Marla Miller: 0:35

Welcome back to Open-Minded Healing. Today, we're going to be speaking with my guest, bridget Panetta, and the topic is about how you can heal from the effects of stress and trauma. Bridget's personal journey began under extraordinary circumstances. Two days after giving birth, during the onset of the pandemic, bridget found herself in the ICU, recovering from a traumatic birthing experience, while simultaneously supporting her husband through 26 legal hearings. The struggle resulted in losing their family, home and enduring significant personal and professional setbacks as a result of the stress and trauma she experienced. She decided to explore practices, which she's going to dive into today, to share with us how she was able to combat these effects of stress and trauma on her body and within her family. She was able, through her own journey, to discover the power of internal healing and now wishes to educate others on these methods. Welcome, bridget.

Brigette Panetta: 1:43

Thank you. Thank you for having me, Marla.

Marla Miller: 1:45

Well, I would say everyone at some point struggles or suffers from the effects of stress, certainly at varying degrees, and some may have what they consider a big trauma. You know that varies as well the degree, but what you were going through it definitely seems to be at the high end of the scale when it comes to stress and trauma and the fact that you were able to overcome this. You know I'll be interested to hear not only your story we can start with that but then what guided you to have an open mind about these different modalities you tried, and we'll get into which ones were most beneficial to you. But do you want to start with the story of your pregnancy and the birthing experience, of what happened at that point in your life?

Brigette Panetta: 2:38

Of course, and thank you for the introduction. It still makes me a little bit emotional when I hear it in its full kind of start to finish. It's been a journey and definitely something that now I can look back on and say that I am grateful for, because it's definitely helped me to evolve into someone that I'm really, really proud of. And I guess it all really started when I had given birth to my daughter. We had a legal pursuit on our family business two days before I gave birth to her, and before that we had spent years building a business, creating that safety and creating that environment to bring a child into, making sure that you're doing all the right things I had a bit of a perfectionism mindset then and making sure I was doing all the right things according to society and according to everyone around me, I guess and making sure that I was being responsible and doing the right things. And then everything just got torn away. I felt like the floor got ripped from underneath me and I've gone into my birthing experience in a state of shock. I think my body had gone into shock. My mind was okay. I felt like we were going to be fine when we had the lawsuit put on our family business because I'd worked in the business, I'd seen everything, I'd heard the legal meetings, I'd heard the accounting meetings. I was privy to a lot of the information and I trusted James immensely, and I still do. That's why I've stood by him. So James is your husband, james is my partner, yeah, fiance. So we are not married yet. We're meant to get married, but this whole experience has really pushed that back. It's not a priority, unfortunately. But yeah, I have stood by him because, again, I was so involved that I just I heard it with my own ears. So my head was fine.

Brigette Panetta: 4:24

But when I've gone into the birthing experience, I tried for a home birth because it was COVID and I just thought, well, why not try and just do this at home? I got a midwife and my body just would not cooperate. And in that experience I was telling the midwife I think I need to go to hospital, like this would not cooperate. And in that experience I was telling the midwife I think I need to go to hospital, like this is not working. It had been nearly 12 hours of contractions and quite close together and it just wasn't working. And that's when I just knew innately that my body was not ready, but my baby was trying to push, was trying to get out, but I wasn't allowing her. I was just stuck in this I guess fight or flight or freeze state and I didn't understand all of that back then. I just knew something wasn't right, but no one was listening to me and they were saying no, this is your birth plan and you wanted to do this and just stay a bit longer.

Brigette Panetta: 5:16

The midwives end up going home because they had other things on and I think they thought I was really far away from having Emerald. So they kind of left me on my own and that made me feel a bit uneasy and unsafe because my contractions were quite close together still. But I'd planned an escape plan. As soon as they left I said to James take me to the hospital straight away, I'm serious. No one's listening, but I know I need to be there.

Brigette Panetta: 5:42

And after a bit he took me there, and luckily, because my blood was actually septic and that's how I ended up in ICU. I had three blood transfusions, I hemorrhaged on the table, there was all these, just one thing after another, and that was kind of the start of this whole journey and I just remember lying in ICU thinking what's just happened, and it really just was frustrating because no one would listen. Like I was telling the lady there was something wrong when I was having that septic issue. My whole body was tensing and freezing up and she, just she was like oh, you're fine, you must just be having a reaction to the epidural. But I knew it was worse than that.

