284. Healing Childhood Trauma: A Path to Self-Awareness - Tina Davidson

Kara Goodwin: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the meditation conversation, the podcast to support your spiritual revolution. I'm your host, Kara Goodwin. And today I'm joined by Tina Davidson. Tina creates music that stands out for its emotional depth and lyrical dignity. The New York times has praised her vivid ear for harmony and colors. Her memoir, Let Your Heart Be Broken, Life and Music from a Classical Composer, traces her extraordinary life, juxtaposing memories, journal entries, notes on compositions in progress and insights into the life of an artist and a mother at work. 

Wait until you hear Tina's story. There's so much here in terms of secrecy, [00:01:00] betrayal, identification, and protection. You're going to want to hear what she went through and how it affected her as a mother and the important role of forgiveness in her story. There's a lot here. So Bucklin. And as we begin here, I want to point you to my amazing partners who are helping to keep things going here on the meditation conversation podcast. 

These are things I personally use in my everyday life. And I'm so happy to partner with these small businesses. I hope you'll support them and get as much out of them as I do. Check out my sponsors link on Kara goodwin.com and there's also a link in the show notes. And if you love this episode, as much as I do, please, send it on to anyone in your life who would also be interested in it. 

Let us grow the light on this planet by sharing the high vibe content we come across. Thank you so much and enjoy this episode

Kara Goodwin: So welcome Tina. I'm really excited to talk to you today.

Tina Davidson: [00:02:00] Oh, I'm so excited to be with you. this kind of podcast is right up my alley.

Kara Goodwin: Oh, wonderful. Good. So, why don't you tell us, start by talking about your, a little bit about your journey. Your memoir describes your extraordinary life. So, what has most informed who you are today in your life's journey?

Tina Davidson: Wow. I have to say, first of all, my, my memoir is called Let Your Heart Be Broken. And I have always been interested as a composer, how my life informs my music. And to some degree, also how my music Informs my life so that there is this sort of wonderful reciprocality between the two. And I decided that I would write this memoir about 10 years ago.

That's when I started. I wrote it for a couple of years, put it away for like [00:03:00] 5 years, you know how it is. And then brought it out, worked with an editor, and then finally got this publisher. And worked with their editor. And, I talk about my childhood journey. actually the book is written, so there's a chapter which is about my childhood and growing up, so every other chapter, and then the chapter in between is journals from my 30s and 40s, which is Starting to reflect back on the time that I was a child and start to understand it in a deeper way.

And also my composing process. And slowly those two things get closer and closer together until the end. So that's the general form of the book. And I talk a lot about my music, my creative process, being a single mother, bringing up my daughter. being in love, being out of love, all those kinds of things.

but always with this idea, as the beginning of the book [00:04:00] says, or the title says, let your heart be broken. And if I might, I'll read you just that little tiny bit. It's just the preface of the book. So I was at the Open Center in New York City in the 80s. really at the height of the AIDS epidemic, where, especially if you're in the arts, friends are dying.

it's just horrible. And we weren't really testing, but we didn't know much. And people were dying quickly and just in a gruesome fashion. So this was a conference about healing and dying and healing. And a lot of people were there who were caretakers for. for their loved ones who are dying of AIDS.

And it was run by Stephen Levine, who is an author and a poet. And he was best known for working with, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, who did a lot of books and a lot of the initial work on [00:05:00] death and dying. And, a person in the audience stands up and he says, What is the meaning of life? And Stephen Levine says, Oh, I'm asked about that all the time, he replies.

And I really don't know. He pauses, looking to the side and turning back, smiling. But I think the meaning of life is to let your heart be broken. Then I write the heart, the round sphere of your being. Let your heart be broken, allow, expect, look forward to the life you have so carefully protected and cared for.

Broken, cracked, ran into heartbreak, heartbreakingly your heartbreak and in the two halves. Rocking on the table is revealed. Rich earth, moist, dark soil, ready for a new life to begin.

Kara Goodwin: Mm

Tina Davidson: So I think that is, you know, certainly [00:06:00] what I've discovered about my life and what I have written music about.

Kara Goodwin: hmm. Mm hmm. Yeah, I love that. the soil upon which we grow.

