Episode 322 Tina Erwin Healing from Loss and Trauma Transcript

This transcript is from episode 322 with guest Tina Erwin.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Hey everybody, welcome back to Drive On. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and today my guest is Tina Erwin. Tina is a former Navy commander and she’s here to share how to help veterans cope with things like death and loss. in a healthy manner. So welcome to the show, Tina. I’m really glad to have you here.

Thank you, Scott.

Tina Erwin: I’m really delighted to be here. It was a really grateful to get this opportunity.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, you bet. Um, for the listeners who aren’t familiar with you and your background, could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Tina Erwin: I’d be happy to, and it’s a wonderful thing that you’ve actually never heard of me.

Because I was a woman in the military in the 70s, 70s, 80s, and 90s. And, um, most people had, didn’t know what to do with women officers. And so when I was commissioned an officer through Officer Kennedy School, because none of us could go to the military academies. It was a, a [00:01:00] unique opportunity and then I ended up working for the submarine force for 20 years.

And they didn’t know what to do with us either. And what I realized is that men are exceptionally reasonable if you can help guide them to a way that you can, that they can best use your talents. But they don’t know what your talents are. So you have to help them to learn who you are. And what I found was that, Working for the submarine force was a privilege, it was an honor, they’re some of the brightest guys I have ever known, some of the best patriots you’d ever want to meet, taught me amazing things, and they were willing to take a chance on me, I was Thanks.

I receded for all the crypto gear for all 688 class new construction submarines at Electric Boat Division in Connecticut. I was the first female instructor in the history of submarine school. And I also taught the Sealed Authenticator System [00:02:00] which enables the seal of a submarine to know when to launch a missile.

And I loved my job. I just great, you know, truly enjoyed the men I worked with and along the way, I met my husband and we’ve been together 50 years, which is really, really awesome. And I eventually became a terrorist expert and I designed equipment that protected submarines from terrorist attack. And I looked at what are called the.

Anti terrorist alert summaries every day and it’s enough to make your blood run cold the things that you are dealing with and I had 86 submarines, nine submarine tenders, three submarine bases and the senior Jewish admiral in the navy to protect and it was a very big It’s a very very big job. Sure, but if you go on any military base today the things that that I created with a very small team, a very dedicated military and civilian [00:03:00] professionals, are still in place today.

And I can’t begin to convey all the different things that I got to do with the submarine force. I worked with SEAL Team 6, We tested the devices that I put in place, and the submarine force still uses, to this day, all of those devices, which, and I created a system, and then because I’m kind of gutsy, I classified it myself, and that kind of pissed a whole lot of people off, but, you know, I didn’t care.

I knew what it needed to be, and I didn’t need somebody else to tell me. So, I had a blast, and I have a deep and abiding respect. for people who put their lives on the line and who care about other people. And that is the truest nature of the U. S. military.

Scott DeLuzio: It is. And I think that’s something that we, uh, we all have in common is, you know, service, uh, you know, serving other people before [00:04:00] ourselves and, and putting, you know, the mission first, country first, all that kind of stuff, putting that first, um, And that’s, you know, it’s a really an incredible thing when you, when you see this group of people coming together, doing these extraordinary things, um, and, and things like what you were just describing, uh, a lot of these things which are still in place and still protecting, uh, the force today.

Um, I want to get a little bit more into your career and how it’s shaping what you’re doing now in just a minute, but we’re going to. Cut to a quick commercial break, so stay tuned. Hey everybody. Welcome back to Drive On. Uh, today I have Tina Erwin here and we’re talking about, um, we were talking about her, uh, career, uh, in the military, uh, in the, the Navy, all the things that she was doing with the submarine, uh, force.

Um, but we’re here to talk about, um, how to help veterans dealing with things like death and loss in a healthy way. And so, uh, Tina, your journey from your career in the Navy. To what you’re doing now, I think [00:05:00] is pretty interesting. How did your Navy experiences shape your understanding of things like human behavior, especially in challenging situations, difficult times like, you know, surrounding death and loss and things like that?