Brigette Panetta: 6:23

And all of these events just made me realize that no one was taking me seriously, and I think that's when I realized I wasn't standing in my power enough to just really take that leadership. And I think over this last five years that's something I've really been working on just standing in my own power and not allowing people to dictate my life for me Definitely something that I've had to overcome and get stronger at doing. But it started then I just felt like I was invisible and talking and no one was listening to it. Then, once we got home, it was just all talk about the government and the media because we were mentioned in the press a lot, and then we had staff resign. We lost our home because we got our funding shut off so we couldn't defend ourselves in court. So then we had to refinance our home to pay for that. We couldn't then service that because we couldn't raise any more funds and it was just a never ending string of unknowns and I guess it felt like every day there was a new issue and a new problem to fix and to overcome.

Brigette Panetta: 7:28

And it was just challenging because I'm trying to be this pillar of strength for a child, but then also so scared. As a grown woman, I was petrified because common sense was not happening in this situation, and when my mind knew what I knew about the business and I'm seeing all of this destruction, it just did not make sense and I thought there's something wrong here, because if this was the world that I thought I lived in, this wouldn't be happening, because we're not the people that they think we are. And so to lose everything and then become a mother, my identity that I was attaching to was getting ripped from me as well, because I felt like I didn't know who I was and I didn't know what I stood for and I didn't know what I believed anymore, because what I was seeing was not what I'd been raised to believe.

Brigette Panetta: 8:19

And if you're a good person, these things don't happen. If you're kind, these things don't happen. And I've always tried to be that person to everyone. And I just started getting so hateful and resentful because why was this happening to me when I'm not Well? Jane's as well, it's like we're not those people, not well, james as well, it's like we're not those people. And so just trying to understand that and let go of that anger and that hatred and that frustration was when I really realized that if I don't, I'm not going to be very well as a person, because I ended up getting an autoimmune issue and it was just all coming out through my skin and well, so let's.

Marla Miller: 9:00

I definitely want to get into that, how it started affecting you physically and emotionally, but at this point, so you are like you said. Well, first of all, it's such an emotional time having a baby, and even that takes all your focus and effort and energy usually, and so I can't imagine having to share that energy and create more stress for your body and your emotions with a legal battle as well. And, like you said, it wasn't just a cut and dry legal battle. It's questioning who you are, like someone's questioning you know whether you're a good person or not. It's kind of how you're feeling, right, yeah, so at that point, how was the relationship then with your fiance during that time? Were you able to sort of band together and fight this together, or was there resentment there? How was that playing out?

Brigette Panetta: 9:59

yeah, at the we bound together. I was straight back into work as soon as Emerald came into the world because a lot of our staff had resigned Well, the finance team hadn't resigned but then we couldn't afford to pay everyone. So I had to step in. And I remember telling myself it is about James and Emerald right now. You can have a breakdown later. And I just went into that survival because James needed help. He needed someone and I'm that person for him and I was happy to do that.

Brigette Panetta: 10:27

But after a while, when we moved a lot because I got into a really good routine of getting Emerald to sleep I was working in between her sleep so I was making sure James was eating well, because I needed him to be able to be healthy and well, to keep going. And so when we moved and that routine was broken and changed my body, just it kind of collapsed. Basically it just could not function because I had just pushed it way too far and it was just overloaded at that point. Then I started getting a little bit resentful because I realized how much I was abandoning myself and because it kept going it's been five years and it's still going I then started to doubt us like, oh, maybe we have done something. Surely they can't get it this wrong.

Brigette Panetta: 11:13

And then all those doubts kept coming in and that's when I started getting resentful. But then, as I healed, I remembered who we were and who we are, and that's why now we're back. You know, we're bound together and we've always been such a good team, which is surprising under these circumstances, because we were only together for a year and a half before this started. So luckily, we created a really strong foundation in those early stages to be able to handle this high pressure environment. And now we divide and conquer. He does the work stuff, I do everything at home, and then I'm starting to build my business to try and raise awareness about everything happening as well mentioned that once you started healing yourself, that it's like it tapped back into who you really are instead of focusing on who other people think you are.

Brigette Panetta: 12:07

Yeah, um, so that's amazing that's what was hurting me the most was because we were mentioned in the media. I was so embarrassed, I was so mortified because I'm such a proud person but also I like to show up how I want to show up in the world, and now I was having my identity, my family and James especially being painted as someone that he definitely isn't. Like he got caught a flight risk. He had his passport taken off him. They looked to see if we were going to flee the country with lender's money. They looked to see if Emerald had a passport at three months old. Like we had no intention of even thinking like that, and the fact that they thought that we would do something like that was mortifying for me because it's just so far from who we are. And so I actually had a panic attack when I read that in a court document and I had to go to hospital at that point Um, cause it was just just shocked me to my core.