In that trauma. And so I know you've had, I guess everybody's had their own unique upbringing and experiences growing up. Yours really stands apart. knowing a little bit about your background, but can you share with us a little bit about 

how your trauma because you talk about like your childhood trauma really being in the what you're reflecting on as you write this book And I love that like talking about what happened in the childhood and then you know Marrying it or weaving it together with what's going on in your 30s and 40s as an adult and how they're informing each other But what is it about your childhood?

That was informing your 30s

Tina Davidson: So the story is that I was born in Sweden, in Stockholm, and then [00:07:00] I was placed when I was six months old in a foster care. Down at the tip of Sweden in Malmö with a family and my, yeah, my Swedish mother was Solvig and my Swedish father was Torsten. I was the youngest of three boys and the one who was the boy who, the brother who was closest to me was actually almost my age.

So we were kind of brought up for the next three years as twins. We did everything and apparently I was the ringleader.

Kara Goodwin: Mm

Tina Davidson: He says, Oh, yeah. so when I was three and a half, an American woman arrived, she got to know me over a month and then she adopted me and took me to America and she married.

I became the oldest of five kids and I'd always felt, I knew that I couldn't really talk about being adopted. I knew that my mother loved me. I knew that she'd never made any distinctions between me and the others. My stepfather, it [00:08:00] was a different story. But, I always felt that I was separated somehow, I was apart from life.

So when they would talk about family histories or fun stories, oh, your grandmother did this and your, oh, your grandfather did that, I'd always say, oh, I wish they were my grandparents. So when I was 21, during a summer vacation between my senior. No, it was my sophomore and junior year. I, was in Sweden.

actually I'd gotten a job taking care of, a 13 year old daughter of a family friend of ours. And so I was there all summer, and I thought, Right at the end, I thought, Oh, maybe I'll go down to the adoption agency and find out information. I'd always sort of fancied myself, you know, some Swede, 

So I called them up and they said, Oh, no, we would have never allowed an American to adopt a Swedish child. We don't allow [00:09:00] that. Yeah. They never wanted their children, they always wanted, right, they always wanted to protect them and keep them in Sweden. They said, Oh, we don't have any information, but why don't you, I'll look in the archives and why don't you call back in a week or a couple of days?

So I called back and they said, Oh, thank God you called back. We never would have thought we had information come down right away. And so I went down and she was sitting in this kind of dark office, reading this letter. She said, this is from your birth mother. And she said, and your birth mother is your adopted mother.

Kara Goodwin: Wait, what? Oh my goodness. So your biological mother is a woman who adopted you at three and a half and raised you.

Tina Davidson: Yes.

Kara Goodwin: How does that work?

Tina Davidson: it doesn't work well.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah.

Tina Davidson: So let me say I was born in the fifties. Having an [00:10:00] illegitimate child in the fifties is, was a real difficulty. There's no question. She was now a professor at a university there. She had a PhD, which was really unusual. It was a good story. It was smart. It protected her. It protected me.

However, and I write about this, there's a huge difference between a secret, which involves somebody else, that might be important information, and privacy. She was definitely entitled to privacy. I think living your life around a secret such as this, she never told her husband, my stepfather, she never told her mother, she never told anyone, 

Kara Goodwin: She didn't tell your birth father?

Tina Davidson: she 

Kara Goodwin: Okay. He knew that. Yeah. 

Tina Davidson: But nobody else knew. And so I think it, it became [00:11:00] something that she had to always navigate around. And I think when you have a secret like this, you have to be more and more secretive. It's, I don't think you get to have a secret like this and it's just disappears.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah.

Tina Davidson: so it was very hurtful to me. It was very hurtful to my other brothers and sisters. and it took me a long time to get myself straight with it. And also... She had become even more secretive and more paranoid about it, and so she didn't want me to tell anybody. She, 

Kara Goodwin: So you confronted her when you found

Tina Davidson: Mm hmm.

Kara Goodwin: talked to her about, did she know you were looking for this information?