Tina Erwin: The Navy is only about people. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the Navy or the Army or the Coast Guard or the Marines. It’s only about the person in front of you. It’s only about what kind of leadership are you offering to enable an individual to give you their best. And when a person is distracted by something going on at home, a terrible problem with, um, a spouse, or problems with health problems, if you just ignore them, they’re going to magnify.

But if you sit down with a member, and you really analyze what’s happening, you have a really good understanding of that person to the, to the degree that you can do [00:06:00] that. And when a military member checked in, I went through every single medical record. And it told me an enormous amount about the person sitting in front of me.

And one of the most astounding medical records I ever saw was that we had an engine man who came from a surface ship. And I was the executive officer for submarine training facility in San Diego at Point Loma. And I looked at him, I said, it says that your lung collapsed. But I’m looking through all this documentation, never says your lung was reinflated.

And no ma’am, it wasn’t. And I said, it says that you did all the PT with a collapsed lung. He said, yes ma’am I did. And I said, and the ship you came from didn’t, wasn’t concerned that you had a collapsed lung? Not really ma’am. And so I got the squadron doctor on the phone, and I said, I don’t know who cleared this man for instructor duty, but I want a complete physical, I want his lung reinflated.

He says his [00:07:00] diaphragm is cold and hard. I want this man to have care. This is absolutely unsatisfactory. And. And they discovered all these other things that were going on with this man, and no one listened to him, no one did any research, just in the most rudimentary things. And I had another guy check in, and his eyes were crossed, and I, he was coming for instructor duty.

And I said, I’m not, I’m not allowing you to go be an instructor. And he said, well, ma’am, they won’t repair my eyes because it’s cosmetic. And I said, Oh, I will get that repaired. In four days, I had that man’s eyes looking perfect. And he came back and I said, Oh my God, what a handsome man you are. It changed his life.

I said, you will be a distraction to your students, and it’s causing you to be self conscious. This is unsatisfactory. The Navy should have fixed this. I will fix it for you now. And that [00:08:00] feeling, you’re the XO, you have to get it done, but I’m looking at, I’m looking at people suffering, and we’re asking them to give us 100%, and we’re not giving it to them?

I’m getting on a soapbox, but I had a lieutenant, a really, really good guy. He had twins, he was sent to us because he had a lot of difficulty when the twins were born. And he didn’t screen for XO, and his career was in the toilet. And he was about to give up. I taught him how to fight for himself. And several years later, I got an invitation to his change of command as a captain of a fast attack submarine.

And by sometimes you, I’m never, I was never going to have my own submarine. Not this lifetime, of course. But that didn’t mean that really good men didn’t deserve to be out there. So, whether [00:09:00] it’s somebody who’s got a, a child that’s really sick, or a wife who, who, the Navy hospital nicked the bowel, and the man was at his wit’s end, I vacated his leave, I put him TAD to the hospital, and I…

Just destroyed the XO of the hospital for incompetence, but that’s another story. You have to take care of your people was my bottom line.

Scott DeLuzio: Absolutely, and I think there’s a lot of leaders out there that that don’t necessarily see it that way and they They look at someone as well, you know, the person with the the cross eyes that you mentioned It’s like well, this person’s functional. It’s cosmetic. We don’t need to do this So, you know just You know, go do your work and, and get to it and stop, you know, complaining about it essentially, right?

Um, and that’s not the, the best attitude to have with. with your troops, because you want to make sure that they’re being taken care of and that they feel like they’re being [00:10:00] taken care of. And if they’re, if they’re not for whatever reason, then they’re not going to be a hundred percent there. Because like you said, if there’s something going on with their, their home life, their kids or their wife or something like that at home, you know, their mind is now on that because that’s.

important to them. And so, you know, you got to be able to help them out along the way, uh, with a lot of things that they have going on, right? Not just their job.

Tina Erwin: Exactly. And if you’re using your command master chief, you’re using, you’re working with the leadership of your, well, we call it the goat locker.

You’re using, working with the leadership of your, your chief petty officers, your junior officers, and your more senior officers. If you don’t care about the crew, you can’t demand that they do that. And I had a commander who. He was, came to me on limited duty because he had a medical problem. He was in a, he was so abusive that the crew he, from the submarine he came from, we were actually concerned that they were [00:11:00] going to kill him, he was so hated.

