

just a very easy way and a very good way to help

somebody. But I mean, there's like I said, there's

a million different avenues, million different

situations where somebody goes through, something

comes out the other side and then they have the

ability to help that person. So as I go through

this, my energy is constantly changing. And then,

like I said, it turns into a positive. Now I

have completely different energy. And now I'm

like saying I can help. you, I can help anybody.

These people need to come to me because now I

could help them to get out of that they're in

and I could show them that that's actually possible,

that that's definitely going to happen. And from

my experience, like I knew that it could happen

because I made that healing journey in a way

that I never actually thought possible. If you

had asked me, I would have told you I'll be the

one person who doesn't make it. But. There was

also something in me that never gave up, and

I think a lot of us have that. If we really look

inside, there's something that's always looking

for the next best way to heal. I wanted to say

something about what you said about our energy

changing because I think that's a really good

way to describe one of the best outcomes from

doing this kind of healing work is that your

energy actually changes. And for me, I was and

some people, you know, they're highly aggressive

or they're people pleasers or they're workaholics

or they become addicts or they're suffering from

anxiety or agoraphobia or depression. And I would

say In my journey, I probably suffered from depression

and anxiety that made me very, very shut down.

I might have been born with a tendency toward

being an introvert. I don't know. I think we

have a nature that we come into the world with,

but then we're very conditioned by what happens

to us. And that's the nurture part of our experience

and our conditioning. So maybe I was born kind

of introverted, but I was really introverted

and very hidden and very shut down. I barely

dated when I was younger. I was just afraid of

relationship and afraid of myself. And having

done that work of recovering the memories and

reworking my internal mental, emotional conditioning

within myself, I'm not. So shut. I'm not that

shut down person anymore. I probably still have

a tendency toward liking my alone time, but I'm

very relational now. I'm married to a wonderful

person now. My kids are grown. I have grandchildren

now. And I'm relational in a very, very different

way. And I don't mean that that comes without

challenges. Because it does. I think life just

brings everybody challenges in relationship,

in self -expression, in creativity, in belonging.

So it's not that my life is without challenges

and I don't expect that it ever will be. But

I think one of the things that that kind of healing

work gave me was greater and greater capacity

to cope with the difficulties from a healthier

place rather than just a reactive place or automatically

shutting down when things were tough or I had

a lot of self -blame when I was younger. And

I really work with that in my present day life,

like getting past blaming others and blaming

myself. And that's just a lifetime of work all

by itself. But I just like the way that you identified

the change in energy. Because it's not just a

change in behavior. It is. It most likely will

bring a change in behavior. It might bring a

change in beliefs. It definitely will bring a

change in who we're attracted to and what we're

attracted to. But it also brings a change in

our fundamental life force energy. Yes, definitely

true. The last thing I want to say is there's

another side to this. And the other side is you

express that you felt that you knew that you

could do this, right? That you could get through

it. You could get over it. There was something

inside of you, right? That just said, go punch

through it and the good will happen. What about

the person? That doesn't have that inside of

them because that's something that that's just

in me It's not always something I can control

sometimes it is Okay, but a lot of times it's

not so what about the person that does not have

that and like I said That's one of the reasons

why I do the show, but I'm wondering if you even

can know how can they really get to that understanding.

And you probably wouldn't be the person to know

this out of anybody. How could they get to that

understanding that they do know, or they just

can get out of whatever they're in? We're talking

about sexual abuse here, but I mean, abuse is

very, very popular. So can they come to that

understanding? And how? And maybe... Actually,

I don't even know. I don't even know the answer

to that, believe it or not. Well, I do think

there are many people who don't come to that

understanding, and I think it's tragic. I think

there are people who just don't have the exposure

to the possibility of healing or exposure to

people who have made some kind of a healing journey

and have something to offer. And I think that's

one of the tragedies of our present culture and

societal kind of functioning, that we don't make

it like widely known that if you're symptomatic,

and I always correlate this to medical. If you

have a pain in your body, something's wrong in

your body. If you can't walk, if you're having

trouble breathing, if there's a swelling in a

certain area of your body, you know something's

wrong in the body that needs help. It needs treatment.