Tina Davidson: No, I hadn't told her. Yeah. So, she doubled down. she didn't want me to tell anybody. She didn't feel it was her, my story. She felt it was her story. she'd been very much in love with my biological father. She had, they were going to get married and suddenly met somebody [00:12:00] else. and so it took me many, many years.

Kara Goodwin: I'm sure.

Tina Davidson: and then the other little piece of this, which was so interesting, which sort of shows you how a secret like this can really start controlling everything. She had an offer that she decided I should go to boarding school in Philadelphia. She said, Oh, it's a great opportunity. You've got to get out of this small town.

You have to go and I'm like

Kara Goodwin: And this was like when you're in high school type

Tina Davidson: hmm. Yeah. So, I went off. And then in my senior year, she said, Oh, there's this family who we want you to live with and it will save a lot of money and they're all family friends and it will be just an amazing opportunity. So I lived in my father's house

Kara Goodwin: That was your biological father.

Tina Davidson: without knowing he was my father for a year.

Kara Goodwin: Oh my gosh, Tina.

Tina Davidson: it was quite a tangled [00:13:00] story. Um.I don't know what she was thinking because she was an amazing woman. She was a great teacher. She was an amazing teacher. I took her classes. She taught many, many students who adored her. She was a very vibrant, interesting, intellectual woman.

She was a supporter of women's rights. you know, there was just so many. She was an amateur violinist. She got me to play the piano. but in this one area, it makes me understand that for myself, I really have to practice emotional honesty. That there are too many penalties for people around me to pay.

When I am not emotionally honest. and of course that's not something I can say I'm totally good at,

Kara Goodwin: Uh huh.[00:14:00] 

Tina Davidson: I do very much try to practice it. And there are times when I'm very humble that I haven't, and that I need to do some thinking about how I can be better at it. But I think what I've noticed is That this kind of secret is so harmful to everyone and it becomes, I write about it, that it becomes your own personal Frankenstein.

It's behind the scenes managing things or throwing its weight around or making loud noises. and I just don't think it hasn't worked for me.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. thank you so much for sharing all of that experience because I can imagine just how much grief There is when you start to understand everything and it's so complicated because you talk about, you know, this was the fifties, your [00:15:00] mom was a progressive woman who was making her way against all odds just by being a woman and like flourishing in academia and. And so I can completely see from her perspective, especially in the times that they were in, like, this is the kindest thing that I can do. This is a win win

Tina Davidson: It's a necessary thing. It's necessary.

Kara Goodwin: And nobody needs to know because this is my problem. This is my solution. This is my life. And really, I mean, I'm a mother, you know, I have two teenagers and. And it's funny, like as they're becoming teenagers, I'm having to make that transition of letting go of some, you know, where I'm like, okay, have, I've not necessarily always seen them as an extension of me, but to a certain extent, it's like, I have a responsibility for them. They don't have fully developed.

Brains and emotions, and they can't [00:16:00] make certain decisions with the type of perspective that you can when you have more life experience. So, but there is that evolution of like, okay, I'm handing it over now. You know, my son's learning how to drive, for example. And so it's more and more letting go of like, okay, how much can I control this?

Cause I have a responsibility to help him learn this and. He also needs to, you know, it's this constant weaving and like balance and, you know, giving and taking and so forth. And so I can really see, you know, as if you have a baby, like that is on you, like it, that baby is your complete responsibility.

They can't make choices for themselves. And so you're trying to do the best that you can, but then there comes this time where it's like, okay, actually, this is a person now with a developed. Emotional state developed, you know, human adult type of thing. So when would be the right time to start like, and [00:17:00] without hurting them, you know, because it's, it is like the longer you hold that, the more it's like, Oh God, I, now it's been like two decades and I haven't.

Told her and so God, I'm not looking forward to that. Like let's just keep going with

Tina Davidson: Yeah. I totally and I think she she really thought she probably knows she's my daughter so why should I tell her? Or let's just leave, you know, let's leave, 

Kara Goodwin: enough alone and, 

Tina Davidson: enough alone and, and she could have, as you said, when I was 12 or 13, she should have could have said, Hey, honey, I just wanted you to know this.