Brigette Panetta: 13:01

And then it was more that I was worried what other people thought of me and because a lot of my friends as well weren't even ringing me. They weren't asking are you okay? I've just read this or I've seen this? Yeah, it just plays with you. And then when I realized I don't care what the media write, I don't care what people think of me, because I know who I am and my true friends know who I am as well and I've had some incredibly supportive friends who just know James thoroughly, know me thoroughly, and they just would not believe a tiny bit of what they read. That just gave me hope as well, and it just allowed me to not care about what anyone else thinks, because if they haven't called me, they don't matter.

Marla Miller: 13:38

Yeah, what anyone else thinks because if they haven't called me they don't matter. Yeah, I look at that as, as you evolve and your frequency changes, people do drop away, like you are transitioning into a different version of yourself that doesn't resonate anymore with certain people. I kind of look at that as just something to observe and not get overly concerned about, or you know what I mean, yeah Well, so as far as the effects, let's talk about that, the effects of stress on your body. So from a physical standpoint, let's dive into that. You mentioned you had a panic attack. What did that look like and what other symptoms were you experiencing at this point?

Brigette Panetta: 14:27

yeah. So I was kind of fine up until then, but I think because I was in that survival mode, so my mind, my body and mind had completely disconnected and my mind was just in that logical primal state where I was like just go, go, go and worry about the body later. And then when I had the panic attack, I just could not breathe. And I talked to my dad after and he said I've been waiting for this. No one knew how I was continuing to operate and say I'm fine, I'm good under all that pressure, and so they were kind of waiting for this moment. And after that they gave me Valium and I don't take like I've never taken that. I just am not interested in Panadol and all of that jazz. So I took one and then I had another one like a few days later, cause I could feel a bit of a flutter and I thought that's when I realized that I'm going to get addicted to this stuff. This is how it happens. And so that's when I realized I had to find a different path, because if that's all the doctors are going to give me, that's all they're going to give me.

Brigette Panetta: 15:29

I tried to speak to a therapist. They did not help me at all. They were basically like well, can you ask James when this is going to be over, because you need a timeline? Well, james, when this is going to be over, because you need a timeline, well, he can't tell me that, and is that all you have? It wasn't very constructive. It was you need a timeline of when this is going to be done and you need to support James because this is obviously something he needs to handle.

Brigette Panetta: 15:50

And it just did not help me at all. I felt worse after it, actually, and then I went and saw a kinesiologist. It popped up randomly on an ad on my Facebook and I really just gravitated to it. She was available literally the next day, just felt right, and she was really eye-opening for me about how disconnected I was around the body and I didn't understand how much you store in your body and I didn't understand there was so much. I didn't understand. I just thought I was a very analytical, logical person and that's how I solve problems, but the problem was so big and so out of my control that I couldn't logically fix it or understand it because it did not make sense, and so I needed to get into the body to release the stress to be able to handle whatever's coming next and next and next and next.

Brigette Panetta: 16:41

Because James was able to handle it, because he studied philosophy from a very young age and he's very stoic in how he operates. He's very calm, he just handles everything that comes his way because he believes in himself. But I didn't believe in myself and I didn't know that I could strengthen that. I just thought that's just how I am, this is how I handle situations. I'm Italian, I'm emotional, this is just how I respond. But then I realized, to be able to overcome this challenge that they say you only get what you can handle I had to change my tools and my methods and everything I was doing had to elevate to be able to overcome it and not keep spiraling and going to that victim state and crying and being upset about it. Because again I had a child that I didn't want to see me cry and I didn't want it to touch her. I wanted to try and keep it as far away from her as I could. So then the kinesiology helped me to forgive. That was the first thing that I did so.

Marla Miller: 17:38

do you want to explain the kinesiology, what it actually looks like?

Brigette Panetta: 17:42

Yeah, of course. So it's a lot of body testing so they can tap into the body and ask the body permission to be able to respond to certain questions. So, yes, no answers. So she could understand what my body was scared of, what I was holding, what my hormone levels were, was scared of what I was holding, what my hormone levels were, what my stress levels were, and she was able to really just, I guess, see me. The therapist could hear me, but she could see and feel me and that made me feel so much better, because I couldn't articulate what I was feeling. I was just angry and I was just sad about it. I was heartbroken that my life had just taken this turn and I couldn't do anything about it.

Marla Miller: 18:23

So the kinesiology. Is that the same as muscle testing?

