Judith Richards · 48 min
From childhood abuse and a tin-shed existence to developing a trauma therapy now used by thousands worldwide, Judith Richards proves that the deepest suffering can become the most powerful medicine.
Hear this story
Judith Richards grew up as the youngest of eight children in a Catholic family where she endured sexual abuse from priests and nuns. The messages she absorbed as a child ran deep: I don't matter, I deserve to suffer, I deserve to be punished. These beliefs shaped everything that followed. She found herself in a pattern of violent relationships, severe physical illness, and eventually, living in a tin shed in rural New South Wales with no electricity or plumbing, severely malnourished and given days to live.
At her lowest point, an old friend arrived with a simple act of tapping and a refusal to let her die. That conversation opened a door: Judith's unconscious mind had been programmed to let her go when her son turned 21. She realised the unconscious runs 95 percent of how we think, feel, and behave, while the conscious mind works only 5 percent of the time. If trauma is stored in the body like a videotape loop, replaying past distress as if it's happening now, then turning off those loops might be the key to everything.
In 2011, Judith lost her mind entirely, living in hallucinations while the teenagers of Maleny called her the Mad Beanie Lady. In that time of complete breakdown, she developed TRTP: a method to rewire the unconscious beliefs and trauma loops that keep people stuck. People saw her transform from crisis to wellness and asked her to teach. Today, TRTP is used by thousands of practitioners worldwide. Judith now spends her days witnessing people move from despair to genuine wellbeing, and she is returning to direct practice, seeing one client a week because she loves the work. Her message to anyone in pain is simple: there is a way through, and your suffering may become your greatest gift.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses suicide & self-harm prevention, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au
“I took on the ideas, I don't matter and I'm going to curse people. Get over it. The language of trauma is raw. I deserve to suffer and I deserve to be punished.”
“I thought it was here. Uh-uh. I've since found that the conscious mind only works 5% of the time. The unconscious runs every chemical reaction, every electrical response in our body and it runs our life.”
“Your pain may sometimes be your gift down the track. If you can hang in there and find the way through, it makes a little track through the long grass that someone can find the way. And more people do and it becomes a hard track. And more people do and it becomes a road.”
The hero, today
The core beliefs we absorb as children run everything in our lives until we change them, and we can identify what we absorbed by looking for the patterns in our most distressing events. The unconscious mind runs 95 percent of how we think, feel, and behave; the conscious mind works only 5 percent of the time, which means we have far more control over our lives than we believe. Trauma is stored in the body as a loop that keeps replaying past distressing events as if they are happening now, and turning off these loops allows the whole system to reboot and return to calm. What kept Judith alive through three decades of suicidal thoughts was the belief that if she found a way through, that would open the track for others, and she saw that belief play out through quantum physics and the 100th monkey principle. Fun is not a luxury but a necessity for wellbeing, and putting it high on your list rather than at the bottom changes everything; even watching babies laugh on YouTube releases oxytocin and can interrupt a spiral.
Yes. Judith Richards is a real person who shared their own story in their own words. Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit that shares first-person stories of overcoming adversity, told with the person's consent.
Kintsugi Heroes, a registered Australian not-for-profit. Every story is shared with the hero's own consent and reviewed under Kintsugi Heroes' trauma-informed content standard before it goes public.
The core beliefs we absorb as children run everything in our lives until we change them, and we can identify what we absorbed by looking for the patterns in our most distressing events.
The unconscious mind runs 95 percent of how we think, feel, and behave; the conscious mind works only 5 percent of the time, which means we have far more control over our lives than we believe.
