Letting Go of Control: I Stopped Forcing My Life and Everything Changed | Dr Alla Demutska

0:00So I felt so powerless as a child and so much despair that I went the other way. So I would stand up and push and achieve and be angry or do things not to ever feel this sense of collapse because it was so scary because then I would just completely disintegrate. That was the feeling. So I always needed to have an exit. I needed to find something to grab so I can manage my life. That was the feeling. So it's almost like if you tried hard enough and you were in control, then things could be safe.

0:46Hi, this is Debbie Thompson and this is A Stone in My Shoe, the podcast where we explore the moments in life where something no longer feels quite right and what happens when we choose to listen. And today I'm so pleased to be joined by Dr. Aladomutska, a psychologist and the voice behind the compassionate psychologist. Originally from the Ukraine and now living and working in Bali, her work is grounded in trauma awareness and understanding how subconscious patterns shape the way we live, love and respond to life. Through her work, she helps people understand themselves more deeply and makes sense of the patterns that have been shaping

1:31their experiences. Dr. Ala, welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much, Debbie. Very happy to be here. Lovely to have you. So before we get going on the stone, for the woman listening, when she finishes this episode, what do you hope she understands about herself? I hope that there will be some understanding of some of the protection, protective patterns that maybe she developed because of certain beliefs and certain difficulties staying with discomfort and also feel compassion to the parts that are protective and the parts that

2:23hold the beliefs and the pain. That's lovely. And I think that's such a beautiful way to frame it because there are parts of us, some that we are aware of, some that we're not, but it's about the compassion and understanding that it's all of those parts make us who we are. And so on that note, let's go into who you are now. Just in a sentence or two, in the season of your life, who are you? Not what I do, but who I am as a person. Both. What you do and who you are. So I live in Bali and I lived in different countries. I lived in Australia. I lived in Singapore and I'm from Ukraine originally.

3:13And I feel that Bali is the best place for me to be, to be because of the community, because of the nature. I can do dancing that I love doing and I can, yeah, I have more time to do things that I really enjoy and that I need to, for regulation of my nervous system. And for me, what is very important is to come to my body every day because I dissociate very easily. I leave my body. I go into my cognition and big cities now make, I feel very cognitive. And even though I'm good here, I want to be an integrated human being

3:58and Bali is allowing me to be much more integrated. Beautiful. And can you just tell us a bit more about the compassionate psychologist? So compassionate psychologist is my Instagram that I started, then I stopped. And now I'm putting conscious effort into publishing, publishing texts there and showing up. And I'm doing it as part of exposure therapy in a way because my, I want to hide the way I grew up is all about hiding, not being visible, being visible is dangerous.

4:44You can literally be sent to Siberia as my grand-grandfather was sent to Siberia because he was visible and then he disappeared. So it's intergenerational. It's also cultural. And so for me, just putting myself out there and to show myself up and being very vulnerable what I share, I do it for me. And hopefully it's helping other people who read and who can relate to what I've gone through or what I'm going through. Beautiful. And also by seeing those things, many of us, I know me before I started this journey, I didn't really understand call wounds and what they were and how they showed up in your life because they incredibly good at hiding

5:32themselves and being so protective that you don't see them as something that's dysfunctional often until a stone in your shoe develops and becomes either very uncomfortable or cuts you. Leading into the stone, what stone would you like to talk and I know everybody has a numerous stone. So if it could just be a couple maybe interwoven, but what stone would you like to talk about today? I think what where I am today and how I'm facing life with much more acceptance, which much more flow versus pushing and pushing, what happened was this particular stone or many of them in one go, they really changed the way how I used to view life, how I tried to

6:27control things, how I tried to push through and always believe that I can problem solve and make things happen instead of flowing more and allowing more and listening to intuition or listening to the universe as people in the world like to do. So yeah, that's I would like to bring this particular series of events that helped me. Beautiful. So with like with any stone, it starts from when you're young and as you said intergenerationally and coming from the Ukraine, hard work, solving problems, not being visible, all those things, what were some of those core beliefs that you took as a child that then shaped the events