A huge abuse of power, and I just wouldn’t tolerate it. So I, I did this little thing. I put him in charge of being the advocate for the crew at the Navy Hospital. Because he didn’t really care. About the crew on any level, and sometimes you have to order someone to care and along the way. They have to wake up.

This man was genius level. He was, he was always in his head. He didn’t know how to have heart. You don’t have heart. Where’s the leadership without heart? And, um, the, uh, sailor whose wife, uh, had gallbladder surgery and they nicked the bowel. I put this commander in charge. of dealing with the hospital after I had gotten the attention.

And he [00:12:00] went to hell and back for this first class petty officer. And then more things came up and I kept putting him, I kept sending him into the fray and sending him into the fray. And it changed him. You can’t be taught compassion, but you can be forced to listen to the suffering of others. And once that happened, things began to change.

We had, we had a Two suicides and a third almost suicide and I made him the casualty assistance call officer one of them And I said you’re you’re I’m sending you with a chaplain But the chaplain’s an idiot and if the chaplain does these three things fire him on the spot That’s a direct order. He said you a chaplain?

I said Look at this face. Do I look like I’m kidding to you? And he said no and I said and he says I don’t know anything about kids And I said you’re gonna learn [00:13:00] because for the rest of their lives those little girls are gonna remember what you say in this moment He says but you’re gonna be better at it.

And I said, I already know how to do it You will never learn if you don’t feel the moment You look into the eyes of those children and you tell them that their dad has died and here’s your script and I wrote it Out for him and you rehearse it And sure enough, he had to fire the chaplain, who really was an idiot, and his, uh, the, the wife told me that he did such an outstanding job with the children, when he came back, he was visibly shaken, and I got to him, and he, when he left the command, he became the U.

S. Defense Attaché in Turkey. The entire enlisted staff threw him a going away party and gave him gifts of gratitude. In his entire career, no one had ever cared about him, and it changed his [00:14:00] entire life. And they couldn’t believe that they actually had an attachment to this man. And that’s, that’s the kind of thing you can do if you’re in a position of power.

You can make a really positive difference. And that is the spiritual path and that’s, that’s what I’m doing in these times is more spiritual things, but it starts with caring about the person in front of you.

Scott DeLuzio: It does. And that’s the, um, that, that’s the thing I think we all need to take in here is, uh, that, that we do need to, uh, care about those other people.

It’s not just about, uh, you know, as a leader in a leadership position, it’s not just about getting the job done. And. You know, just do your work and, you know, shove all that other stuff away because the reality is we are complex creatures. We have lots of things that are going on. We have a lot of things that we are passionate about, that we’re worried about, that, [00:15:00] that keep us up at night.

And, and it may or may not be related to the job that we’re doing, whether it’s in the military or not. And, um, and if those things are affecting you in your performance of doing whatever the duties are that, that the leader is asking you to do, then, Leader is not going to be all that effective in getting that job done because the people that are working for them are not going to be all that effective either.

And that, that goes for any, a wide number of things, a wide, uh, variety of things. It could be anything from finances to relationships at home. It could be, uh, you know, things like death or loss and other things along those lines that, um, really affect these people. And so, um, having a empathetic. leader there who, who can help you through those tough times, um, and, and get you the support that you need, whether it’s, uh, counseling, whether it’s a medical, you know, uh, issue that you’re having or, or whatever it is that [00:16:00] they, they need.

Help them get through that and they’re going to be a lot better off for it, uh, at the end. So, uh, I want to talk a little bit more about this, uh, specifically with regards to, uh, you know, traumas and death and things along those lines in just a minute. But, uh, we’re going to take a quick commercial break here.

So stay tuned. So Tina, um, I want to kind of switch gears a little bit here. We’re talking about kind of your, your background and how you’re. Your military service had affected your understanding of human behavior and, you know, you were talking about leadership and things along those lines, but I want to kind of switch gears a little bit here and talk a little bit about grief and, um, and death and, you know, these things can take different forms and, uh, they can manifest themselves in different ways in people, I guess I should say.

And, um, they’re difficult to deal with for anybody. Um, but, you know, Do you have any, uh, insights or [00:17:00] tips, strategies, particularly for veterans who may have experienced loss of, uh, you know, fellow comrades, uh, maybe during the service, um, whether it was through combat or other means there, uh, to kind of navigate through it all and, and kind of heal from the trauma that they’ve experienced?