Brigette Panetta: 18:28

Muscle testing, but you had more of a spiritual element to it as well. I think you can see different types of practitioners. Some are more like chiropractic focused, so they work on the actual structure of the body, but you can see ones that are just more about the muscle testing and also a little bit spiritual, so they can help you heal through ancestral healing. Whatever you're carrying of others, you're able to go into like a meditation and release those conditionings and things that you're carrying of others.

Brigette Panetta: 18:58

And how I heard it explained the other day, it's like you're giving your body a microphone Instead of your mouth a microphone. You're putting it up to your body and allowing it to speak and allowing it to say I've been holding onto this emotion. And then they'll ask the body how long? When did it happen? Were you 15? Were you 16? And your arm will either move or stay still and you can ask it is yes, down, or is yes, like strong. And so your body is telling you and telling them what emotion you're feeling, what motion you're carrying and when something happened in a previous year and a certain circumstance to have created that trigger in your body or that wound that you are still responding from so it's kind of like if it asks you a question, you don't even have to answer it, you don't have to analyze it or think about it.

Marla Miller: 19:51

Your body just knows the answer. And when your arm, if they push it real lightly on your arm and they ask you a question, say they say you know, is your name bridget, and it stays up because that is your name. But if, if you say no, my name is judy, then your arm goes down because it's not congruent with what your mind and body and conscious, even your subconscious, know to be true, exactly Okay. So yeah, if it's not congruent, all around your body will let you know.

Brigette Panetta: 20:30

Yes, and because the ego can take over the mind. So when you respond, it might not be what your body's thinking. It's just your ego protecting you from either being seen or too loud or, you know, not showing vulnerability, whereas the body doesn't do that. It just allows them to understand what help you need and what you need to release to be able to feel free from that burden, I guess.

Marla Miller: 20:51

Yeah, so you did this kinesiology. How often did you go Was?

Brigette Panetta: 20:57

that like an hour long yeah, an hour and I saw her every week after that for a few months. Wow, it was just necessary. I needed to do that, and I was feeling lighter and lighter every time I went in and came out and it was just helping me to really deep dive into why I am the way I am in terms of those reactions and where they came from in a previous experience or from family members or environments. That's when I started to realize I don't just need to accept that this is how I am Like. I can rewire that and I can deep dive into why I am like that and I can try and overcome those things. It's not that, it's just this is who you are and you have to accept that.

Marla Miller: 21:42

And she was able to help you not only pinpoint the issues, but then release them, is that? Right and how did she do that? Or how did you do it?

Brigette Panetta: 21:53

I should say so the first one was the forgiveness. So she went through like a meditation with me. I'd lay on the bed and she would get me to visualize who I wanted to forgive in this moment and who I wanted to forgive for creating this experience for me. And it was a little bit tricky because I one I guess I was a bit of a grudge holder at that point and I thought absolutely not, like if I forgive, then that means they just get away with it, like no, I need my justice, I need consequences for these actions because my life has been tipped upside down. But when she explained that it's not my responsibility to create consequences for people, that's their journey and their karma will come when it comes.

Brigette Panetta: 22:37

You can't control that and the more you try and hold onto that, the more heat and anger you're going to have in your body. So it really opened my eyes up to that I can release that and I don't need to hate these people. And so I would just visualize them and I would shine like this beautiful white light onto them and forgive them for what they're doing. And it was allowing me to just give that anger to them and just transmute it, I guess, into like this beautiful light that I was then radiating on them to say I forgive you, it's okay, and it kind of allowed me to remove myself from the situation and just let them continue doing what they're doing. And you picture yourself like floating off in this hot air balloon, like you're separating from it, and you just see it become this tiny little spot and it just kind of felt like I was removed.

Marla Miller: 23:28

Yeah, and I think you can tell if it's working or not by how you feel. Right If you started feeling lighter and lighter every week doing that work? Yes, definitely. So you did the kinesiology, and what were some of the other modalities you tried?

Brigette Panetta: 23:45

So I then went on to Reiki. I discovered and I continued with that and that was just helping release the energy out of my body if I felt like I was going into a low vibration because, also being around James, he's in a bit of a war zone. So inherently he's got this energy around him because he's got people talking about him, he's got the press writing about him, so you've got people reading, casting judgment. That does impact people even through the quantum field. I guess he's inherently attracting this negative energy. So I was then absorbing that and I was finding the Reiki was really good as an energetic cleanse, just to help me release any negative energy that I was absorbing as well, and I felt I could really see the difference every time. I would sometimes just do it virtually as well and it was just really helpful for me because I'm very energetic and very empathetic. So I was finding that was helping me just feel lighter, almost like a little cleanse yeah, energetic cleanse.

