Marcus Hart (00:00.556)
Yo, TransformU Live Show family. It's Marcus Hart, your guy, through grit and glory of life's toughest storms. Literally speaking, the Texas floods and now New Jersey's floods have left homes wrecked, lives upended, and souls shattered. But there's a hidden toll nobody is talking about. The emotional
wounds that cut deeper than the water. Today, we're going to be diving into how survivors can turn that pain into power with our special guest today, Dr. Jolly. A trauma expert whose upcoming book, The Fire That Makes Us, is flipping the script on healing. Want to know how to rise from the ashes of disaster? Hit that like button and please stick around with me.
This is going to light a fire in your soul.
Marcus Hart (00:01.056)
Now that I have your attention, before we jump in, what if one simple shift could cut your spherazole exhaustion by 30 %? I challenge you to grab my free three-minute prayer guide at Marcus-Hart.com to start that breakthrough today. Let's heal together, family.
Marcus Hart (00:01.313)
I am stoked to welcome Dr. Ja lali to the Transform You Live show. She's a licensed clinical psychologist and trauma expert. She's the author of the upcoming book, The Fire That Makes Us, dropped in September of this year, 2025, at the time of this recording. And she's here to show us how to reframe pain into purpose with over a decade helping high achievers and survivors. Her work blends science, soul, and straight up hope. So let's get real, Dr. Ja lali.
I want to set the stage for you, allow you to come in. Dr. Rolali, as a combat veteran who's wrestled with PTSD and shared that I've seen a lot of chaos. I know trauma hits hard. Can you start by explaining what kind of emotional and psychological toll natural desires like the Texas floods can have on survivors?
Shahrzad Jalali (00:53.838)
Yes, first of all, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here today with your listeners.
Let me start going about it this way. Our nervous system thrives on feeling safe, having a sense of safety and security. Every time that gets disrupted in any shape or form,
That causes a lot of tension for us. So with natural disasters, because they happen suddenly and they're usually very unexpected, survivors experience a lot of anxiety, grief, panic, even post-traumatic stress disorder. What happens is their sense of safety.
is dramatically questioned because they don't even feel safe in the comfort of their own home. So as they go about this process, a lot of new wounds are formed. And obviously for people who have experienced trauma in the past, a lot of previous injuries or emotional wounds get re-triggered.
So the aftermath can have a lot of adverse consequences.
Marcus Hart (02:17.429)
Yeah, I really feel that because, you know, with my own struggles post-req, I understand that feeling, you know, that feeling of loss of control and just having chaos replay in your mind over and over again, then it shows up in other parts of your life later on and you...
you forget about it and think, well, you know, well, I'm acting out this way, but it is really recovery. So we often hear about physical recovery as a disaster, revealing homes, clearing the breeze. But why is emotional recovery just as important, especially for folks like our burnout warriors and hope seekers who are listening today?
Shahrzad Jalali (03:06.262)
Yes, that's a great question. I would answer it this way. Emotional recovery is just as important, if not more, because it can lead to a lot of chronic illnesses going forward. Things like anxiety, depression, insomnia, disconnection, discomfort in social settings or at work.
If you think about it, will even impact the economy in the long term because people who struggle with emotional distress after a natural disaster, if they don't heal properly, they can return back to work and be productive members of society. So in the long term, there's a lot of suffering that's associated with it. Our nervous system holds on to stress.
And once we go through something like this, it either has to learn how to let go of that stress and go back to normal level of functioning, or it will continue to reside in that space. As such, you see people around you that display a lot of mental health symptoms that rehabilitates them from functioning well in their daily lives.
Marcus Hart (04:29.569)
We're always so quick to fix the roof. But what about the heart that's still flooding? You know, that's kind of what...
As you were going on, ran through my mind, you know, we have a heart that's, you know, in a way flooding just as much as the roof is flooded, you know. So your work with Align Remedy, it helps people turn breakdowns into breakthroughs. How did this, you know, in your own journey through trauma shape your mission to help flood survivors and others face emotional wounds?