I

Tina Erwin: absolutely do. And by the way, I, my youngest son did, uh, is in the Air Force. He’s a senior master sergeant in the Air Force, and he did two tours in Afghanistan, so it’s, it’s very close to home for me. Uh, first, when you deal with trauma, it’s not new. It, I mean, it used to be called soldier’s heart. It used to be called shell shock or battle fatigue, and I mean, this can happen to people in the civilian sector, sector.

The current term Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is a fancy term for blown out adrenal glands. And [00:18:00] my concern about the military approach is usually it’s drug therapy. They do some counseling, but they don’t address the volume of problems the individual has. We’re the adrenal glands that are completely blown.

And what happens is, because the things that I currently do are on a very spiritual level, I talk about something called your auric field, which is your first field. Your auric field is also your immune system. Your adrenal glands keep that force field, your auric field intact. When you go through massive shock, or a bomb goes off, or an IED goes off, what happens is you are flooded with adrenaline.

Once or twice is a lot. Day after [00:19:00] day after day after day of stress and you keep getting that hit of adrenaline over and over and over. Now you have adrenaline poisoning. I have seldom seen anybody address this. And that means that if you come back, and everybody expects you to just reintegrate into normal society, and somebody cuts you off in traffic, well, you and I might get, you know, you know, a fraction of a tiny bit of adrenaline.

But if your adrenal glands are blown, you get a gallon of adrenaline and you can’t control it. However, there was a physician in some small place in Indiana in the 70s, in the 80s, who, who discovered something called Pyroluria. P Y R O L U R I A. And I really would like to share this [00:20:00] because it could, it could literally mean the difference between life and death for someone.

And what happens is, when you have that much adrenaline poisoning over time, you can’t help the surge that comes through you. But there are over the counter supplements that can do a tremendous amount. And if you want to know how much… Um, Adrenaline you’ve got in your system. There’s something called a Crypto Pyrol’s Urine Test.

You can also Google Pyroluria. And this is really all about the power of Adrenaline. And what happens when this takes place is you now have a massive deficiency in Vitamin B6 and Zinc. When you want to repair your Adrenal glands, and your force field, and your immune system, there are certain supplements that are [00:21:00] immediately helpful.

Because you can cancel somebody from here to eternity, and it’s not going to make any difference. You have to give them something else, physical, that’s not a drug. And so, I’m going to give you a list. Anyone can look this up. I’m not a physician. I have looked at this and helped, I’ve helped children, I’ve helped teenagers with motorist ideation, and people who were ready to kill themselves, because they had too much adrenaline.

And, the, what you need is something called Pyroxidine, or Vitamin B6. Magnesium, Manganese, Vitamin B6, I mean, Vitamin C, Zinc, and something called Noni Juice, N O N I. Noni Juice is a blood cleanser. Individuals never wash the adrenaline out of their body. Their [00:22:00] body becomes toxic with it. And no one ever talks about how do you wash this stuff out.

N O N I. It’s the, uh, Latin name is Melinda Citrifolia. It’s a fruit that comes from Southeast Asia and Hawaii. And what this does is, the Hawaiians used it for 5, 000 years. I use it every single day. It enables you to manage stress. If you combine it with the other vitamins, and I do something called remote viewing, so looking, remote viewing a body that, before they started these supplements for several weeks, And then afterwards, the difference in their bodies is jaw dropping.

Well, once you’ve gotten control of the adrenaline, then you can begin to address how to wrap your brain around the IED blew up and, you know, your six of your squad members died, and you lived. Why did you live? Because it wasn’t your time to die. [00:23:00] Well, maybe now you can hear me. But if you, if you, all you’re feeling is this intense pain of adrenaline, then it’s, it’s a terrible situation.

