Adoptees in 3: Connecting Mind, Heart and Action – Episode 5 Emma Stevens

Episode Transcript 

Voiceover

Introduction

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The Voices Unheard Program at Boston Post Adoption Resources is designed to empower adult adoptees in expressing their personal stories and to expand public knowledge and awareness around lived adoptee experiences. Our program goals are accomplished through this Adoptees in 3 video series; through narrative writing workshops; adoptee-created blogs; the use of the Voices Unheard journal; as well as through Voices Unheard: Real Adoptee Stories, which is our annual live speaker’s forum dedicated to educating the greater Boston community through creative expression and storytelling.

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LC: Welcome everyone to “Adoptees in 3: Connecting Mind, Heart, and Action,” I'm LC Coppola. I'm an adoptee and the Program Director of Voices Unheard through Boston Post Adoption Resources. And I'm really happy to have Emma Stevens here with us today. Hi, Emma!

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Emma Stevens: Hi, there! Thank you for having me on today.

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LC: I'm just gonna do a little introduction of you. Emma Stevens is a US domestic adoptee from birth and has survived layers of trauma that have put her on multiple journeys. Emma is an advocate for adopted individuals and is invested in the movement to expand the reach of trauma-informed therapy. She's currently working on her new memoir “Choosing to Breathe” about her quest to integrate all of her parts. This one—this book precedes the book “A Fire is Coming” which explores her harrowing experience of exploitation in therapy. And she actually also had a first book, “The Gathering Place,” an adoptee story which came out not even that long ago in 2021. In “The Gathering Place,” there's quite a bit we talked about parts work in that one, too. That's going on in your healing journey, and I'm such a huge advocate for that kind of parts inner-child, inner-parent, wounded child's work. Emma has an undergraduate degree in journalism and has completed a master's level course work in psychology, specializing in marriage, family, and child counseling. You also have two adult children and two cat children who you adore. So, how are you, Emma? How are how are you today?

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Emma Stevens: I'm great, and I'm hoping one of my cat children won't prance across my keyboard, as they usually do.

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LC: Oh, I'm hoping they do.

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Emma Stevens: But the tail . . . it—it really is distracting sometimes. But anyway, I'm doing great, and I'm so happy to be here and be talking with you.

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LC: Yeah. Alright. Well, let's jump into these questions. If you were to make a movie or write a book (which you already have) so, make a movie about your adoption journey today, what would you title it?

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Emma Stevens: I gave this just a little bit of thought, and—and this is sort of a long title, but I think it gets to the point of—

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LC: I love a long title.

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Emma Stevens: “Living the Life of An Adoptee is a Difficult Needle to Thread.”

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LC: Hmm.

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Emma Stevens: And if you've ever tried to get that thread through that little tiny hole, I figure that that is so much like living life as an adoptee and trying to keep our balance throughout every life developmental stage. It never really gets cleared up because as we progress, things change you—your feelings of adoption change, and you have to reassess and reevaluate and deconstruct. And so, I'm not saying that it's a—a life sentence. It does last a lifetime, and you have to befriend it in order to not let it rule your life. But it is definitely a major theme. And so, my movie would be showing how at first the viewer might see random things happening of like, “Oh, my gosh! Now she's doing this!” and then “Why would she go off and do that?” but by the end of the story it would pull it all together and say, “This is how it's all connected. Every—there was no tangent, there was no random relationship or decision making, it all fit,” of kind of like, “Well, of course, what else would she do? She was expressing this, or she was trying to overcome that or she was, you know, victimized or indoctrinated by someone that knew her Achilles’ heel and then here is how I got through it.”

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LC: Yeah, your decisions, even the ones that look like they were bad ones, are all done. They were all made for some reason that was meaningful.

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Emma Stevens: Right. Yeah, and that luckily I was reflective enough to take stock in a bad decision and sit back and go, “Okay, what would I rather do now,” Because I have choice now as an adult, I didn't as a child. No—none of us do, but I do have choices now, and if I don't allow myself to make choices, then the non-choice is making a choice. Does that make sense?

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LC: Yep.

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Emma Stevens: By no action, that is a choice.

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LC: Right.

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Emma Stevens: It's not you really being in the lead.

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LC: Right.