Shahrzad Jalali (05:04.864)
Very interesting question. So people often ask me about trauma and they say, is trauma this big event that happens in your life that debilitates you from functioning properly in the present moment? I say it can be a very big event, but it doesn't necessarily have to. It can actually be a series of small events that keep your nervous system from
responding to phenomena in a very neutral way. So it puts you in a state of freeze or hypervigilance. In my own journey, there was actually, you know, small traumas as every individual I suppose goes through, as well as an actual traumatic accident, which inspired me to look into this more, not only as a clinician, but as a patient who needed to recover from it.
So I have a different lens of approaching trauma. In fact, I've depicted that in my upcoming book, The Fire That Makes Us. And the reason I chose that title for the book is when we go through something traumatic, it can feel like a burning fire. You get to this point where you feel like you're not functioning properly.
There is so much pain, emotional, sometimes physical, that you don't know how to wrap your head around or come to terms with. But if you learn how to navigate that process properly, that fire can actually forge you into your new self to become a more well-rounded version of yourself that not only can tackle that particular trauma,
but anything else life may throw at you going forward. So trauma as negative as it may be, it has a very negative connotation for most of us when we hear that word, right? But it doesn't have to define our lives that way. We can actually take the trauma that happens to us, work through it and exit this dynamic a lot more
Shahrzad Jalali (07:24.822)
well put together that we entered. I know it seems very difficult to wrap your head around when you hear this sentence, but I've gone through it. I've helped many individuals go through it. And I am going to go far enough to say sometimes after you do the inner work properly, you can even find wisdom in the trauma you had to go through.
Marcus Hart (07:53.929)
Amen to that. You're spot on with that and you're really shedding some light on...
some really important stuff here. And speaking of like spotting, you know, the warning signs of trauma, it oftentimes it spirals because no one is able to spot it. When we think about the Texas floods and how New Jersey floods, know, mental health crisis is spiking at all time highs. And what we need to like address and, know, my question for you is how do survivors, especially those vets out there or parents, elderly,
How will they spot the warning sign just like as you did?
Shahrzad Jalali (08:36.034)
You know, when we go through something like this, we lose our inner compass. We wake up in the morning feeling very lost, like we're not ourselves. We don't know what to do. So my tip is every time you get to this point in life, start with the most basic things. Try your best to sleep. Try your best to connect with a few individuals that feel good to you.
Try your best to hydrate properly. Maybe go for very small walks. Try to be in nature. Try to reconnect with yourself. I would say if they asked me what is the most adverse effect of any traumatic experience, it's the loss of connection with yourself, with others and with the world. Because that's the only way you feel safe in that moment.
So the goal is to reconnect back with the self. The earlier we can do this after a traumatic event, the better the healing process, the better the trajectory of healing afterwards. So go to the basics, try your best to keep as much of a routine as possible, and practice as much self-care as you possibly can given the circumstances.
Marcus Hart (10:00.186)
I agree, I agree and I like to always speak for the lands as a veteran, you know, who can share with others who are feeling hopeless and disconnected and struggling. And a lot of times there's silence that happens, silence that floods the survivors. And that process of like grieving and moving forward is difficult.
And we're seeing PTSD trending as parents worry about their children's post-bloods. How do trauma affect children? How do they process it differently? And what's one step parents out there can take to help them heal?
Shahrzad Jalali (10:44.682)
So children's nervous system are a little bit different than the adult nervous system. They're still in the developmental stages. And when they notice there's a disruption in their routine, when they notice the stress and distress that adults are experiencing, it can really impact them in a significant way.
Because what kind of strikes them is my life is no longer the way it used to be. And that's very scary to a child because their well-being is in the hands of an adult. Right. So I would say the most basic way to make your child feel safe is to provide as much of the previous shooting for them as you possibly can.
You're going to see a lot of regression in children when they go through these kind of natural disasters. For example, if your child is already potty trained, you may notice them regressing back to bed bedding. They may become very clingy. They may cry. You may notice a lot of separation anxiety. Your child may have a
gone past through that stage but when they go through something like this they're gonna kind of regress back to wanting you to be at your presence at all times so your best bet is to talk to them give them words for their feelings let them know it's okay to feel this way and to the best of your ability reassure them that you're there you're gonna take care of them and
You're going to do your best to protect them through this process.