Trauma is stored in the body as a loop that keeps replaying past distressing events as if they are happening now, and turning off these loops allows the whole system to reboot and return to calm.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 00:01
This limited Kintsugi Heroes podcast series was made possible through grant funding provided by the New South Wales Department of Communities and Justice Connecting Seniors grant program. If you'd like to find out more about Kintsugi Heroes, head over to kintsugiheroes.com.au. Welcome back to our Kintsugi Heroes special series Connecting Seniors. This year we are continuing to share the experiences of ageing Australians to create connections across our communities. In this episode of Connecting Seniors, we're revisiting a conversation from Kintsugi Heroes with a senior who is making an impact on the world. This week we hear Natalie Stockdale's chat with Judith Richards. Enjoy this episode. Judith, welcome to our podcast.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 01:14
Thank you, Natalie. What a delight to be here and joining you.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 01:17
Oh, thank you. I remember meeting you in 2019, Judith, when I was a TRTP student of yours, and I remember clearly when I met you being struck by your, by your intelligence and your humor, your courage, and also your compassion. And I remember thinking, ah, here is a woman of substance. And so it really is a great pleasure to, to, to be interviewing now, 6 years on.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 01:49
Well, Natalie, I'm so humbled by your comments. Thank you.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 01:55
Uh, let's start with your, your early life. I'd love to hear your whole journey, starting with your early life.
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What kept Judith alive through three decades of suicidal thoughts was the belief that if she found a way through, that would open the track for others, and she saw that belief play out through quantum physics and the 100th monkey principle.
This conversation includes the youngest of eight, the programming that ran her life, looking for the pattern, dying in the bush, the girlfriend and the tapping and the door opens to the unconscious.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 02:02
Well, I'm not going to talk a lot about my family of origin. That's rather private, and there are lots of individuals involved because I'm the youngest of 8, 4 boys and 4 girls. My father thought he was terribly clever. Um, so we were Catholic. My father was rather a captain of industry, so we were not poor, uh, and the local and national priests who used to frequent our house took a keen interest in me. So without going into the, the details, there was sexual abuse there. Um, another of my sisters was impacted by that as well. And you know, it's interesting, Natalie, how we work. So in those early years, we take on our programming that will run the rest of our life. So in those early years of, um, sexual abuse and violence What did I take on as an impressionable, phobically shy, ultra-sensitive kid in this huge noisy family? I took on the ideas: I don't matter, and I'm going to curse people. Get over it. The language of trauma is raw. I'm shit and I deserve to be treated like shit. I deserve to suffer and I deserve to be punished. Because when I reported at a young age what one priest— you know, don't make me go with that priest— I was told, um, what did you do to that good man of God to make him do that? And I, you know, as little children, we don't have a critical facility. The information just goes in, particularly from people in authority. And so I— oh, and then going to a Catholic school and being told that it was my sins that nailed Jesus to the cross. So if you're looking for who did that, 'Look no further, it was I.' Gosh. Um, and that ran my life. So I went through primary school and then into secondary school. Um, the nuns in those days were a traumatized lot, I guess, to be generous and kind. And so I tended to be locked in cupboards. For the day and things, um, and, you know, other things, other punishments of humiliation, etc. And, um, by the time I was a young teen, I was groomed and sexually abused by a nun. You don't hear much about the nuns. You hear about their cruelty, but you don't hear a lot about the sexual abuse. So yes, that was me, um, and those— that programming, that software that was downloaded into the young Judith ran everything. So wherever I went, there were people wanting to do me harm. Uh, so as I got older, you know, there were stalkers, abusive relationships, just random mad people who are violent or rapists, um, and the list goes on. And I worked my way up through the hierarchy of violent nutters until I found myself with, um, a homicidal psychopath who was into torture. So I worked my way up, but that programming that we all take on And some of us take on fabulous programming like, I matter, it's safe for me to love and be loved, I'm lovable, it's fine for me to make mistakes, that's how I learn, life's an adventure. I mean, look at Richard Branson, people like that. But some of us take on less than positive, um, I call them unconscious core beliefs that run our life. And all we have to do to understand what did we take on is to do a really simple exercise, to look for the pattern in our life. Just write down the top 10 to 12 most distressing events in your life. Not a big story, don't get distressed, don't go right into it. Just go, oh yeah, just skim along the surface and write the age you were, the name of the event, and who was there. And then write down what's the pattern. Is it abuse, bullying? Is it betrayal, abandonment? Have you got a pattern of people in your life hurting you that are supposed to love you, who aren't there for you? You know, there's that abandonment. Do you keep having accidents? You keep getting sick? And, and that covers most of the patterns that we have, and there's a reason It's that initial programming, and there's good news, we can change that. So we can change the pattern. I say to a client— I don't see clients now, but I can tell— we can tell what the rest of your life is going to be. And they go, oh, are you a psychic? No. See this pattern? How's that working for you? Because unless we change what's locking in that pattern that will continue. So let's do that. Let's, let's do that.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 07:47
So Judith, how did you discover this, this learning?