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Emma Stevens: Yeah.

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LC: Can you talk a little bit about the parts work stuff and making choices, like, does that ever? Do you ever use . . .?

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Emma Stevens: Oh, yeah, definitely, because my younger parts will show up, as do everyone's. And in fact, I've started looking at the population out there as of their—their younger parts, because you'll see someone acting in a way that seems irrational or ex-explosive. And when I stop and think, “I wonder what's behind that?” and “What need didn't get met when they were younger?” What are they trying to still express that a need that didn't get met? So, for myself, I watch it very closely. Now that I'm aware and say, “Okay, I hear you five-year-old part. What do—what do you want to tell me? And how can I bring comfort and repair to where we can work this out?” And how about adult self—"Me handle it this time because you were too young for—to make that kind of choice? I let you off the hook now.” And so that brings relief and understanding, I think, and more integration happening to where you can be more in charge of your life as your capital ‘S’ Adult Self.

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LC: Yeah, yeah.

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Emma Stevens: Not to say I—I hate that younger part. I wish they'd get out of here. No, we have grace and compassion and love, because I thank all my younger parts that help me survive my childhood. But now, as an adult, they hinder me because I’m an adult, right? And so often as adoptees, we get infantilized because we're the eternal child. We're the adopted child, and we have to shed that skin and say, “No, that's my old story. Here's my new story.”

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LC: Yeah. Yeah, totally. And like those parts just need to be loved now, really, you know. And- and but when they—when they call the shots, it is pretty, it is. It can kinda mess things up unless they're like, “Take me out for ice cream,” you know, and then.

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Emma Stevens: Right. Sometimes if we ignore them, or we have, you know, hatred towards them, and wish they just shut up and go away. They just speak louder. They just say, “I really have something to say. I’d really like you to hear me,” And so that's why the collaboration needs to happen, so you can . . . It's kinda like just having a conversation at the table. Let's work this. Let's negotiate this and talk about what we'd rather do.

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LC: Yeah.

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Emma Stevens: So, taking the pause in life is really important, because if you don't pause, you don't have the time to ask yourself, you know. Let me bring my 5-year-old comfort, cause you're already moving on to, well, I've got to do this. I've got to do that, and that's a life out of balance.

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LC: I wanna come back to that on the third question. So, I'm just gonna make a note of that about pause, taking pauses. So, moving on, what—what advice would you give to a version of your younger self?

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Emma Stevens: I would say, “Hang in there! Even though you don't have any mentors.” There was not an adult in my childhood, home or school, or any organization that was my mentor or any guide. But what I would want to tell my younger self is that you will become that for yourself and please just be patient and hang in there because you're going to become—I'm going to become my own loving, inner parent.

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LC: Yeah.

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Emma Stevens: And you know, I really kinda did have that thought in my head when I was young, but I didn't know if I could really trust it, because how could I know? I didn't know the future. I just knew it was going on forever and ever. But it did hang on to that thought of this won't last forever. I will get out of the house. And then I got out of the house. But I came—I brought all my garbage with me. And so, then there was all of that deconstructing of conditioning to happen before I could find any equanimity.

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LC: Now, we don't have to go here if you're—if you don't want to, but you were raised in a—a very religious upbringing. Was that . . .

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Emma Stevens: A lot of people say that, and I know that ‘cause it has all the hallmark signs of that kind of course of control and my frame and—but my parents were the religion. They were the facility that were my gods. They saved me, and if I didn't conform, then things weren't going to go well. And so, in that respect it is very similar to having some strict control of where books are banned, ideas are banned, thoughts, emotions are all banned. You cannot be yourself, and if you are yourself, we will send you to a reform school. They sent my brother to a facility in the mountains where he got, you know, he was going to make a man out of him, and he got frost bit. His toes were never the same. but, by golly, they sent him to—for him to become a man. It's that kind of stuff where . . .

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LC: Very authoritative.

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Emma Stevens: Very authoritative. And—which set the pattern for me to go on in life, to choose other things. Organizations, people, made decisions based on high control groups; a husband that was a narcissist. And then, as we'll probably get into it. But a psychologist that I went to for help to let me sort through all this stuff, and instead she used all my stuff against me, and almost put it into me and that's what “A Fire is Coming” is about.