Marcus Hart (12:31.137)
You're type of mom that I want to go around when kids are coming up to stuff. Mom and professional at the same time. This is amazing. I'm really enjoying this conversation. It's really, like I said, it's opened up a Pandora box of great things that give people hope and that we can help people just move forward. So you use therapies like EMDR and brain spotting, sound.
Shahrzad Jalali (12:39.49)
Thank
Marcus Hart (13:01.097)
Those are gaming changers. Can you break down one or two innovative approaches that help survivors of disasters like these move beyond just coping?
Shahrzad Jalali (13:11.373)
Yes.
For a long time in the psychological circles, we were under the impression that talk therapy would help you reduce your trauma experience. In fact, this kind of work started with the veterans who were coming back from war and had experienced a lot of trauma. We would sit them down and have them talk about the trauma they experienced.
Not knowing that every time they would talk about this in a heightened state of mind, it would re-traumatize them even more. So little by little, we learned that there two ways that your, I guess, brain and body experience an event.
you either process it from top down, which means kind of like you go to your brain to kind of, you know, start processing a piece of information, which is what talk therapy is based on, or you process it bottom up, which means the body and then the brain. So all the newest research shows that with trauma, trauma gets stored in the body. So no amount of talk therapy can actually get rid of it.
So we have to go to approaches that focus on the body. So we can get the body into a neutral state where you don't have that heartbeat or that escalated kind of feeling of tension in the body, that pit in your stomach, that tension in your shoulders. So if you're able to tell the story in a less heightened state of mind in that moment, your brain now has a different association with it.
Shahrzad Jalali (14:59.554)
than it did prior to that. And what techniques like EMDR, brain spotting, somatic experiencing focus on is bringing the body to a neutral state of mind when you're trying to process a piece of trauma mentally. Once this happens, you renegotiate the felt sense of the body with that traumatic experience. So this is when you hear from clients that
Yes, I think about this. Yes, it's still very disturbing to me, but now it's simply a story I tell. It's no longer this thing that feels like it's going to kill me.
Marcus Hart (15:46.145)
It's heavy. There's so much to unpack in there. And as you are just tying this together for us all, it's really hard to find calm and chaos in the body responses. It really intensifies.
Shahrzad Jalali (15:48.814)
Thanks.
Marcus Hart (16:11.358)
that amount of discomfort and lack of peace you have internally. And the approaches you're taking, I definitely can resonate with how effective they are versus just talk therapy. It's okay, the talk therapy, know, not this kind of that at all, but it has its purposes where more trauma for care can benefit.
When I took that approach to my own treatment and my own healing journey, I combined that with faith and that helped me to find the calm that was necessary. Now, the New Jersey floods, they are hitting communities that already worn down by burnout and anxiety. How do your methods like somatic experiencing help folks in urban chaos like our transform youth family find peace after disaster?
Shahrzad Jalali (17:11.146)
a great question. See, if you learn the language of your body, the body is a great resource. It's continuously talking to you. So what is burnout? Burnout is your body telling you, I can't do this anymore. You're pushing me beyond my level of comfort, right? Let me compare it to this. If there is a lot of heat in the house, if there is a fire burning,
You start hearing the fire kind of alarms in your house alluding to the fact that you need to bring down the heat here, right? So they are a protective mechanism that kind of guides you to reduce that heat to prevent a fire, right? The body works exactly the same way. It has these building mechanisms like anxiety, like depression. These aren't necessarily
diagnosis. I mean they are when they get to the clinical point but at first when we feel the symptoms they are our guides here to rescue us. So I feel anxious because my mind is trying to tell me something you're doing or
And in some way that you're conducting yourself, it's not soothing to it's not working for you. Maybe let's say I'm trying to solve a problem and I'm very anxious about it. That's my psyche and my body's way to tell me maybe you need some extra information. Maybe you need some help with this. Right. So if I were to listen to that, then I can fix it. But the problem is most of us try to either override it or get rid of it. How do we get rid of it? By knowing.
ourselves. How do we numb ourselves? The list is long. Anything from relationships to sexual partners to drugs to shopping to alcohol to even more productive ways like excessive exercising, being workaholics, being constantly needing to inform ourselves or being on social media or reading the news. It's not all negative modes of doing this.