7:16to the point where you had to start looking at this stone and make a change. Just tell us the whole story. Yeah, and it's interesting how this unpacking happens continually. So I will start with something recent. Recently, I went to India to one of the workshops and it was really powerful work. And I've connected with a sense of despair and there's such a deep sense of powerlessness. And I realized that my whole life I've been running from this sense. And I didn't even know how deeply I held this sense and growing up in Ukraine in an abusive family, traumatized parents who survived wars, regulated through alcohol abuse to

8:06surviving Soviet Union breakdown where I didn't know if we will eat tomorrow or if they will be heating in minus 20. So I felt so powerless as a child and so much despair that I went the other way. So I would stand up and push and achieve and be angry or do things not to ever feel a sense of collapse because it was so scary because then I would just completely disintegrate. That was the feeling. So I always needed to have an exit. I needed to find something to grab so I can manage my life. That was the feeling. So it's almost like if you tried hard enough and you were in

8:54control, then things could be safe. It was a level that it all stopped with you. And this huge burden of I mean that for a young child that's a huge amount to put on but also to know that I guess being alone as well and having parents who who had clearly trauma but having to do this alone, having to find the strength and constantly with no backup and if you don't, things could go horribly wrong. Exactly. So I would always, I will find a solution. I'll think outside the square. Even as a child I would find a job when no one was able to find a job and I'll do something and I'll try and won't sleep and study and work and just do things not to go into this collapse and

9:48despair and powerlessness. So it was such a protective mechanism for me that helped me so much and costed me so much as well. So before we talk about the cost, can we talk about how this helped you? How it helped me on many levels is that I've achieved a lot in my life. I had a, I have a amount where such a willpower and strength that I will study and work and I'll wake up. I remember for example in Ukraine I was thinking of applying for PhD in U.S. and I will be covered five a year every day. I will start preparing to GRE tests and then I'll go to work at

10:347.30 and then during lunchtime I'll be studying and at home I was also doing PhD in Ukraine. So it's like I was always doing so much and focusing and I will have this ability when others are maybe partying and socializing. I just know I have to do it and just focus into the detriment of fun and I achieved a lot. I have, in Ukraine I studied 18 years at universities all together and I worked at the same time. I, in Ukraine for example at 24 I was offered a position of the deputy dean. Then I left for Australia and I've managed to study psychology and not only study,

11:24I did my honors and I did my doctorate and it's very competitive degree and I could not even understand my classmates because my English was from Jane Austen's time. What I've learned, what I've learned at university and at school none of our teachers ever traveled because it was under the Iron Curtain. So all of, it was quite old-fashioned language so when I moved to Australia and I was at university I had no idea what people around me were saying and the slink and the accent. I could understand my lecturers so it was so hard. I worked really hard to achieve very high grades so I had HG's all the time and I was top 3% in my class and I had no idea

12:13because I didn't understand how the education works. I was doing really well and so this part of me really helped me and it's the same when I started my practice in Australia, my GP was telling me you will never be able to start your practice in this suburb. It's a good suburb, it's an established suburb, my friend tried and he failed, she couldn't get clients. I'm like, oh I've done it and I've done it and I've build it up and it was successful that again the course will talk about the course. So from the western worlds out looking in at you highly successful, hardworking, qualifications, somebody who's in control of their life so people

12:59looking in would have gone oh my gosh she is amazing. Look at everything that she has done and even though it was hard coming in with Jane Austen English and yet from the outside it looked so perfect. What was happening underneath? How was that unraveling and when did this unraveling start to happen? What kind of age? Unraveling. As in the cost to you and you started to notice that now it's not working for me now this is very dysfunctional and it's costing me in terms of my health and relationships and whatever. Can you just talk about you know about that? At what point did it turn and it didn't work for you anymore? So I knew that something is not working I guess all along. I was doing a lot of therapy I've done a lot of

13:50different not just therapeutic modalities but like silent retreats and shamanic retreats and workshops and I was living in a lot of terror so I would wake up with a sense of dread and terror every day even though my life was objectively okay so I even when I would be successful but the terror never left and what will happen for me would be that I'll get sick quite a lot and I will be functioning functioning functioning and then I will collapse I wouldn't know how to modulate my work I wouldn't be able to regulate and so I would just work work and then collapse and then I'll recover and then again collapse and then I started to have a lot of pain