Marla Miller: 24:47

So do you want to explain? I don't know if all the listeners know or not you know what Reiki is. They might, but do you want to just give a little explanation?

Brigette Panetta: 24:56

I'm actually doing a Reiki course next week so I'm so excited I'm going to actually start to practice it myself so I can help Emerald and James at home just to remove those cords. So how I think of it is you've got your energetic field around you and you can have negative or positive energetic cords from people you've had in your life. If they think about you sometimes in a negative light, like that energy can link to your energy and it can actually drain you of energy. And you would just go into a meditation and you would picture the person who you can feel like there's some kind of energetic pull and sometimes you can think, oh, why am I getting this weird vibe from them? I don't know, I feel that they're not happy with me for some reason or they're talking about me Like that's a negative energy cord and you've got the power and control to cut that cord from your energy. And so I was finding that was what was helping me, because I felt just these negative pulls.

Brigette Panetta: 25:51

So you're kind of just cutting anything negative from your body and you're just cleansing that energy. So it's not from a dark space, it's, I guess, lightening the energy in your body because you can operate at different frequencies and the lower you go down your body to your root chakra and things like that. If you're operating from those low energetic levels, that's like anger, jealousy, frustration, all those kind of darker things. And then the goal is to operate from the crown chakra, which is more about enlightenment, love. You know, even if someone's hurt you, if you should just send them love, you just feel on such a higher frequency and you can operate at a better way. You can think clearer about the situation. You're not going to go straight into the victim mentality. You can elevate that up and if you just operate from love, you attract that. If you're operating from negativity, you're attracting more. You're noticing the same things keep repeating themselves.

Marla Miller: 26:47

It's because you're attracting that energy, because that's the level that you're operating from, whereas the reiki can help elevate to those higher levels of frequency yeah, so between the kinesiology and the reiki, were you seeing things shift in your life or were you gaining, you know, a new perspective, like like not seeing it as quite as traumatic because you're looking at it from a different perspective?

Brigette Panetta: 27:14

Definitely I was just able to not fear what was coming today. And when something did come, because it didn't just, you know, cue everything it just helped me be able to cope with things differently and in a more constructive way, instead of James telling me, oh, this person's suing us today. Normally I would just break down and I would yeah, oh, why is this happening? I can't believe this is happening again. It was from this real hopelessness and this real victim mentality, whereas when it did, I would sit with it and I would try and see the lesson or I would think, oh well, we've handled this before, we can handle this again.

Brigette Panetta: 27:52

It was a very much a positive approach to things and if Emeril spilled something or did something, it wasn't like, oh, I have to clean this mess, it was just, I just cleaned it. Everything just felt easier and I was approaching tasks and things that before I was finding quite challenging and always frustrating. I was just getting on with life a lot smoother. It helps you cope and gives you those calming I guess mindsets to be able to just handle life in more of a streamlined way.

Marla Miller: 28:26

Yeah, it is interesting. It's not about changing the circumstances or the people in your life. It's about coming at it from a whole different perspective. That really changes your experience, definitely. Well, now I know you did breathwork, right. Yes, what kind of breathwork, and how did you incorporate that?

Brigette Panetta: 28:47

Yes, what kind of breath work and how did you incorporate that? So I found breath work through one of my cousins. She mentioned it to me and I felt well, at that point I was open to trying everything because I was seeing all this beautiful results and I was feeling better and so I was just open to anything. So I went to a session and it was incredible, Absolutely incredible. It was at this beautiful studio and they had the music. You just had the music blaring. They had vibration on the floor.

Brigette Panetta: 29:15

So when you were laying down, you could feel the vibration through your body and you would do this breath through your abdominal and through your mouth and it was nonstop for the first 10 minutes and you would feel your hands freezing up and you would feel your body resisting this breath but they would push you through to keep breathing and that was actually accessing the parasympathetic nervous system to get you in a really calm theta state, like not asleep, but just when you first wake up, when you're kind of really in touch with yourself, you're kind of really in touch with yourself and I just saw all of these experiences coming up in my mind and I just cried for a good 20, 30 minutes and just all these moments of desperation and panic and fear were coming into my mind and I would just cry and it's like it was the biggest release of those things that I'd forgot that I was even carrying.

Brigette Panetta: 30:07

I forgot that even happened before. You know, when you bury things that happen and it was just the most profound experience and I ended up just then diving into that and trying to clear a lot of those traumas and things that I was storing in my body.