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 07:53
I was really sick. I was very physically sick. I, I had— after everything that happened, I had a lot of physical damage from what happened to me. And I spent, oh, 2 years having a lot of surgery Everything that could possibly go wrong went wrong. And after some years of recovering from that, um, yeah, my body just was falling apart. I couldn't walk for a couple of years. My son used to take me around in a wheelbarrow, and it got to a point with food that I couldn't eat. Um, you know, it's, it's interesting that when we have terribleness happen to us, our whole being is geared to looking for where's the next danger coming from. Where's the danger? Where's the danger? Where's the danger? It's called hypervigilance. There is a name for it. And the way I looked at it, because I would even just have a few grains of white rice and have a, um, an allergic reaction to that. So I was, um, dying. And the way I looked at it was this: where's the danger? My body was going— trying to make logic of it. Where's the danger? Where's the— oh, it's this food!
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 09:13
Ah!
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 09:17
And so that's how I look at, um, a number of food allergies. Not, not all of them, not celiac disease disease and things like that. But, um, the number of clients that I've worked with and my graduates have worked with whose food allergies have disappeared is extraordinary. But also immune disorders, you know, where's the danger, where's the danger? Oh, it's this part of the body, let's attack that. And there's a big connection between trauma and immunodisorders, but we won't go into that. But, um, how did I figure it out? Well, I was given a few days to live. And, um, so you're in hospital at this stage? No, no, I wasn't. I was at my sister's place, um, because my sister picked up through the ether that something was wrong, said come. So I— and I got off the bus at her place because I was living in the bush, hiding from perpetrators. I was living in the bush in New South Wales. In a tin shed with no electricity or plumbing or insulation. It was a rough life, but only for 7 years.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 10:29
Um, Judith, how old were you at that stage when you're in the tin shed roughing it?
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 10:34
Uh, that's a good question. Um, 2003, I would have been 43 to 49, but I went for about 10 months at that time. I went into town and had a place. But yeah, it was in a place that had had drought for 20 years in the northern tablelands of New South Wales. The coldest it got was -18, and then it would get dreadfully hot in the summer.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 11:00
A bit.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 11:01
Um, so anyway, I arrived at my sister's and got off the bus, and she just started to cry. So what's wrong? She said, oh my God, you're so thin. And she took me and sort of undressed me down to my undies in front of the mirror and said, haven't you noticed? I said, oh, I don't have mirrors. No, I hadn't noticed. And she took me to doctors and they all said, oh, it's too late. Um, and so I was at her place and an old girlfriend— old girlfriend— a girlfriend who I hadn't seen for many years came, you know, to visit me before I shuffled off this mortal coil. But she, she's feisty, and she came in, threw a handbag on my bed, said, 'What do you think you're doing?' I said, 'I'm sorry, I'm busy dying.' She said, 'Not on my watch.' And she sat down and started doing tapping with me. Before she started the tapping, she said, 'I heard you some years ago say that all you had to do was get your son to 21 years old and then you could just leave, just die. When does your son turn 21? I said, next week. Next week, I said. And she explained that my unconscious had taken on that program and was programmed for me to die when my son turned 21. I went, oh, the unconscious runs things. It runs our body. I thought, wow, isn't that amazing? It's been programmed. And then she'd started doing tapping with me, and after about half an hour she started laughing. I said, what's so funny? And she said, oh my God. And she went and got a mirror and showed me my face was now pink, gone from gray to pink. And I made a very, very quick recovery because I had decided— and by the tapping, it was programming my body to live. So I got very well very quickly, and within a very short time, within a few days, I was out having dinner and dancing. Um, and so this was a huge opening of a door into where is the power. I thought it was here. I've since found that the conscious mind only works 5% of the time. The unconscious runs every chemical reaction, every electrical response in our body, and it runs our life. This is where that programming goes, those unconscious core beliefs, that software that's installed when we're little, and it runs everything. So I thought, okay, so if I can find out how to run the unconscious, I can become the designer and architect of my life. And so, um, I was doing the tapping to change unconscious, and it was just taking— I was, I, I was very motivated and disciplined to be well. I was tapping for hours a day. Um, I tapped myself immediately into catatonic shutdown because I went straight for the biggest events. Not a good idea. Um, anyway, it was taking so long, and I, I'd started to, um, research quantum physics, and I thought, well, there must be a quicker way, because intention changes energy, can change matter, as I'd seen with my body. So if I just use intention and fuel it with energy, emotion, energy and motion, maybe something could happen. And so I came up with this way, which we called embodied declarations in Te Atipi, where we can just change in minutes those, you know, each thing that's locking in the pattern, and also the pattern of thought, emotion, and behavior. Um, so yeah, that's how I came up with that. It just sort of made sense. It was just logical.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 15:06
Yeah, what a life-changing epiphany that was.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 15:09
Yes, so that was, that was, um, a little step along the way. I was still a complete mess. I had lots of physical injuries and I was physically not well, and my mental health, um, went right down.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 15:30
Could you describe perhaps your— the time that was your lowest, your lowest point?