14:39in my body as well before I left for Singapore I was doing everything right and I was exercising and eating and I had this severe pain all across my body and I couldn't understand it would be like pain flows up and I was carrying so much responsibilities I was looking after my parents and like business and everything but I'll continue to push through while my body was screaming and saying something is not right but I couldn't understand that I just thought it was a physical thing I didn't make the linkages. Even though you were doing all this other work this work and you had this terror and probably understood on some level why it was there coming from the

15:25Ukraine and doing all these other things at what point did you either was the stone so bad that you had to take the shoe off or that it just cut you and you had no choice you had to address it. So I was doing better when I moved to Singapore I felt like my life was more balanced and the COVID happened so there was not as much distraction so I was balancing better but I wasn't happy I was still controlling and pushing and believing that I can do this and I can do this and I was holding and caring a lot I was in the relationships for example that were not working I knew deep inside

16:14they were not working we were very different people but because of my belief I can fix I can do things we will work through it we will do it together I kept pushing and I kept pushing and then a part of me probably knew that a job just working at university wasn't also very good for me because I was just here in my head all the time but I again I'll push and I'll try override my intuition and override who I am so there was a lot of overriding continuing up until the point when everything collapsed so badly I couldn't override anymore so what did that collapse look like for you?

17:01So what happened was that first of all I would just describe the events that happened so there was the war that started in Ukraine and I was completely devastated I was looking at the photos of my city being destroyed I was feeling so sad and I was crying all the time and then at the same time because I got my first covid I was stuck in Thailand I couldn't come back to Singapore because it wasn't allowed and my boss at work who was like my father figure he suddenly stopped talking to me he was excluding me from events from things and I could not

17:48understand and he sent me an email that didn't make any sense saying that three months ago I didn't put a mask and that's why he's angry with me or something like this I was so confused the war started with Ukraine no one said anything HR didn't approach me my boss completely ignored me while people from other country from Russia were getting support in their workplace I was completely shocked I felt so abandoned and then my very good friends a relative of hers committed suicide as well and I knew the person and it was so devastating and I was supporting

18:35her it was devastating for me as well to feel it to see it and at the same time I was trying to organize I was doing free counseling for people from Ukraine I was organizing a workshop for the victims of rape at war at war so all very heavy topics and being in all of this heaviness and my parents my father got sick in Australia and I couldn't understand why no one could explain to me and my boss didn't allow me to go to Australia I had to finish my teaching even though there was a break I couldn't go so I don't I didn't know what was happening so I went to Australia finally and my father was not allowed to go home he needed to go to the nursing home

19:27and my parents didn't want to go they were crying they were really upset so I was on top basically it was happening over the five six months everything was collapsing I couldn't function anymore I had to go to the GP and ask for volume first time in my life I never had volume before anything like this so I was feeling I was completely at the bottom that's what I thought and at that time my ex-boyfriend that we're trying to work in relationship we were seeing psychotherapist he cheated on me so instead of coming with me to Melbourne to support me

20:14with my parents with what was going on he was partying in Thailand having a good time and he cheated on me and so I was everything basically collapsed at work I didn't have support I didn't know what was going on my country is at war my friend is grieving my boyfriend cheated on me and what we've planned my life I thought we were going towards was nowhere to be seen so it was completely my whole future suddenly disappeared and I couldn't leave the country because I was bound by the contract for the flat which was very expensive so I had to stay

21:01and I don't know how I survived I like just hearing that for most people that would just be just too much that is a huge amount to take on even somebody who was a past master at being able to solve and find solutions and work hard and get things done even for somebody like that but just that whole that core wound of being so powerless when you were little it just showed it the level your country being at war your boss doing the your parents being in Australia and that whole level of powerlessness was just exacerbated but and I'm so not it's such a huge burden that you were carrying and probably not surprising that you just literally fell in a heap and just couldn't