I wanted you to know how much I have always loved you and wanted you. And I went back and I got you. It's not something we can talk about right now with others. So we're going to have to just talk privately about it. Um, but she got scared. Okay. And she, I think got very tunnel vision. She could [00:18:00] only see sort of her paranoia and her anxiety.

And the other thing that I uncovered, is that, so, the book opens up where I'm a new mother. I'm in my early 30s and I'm looking at my daughter and I'm feeling how amazing life is. My music is going well, but I also know things are falling apart. I kinda, friendships have been really hard for me.

I'm like having nightmares, I'm obsessing about stuff and I'm looking at her and I go, Oh, you have a choice. This is, you can pick door one or door two. Door one is you're going to ignore your past. And you're just going to hand it to your daughter in its rawest form. Or door number two is you're going to get some therapy and you're going to work really hard. I don't think I had any idea of what really hard meant at that point. [00:19:00] But one of the things that was uncovered that was a total surprise to me was that when I left Sweden with my mother, it was as if my family My Swedish family had just had a terrible, fiery car accident and they had all died.

Kara Goodwin: the foster family

or 

Tina Davidson: that was my family.

You know, I've been with them for, what kind of language did I have? She didn't say, Hey, you're my daughter. you know, we never talked about it. She never gave me context. And that I felt a huge amount of grief and sadness at that loss. and in fact, the book was. going to be called Grief's Grace, The Grace of Grieving.

and it is the second chapter in the book. that again, the way letting your heart be broken, it's part of letting your heart be [00:20:00] broken, is that willingness to grieve. And I must have cried for two years. I was really surprised. I never would have dreamed. I'm sure I was crying about my whole situation as well.

But it was ironic that here I was in a point in my life where things were really going well. I had this beautiful daughter. I was very much in love with her dad. I was writing great music and I was crying all the time.

Kara Goodwin: Wow, and were you really because you were in therapy you knew what it was that you were grieving or was it just this response? Okay,

Tina Davidson: it was, it came to me. I was ready to stop doing therapy. And I was like, Oh, maybe this will be the last session. Oh, we've got this all settled. And she said, tell me about your dreams. And I said, Oh, I have had three nightmares that I, have had since I was as long as I remember.

And one [00:21:00] of them was being in an elevator. And when I got in, it was dim that the floor of the elevator would start to shift. And it was just a terrifying dream. And she said, how about we try this? How about you close your eyes and you tell me the dreams. I will go with you so you're not scared.

You just imagine me there and tell me what happens. And so, 

Kara Goodwin: and did you

have to be in hypnosis for that or you

Tina Davidson: Well, this was a long time ago. I don't later, you know, years later. She said, you know, I had no idea what we were doing. We were doing hypnosis. Yes. So I just closed my eyes. I just started talking about the stream and the doors open of the elevator.

And she said. Go on, walk out. I never walked out. So I was describing the walls and the smoothness of the plaster and how gray it was and dim. And we got to an open door and she said, why don't you look in? And I looked in and I [00:22:00] immediately recognized myself as a little girl.

Kara Goodwin: Really?

Tina Davidson: and this little girl was looking out the window and I burst into tears and she said, what's happening?

She said, she's waiting. She's waiting for Solvig to come and catch, bring her home.

Kara Goodwin: And that was your,

 who was? 

Tina Davidson: mother, Solvig is my foster mother. And that kind of broke the whole thing open. And I can't tell you if it was real or unreal. I just happened. 

Kara Goodwin: Mm 

Tina Davidson: I didn't know it was hypnosis. I have no idea. but whatever it was something that brought me back to Sweden. And that sense, I think that children do have, that parts of them are broken off.

And are stuck waiting

Kara Goodwin: hmm. Yeah.

Tina Davidson: kids are always tell, you know, if you get lost, just stay where you are. Don't move. We will find you.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah.

Tina Davidson: [00:23:00] So that was sort of the beginning of many years of really looking deeply into this and also writing music. So I have a piece that I always talk about called Dark Child Sings.

For cello quartet and it was about allowing that dark child in me to have a voice through my music.

Kara Goodwin: Oh, wow. Well, I wanted to ask you about how, what the, what role the creative process has played in, you know, the backdrop or the weaving of everything that you've had to process through your life, through your adult life. And, how does creativity play into all of it?