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 15:36
Certainly when I went mad. In 2011, I lost my mind. So what does that mean, people ask, because that was scary because I had no control at all. So I woke up one day and I felt sort of drunk, and I, I didn't have money for food, let alone alcohol. I was on a disability pension and paying rent in a shop above the shoe shop in Maleny, for people who know where that is, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland in Queensland, Australia. And, um, I thought, this is odd, but we know, us, we of British heritage and Irish, know that a cup of tea will fix everything. So I thought, now I'll just get a cup of tea. And the, the floor was like the ocean, it was moving. I thought, this can't be good. And I got to the, um, I got to the kitchen and thought, I just need a cup of tea. Cup, cup, cup, cup. A few hours later, I thought, something's not connecting, this isn't good. Just get a flipping cup of tea, it'll fix it. And, and that's how the day went, and I went downhill from there. So I, um, literally lost my mind and started living in hallucinations. Um, interesting scent hallucinations as well as visual hallucinations and several different personalities, etc., etc., to the point where the teenagers in Maleny called me MBL, Mad Beanie Lady, because I'd walk up and down the street, beanie pulled down, and saying the same thing again and again at great speed, getting lost, kind people taking me home like you do with a mad woman. Um, and that was a real gift. That was in 2011. That was a real gift because in that time I put TRTP together. I'd been working towards it since the new millennium, since 2000, but I— that brought the whole lot of it together and more. And so what happened was people saw me go from the mad beanie lady to normal, to this, and they started bringing their loved ones. And I just did what I'd done for myself. They got well, so more people came, more people came. And then there was a professor coming to present on trauma in Brisbane, and I thought, this is great, I'm going to learn something. And he ended up in a hospital, poor gentleman. And I was approached and asked to present. I said, I don't present. I said, well, you do now. And at the end of that, there were a line of people saying, teach me. I said, I don't teach. They said, well, you do now. So I took 12 of those people and reverse engineered what I'd done, and the results were extraordinary. It just doesn't have to take a long time to get well. There's this idea, and the presenter before me stood up and said, if someone's been with severe depression or anxiety or whatever, not well for many years. It's going to take them many years to get well. I thought, you're new here in this environment, this community, don't rock the boat. Yeah, he's a bigwig, don't—
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 19:00
stay quiet, shush.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 19:03
So after lunch I got up. I've been accused of incontinence of the brain. No filter. And I said, that was a brilliant presentation, blah blah blah, congratulations, it was funny, it was articulate, and I disagree with absolutely everything that you have said. So burn me at the stake, but I've got the next 3 hours. And I presented, and all but 3 of the 77 people in the room wanted to learn from me.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 19:34
So that was the start of TRTP.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 19:36
Yes, I then had to figure out how to teach it. And, um, yeah, so that was in 2014, the first group. So it's now 2025, so 10 years later. Um, yeah, but the, the lowest points, there, there are many. Um, you know, I've died 3 times. Um, that's really interesting. I wouldn't— they happened at low points, but they, they were high points. Well, 2 of the 3 were, because the first one I was in childbirth, so I thought, no, that's not a good idea. Um, but there were many because I was in very— one particular situation I got into with a very, very violent nutter, so It was very dangerous and my body got very, very damaged. So there were various events there. There was just so— and being homeless in the middle of winter with no water, two big dogs and a teenager in the car with nowhere to go, running out of petrol, it's going to get really cold.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 20:52
Judith, a lot of people in your situation, you're having your experiences, would have given up? What, what kept you going?