There’s also a procedure where, and this was on 60 Minutes, and this procedure is… And the name escapes me right this minute, but you can look at the, um, procedure that, where they inject something in the neck, like lidocaine, in your neck, and it stops, it puts a block on the release of the adrenaline. And that would give you time to repair your body without those horrible feelings that so many military members from Iraq and Afghanistan and anything else that’s happened to people.

have experienced. Um, it’s, it’s a type of block. I, um, it’ll come to me. And when you can look at those two practical elements, [00:24:00] Pyelowiria and this block that uses lidocaine, what you’re able to do is you’re not using some constant drug that pushes these men and women to suicide or to kill somebody else or their own families because they don’t even know who they are anymore.

I mean, we’re, we’re not compassionate to these, To these veterans in any way, shape, or form. And this certainly was true after the Vietnam War, and I certainly saw a lot of that because I’m considered a Vietnam era vet myself. So, when you’re looking at those things, D subdiet, Because if you have this much adrenaline, you’re not sleeping.

If you’re not sleeping, there’s a feeling that madness will set in. Moony Juice washes this adrenaline out of your system, and then the supplements start to shore up your adrenal glands, and then there are all different kinds of cortisol therapies that help you rebalance [00:25:00] the adrenal cortex in the brain and the adrenal glands.

And I, I’m hoping that Whoever is hearing this will find, um, it’s called a ganglion block. That’s what it is. It’s called a ganglion block. Again, it was a 60 minutes piece that was just absolutely outstanding. And I’m hoping if someone hears this that they will feel like there is hope for them and that it’s not about the drugs that push you.

which is by the way, if you look at the little insert in the drugs, one of the side effects is suicide, which is supposed to be what you’re taking it for. So it won’t happen. So I’m sorry. I got on a giant band box there.

Scott DeLuzio: No, that’s okay. I think, especially to that last point, you’re, you’re spot on there because I remember, uh, myself, uh, talking to doctors and they were talking about the different medications that were available and, And things like that.

And I did some of the [00:26:00] research and I was looking at some of them and I said, well, some of these Side effects of these medicines are the exact thing that I’m coming to get these to get treated for. Why would I want to take this medicine if it’s gonna potentially make the problem even worse? So, exactly.

I, I don’t, I don’t quite understand it. So there had to be something else and I, you know, I, I was like, I, I just won’t do it. I’m not going to take these, um, because it just doesn’t make any sense to me. You know, it’s like, um, you know, if you have a, uh, you know, a, a leak in, in your kitchen, you have a leaky faucet or something like that, and it’s spilling water all over the place.

Well, you’re not going to add more water onto it to solve the problem. Like that, that just wouldn’t, wouldn’t make any sense. You need to do something to counteract that, you know, turn the water off, clean the water up and, and. Take that stuff out. And so what you’re saying sort of makes sense here by, um, you know, if your body isn’t removing that adrenaline from your body, uh, you know, in those large doses that you’re, you’re dealing with, [00:27:00] especially day after day and in, in a combat situation, um, then yeah, maybe you got to do something to, to clean that stuff up and get that stuff out of your body so that way you can sleep and you can, you know, kind of let your body heal and get back to a normal, uh, functioning.

Right. Thank you.

Tina Erwin: Exactly, if you don’t have enough magnesium, you’re not going to be able to sleep at all. And what’s happened is without, when you have too much adrenaline, it’s called adrenaline poisoning, and then there’s a, there’s a side issue called adrenaline addiction, which is, people who are do extreme sports are addicted to a type of adrenaline.

But you also see this, you also see the adrenaline issue with, um, police officers, you see it with emergency room personnel. I see it with children who are abused, and I’ve had several experiences with children who were so violent their families were terrified of them. By repairing [00:28:00] the adrenal glands and the adrenal cortex, and Dr.

Richard Amen is another one of those individuals who can certainly help with that and helps you understand what’s going on in your brain. Look at the physicality of what happened to a human being. When you’ve experienced a shock, maybe your body was tossed through the air and you’re badly bruised, but you’re emotionally bruised too.

And all of the organs in the body, especially your glands, are now completely out of balance. And a soul that is out of balance is desperately seeking to find that. And so we’re approaching these men and women without any compassion whatsoever. So I’m, I’m standing on my soapbox here, you know, kind of whistling in the dark saying, Pay attention, please, let’s turn a light on for these people.