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LC: If you were to give anyone I guess advice, or—or your younger self about when they start seeing a psychologist or a therapist like a red flag-gy kind of, I don't know, some tips to look for. Do you have anything that comes to mind like off . . . ?

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Emma Stevens: Yeah, this is such an important topic, because one of the first things we tell an adoptee that's new to coming to terms with their adoptee consciousness. Okay, some therapy. It is helpful, and it is truly helpful. I wouldn't be where I am today without the therapy—that the good therapy that I went on to get later. But I would say, know that you can interview your therapist, and if they're defensive about why you want to interview them. Then that's a red flag.

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LC: That is such a good piece of advice. You should interview your therapist.

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Emma Stevens: You are in charge. You are paying them. They're your employee, you know. And so, often, and with adoptees we have this deal with authority figures. And so we automatically give them the credentials of being here and we're here. And to go to therapy, in the first place, you have to be vulnerable. You can't go in defensive because you're not gonna have any kind of good results if you're blocking everything your therapist is trying to do. So, just know to do your homework. Look them up on the computer, Google, and make sure that they don't have any violations against them with a board of ethics, and that they're credible. And if you get any icky feeling, get out.

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LC: Intuition. Yeah, totally.

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Emma Stevens: Don't wait until down the road because they've unplugged your intuition by then.

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LC: Yeah. Any—any position of power, you know, is a fertile ground for, you know, someone who might want that role to abuse power. And I—I really love the idea of interviewing your therapist, knowing what you want out of therapy too. Like, you know, maybe in the beginning it’s just talk therapy because you've never done therapy, but, you know, so many different, like, you could go to therapy just to get a specific intervention like EMDR, or, you know, narrative, or just like, you know, what do you want to come out of it and doing a little, thinking about that and asking, yeah, seeing if it's a good fit, and then trusting like you said, trusting your—that icky feeling. Did you say, icky cause? That is . . .

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Emma Stevens: Yeah, icky.

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LC: Yeah, that is the word. Yeah.

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Emma Stevens: Kind of flickles, and you're like, oh, that's kind of cringey.

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LC: It’s cringey, but familiar.

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Emma Stevens: Like maybe they touch you. Maybe they, like mine, started hugging me all the time. But the way she got me is that she knew that I never had a loving mother. And so she was diligent about fostering that dependency, saying, I'm going to become the—the loving mother you've never had. And so, any kind of person that tries to manipulate you and exploit you in that way. They find out first what is your hugest desire of, you know, of all, and they go for it. So, it happens without you even knowing that . . .

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LC: That they become it. So, they want to become that, is what you're saying.

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Emma Stevens: Well, meaning they have a hidden agenda.

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LC: Yeah.

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Emma Stevens: Find out what your needs are, and then they use them against you so they can control you. I'm not saying that it's, you know, the whole industry by any means, but—and if they are everywhere, coercive control is in every walk of life right now, and we need to be so careful of keeping our eyes open and knowing the signs of what it is.

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LC: Yes, I couldn't agree more for sure. It is, yeah, I do a lot with my clients around how to tell the difference between intuition and fear and when they're trying to make a decision or move forward with a friendship or dating someone, and you know they might be getting this like, very slight, you know, sense of wisdom that just is like, makes them uncomfortable. And how that's intuition, you know, and it could be that fear is there too. But fear can just be from a past thing, and it doesn't have to do with what's happening right now. So—but the intuition is like a wise like, it's just like a knowing, you know. Yeah, and learning how to pay attention to that. Don't always want to, but. . . . Alright well, the actual question is, “How are you healing today? What works?” I would love to hear more about the, like, taking pauses. But like, how you actually do that? Like, do you have a—any kind of structure around taking pauses? Or what is it like day-to-day with your healing?