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 21:02
Well, I often did try to give up. I was compulsively suicidal, but only for about 3 decades. Um, one of the reasons was I wanted to kill me rather than somebody else killing me. I wanted that power. But for some people, the pain just becomes so much that you just can't bear it anymore. It's intolerable. So I understand that place. Um, so what— why didn't I— what kept me going? It's interesting. I was, you know, I said I went mad in 2011. I, I used to write to, to get stuff out, to, to try and regulate myself. Um, and I saw something from several years before that time, a note to myself: just take one step, just keep going, there is a way, you just have to find it. I, for some reason there's this positive spark within me of optimism that there must be a way. I just have to hang around long enough to find it. I just have to find it. And this note to myself saying that there is a way, it's just around the corner, you just have to hang in there, your life will change. But you have to— you have a duty to find the way through this because it's not just about you. Get over yourself, because if you find the way, that will open the track for others. That was my thought, just knowing a bit of quantum physics. And that, you know, for example, the 1-minute mile— it was thought to be impossible for a human to run a mile in a minute. And as soon as someone did it, that very famous run, within a week other people had done it. A thought gets picked up. You know the 100th monkey thing? Okay, um, just before the war, I think it was, but around that time, there were researchers researching this group of monkeys on the islands around of Japan. There's a number of islands of Japan, and on one island they saw this female monkey take this like sweet potato thing, a yam, for the first time, took it down to the water and washed off all the dirt and sand and then ate it. And she kept doing this, and the other monkeys thought, geez, that's a good idea, and they started doing it. And got to the point where 100 monkeys were doing this on this island. And at that point, all the other monkeys on the other islands who had never met these monkeys started doing it.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 24:07
It became a part of their culture.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 24:10
Well, it's, it's in the ether and they picked up on it. You know, there's been lots of experiments where, or observations where, and when it gets to a particular number of cells in a particular number of petri dishes behaving a certain way, the same type of cells on the other side of the planet start behaving in that way. It's, um, it's quantum physics. So I had this idea, if I could just find a way, maybe that would help other people. So I had a responsibility not just to myself, which was one thing that kept me alive.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 24:43
So it sounds like you may always maintained hope for the future, but also had purpose. Purpose was driving you to, to survive and find a way.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 24:55
Yeah, yes. And, um, yeah, I don't know why that, that was. I don't know how that was. And I— yeah, but this quantum physics idea that it— that if I stayed in my distress and misery, that would impact the whole. And if I found a way through, that would impact the whole.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 25:16
So, and then of course you, you did find a way forward. And I understand that your epiphany was the, the your realization of our unconscious being running 95% of the time?