Shahrzad Jalali (19:24.716)
but we continuously distract ourselves from feeling our feelings. If we learn to learn the language of the body and listen to these things, they're kind of like building helpers. They will continuously direct us in the right path so that we do what's right for us and we get better results.
Marcus Hart (19:47.783)
As people are running down that list, I kept on thinking to myself, man, that's who I used to be. I still know so many people that's in the urban community, especially who's go-to is the sex, is the alcohol, is this, is that. And it's just so kind of productive to walk in the walk of healing.
Shahrzad Jalali (19:55.789)
Thank
Marcus Hart (20:15.936)
and recovery. Because these days are so easy, these vices are so readily available, but there are immediate steps people can take to protect their mental health. I'm quite sure you might know some of those, especially in the aftermath of a disaster, whether it's Texas, New Jersey, or anywhere else.
Shahrzad Jalali (20:39.594)
Yes. Well, first of all, let me emphasize it's okay to feel like you can do this on your own. Most people can't when they're going through something tough to this extent because
you're you're not present there in your full capacity. You had to escape in order to survive. Right. So when I am not fully present, I don't have the capacity to solve something on my own. This is why it's very important at times like this, to either seek some form of professional help, or to go to friends and loved ones.
because they can compensate for the part of you that has escaped in order to survive whatever it is that you're going through. Once you call back your entirety piece by piece as you go forward and feel safer, then you can venture out on your own. But in the beginning, it's very important to go to someone for help. And then once you do that, I
think the most important thing is to feel things.
in small increments. The key is go to the edge of your discomfort. Don't push yourself beyond it and feel that feeling. What we do at times like this is the exact opposite because we have to survive something big. So we say to ourselves, I don't have time to deal with this right now. I need to build my house back up. I need to, you know, kind of come to terms with the loss of the loved ones. I need to take care of stuff. I need to get my life back.
Shahrzad Jalali (22:23.402)
in order. So in the midst of all that chaos, do you have time to feel anything? I feelings is the last thing on your mind. This is why when people go through something big, they usually get through it and once everything goes back to normal, they have a complete breakdown. They go through a depression or some form of addiction or some form of psychological episode because they kind of pushed themselves over the finish line and now there's nothing else left.
Marcus Hart (22:52.832)
Charlie, yeah, I'm sorry.
Shahrzad Jalali (22:52.886)
So the key, no problem. The key is to make a little bit of space, even if it's a few minutes every day, to let yourself feel the pain. We live in a culture that we do the exact opposite. If you think about the Western culture, it is designed to avoid pain in any shape or form that we possibly can.
Whereas I can't think of anything in this world that is more part of our natural life than pain, both physical and emotional. So I don't know why it has such a bad, you know, that we need to style step at or get rid of it. If we just welcome it to some extent, then we can find a better way to deal with.
Marcus Hart (23:45.931)
hear a lot of mindfulness and acceptance in there, radical acceptance of course, and you're cooking like that's what they say nowadays you're cooking. Yeah, so before I go into this next question, I just want to remind our transforming family, I know you're feeling this same way that I am, depleted souls, chaos, fires, maybe even flood survivors.
Shahrzad Jalali (23:57.09)
I like that.
Marcus Hart (24:13.216)
So do me a favor right now, smash that subscribe and like button and share this with someone who needs to hear it. Now back to Dr. Jilali, your upcoming book, The Fire That Makes Us, it drops in September. What inspired that title and how does it relate to healing after trauma?
Shahrzad Jalali (24:32.302)
I I said a little bit about this, but I'll circle back. I think the reason why I wrote the book, because initially, if I may share with your listeners, it started as just some journaling through my own trauma to make me feel better and to, you know, kind of wrap my head around it and process my own emotions. At one point, one of my sisters read
parts of it and said, you need to publish this. And I said, why it's such a personal thing to me. And they said, because people go through this every day and they need to see someone who has gone through it and who has come out of the other side to give them hope. Because self-help books are usually just a bunch of
know, guidelines, go do this if you have depression, go do this if you have anxiety, but they don't really resonate as much all the time with the person who's going through a painful experience. So in this book, the book has 20 chapters. actually tell the story, which is a traumatic experience I went through.
as well as an amalgamation of the trauma I've seen in my clinical experience from my patients. So I created a storyline with it and at the end of each chapter I stop and I explain the psychological dilemma.
of what this character is going through. And I give guidance on how to overcome that, essentially. The book comes with a quiz that helps you realize which one of these domains you're struggling with so you can focus on those chapters archetypally as you're going through your reading.
