Hosted by Rosemary Davies-Janes. Produced by J'aime Rothbard.
The therapist's wound is rarely just one thing. Our guests today shared that for them, it's been a mix of childhood, educational, religious, ancestral, racial, colonial, cultural and systemic wounds, seeded through a lifetime. What turned these wounded humans into wounded healers is how they related to their wounds.
This third episode of the Wounded Healer Series is profoundly relational. Born in Guyana, Rennet Wong arrived in Canada at 17, carrying Russian, Japanese, Chinese, West African, Irish, Portuguese and Aboriginal ancestry into a country that didn't know how to see her. Born in Tanzania and raised as a natural healer, Efu Nyaki carried her ancestral traditions into institutions that had little room for them. Undeterred, she travelled to Brazil, founded a holistic healing centre, and today travels the world to share her gifts of healing.
Their discussion of shared humanity in the therapeutic relationship explores:
- Why the wound alone doesn't make a healer, and their relationship to it does
- What it means to sit in front of someone, and simultaneously, their 4,000 ancestors
- The difference between being resilient and being allowed to rest
- How colonial and racial wounds live in the body
- Humility, humanity and the healing power of presence
This episode closes with a poem written by Rennet for this conversation.Her words precisely capture what it actually means to tend a wound—our own, or another's.
About Rennet Wong-Gates,
MSW, RSW, RP, SEP
A Trauma Therapist, Registered Clinical Social Worker, Registered Psychotherapist, Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, and Organizational Consultant, she has spent over 20 years supporting individuals, families, groups, and frontline organizations through complex trauma, relational wounds, grief, burnout, emotional eating, binge eating, and nervous-system dysregulation.
Rennet's clinical work integrates EMDR, Somatic Experiencing®, Brainspotting, Trauma-Informed Stabilization Treatment, IFS-informed parts work, Compassionate Inquiry®, Polyvagal-informed practice, mindfulness, and anti-oppressive approaches. She helps clients understand the protective wisdom beneath symptoms, reduce shame, reconnect with the body, build greater safety, choice, dignity, and self-trust.
In addition to her clinical practice, Rennet provides trauma-informed consultation, supervision, and resilience training for organizations supporting survivors, frontline workers, and communities impacted by systemic stress and trauma.
About Euphrasia (Efu) Nyaki, MEd, Therapist & Professor of Trauma Healing
Born in Tanzania, and raised as a natural healer, Efu is a Somatic Experiencing® faculty member and a Professor of Family Constellation System Therapy.
For the past 3 decades, she has been living in Brazil, facilitating trauma healing therapy and training, both in-person and online.
In 1998, she co-founded AFYA, a Holistic Healing Center in northeast Brazil that provides holistic healing methodologies to people from the local community and international individuals who come seeking support.
Efu also travels to India, Egypt, South Korea, China, Bolivia, Peru, Spain, Uruguay, Tanzania, Philippines, Hong Kong, USA, Poland, Kenya and Sweden to facilitate trainings, workshops, summits, webinars, podcasts, conferences, individual therapy sessions and case consults.
In 2023 Efu authored, Healing Trauma through Family Constellations and Somatic
Experiencing. The foreword was written by Dr Peter Levine.
Promotional Messages:
Compassionate Inquiry® Professional Training
If you've been listening to our podcast and are curious about the Compassionate Inquiry approach developed by Doctor Gabor Maté and Sat Dharam Kaur, consider joining the Professional Training Program. It's open to all healing professionals, including naturopaths, physicians, body workers, coaches, and therapists. In addition to learning how to use compassion to support your clients in their most vulnerable moments with greater empathy and authenticity, you'll also deepen your own internal process. If you're interested, tap this link.
Compassionate Inquiry® Blog Library
Did you know that Compassionate Inquiry offers a free public blog library with over a thousand short posts written by our practitioners and facilitators? Each is only a 5 or 6 minute read, and topics range from connecting with authenticity to overcoming food addictions to understanding epigenetics, rethinking drug use, CI & Psychedelics, and much, much more. You can also read excerpts from podcast guests' interviews. Tap this link to access our helpful, enlightening and inspiring blog library.
Resources:
Websites:
Efu's Professional Website
Efu's AFYA Site
Rennet's Professional Website
Related Links:
Compassionate Inquiryy®
Somatic Experiencingy®
Family Constellations
Healing Asthma in Adults (Podcast)
Somatic Experiencing and Family Constellation Healing (Podcast)
Branches of Wisdom (Podcast)
Rennet's 2024 Interview (Podcast)
Books:
Healing Trauma through Family Constellations and Somatic Experiencing
Quotes:
"My wounds didn't make me a healer… my relationship to my wounds did." - Rennet Wong-Gates
"Oppression is not a gift. The gift is what we reclaim from it." - Rennet Wong-Gates
"I do not come untouched. I come with places in me that have known silence, loss, and the ache of becoming." - Rennet Wong-Gates
"The wound is not the gift; the tending is, the compassion is, the humility is. And perhaps this is healing, not arriving whole, but arriving honest." - Rennet Wong-Gates
"When I meet the other person, as I sit in front of them, holding the space for them, I'm able to see what they are bringing up. I know they have touched my wound and it helps me to become more compassionate because I know what they are talking about, not just from my cortical brain, but with my whole being and my soul. Then we both come up with the intuitive way of finding healing together. So the word I would like the public to hear is humility." - Efu Nyaki
"I'm not going to fix you. I'm sitting here with you so that you can learn something from me as I learn something from you." - Efu Nyaki
"You heal one, you heal all." - Efu Nyaki
"Humanity, humility, and the healing power of presence." - Rosemary Davies-Janes
Social Media:
Efu's Instagram: @afyaorg
Efu's Facebook https://www.facebook.com/efu.nyaki/
Rennet's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rennetwonggates/
Rennet's Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RennetWongGatesPsychotherapy
Rennet's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@rennetwonggates