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 25:30
Well, that was, that was the first bit. That was to change the programming that locks in our patterns, either for positive or negative. But then I realized that trauma, you know, and trauma— the top trauma experts Bessel van der Kolk, Levine, Peter Levine say trauma is stored in the body. But I thought, well, but the unconscious runs the body. The unconscious runs every chemical reaction, every electrical response. That's why we don't have to think about keeping our heart going, thank goodness. We don't have to think about delivering oxygen through the hemoglobin, you know. We don't need to think about that. The unconscious does that. So I came up with the idea that the trauma is stored in the unconscious like a videotape loop. So if we talk about that, okay, we have a distressing event, a traumatic event— let's say distressing events because it gives us a broader, bigger vision, not just the wars and the torture, and but the high school teacher who used to humiliate you in front of the class. Etc., etc. So we have a distressing event, the amygdala fires, we release adrenaline. The systems that are not required to sustain life for the next short period while we deal with this threat are shut down. We can digest breakfast later, so the digestion shut down. We can fight bacterial infection later, so the immune system is shut down. And so, the other thing is the frontal lobe gets shut down. So we just run on instinct, we don't have to do higher maths to decide which direction to run. Part of that shutdown is the hippocampus. In a regulated system, after the event, we find ourself, it's over, and I'm safe now, let's get on with the rest of the day. That's great, everything comes, the heart rate comes back to normal, the adrenaline is cleared from the system. Et cetera. We don't have to go for a 3-week retreat. It just happens. But in a system that's been under too much stress and too much distress for too long, that doesn't happen. All those systems stay shut down, including part of the frontal lobe. Another bit of the brain, the hippocampus, which is responsible for long-term memory, stays shut down. So it doesn't, at the end of that event, take it and put it in the warehouse of memory and shut the door and, well, I'm safe and it's over.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 28:06
No.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 28:07
It gets stored in the unconscious like a videotape loop, and the body continues to respond as if that's happening now. Consciously, we're not aware of it. If we've got high anxiety, we're not aware that we're not responding to what's going on here and now. We're responding on to— that happened when I was 9, and when I was 15, and when I was 23, and my body's responding as if that's happening now. That's why I'm— it only breaks through into the conscious mind in high levels of PTSD in the form of flashbacks. Relived experiences. But for everything else, it's just there. My body's— which is why I catastrophize into the future, which is another symptom. It's not the reason I have anxiety.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 28:46
Every—
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 28:47
I'm not safe, my whole being is screaming, and so something must be about to happen, so I better be ready. So that's the catastrophizing. So if we just turn off those videotape loops, the whole system reboots and returns to calm. And other things will happen as life does, because the job of life is to throw us challenges so that we grow. But we will respond from a, from a regulated system and quickly come back. So that's why lots of people with trauma histories have gut problems and immunodisorders, everything else. So that was your another major epiphany that, that helped you to survive and That was what I came up with when I was mad, to fix my madness, because I would go into, um, flashbacks. And so I just had to turn them off. So I figured out how to do that, and then I got well by figuring all that out. And as I said, people saw me get well and brought people. So I didn't plan for this to happen. It just happened.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 29:57
Yeah, lived experience of, of not only surviving but thriving in that face of extreme trauma.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 30:07
Yeah, and we've saved lots of lives so far.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 30:10
Yeah. So Judith, could you touch on some of the other lessons and rewards and gifts that have come from your your pain and, and trauma of the past. I suppose TRTP would be the main, main gift.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 30:30
Um, yes, to— I'm in a very, very privileged position now where just about every day I hear miraculous stories of people going from being in such a desperate place to transformation and being really, really well and happy.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 30:58
And how does that make you— how does it make you feel knowing that you are behind the amazing transformation of hundreds, thousands of people around the world?
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 31:10
It's a very quiet and humbling privilege. People say, you must be so excited. I go, no, that's not— no, it's, it's a quiet, humbling experience. It's very deep and quiet. Um, and so what gifts do I gain from all of this? Dreadfulness. And would I do it again? Yes, I would do it again, just so that various people I've worked with wouldn't commit suicide and kill themselves and their families. Because I used to specialize in violent, angry men brought against their will who are homicidal, suicidal. Um, so yeah, I'd do it again just to stop that. And I followed those men now for 13 years, and, um, it's just extraordinary that no rage— because trauma rage is a different thing. It goes from the unconscious to expression. It bypasses the conscious mind. You cannot do anything about it. With anger management. Anger management is for the slow burn of irritation, frustration, resentment that builds up. But for trauma rage, no, just turn off those videotape loops and stop it in its tracks. But what did— the biggest thing I learned is that we are more powerful than we ever imagined. You know, we buy into this cultural lie in the West that— and so many people do this— that I am as I am. I think how I think. I feel how I feel. I behave as I behave. There's nothing I can do with it. This is the hand I've been dealt. That's it. Nothing I can do. It's the biggest lie. So I've learned that. I've learned that if we can just keep going, yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 33:21
We're the masters of our destiny.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 33:24
Yeah, and you, you tell that to someone in extreme distress and they'll punch you in the head. And I understand that, that we can— we are creators, you know. Just about every religion says, you know, we're made in God's image. And what's God? God's creator. Call it the universe, call it source. Whatever. We are creators. And when you start looking into quantum physics and see that our intention impacts matter— I've been involved in some very big intention experiments. Um, Lynne McTaggart is a journalist who's written extensively on quantum physics and intention. If anyone's interested, Lynne McTaggart. And she wrote a beaut book on, on the intention experiment. A huge experiment with thousands and thousands of people just going into peace in themselves, thinking of longitude and latitude, and peace broke out there. It's true what the sages through the ages have said: if you want to bring peace to the world, bring peace to ourself. That impacts the world. And so for people who are in despair about the world, we actually can contribute to the healing of the world by simply healing ourselves. And if we're a parent, the greatest gift we can give to our kids is to deal with our own shit. So yes, we are more powerful than we ever imagined. I think that's the biggest lesson that I learned, and that miraculous healing is not just possible, it's— should be normal.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 35:18
Judith, can you describe what your life looks like now?