Marla Miller: 30:21

So did it have a particular name.

Brigette Panetta: 30:25

I remember the breath as being like a fire breath. It was just a real heavy abdominal mouth breathing and just nonstop for a good 10 minutes.

Marla Miller: 30:36

So it was to. Not that you could pinpoint where you had trapped emotions in your body. It would just show up like you'd have a memory of something and then have the emotion around it and it's released. Did you feel anything differently in your body as a result of releasing these emotions?

Brigette Panetta: 30:58

Yeah, just light just lightness, complete lightness. I felt so free and I felt so safe because I no longer was carrying that trapped emotion in my body. Because when you've got that trapped emotion, your body keeps reacting from that, Like your ego has attached to that emotion and that memory. And then every time a situation similar to that comes up, your ego will stop you from engaging with that, or your ego will try and keep you safe because they're thinking oh I've been through that before and it didn't end well, so I'm going to protect you. So it's keeping you small because it's scared that you'll get hurt again. But when you are evolving, you need to release these old emotions because you can now trust yourself to handle that situation differently. And so you need to kind of evolve the mind to feel safe, but also the body to feel safe, and by releasing those old traumas it's providing that more safety and comfort within.

Marla Miller: 31:55

So after you do this breath work, you're in this space with other people and an instructor, and so after you do that 10 minute breath, is there more to that or that's the session?

Brigette Panetta: 32:09

you do that 10 minute breath. Is there more to that? Or that's the session? Oh no. So you do the breath and you continue, but the music at the start is quite aggressive and a bit louder and a bit more of an upbeat kind of sound to get those emotions out. And then, after they play these beautiful ballads and beautiful songs with gorgeous words and love songs to release that emotion, you kind of just cry or you can. People were screaming, some people were just silent. Everyone responds a lot differently and then you're just laying there. The whole class went for nearly two hours in total. So you do lay there for a long time after the breath to allow the body to just release and shake and do what it needs to do to have that kind of somatic response.

Marla Miller: 32:52

So if someone was looking for that kind of experience to release emotions, do they look up somatic breath work?

Brigette Panetta: 32:58

Yeah, just any type of breath work I would look at. There is obviously they'll tell you if it's more of a release or you can do a beginner one which is more gentle. It's a start. If you haven't done breathwork before, it's more. You can do nasal breathing which it's not as intense. I jumped straight into the intense one. I don't know, I didn't know anything about it at that time and I'd kind of just tried the first class that I was suggested and I loved it. But if it's something that you want to just dip your toe into, I would just do more of a gentle beginner breathwork class and then build up to more of a releasing breathwork.

Marla Miller: 33:36

That sounds really interesting. That's something I haven't tried, so I'd be interested. It's amazing. So was there anything else, any other modality you used in combination with those three?

Brigette Panetta: 33:50

They were the main kind of body works. Oh sorry, when I did get the autoimmune issue, I couldn't work out what was going on in my body. But I did a practice called the stress reset and it's through the human garage on Instagram and they focus a lot on the fascia, which is like a connective tissue underneath the skin, so you'd think of it as like a full body suit that we have and that's where a lot of your memories are stored. The breathwork does help release that. But I was finding that for some reason, there was everyday stresses that were happening, especially with mum life.

Brigette Panetta: 34:29

You kind of just get frustrated. It was becoming more of an issue and I think that's why my skin was reacting the way it was and I found through them a way to release that through the body and I was implementing that every day. They do a 28-day reset and it's a 15-minute practice that I was doing every morning to help relieve stress from the body. You can't go to breathwork classes every day, it's just a bit much, but this was like a really quick tool that I was using to be able to release stress from the whole body to start the day, and it was just helping me remain calm.

Marla Miller: 35:04

So that is on Instagram and the account is called the human garage. Yes, I have seen that. Yeah, um, yeah, it's interesting. Well, and then, as far as well, let's talk about so you said you had an autoimmune issue. When did that pop up? Was that right after the pregnancy? Was it down the road a little bit? It was down the road.

Brigette Panetta: 35:26

It was probably three years in. We'd just moved to Sydney and oh no, no sorry, it was just before that. It was while we were in Perth, so it was after the breath work. But I'd actually stopped drinking because I was finding that it just wasn't agreeing with me. I was still, you know, I wasn't in the right environment or headspace to be able to drink. It just wasn't agreeing and my body went into a bit of a detox mode because I'd stopped for nearly eight months and I think all of these toxins were being released from my body because my body just triggered that detox response and I didn't know how to clear it at the time.