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Emma Stevens: Well, I was fortunate enough to be part of a 12-step program, and that's one of the hugest themes in doing all the steps is to be—take the pause instead of being reactive. And so that really got, I really resonated with all 12 steps, and I could see myself, you know, advancing through all of those, and every step required the pause, and in my mind, it almost being—means reflectiveness to stop and analyze, instead of just rushing through a lot of people I see want to get to the healing right now. And it just isn't, as you know, it's not linear. It takes time, and it takes little, you know, going around the corner and investigating here before you can go on to go to the next step, and if you don't do everything that's required, then you'll find yourself right back at square one. So, it's important to take pauses, and it's so important to breathe and breathe through your life instead of being a shallow chest breather because that's anxiety, right, and fear. So, you have to be able to have the pause to say, “What is my fear?” and take it apart and say, “Is that even true? Is this fear of not wanting to go outside my house like I'm going to get killed. Is that true?” So anyways, a lot of talking with yourself and to talk with yourself, you have to pause and give yourself the space to do that.

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LC: Yeah. yeah.

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Emma Stevens: And to do that you have to honor yourself. You're worth taking a pause, which is, wow! It's a lot about what my third book is about is taking that pause and telling yourself you are worth it. You know?

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LC: Yeah, choosing to breathe. I like it. Yeah.

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Emma Stevens: We all breathe, but if you choose to breathe properly, it means you take the time to have a full inhale and a full exhale. And if you're a chest—chest breather like I've been for most of my life, you don't do—you're breathing just enough to get by, but you're not doing the real breathing.

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LC: Yeah, I'm a shallow breather, and I've been learning more about the deeper belly breathing lately, but I think it is such an important tool, the pausing because I am, you know, I think most adoptees—I think all adoptees are hyper-vigilant, you know, and you know, I'm definitely impulsive. It's—I'm constantly like, I almost wanna like, pull the words back and like, put them back in my—my mouth sometimes, and, pausing, has been such a important, like, healing thing for me, too. So yeah, I’m glad.

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Emma Stevens: It's like giving your own self grace.

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LC: Yeah.

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Emma Stevens: I deserve this pause, okay. I don't care if you don't like it or not, but I deserve it.

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LC: Right.

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Emma Stevens: we all do. We all deserve that pause. So yeah, you want me to say some of the other things that I do?

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LC: Sure. Yeah, yeah, that'd be great.

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Emma Stevens: Beyond doing some cardio kickboxing, I really, really enjoy. That's how I vent the anger that I've had throughout my life that I could never express, and kickboxing allows me to really get in tune with my body and feel every punch and every kick it is car—it's cardio. So, it's not hitting a bag. Not that there's anything wrong with hitting a bag, but mine's not, and then I counterbalance that with yoga and that's been so great for my healing, of having epiphanies, giving myself the pause to explore, and I had to rediscover my curiosity and my creativeness, because it was stifled for so long. And coming into that now, and choosing to breathe, has just opened up a whole new dimension for me. The other things are just, you know conferences going to untangling our roots and . . .

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LC: Yeah.

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Emma Stevens: My adop—our adoptee community was just fantastic. And then, just the coalitions and collaborations that happen as a result of meeting these people. Being on a jillion podcasts like yours has been really great for a person that never had voice before. I was so stifled. And now I'm getting to get on a wonderful platform like yours and try to help another adoptee.

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LC: Yeah.

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Emma Stevens: Say, “Wow! I feel that way, too,” and “Wow! There's help.” There's help that I could actually move to a better place. So, I try to do as much as that as possible, and writing to heal is a real thing.

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LC: It really is. Yes. Where do people find you, if they wanna get in contact with you?

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Emma Stevens: I have a new website and it's called www.emmastevenswriter.com and that will link you to both books that I've written, “The Gathering Place” and “A Fire is Coming,” and it'll give you the option of either Amazon paperback or Kindle, and there's also the Audible that we were talking about how I rarely read a book now. I always listen. So, when I find an author that says, “I just did the Audible,” I'm just like, “Yay!” I get to, you know, hear another book. I really enjoy that.

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LC: Yeah. Also, you were saying like reading your own story, for that was just such a cool and healing experience in itself.

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Emma Stevens: Yes, it definitely was.

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LC: It was so good to have you on. I—I really am excited to now know you and I—I feel like there's just so much I learned from everything you brought to this talk today, so I'll be spinning my brain around that for a bit. and I'm sure our audience will, too. So, thank you.

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Emma Stevens: Yeah, yeah, thank you. I so appreciate being able to meet you and talk with you. And I always love those reflective conversations, you know, it just makes me think harder and discover more.

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LC: Yeah, for sure. Alright, thank you.