21:53cope and probably for the first time I'm not saying the first time you're off but for somebody who's so capable and who could cope with so much that must have been quite scary to be in that position yeah it was so scary when I would be I still had to go to work or work but just like staring in a space and knowing that I can't do anything and I tried everything and nothing worked like I can't fix relationship with my boss I can't fix the war in Ukraine broke up with my ex there's nothing to fix there that was just such a sense of completeness

22:41powerlessness devastation and yeah just that there's nothing I can do anymore I've done everything I could what happened what happened then so what happened then so I was like this a few months hardly managing like literally grabbing myself and like doing the absolute minimum that I had to do to survive and not like thriving not planning it's just like somehow day by day and I was feeling a lot of anger to my ex and I was feeling that this sense of

23:31yeah like complete closure inside of me as a human being becoming this kind of resentful closed angry devastated hopeless person and then I decided to do a few different things some workshops some ceremonies which connected me with my grief with my emotions fully with sadness that I couldn't connect I just cook I couldn't let it out and then when I felt the depth of despair this depth of grief the depths of sadness something shifted and what changed for me is this sense of just going alone with life much more and I promised

24:26to myself then that I'm not going to override myself and my my life all the time and just go and push and push that I will just allow life to happen more to allow people to come to me with different suggestions offerings versus me searching for jobs or relationships kind of just letting myself follow much more what was there versus trying to change and adjust and so example can be I had a vague plan that I will go to Bali after Singapore and then I had a job offer I started relationships and I was like yeah I'll just travel the world

25:15I'll come back to Singapore so being much more flexible with what life has to offer with my plans as well instead of being so rigid and working towards it so on many level on more global level but also as a human being as well and that's that's a big shift to go from somebody hyper vigilant who feels powerless who needs to keep things controlled and to then go I'm actually going to surrender and to also and the only reason I feel this is I'm somebody who's quite controlling as well and so for me to really feel anger to really feel it to really feel grief to really feel despair because you want to control everything you want to know that's not a good feeling or we shouldn't be feeling that so to go from there to somebody who

26:04could fully feel it fully embody it fully accept it do you think that was an important turning point from going from this person who had to control things to somebody who could actually trust and allow things to to unfold and you could go along with the flow it's yeah it's huge it's I'm so grateful for this time I'm so grateful that all of this happened to me so now I can breathe I have a space I don't need to control everything and I'm not saying that suddenly it's easy and I can feel everything no it's still a process and sometimes with extra help and I need to do more work or I dance and go through me but

26:52yeah it's such a different place to be to be now to how it was for me then yes so going through the process of when it was horrendous in Singapore and you were literally surviving to embodying and going yeah I'm going to let life go and I'll go to Bali and we'll see what happens how long in time wise was that I think it was gradually I was healing and gradually expanding I would say yeah and I'm still doing it and I still notice how my old patterns come up of the desire of control and how I can let them go much easier but it still is it's a constant

27:38work for example recently my work in Singapore that I love they've told me that instead of three days I'm going to be working one day and it was quite unexpected and I went into this shock and desire I started researching I need to do I need to find something I need to control and then I just breathe out and trust I'm actually okay I don't need to I don't need to cling to something and the trust to life much more but also trust to myself because I've gone through so many hard things and I was always fine if I could survive that time when I was at complete bottom

28:26and I somehow survived people were saying how are you standing how are you still standing I don't know that it gives me such a sense of tremendous again strength expansion that I can collapse and I'll be okay and somehow I'm okay and no matter what happens and were there any other so the control thing about being safe and being powerless were there any other parts of you that were that at the at the time you couldn't see or wouldn't see that have emerged now during the work you've done and that you've embraced and seen retrospectively oh there's so many parts for sure from well I call

29:13my kind of focusing control controlling part I call it a bulldog so it's and I'm trying to use this part again it's not this part is controlling me but now I can make a choice with I said my bulldog too and still I can say okay it's time to go to bed you don't have to do this but yeah there will be so many things for example I grew up as a parent of our child and it was all about fixing and looking after everyone else's needs so I would have this approach to my ex-boyfriend as well how I can fix the relationships of him and yeah so that's and then taking responsibility that I'm doing that so there's part of like taking radical acceptance