And you need, I’m gonna say it again, you desperately need vitamin B6. Also called P5P or Pyroxidine, Magnesium, [00:29:00] Manganese, Vitamin B6, especially Zinc, of course, Vitamin D, Nomi Juice, N O N I, Nomi Juice is the blood cleanser for all this, and that’s it. It’s, these things really assist someone. Please don’t just take my word for it.

Do your own due diligence, do your own research. I can go on and on about additional essential oils, but most manly men are not going to do that. Women might, but men are not going to do that. And I see some of these guys going to, um, South America to take some of these additional drugs, uh, like ayahuasca.

Or something as simple. As off the shelf supplements can begin to show up those adrenal glands that you can do yourself. No, you’re not supposed to self diagnose, but for God’s sake. If you’re taking a drug that helps you want to [00:30:00] commit suicide, how is that helping anyone?

Scott DeLuzio: Right. And I think with, with all of that, you know, like you said, do your research.

Don’t, don’t necessarily take your word for all of this, but, but all of these things, again, are over the counter, uh, type things. Talk to your doctor about it. Will this help? Um, you know, how does this, how does this work? Maybe get the right dosing and all that kind of stuff. Um, I want to get a little bit more into this in just a minute, but we’re going to cut to a quick commercial break to pay the bill.

So stay tuned. So, uh, Tina, you know, it’s a lot of great information that you’re giving us as far as the, the over the counter, uh, supplements that we could be taking that, that might help us. Um, dealing with this adrenaline, um, and other toxins that are in our body that, um, need to kind of get purged and then kind of help the, the rest of our body heal.

And so that way we can get to a place where we can start to, uh, kind of wrap our heads around some of the things, the traumas that we may have experienced. Um, but [00:31:00] on the topic of traumas, we’re talking about PTSD, um, and, and potentially, you know, suicide that might lead from that. Um, You know, PTSD is complex.

You know, it’s a challenge that a lot of, uh, veterans face. Um, now how can understanding, uh, some of the, uh, maybe the spiritual side of, of trauma, uh, contribute to the overall healing process? Maybe after we’ve already kind of purged all the stuff and kind of started healing our body, how do we get to that, the more, the understanding side of…

Maybe the death, the grief of some traumatic event that may have taken place.

Tina Erwin: One of the biggest ways is to reestablish a personal private connection to God, and a lot of new ages refuse to use the word God, but there’s no real healing without that [00:32:00] connection and. When you have such a connection, and you find yourself with the ability to pray again, because sometimes when you’ve been through so much trauma, you feel that God has abandoned you.

There is a profound loneliness inside the soul. A loneliness that goes to the core of their being. And people, people are in their orbit, but they don’t, they can’t really hear that individual. They can’t… Feel what’s going on in their soul. They’re just trying to get through their own day. They don’t know how to help the person in front of them, and it’s not about going to church.

If it were that easy, then, you know, chaplains would be miracle workers, but it isn’t that easy. You’re coming to terms with living and dying. You don’t understand why those people died and you lived, and this was certainly true after [00:33:00] World War I and World War II and Vietnam, and I can go on and on and on.

Some days it’s not your time. It’s not your time to die. It’s your time to live a full life, all the way. And in that way, you will honor those who did die. They’ll come back. You’ll see them again. Death is not an end. There is a fear of death. I spend a lot of time with dead people, so I have a curious understanding of it.

I’ve crossed over many thousands of soldiers who just were so grateful to be embraced by the light. And if your soldier feels guilty because he or she survived, might I offer them that if you visualize the people who died embraced by the light, And I have prayers, and I, I wrote this book called [00:34:00] The Crossing Over Prayer Book.

88 prayers to help the living and the dead, including those who’ve died in combat, and for wars. If you can understand that every one of us is so deeply and profoundly loved, whether you think you believe in God or not, When you die, and you ask for help, or maybe your loved one sends help to you after you have left your body.

It’s a very mechanical process. God is exceedingly logical and is, after all, the first scientist. It’s, energy is neither created nor destroyed. Let’s be honest about this. This is pure science. So the energy that animates a mortal body has to go somewhere. And it leaves the body, and, uh, a Russian scientist, um, created something called Corellian Photography, and you can see a soul leave the body.