Brigette Panetta: 36:05

And I only discovered this because I went to see an Ayurvedic doctor who did like an energetic reading. And so they have a machine that they actually can connect to the nerves on your fingers and toes, which then lets it know how the organs are functioning. If it's over a certain amount, there's obviously an imbalance in that organ. And what he would do was he would grab a different vial to be able to see what would balance that organ out. So mine was heavy metals. So I had an excess heavy metal overload in my body which was creating my organs not to function the way they needed to, which was then stopping the detox function from happening. And so that's when I realized that was happening, and so I had to work out how to detox the body as much as I could, on top of the herbs that the Ayurvedic doctor had given me. And then I was finding that stress reset was helping with that too, just to remove the stress, because the stressful environment was also creating that fight or flight. So I wasn't able to digest properly.

Marla Miller: 37:08

So did they diagnose you with an autoimmune.

Brigette Panetta: 37:13

So I didn't. I never went to a doctor about it. I just went to the R-V-A-D doctor and that's where he said you've got an autoimmune issue, your body's not functioning correctly but you need to release all of the heavy metals out of your body as a start. And also there was a lot of turmeric that he was giving me, which was helping with the inflammation, but the hives I was getting I couldn't eat. So I did see a naturopath as well. She told me just to remove all of the foods gluten, wheat, dairy, nuts, berries but I removed all of those foods and I was still getting high.

Brigette Panetta: 37:46

So my whole neck was bleeding, like it was just insane. My arms I couldn't use certain clothing, fabrics, softeners, I couldn't use anything that had any kind of chemicals in it. My body would respond to that. But once I'd removed everything from the house, I realized that in the mornings it would still happen. So that's when I understood it was my thoughts, like any negative thoughts or anything that was popping up. That wasn't, I guess, agreeing with me. But I could control that at the time, I think, because my body was so stressed that I was not able to manage my thoughts, and so I had to work out how to reduce the stress which was through that process that I found through the human garage. And then I started just diving into my thoughts and doing thought audits around. Why am I thinking that and dissecting these negative patterns that I was kind of living in?

Marla Miller: 38:39

And how did you do that Redirect?

Brigette Panetta: 38:41

your thoughts.

Brigette Panetta: 38:42

That was all through shadow work. I did that all kind of intuitively based. I would just carry a journal around with me and I would write down anything that triggered me that day. So if I responded negatively to something that Emeril did, or if someone cut me off, or if something happened and I responded in a way that made me like frustrated, I would write it down and then I would meditate on it to find out what the original trigger was for that kind of response. And so I call it a thought order and I would just really dissect my responses and work out if they're even mine, or were they dad's, or were they my mom's, or were they an ex-partner's. And I was able to realize that all the conditionings that I was operating under were not me, they were other people.

Marla Miller: 39:33

Well, that's interesting that you thought to do that on your own and just take that on and journal those instances and then meditate. So meditate is very powerful for tuning in to those answers like you were looking for. Is this mine or was this my parents, or where did this response come from? So you were tuning into those higher answers.

Brigette Panetta: 39:55

Yes, I'd ask the question and I'd say I, you know, think on it and I think what would happen for me to feel disrespect at one time in my life? Why do I feel like emerald, who's three years old, is disrespecting me? She doesn't know what that means and she's three, it's a me thing. And so that's when I started thinking. When didn't I feel heard? Was it in a workplace? Was it with mom and dad? When didn't I feel seen and when I would go into these meditative states, whether it's through just a quick breath, work at home or the meditation.

Marla Miller: 40:28

I was able to find those moments and sometimes I'd actually replay the moments at how I wish they went, or even just forgive that younger version of me for handling it like that and kind of replaying it the way I wish it went that's such a great technique that you thought of doing yeah, and it's important, I think, to not look for the answer when you're in that beta brain wave, the one we're always in generally during the day, but in a meditative state, to ask those questions when you're already in an elevated, in a different brain wave, to find those answers right, not Not just analytically, but to Exactly yeah, the logic mind can only get you so far that when you can tap in and then you apply the logic mind like, oh okay, so next time, if that happened, like you can trust me body to respond this way, or I've got like I was building that trust.

Brigette Panetta: 41:23

Every time I would find an answer and let my inner child or my younger self feel seen and give them grace and say, well, you only knew how to do that at the time because that's the only information you had, and so I was forgiving my younger self and showing them grace and then saying, well, next time this is how I would handle it, so you can trust me, you don't need to be scared of that. I was creating that rapport, I guess, with myself and that trust. That's amazing.