Tina Davidson: Well, first of all, I have to say, I think,

writing music was always a really safe space for me. It was a place that would protect me. I could write about my life. You could listen to it, but you might not necessarily know what it was about because it's in music. [00:24:00] And then, I think that music has, as I talked about, this reciprocal effect where I always feel I pour myself into my music and I'm feeling I'm revealing myself to my music, but in a way, my music is revealing me to me.

So, and many times it will teach me things that, that I need to go into, through. different areas. I've been composing music for 45 years. The first decade, I was composing avidly, but I don't think I knew about myself. So I'm not sure that music had a lot of weight. The second decade was when I started doing therapy, and I started to recognize myself more.

in that music and that was the decade that I really was exploring my past and then when I got to my third decade, I started realizing that I was kind of,addicted to [00:25:00] depression that I was scared to give up my depression and my, sometimes I was scared to give up my anger because it, you know, anger really gets you out of bed. You know, it's like, it gets you marching and I had to ask myself, how would it you like, how would it be if you gave up your anger or if you gave up your depression or you gave up your need to have it or attachment to it?

And that was a big turning point for me to risk giving away something that I thought might be the key to my, uh, artistic, yes, exactly. And I do think. As, as traumatic as life can be, for me, some of the telltale signs were slightly addictive. you know, I had suffered and it [00:26:00] was hard to give it up and it opened up the doors to a much deeper connection, to things outside of me, such as, The God or whatever you want to spiritual connection or things that I didn't understand.

And I started to write a lot of music about that bigger connection. my, my titles became, Delight of Angels. the piece called Barefoot is actually about, the burning bush. and taking off your shoes when you're in. A place of the spirit you need to take off. You have to be barefoot. And then that idea of how the sand feels and how maybe you can't really communicate to this bigger thing, but you can dance in front of it.

So the idea of dancing barefoot. So I've, I have written a lot of pieces that were [00:27:00] exploring a connection that was to something bigger that I didn't know.

Kara Goodwin: Wow. Well, the amount of self awareness that is required and emotional intelligence to know When you talk about that addiction to things that we think, you know, nobody would on the surface think, Oh, I really, on some level, I really want this depression or I want this anger. And so it's very brave and vulnerable and powerful to really look at that head on and be honest.

that goes back to the secrecy

of, you know. That could be something that we wouldn't want to look at or acknowledge or even entertain the idea of, but to then, you know, be that's, you know, just owning it and questioning it and being curious about it. is the first step to, to overcoming [00:28:00] it. So, but it, I'm really interested that you say that because I'm sure that there are a lot of people who maybe haven't thought about things like that.

Like, is there something that I'm actually holding, like, am I choosing? And there's something that I like about this and what it, you know, should I, like, is that for my highest good? You know? So that leads me to the role of forgiveness. in your journey. So how

Tina Davidson: hmm.

Kara Goodwin: that played out?

Tina Davidson: Oh my goodness. again, I had a dream and I was down in the basement and this was when I was pretty far along in my journey, but I was down in the basement and for some reason I am dragging something around in the basement and my basement in Philadelphia was a dirt floor and so it's moist and a little moldy and gross and.

Yeah. the rope that I'm pulling, it's digging into my shoulder. [00:29:00] So finally I look back to see what it is and it's something in a great big bag and it looks like a body. And I woke up and I thought, oh my gosh, I'm dragging my stepfather, my anger at my stepfather around. I have got to get out of the basement.

So I had, done a wonderful workshop called essential experience and they talked a lot about forgiveness and about the idea of getting clean, that it was not really about the other person, but more about you and feeling better about you. So I didn't know what I thought about this too much, but I thought, well, I'll make up my own practice.

So I had,I was a single parent and so I had this. Staffordshire Bull Terrier, and I'd have to walk her in the morning, and she'd be tugging. She was not a well behaved dog. She'd be tugging, and I thought, well, I will say I forgive you every morning when I walk the dog, and I don't have to mean it.[00:30:00] 

I will just say the words, I forgive you. So in the morning, we started on 40th Street and I would forgive myself, I'd forgive my daughter, I'd forgive my brothers and sisters, with people I was working with, you know, the list went on. Around 49th Street, when the dog had been tugging my arm out, I would start with my mother and my stepfather.