The essence that is you continues. That’s where ghosts come from, and they’ve been talked about for, you know, a hundred million years. [00:35:00] The point of it is that if you assist those bodies who died, because a lot of times PTSD is exacerbated by the ghosts of the souls who died who are with the living person.

You can cross them over, and that’s the point of the crossing over prayer. What you will end up with is freedom. A type of freedom you haven’t known. And they don’t know what to do after death. Nobody told them what to do when death came. I mean, think about it. If you, you know, if you die tomorrow, do you know what the procedure is?

There’s no tech manual on this. There’s no military personnel manual that tells you what you’re supposed to do at death. But I can assure you that if you ask for angels, or you ask for help, or you simply ask an angel to take all of your buddies, or you actually discover the crossing of a prayer, because on TinaErwin.

com and on GhostHelpers. com, I have two websites. Those prayers are free [00:36:00] on that website, including for people who were murdered or people who committed suicide. And what happens is you’ll feel a shift when you say that prayer over and over for those souls. And it’s a very specific prayer, and it has very specific direction in it.

And when you do that, what happens is… That soul feels this light. They feel this warmth that embraces their soul and they are lifted up into the most wonderful, warm, and loving welcome a human being could ever possibly have. If you can do that, you can make literally a world of difference. You will see that soul again and something inside of you will have connected to the divine.

Because when you pray, you are connecting to God. In the most humble, simple way. You don’t need a building of wood and stone. You don’t need an intermediary. You [00:37:00] need the priesthood of all believers. That warmth inside your heart. The compassion you wish you’d had. Give to them. The love you wished you’d experienced, give to them.

And you will open your heart to something so magical and so wonderful and so uplifting. It will change you. Not because I said so. I’m just somebody’s messenger. But because that’s how it works and it’s worked that way for a very long time.

Scott DeLuzio: And I think when we’re talking about this You know, healing and, um, coping with this, this struggle that we might be going through, um, you know, it, it certainly is, is challenging, I think for, for everyone, it, it could be, you know, more or less challenging depending on the individual, but, um, but, but certainly can be understandable that it’s challenging, um, for [00:38:00] people who might just feel overwhelmed by the experiences that they’ve, they’ve gone through.

And they’re searching for that path to heal and recover and move on with their life. Um, what’s the best kind of first steps to take to get there?

Tina Erwin: Recognize that you’re not alone, that there’s a lot of people out there feeling what you’re feeling. Start writing it down. I mean, I do this, I help, I take private clients, but I mean, I can’t take in, you know, hundreds and hundreds of people.

So whether or not it’s me or someone else who is not part of the military medical establishment, I’m sure there’s some really good people out there, but they haven’t done a great job with veterans to be blunt. When you’re able to write it down and recognize that you can heal, if you were to get this, it’s called the stellate ganglion block, would enable you to be more clear headed.

and then come to [00:39:00] terms with what happened to you. Write it down. Write how you felt. Feelings enable you to be a human being. We’re not AI. We’re not robots. We’re human beings. We feel. And when a man feels that he’s suffered a tremendous grief, men don’t talk about it. Women only want to talk about it. It’s like you can’t shut them up.

But men are tough guys. The men that I know and I’m married to, they’re tough guys. And trying to get them to talk about it is like trying to get blood out of a rock. But, they only have two sons. When a guy decides to open up, and let’s say you’re his, you’re his spouse, you have to be ready to listen. And if you don’t feel qualified, when a student is ready, under spiritual law, a teacher is required to be placed in front of that person.

They’re required to listen. [00:40:00] And to find a way to help them understand that their experience is In the trauma, in the tragedy, was to live. The experience of the others was to die. Maybe in another time, in World War II, maybe they died, and the others lived. We don’t know. I don’t know what someone’s past life is, and I would never tell somebody what their past life was.

But I do find that people who have been in certain fields, they kind of come back and do it again and again. Doctors are doctors, life after life after life. This time, they’re going to save that patient. When you are talking about it and somebody says, well, you know, I’m looking at my watch. That’s the wrong person.

You might have to go through five or six people. before you find the right person who can hear you. That you feel comfortable you can let your guard down with that individual. And, what makes matters even more [00:41:00] complicated is what happened to you as a child. Was your, did your father take his own life? Was your father abusive?