Marcus Hart (26:18.656)
Excellent. You're still right about that. A lot of these self-help books, miss the mark a lot. And I'm so glad that you were willing to be vulnerable enough to share your story with us and give people hope. It's so much needed right now. And there's not enough people willing to put themselves out there.
to be able to help others. So where can we find a book?
Shahrzad Jalali (26:55.234)
The book is being published by Greenleaf. It will be available on Amazon and a lot of the major bookstores as we go forward. But as we get closer to the finish line, I'll be more than glad to share links with our listeners. They can find me on my social media, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. It's either under Align Remedio, Dr. Jalali. And I'll be more than glad to share any information.
Marcus Hart (26:58.56)
Thank
Shahrzad Jalali (27:24.386)
Both about the book and my clinical experience, mental health, one of my passions is leaving this world a better place than I entered. So I am more than willing to do my part.
Marcus Hart (27:40.294)
Excellent. So for someone who's tried therapy or support and it feels like it didn't work, you know, what's one truth you'd like to share to give them hope that transformation is possible?
Shahrzad Jalali (27:54.478)
Try again. Not everyone, not every modality is a good match for you. But just because you didn't get what you want doesn't mean it's not there. At one point when I was looking for a therapist, I think I went through 20 different people. It doesn't mean they were bad. It just means at the time they weren't what I needed. And finally I came across someone that was.
So there is a modality, there is a person, there is an intervention out there that's going to help you. It's just a matter of finding it.
Marcus Hart (28:30.9)
Yeah, we all have felt broken and there's definitely fire in there, waiting for those to just ignite it. So I would love to just get more of your wisdom, maybe by leaving us with a message of hope for those who are feeling overwhelmed or emotionally shattered by what they've been through, whether it's floods or personal storms.
Shahrzad Jalali (28:53.77)
Absolutely. I think what you need to focus on is the fact that this is not the end. When we go through something very difficult, we feel like this is it. I can never recover from this. Why did this have to happen to me? We go into our victim mentality. What I want to leave your listeners with is this is not the end of your story. Your story is still being written and you play.
a big role on how it will end. But if you don't like how it feels right now, this doesn't have to be the end.
Marcus Hart (29:32.544)
If we took everything that you said here today, all the insight, all of the tips and advice, I know Persians pride themselves on their stunning architecture and craftsmanship. And I will take everything you did and we'll make the most expensive intricate tile work ever. Yeah, and those miniature paintings. I love those miniature paintings also.
Shahrzad Jalali (29:56.042)
I appreciate it.
Marcus Hart (30:02.9)
Yes. So thank you once again, Dr. Jalali, you know, and to my Transform You family out there, Dr. Jalali, she just lit us up, you know, she lit up our souls, how the term pain of disasters like the Texas and New Jersey floods into a fire for transformation. If this episode is part of something in you, hit that like button, subscribe to the Transform You live show and comment below with one takeaway that's sticking with you. Be sure to share this episode with someone who needs this hope. Let's spread the light.
Until next time, many blessings, peace and lots of love.
Marcus Hart (00:00.706)
Hold the front door and don't shut it. Do you want to share your own story? Well, we have just recently dropped down our publication services, which now starts at an amazing free price. Absolutely zero dollars. With that, you can also join my free sub stack for guest features at just $5 a month. If you're feeling generous, drop a coffee tip of any size for a one-off feature at Marcus-Hart.com.
Make sure you grab my free three minute prayer guide or check out Transform You Unlocking Leadership Potential through faith and psychology at marcus-hart.com to cut your spiritual exhaustion by 30%. Keep on fighting, keep on believing, and do not forget at all to support our wonderful guest today, Dr. Jolly. We'll have her contact information down in the episode description as well. Now we are out.
Many blessings, peace, and lots of love.