And it was not pretty. I was in a rage. I was hot, I was sweaty, and I was like just spitting. And I always had to think that I must've single handedly terrorized that neighborhood. You know, like, 8. 30 in the morning, here she comes!

Kara Goodwin: Yeah.

Tina Davidson: And I did it for about a year, as I recall. And what I noticed were little things.

I could be in the room with my stepfather and not have to leave. One Christmas, my mother and stepfather gave me a gift, and I said, thank you. I, [00:31:00] you know, honestly, I was brought to kindness. I could be kind to them, and that was so important. it didn't restore the relationship. It didn't make it all better.

It, still was a difficult relationship that I had to... negotiate, but when my stepfather was dying and then my mother just died last November, she was 99 and nine days old and had had late, onset Alzheimer's, and I would go up to give my sister and my brother some respite care. And I could be with her.

I could be kind. We could, you know, she always loved watching the news. and I could do it with her. she once was sort of stroking my arm and she said, Now, were you brought up in this town? I said, Well, yes, actually I was. She goes, Oh. So was I. And it was just, it meant so [00:32:00] much to me to not be just infuriated with her, just to be brought to kindness.

And so that's why I would say, you know, you want to get to a place where you're free to go. You don't have to hold on to this burden and carry it anymore. And that's what forgiveness gave me.

Kara Goodwin: I love that. Thank you. And I love that reminder too of who forgiveness is for. it is wonderful to be forgiven and we all have things in our lives that require forgiveness from others, and it feels good. To be relieved of that, but when we're holding on to those wounds that are from somebody else, it's, I love the expression.

It's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die [00:33:00] from it. You know, it's like they may or may not have any idea that they have

Tina Davidson: Or want to have any idea.

Kara Goodwin: or care. Yeah. But we're still carrying that sack. That heavy sack, you know, that is burdening us and giving us rope burn on our shoulder and all the other ways that it's affecting us.

And,

Tina Davidson: that damp, dirty, dark basement. Uh, stuck. I think I, yes, very good to get out of there.

Kara Goodwin: Yeah. Yeah. And it's by our own forgiveness of what has happened, the trespasses that have happened against us, you know. it's just incredible and what a journey that you've had. thank you so much for sharing it and, because I know that there will be a lot of healing. I mean, it, it seems clear that you've had.

A lot of healing that you've gone through in facing, in record, [00:34:00] facing, recognizing, looking at the shadows, the traumas, the wounds, it's very tempting to just say, nope, everything's okay. Not going to go there dealing with something in the dream time, but. I only have to deal with that when the dreams come and, you know, it takes a lot to recognize like what am I doing not only to myself, but to my child, you know, does she need to be burdened by what's happened in my past because I'm not.

Willing to look at it and heal it. so there's just so much there, but also through the creation of your work and the creation of your music, you're helping to heal other people because there are so many other people who have been through their life journey. And the more we share our stories. You know, the more we find inspiration in the footsteps of others who've come before us.

So I honor that you have done that work for not only yourself, but. [00:35:00] Those who are just beginning to become introduced to your work.

Tina Davidson: Yes.

Kara Goodwin: So can you talk about how people can connect with you and your work, where they can find your book and all

Tina Davidson: Mm hmm. Well, it's pretty easy. It's my name is Tina Davidson. So, my website is Tina Davidson dot com. You can go on Amazon and find my book also under Tina Davidson but it's called It Let Your Heart Be Broken Life and Music from a Classical Composer. and then you can listen to my music wherever you listen to it.

It's on Apple Music. It's on Spotify, probably on other platforms that I don't know about. And of course, I am on Facebook, Tina Davidson, composer and author on Instagram. So I'm hanging around. You can find me.

Kara Goodwin: A wonderful, great. Well, Tina, many blessings to you and thank you so much for sharing with us today.

Tina Davidson: Oh, [00:36:00] totally my pleasure. I've loved being on your show. Thank you so much.