Was your father a person who could never be pleased, you’re never good enough? Was your father a really wonderful person, but he died? And, and that was the person you would have gone to. Maybe he was wise. What happened to you in childhood may make a very big difference with how you heal with this particular trauma.

But for most of us, it’s not just one trauma. You may have had this terrible thing happen in Iraq or Afghanistan, and then you come home and you’re in an accident, or your child dies, or your wife dies, or your dog dies. In Vietnam, all those veterans had to leave those working dogs. To this day, if you mention those dogs, those men break down and cry.

When you’re allowed to cry, when you’re allowed to grieve it, like, this country never grieved Vietnam. That’s [00:42:00] why Forrest Gump was so important, that film, because we never grieved that war. We never grieved or helped those veterans. Hopefully we’re, um, actually we’re making the same mistake with the current veterans.

My point is that there is no one easy answer. If you can get a grip on your physical health, perhaps the stellate ganglion block will work, and I do know that the VA will do that. And if not, Find a private physician who will, and get that done, and help yourself. Sure.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah, I think that’s, that’s, that’s a really, really great advice to, to do that, to, um, to get that under control and, and open up and talk about it.

I know as, as a guy myself, it’s not the easiest thing to do. Um, but. Things get better when you, when you do talk about it. And I think, I think that’s the, um, the biggest thing right there is just to, uh, you know, [00:43:00] suck up your pride, suck up your ego and, and just do it. Just get, get there and, and talk to somebody.

Um, I want to take, uh, another minute here for a quick commercial break. Uh, so stay tuned. Well, Tina, it’s been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today, um, chatting about, um, you know, different ways that we can kind of cope and overcome some of the traumas from our past. Um, where can people go to get in touch with you?

Maybe get a copy of, uh, one of your books that you mentioned earlier, um, and find out more about what you do.

Tina Erwin: Thank you, Scott. I am thrilled to have been here. This was a great opportunity and I can’t thank you enough. People want to learn a little bit more about what I do. Tina at tinaerwin. com, E R W I N.

Also contact at ghosthelpers. com. Both those websites, TinaErwin. com and GuestHelpers. com have Crossing Over Prayers and a list of all eight books that I’ve written, including, um, The Lightworker’s Guide to Healing Grief, the Crossing Over Prayer [00:44:00] book, uh, an awful lot of different kinds of books that help you understand the life that you’re living.

And if someone actually wants to work with me on a private level, uh, I do that too.

Scott DeLuzio: Excellent. Excellent. Yeah. And I’ll have links to all of those in the show notes for the listeners who want to check it out and want to get in touch with you or get a copy of one of your books. Um, so they can, they can check all of that out there. Um, At this point in the show, I like to try to add some humor, uh, sometimes the, um, the episodes, the topics that we talk about are, you know, maybe a little heavy, and I want to lighten things up just a little bit, lighten the mood before, uh, wrapping up the episode, so typically, either do this through telling a joke, watching funny videos of people doing stupid things.

And some of the jokes that I’ve done are pretty corny, but you know, whatever. If it gets someone to laugh, I’m willing to make a fool out of myself. So, um, all right, so ready for the joke. Um, so there’s a [00:45:00] guy went on vacation and he asked his buddy to watch over his house where his cat and his old grandmother lived.

And he called home every day to see how things were going. And a few days into the trip, he calls home and he asked, so how’s my cat? And his friend hesitated for a second and And sadly told him that his cat had died. And the guy goes, what? You shouldn’t have broken the news to me like that. You should have done it to me slowly.

First time I called, you should have told me the cat was on the roof. And the second time I called, you should have said there was no way to get her down off the roof. And the third time I called, you should have told me that you tried to get her off the roof, but she fell down and she died. And his friend apologized, said he was sorry, and went about his day.

And then a couple days later, the guy called back again and said, So, by the way, how’s my grandmother doing? Then there’s a long silence on the other end and his friend said, well, she’s on the roof.

Tina Erwin: Love

Scott DeLuzio: it. Love it. So anyways, um, again, Tina, thank [00:46:00] you for joining us. I really do appreciate you taking the time to come on.

Tina Erwin: Thank you so much for having me. And I appreciate all that you do with this podcast. Thanks so much.