30:04responsibility for my part in the relationships that I've played by taking this kind of control trying to fix and just having the liberation knowing that I've played a part in all of this and yeah it was very liberating even though so painful to see so yeah there's so many things how I tend to use a lot of splitting in life how I completely ignore I know that this is not right and again I just ignore that and focus on even my perception I almost forget when the person lied or did something because I had to do it as a child so seeing all of these patterns

30:54what I was doing to end up where I was yeah and what you said so beautifully in the beginning was the compassion as well is embracing these parts of you and as you said this really powerful one or the powerless one that's where it came from turned into such a powerful person which there were so many benefits but unchecked the benefits the scales just tipped and it's being able to see all these parts of ourselves with compassion and take the bulldog for example and he's obviously him she whatever the bulldog is obviously incredibly powerful and when it does something it will do it very well so it's an ally when checked and and I think that's

31:40it's such an empowering thing for yourself and for everybody listening for sure when I work with my clients I usually say that we're not trying to eliminate any of these parts but we are just we don't want these parts to run the show so if you think of the metaphor of the boardroom we don't want the bulldog to be leading the meeting we want a healthy compassionate kind of part of you to be leading the meeting but bulldog is still there you can build on the strength of the bulldog yeah it's just that it doesn't override because bulldog doesn't see the subtleties bulldog doesn't I wouldn't even notice how my ex-boyfriend would be feeling I would be just focusing on

32:28what needs to be done or where we're going or how to solve something so when I'm so focused on fixing or doing something yeah so for the woman listening who perhaps feels exhausted but just keeps on pushing what would you want her to see about herself yeah I would I would love to see what is behind the pushing what is this part covering because usually there is the vulnerability behind what what is if this part step aside what is it protecting in my case it would be the sense of powerlessness also the belief that I'm stupid I'm boring so I need to acquire all

33:16these accomplishments and do all of these things so and it's about making friends and loving this part that is behind too so knowing that nothing no matter how hard you push how much you accomplish you are not healing these other parts that are behind that so the only healing comes from feeling these vulnerabilities and being with them yeah achievements pushing overriding they usually work for some time up until they collapse and they can collapse from external factors like in my case obviously my internal signals were not enough even though I would

34:02not feeling well but the external ones are really just so what's one small way so she might be a pusher and she doesn't really know what's behind just what you were talking about the vulnerabilities what's one way she could just start listening to herself or being aware of these things to just start the whole process it's a really good question what will be the small thing I guess maybe noticing more how does this part when it's very active how does it make you feel does it make you feel more fulfilled more at peace more loved or does who needs are being met

34:49for example yeah like I want to feel more loved or cared for feel at peace but and this part is telling me my bulldog oh but you finish this and you finish this and then you will you achieve this and then the peace will come and it never comes so just like really noticing yeah if the needs are actually met what are you actually feeling yeah yeah that's beautiful and very powerful because and it's giving yourself space to to feel and giving yourself space to reflect as well how things are going particularly those of us with bulldogs we are so busy we don't even have time for reflection like reflections a waste of time exactly so it's the time to stop and even if it's taking three breaths what am I feeling right now what do I need and is this bulldog

35:40actually fulfilling my needs right now probably not yeah beautiful thank you so much for sharing that we just have a question and it's just been out there but if today was your last day on earth what would you do and why today is almost 5 p.m there's not much time left do I have the full day you have the full day you have the full day the full day will probably just do what I do here in Bali I just would like to see more of my friends and connect with people more and have conversations with people who live far away and even if I can enjoy my last dance here

36:32and have some nice last cuddles and but yeah I for me it will be connecting with people with my friends saying that I love them and what my interaction with them why they were important to me what they taught me how they inspired me so I would like to do that beautiful beautiful and I thank you so much for your time and your wisdom and for being vulnerable and open and explaining those parts so beautifully particularly for somebody who hasn't really heard about them and understand this I really appreciate you being here and thank you so much thank you so much David I really appreciate you and your questions and what you're doing for our women yeah it's a

37:23pleasure so if you're listening today and just notice what stayed with you perhaps it was a thought or a feeling or something you recognized but haven't actually said out loud and maybe just don't ignore that thank you