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 35:22
I am blown away with gratitude for so much of the day. You know, I go to the fridge and it's full of good fresh food. Um, and I have, despite major challenges in the world that I work in, um, because we're bringing TRTP to the world and that is not without its major challenges, despite all of that, there's a quiet, deep joy and gratitude, as I said, and humor. I have a very small team, Lisa and Blair and myself, and laugh— do we laugh no matter what's going on. Um, to laugh at oneself is a great gift.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 36:18
Yeah, like the Dalai Lama, he's always giggling, isn't he?
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 36:22
Yes, he is. He, he is. And I remember him being asked in Australia what to do about our high suicide rate, particularly amongst our men. The biggest cause of death in our 14 to 44-year-old men is suicide. And I raced into the television because my nephew had recently committed suicide. Quite a bit of suicide in my family, um, to hear his words of wisdom. And he just chuckled, 'Oh, more fun.' Yeah, I thought, 'What?' I was cross.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 37:00
What?
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 37:01
And for 6 months I was obsessed with this idea. I thought, 'Well, if you're having fun, you're not going to kill yourself. And if you're having fun, you're healthy. People are drawn to you. You're more productive.' I looked at the relationships of friends I had who had long-term relationships. They weren't necessarily the best communicators. Some of them were terrible communicators, but they had fun. They had fun with their families, so their kids grew up and still kept coming back, and they'd have fun. I thought, I think he's on to something. And it's difficult to have fun when you're trying just to survive the day. When you're trying— when you're just sitting there thinking, I don't— it's just so hard to just keep breathing, because we get stuck in either shutdown survival or thriving and growing. I won't go into the cell biology of that. You can look at Bruce Lipton about that. Once we switch off the just surviving, all energy just going into sustaining life and getting through the day, which is so exhausting. And we can step through the other side of that to thriving, actually having a rich life. And once we get to there, I work— or when I've seen clients in the third session, because TRTP is generally just 3 sessions, 3 to 4 sessions We'd look at fun. What did you used to do to have fun? Let's put some things in the calendar. Fun is so important. We put it at the bottom of our list of after we've met all our responsibilities and ticked off all the things we're supposed to do, and then if there's any energy or time left, we'll have a little bit of fun. If we put it up high, everything will get better.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 39:02
Yes, yep, that's a really good point. Fun is not— and joy is not a luxury, it's actually necessary for our well-being.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 39:11
Yes, and I used to, when I was mad and I'd start going into a whirlpool, I used to give myself a pattern interrupt to interrupt my neural pathways, to stop me going down there. And I had a list, and this is for anybody listening. I had a list of the funniest commercials in the, in the world. Um, flash mobs, um, the best comedy, um, babies laughing, you know, at that stage where they fall over. That immediately releases oxytocin and all sorts of wonderful things. Have some, you know, and, and if you're in a household with kids and teenagers and it's— the atmosphere is a bit crackly and a bit as it gets sometimes. Go on to YouTube and find babies laughing and put it on and see everyone gravitate to the TV and start to laugh. So that's a great pattern interrupt if you're feeling dreadful, you know. And look at the breathwork and all of that that you you can do to shift things. I won't go into them now.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 40:24
Judith, are you still practicing TRTP with clients, or is your focus more on training?