Marla Miller: 41:55

I'm impressed by all the different ways you decided to. You know all the different things you decided to try and then implementing your own sort of program here, then implementing your own sort of program here. It's really impressive, and to be able to do it in a way that bonds you closer to your fiance and also, like you said, gives yourself grace. You know as a younger child, or even you know now today, to forgive your responses and learn from it and move forward instead of beating yourself up and continuing to stay stuck. So there's so much valuable information you've shared during this call here. So what was the biggest lesson you learned during this whole process, your most difficult times? What do you think the lesson was?

Brigette Panetta: 42:50

so the lesson for me was don't let anyone take away your power or change the way you view yourself, and always just remember that everything that happens is happening for you, not to you. That whenever something happens now I just remember that and I just feel safe still, whereas you need to make sure you can remain feeling safe in your body, because that's how you can handle it from your higher self and handle it as the higher version of someone who can handle that situation.

Marla Miller: 43:25

Yeah Well, what was the biggest obstacle, as you're going through all this?

Brigette Panetta: 43:32

The main one was, I guess, just loving myself, even when I felt like I'd let myself down in certain instances and didn't hold strong, was forgiving myself for that, because when you feel like you don't trust yourself or love yourself, that's hurtful and so it was just rebuilding that.

Marla Miller: 44:00

And then the last question what was the biggest kindness someone showed you throughout this process?

Brigette Panetta: 44:19

I think I'd say the people that stood by us was. For me, it was very, very heartfelt, because we lost a lot of people in this process, so the ones that believed in us. That is what really touched my heart and made me feel like, you know, we still had that support from the people we knew and we trusted.

Marla Miller: 44:35

What's an example of that, like what's something someone in particular did that really stood out to you. How did they show that support to you?

Brigette Panetta: 44:47

Actually, it was probably my parents, to be honest, be honest, because they, when we really needed them, they would fly to see us. There was one moment when I we were in queensland at the time and I called dad. This was after we moved from melbourne, so that's when I was in a really kind of bad stakes. My routine had been broken and, dad, I really need you to come and he was working, so he had to take time off and do all of that so he could tell that I was in a really low place because I hadn't asked for anything before this. And he, yeah, straight away on the next flight, came to Queensland and him, emerald and I all went away just to have like two or three days just away from the craziness. And that was quite life-changing for me because it just gave me a bit of a breather, but that was, yeah, that was probably one of the the kindest things that's awesome when you have that support.

Marla Miller: 45:48

I've gotten that support from my parents as well, like that. So I wanted to ask what are you doing now? Maybe share with the listeners what type of work you're doing now and if you have any last thoughts for people that are struggling through something similar.

Brigette Panetta: 46:15

So the main thing I'm doing is building out my own personal brand around overcoming adversity and resilience and providing these tools that I was fortunate enough to stumble across and really use in my journey because they can be a little bit out there. So I'm really trying to just create this mainstream energy around these practices and tools that you can do anywhere. You don't need to go see a practitioner all the time. You can take that power back and be able to implement them yourself. So that's what I'm doing. My long-term goal is to create a wellness space and foundation for people burnt out or overcoming adversity, and providing all these tools in one space, because I find they can be a little bit hard to find, and also having like a foundation to help people struggling with legal battles, things like that, and especially for the mum, the mums and the kids, because it's quite an isolating and lonely process, so they need that, that level of support. So that's something that's really close to my heart and I want to give back in that way.

Brigette Panetta: 47:11

For anyone that's going through anything, that's just a bit of an out of control situation. I would definitely just work on reconnecting to the body, doing the human garage stress reset and doing the thought audit, which was really helpful for me to be able to rewire those conditionings. I'm on Instagram at Bridget Panetta, and I've got a few free resources on there. One is a thought audit seven-day thought audit to help you move from more of a reaction point of view to an observer point of view and observe the thoughts instead of attaching and reacting to them, and there's a free five-step forgiveness workbook on there as well. I would recommend just starting there and obviously reach out to me if you need anything, because I'm always open and always happy to help and provide any other information or clarification that you need.

Marla Miller: 47:59

That's great. Well, I will put anything that you want to share in the show notes as well, so people can find you there. That would be great notes as well. So people can find you there, that would be great. Well, thank you so much for this beautiful conversation and I'm so glad you really I mean you are such a strong person to work through all of that and to not just give up or, you know, feel so stressed and take it out on the little one to really want to up-level yourself and to it out on the little one to really want to up level yourself and to constantly work on evolving is impressive thank you so much.

Brigette Panetta: 48:37

I really appreciate it. That means a lot.