It needs diagnosis and treatment. And you go

to a doctor, if you possibly can, to get some

kind of help for that. We're not quite there

psychologically as a society. While I think psychotherapy

and lots of different kinds of therapies are

definitely more in the mainstream than they were

when I grew up. And I'm glad about that. I don't

think they're available to everyone. And I think

there's whole segments of our society that have

been kind of conditioned to believe that if you

go to a therapist, that means you're weak and

you should be able to figure it all out by yourself.

Don't tell anybody you need help and pull yourself

up by your bootstraps. So I think one of the

things is to look for opportunities when they

arise. If there's someone that you know that's

in distress, maybe plan to see that that's probably

not accidental that you're in that distress,

that you're having so much trouble in your marriage

or with your children or finding a career that

really works for you. or expressing your art

or even finding what your potential is, that

there's probably something that happened in your

conditioning that's in the way and you owe it

to yourself. You deserve to uncover what that

is and live the life that you were born to live.

But I also think it's one of the reasons why

I've written three books. The first two are about

my own healing journey, a light in the darkness

and into the fire. And my latest book, America

in Therapy, is bringing that whole conversation

to the collective. that a country is also a family

that needs healing as well as us in our own individual

lives. But what I want to say about that is I

think we need to educate each other. And that's

the value of like your podcast and so many people

who are out there doing podcasts or writing articles

or giving talks or writing books. Like that's

my venue is like, I want to share what I have

learned is possible. kind of what the diagnosis

is and what are the possible healing roads that

we can take with as many people as possible because

there's a lot of suffering going on in America

today and in the human population around the

world that I believe we could interrupt this

cycle of hurting one another and becoming symptomatic

and acting out our pain on ourselves and other

people if we had access to greater knowledge

and greater avenues to get help. Yeah, that was

good. The other thing I was thinking of was people

just always get warning signs nine times out

of 10. And I could. take advantage of those warning

signs if somebody tells me I need help or I can

just dismiss it and continue on with the sick

and suffering. So the last question is, how do

you feel today? How do you feel right now as

a result of based on this whole podcast, this

whole conversation that we have had? This is

the very best time of my life. It really is.

And I'm so grateful that I lived long enough

to experience some of the fruits of some of the

very painful years that I went through, because

I went through a lot of years of a lot of pain.

And I feel very grateful that I found the places

that helped me come out the other side. And again,

not that my life isn't perfect. I still have

challenges. I still have things that cause me

pain. But overall, I'm happy. I'm, like I said,

I'm married to a wonderful person, and that has

made all the difference. I have incredible children,

I have some grandchildren, and I have really

good friends. And I can say that when I was younger,

some of the friends I picked were a reflection

of my own unhealed wounds. I tended to pick people

who had to be one up, and I agreed to be one

down in those relationships. And it wasn't fun.

But it was where I thought I deserved to be.

It's where I believed I was. And the more I worked

on my own healing, the more I shed those relationships

and found friends that are really truly equals,

that are people who support me and I support

them. And we're not one -upping each other and

we're not competing with each other and we're

not bad -mouthing each other behind our backs

either. And I think all of that is possible.

And again, I don't want to say it's roses, roses.

Relationships are challenging, even when you

love someone, even when they love you. But we

can either look at those challenges as growth

opportunities or signs of failure. And I feel

like I'm learning. all the time to see the challenges

in my life as growth opportunities. And when

I look at them that way, then they become that.

Yes, agreed. Very good. I really appreciate it.

Thank you. So as we wrap up, this conversation

highlights how small internal shifts can create

meaningful change. If something from today stayed

with you, take a moment to reflect on how it

connects to your own direction and decisions.

This has been the Internal Shift Show. Thank

you for listening. Thank you, Phyllis, for being

on the show. I really appreciate it. it. Well,

thank you so much for having me. I appreciate

you.