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 40:30
My focus is on— has been for some years. I figure I can do more good by focusing on teaching. However, um, this year I'm going to start, um, taking on, you know, one client at a time, one client a week, right? Um, keep my— because I love it, and yeah, I'm just compelled to do it. So yeah, so stay tuned for the TRTP clinic.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 41:09
So, um, Judith, is there, is there any more advice you'd like to give to people perhaps who are struggling from distressing events or, or trauma? You have mentioned, like, as the Dalai Lama said, to have more fun. Is there any, any other—
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 41:28
you're in terrible way, you're not going to have fun. So if you're— and there'll be people listening to this, watching this, who either themselves or people they love are facing extraordinary challenges and incredible suffering. And I, I feel for you, believe me, I do. I get it. And it sounds twee and trite, but it is possible for your life to turn around. I went from not being able to walk, living in a shed in squalor. And now I, you know, go to the States all the time and travel and talk to extraordinary people, and I'm surrounded by extraordinary people who I've taught. My life is just So different. And your pain may sometimes be your gift down the track if you can hang in there and find the way through. It makes a little track through the long grass that someone can find the way, and more people do, and it becomes a hard track, and more people do, and it becomes a road. And having seen I don't know how many of my own clients, and having documented evidence of thousands of others, that TRTP resolves anxiety, depression. What's behind anxiety and depression? Shit that's happened in the past that's never been stored in that long-term memory. So you're still responding, your body's still responding to what happened then. Turn that off, reboot the whole system like a factory reboot on a phone, which is not just turn it on and off but return it to how it was when you bought it. And the anxiety, the depression, it just goes. The PTSD. But more than that, I say to a client 'Oh, I used to.' We could return you to no panic attacks and just to normal. They go, 'Oh, that'd be wonderful.' I said, 'Why would we do that when this is your opportunity to create extraordinary?' Because that's what we do. And so the person doesn't just come back to normal, but so empowered. 'I know who I am and I am enough.' And that is extraordinary. You work with one mum and that mum returns to her family not giving from deficit but giving from abundance and, and being just so loving. It just changes the whole family. You return a dad. I mean, this goes out and out. So what do I say to someone who's in distress and pain? I get it. And it sucks. And there is a way. As the great philosopher Seneca said, it is part of the cure to wish to be cured. So decide, do you want to be well? Do something. Reach out to, to a TRTP practitioner. Go to trtptherapy.com. And find somebody. Now come to Natalie, she's just done the training. Find someone who you can connect with, and it's a simple step-by-step process. Just follow the instructions and throw yourself in, because you matter, you're worth it, you deserve to be seen and heard. Choose life just because you effing can. I get all thing, not because I'm distressed, but because I know thousands of stories of people who were just so effed who are now well and happy and living rich lives, not just surviving. So yeah, there is hope.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 46:10
There is hope. And Judith, you have brought so much to the world. Now it sounds cliché, but you really have brought so much to the world. You really have been a gift in— through the transformation, through the healing that you have, and hope that you have brought thousands of people around the world. You're a treasure.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 46:30
Well, thank you, Natalie. And you know what, shit happens.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 46:35
Yep, sure does.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 46:37
And there is a way, and TRTP makes it so quick. It's just a few weeks.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 46:45
Yeah.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 46:47
So do yourself a favor because you matter. And Natalie, thank you for joining us on this extraordinary TRTP journey.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 46:56
Oh, it's been my pleasure. As I said, I began this 2019 and it's been 6 years, and I'm, I'm just, um, always like, as you described, humbled by the, by the transformation that I have actually witnessed in, in clients.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 47:15
Yeah.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 47:15
And it, it really is an extraordinary and powerful therapy, so I'm So I'm grateful that you brought this to the world.
Judith Richards (R) (Guest) · 47:25
Well, it just happened. I didn't mean for it to happen, it just happened. So thanks for having me. Lots of love.
Natalie Stockdale (Host) · 47:34
Yep, thanks for joining us, Judith. Thank you for listening to this episode of Connecting Seniors, a Kintsugi Heroes special series. If you enjoyed this conversation, share the podcast with a friend and let us know by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you'd like to support Kintsugi Heroes and the stories we share, head to kintsugiheroes.com.au and follow the instructions to make a tax-deductible donation. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week.
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