Dissociation As Wisdom with Marshall Lyles

What if dissociation isn’t the enemy but a form of wisdom your nervous system uses to protect what’s most sacred? We sat down with Marshall for a candid, grounded conversation about dissociation, spirituality, and why mental health’s obsession with neat categories can unintentionally harm the people we’re trying to help.

We unpack the four domains: thought, feeling, body, and time as a practical way to notice what goes offline and why, without shaming the system for doing its job. Marshall shows how clinicians often overvalue coherent talk while missing the quiet exits of the body or time, and he offers a simpler path: think with complexity, act with simplicity. We talk about mixed states that don’t fit tidy regulation charts, the reality of living in a high-threat, high-input world, and how strategic distance can be an act of love. Along the way, we explore how to pace reconnection with full consent so clients feel met, not handled.

We go deep on cultural humility and ancestral knowing, naming the risks of pathologizing altered states that some lineages have cultivated for centuries. We also address trend-chasing and monetization: how to vet teachers, respect the communities that shaped these practices, and avoid repeating colonized patterns in the name of healing. Marshall draws a clear line between religion as a potential anchor and dogma as an override, inviting a spirituality that restores intuition and autonomy. Together we practice non-duality, two things can be true, so people can hold grief and hope, distance and presence, critique and care.

If you’re a therapist, supervisor, or curious listener who’s tired of fear-based hierarchies and ready for ethics that expand choice, this conversation offers language, maps, and courage. Subscribe, share with a colleague, and leave a review with one insight you’re taking into your next session.

Marshall Lyles @ https://www.marshalllyles.com

A Hero's Welcome Podcast  © Maria Laquerre-Diego & Liliana Baylon

Transcript

Meet Marshall And The Theme

Liliana 0:35

Welcome back, listeners, to another episode of a Heroes Welcome podcast. I'm your co-host, Marila Car Diego, and I'm joined by the one who always makes me laugh, whether I want to or not.

Maria 0:47

That's Marshall. But me, I'm Liliana Balan. I'm your co-host today, and we are here with our special guest, Marshall. Should we don't even need your last name? Can can we acknowledge that? Everyone knows who Marshall is. He's like Prince. He's just like one name. Marshall, let's do that. Let's just drop your last name.

SPEAKER_03 1:11

I'm on board. No problem. That'll make my signature easier to it really has a lot of L's happening.

Maria 1:19

You do. Same as my name, lots of L. Marshall, you have rebumped your website, and you're doing lots of trainings on spirituality and dissociation, which I think it goes perfectly with everything that we're questioning right now in regards to our feel, our lives, our political environment, current events. How do you feel? How aligned are your topics with what everyone is questioning right now?

Dissociation As Survival And Spirituality

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Yeah, it it it always feels a little spooky or eerie when you start kind of working on a course of study that then, you know, sociopolitical landscape comes and lands right in the middle of. I don't think I caused it. I want to be clear. I don't think that it's my responsibility. But it I think these topics have always been relevant, but it it feels especially relevant now when there are just people everywhere. That the the best thing that they can do to protect their spirit is just to flee from it a little bit and to have some distance between what they notice and what they feel and how they process. And, you know, just delayed time is such an act of generosity sometimes. Not feeling your body all the time is an act of love sometimes. Not having to think every thought or feel every feeling is exactly what survival requires sometimes. And and I I don't think any of those things cause us from being spiritual. In fact, sometimes they enhance it. And the field of mental health doesn't always want to allow for that kind of roundness. You know, we we see dissociation as a symptom that's meant to be eliminated and instead of, you know, a state of mind that serves a very real purpose. And sometimes it's creating obstacles for clients who want to work on it. And other times it's exactly the thing they need in order to walk back into their lives with the amount of help that they can afford to have. And and even sometimes it's a gift and it's a spiritual inheritance. And I think if we can start filling in some of the the parts that we have overly flattened in time in our field, the the clients will show up more often and they won't feel like they have to leave certain parts of themselves outside of our offices.

unknown 3:42

Yeah.

Liliana 3:42

Yeah. I love the clarification that you did not cause this boom to have happened. But I'm I'm thinking that you tend to gravitate towards things that you are seeing more and more kind of show up and use your platform to talk about those things that aren't necessarily talked about openly. I know in my own schooling and programming, it was like if you suspect dissociation, like you refer them to the hospital, that is a higher level of care. And now it is like, well, dissociation is me doom scrolling on my phone or watching my same comfort show on repeat so that I don't have to fully engage in things.

SPEAKER_03 4:21

Yeah. Absolutely. And dissociation doesn't mean that intuition has gone offline.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 4:28

And so we can we can find a way to straddle both worlds. We we don't have to, I mean, just I mean, I know we've talked about abilism before and the three of us, but the the fact that we have a hierarchy of mental illnesses that it's not it's not presented that way, but we all know the way the field has handled things. And and you're right, Maria, we have been told by supervisors and teachers and prominent authors that dissociation is more risky than other presentations. And every time we meet a client and we think they are sicker than the previous person, we are increasing their sense of feeling disabled and then sending them out into the world, not just feeling that maybe they came for help, but in some ways maybe feeling sicker than than they came in. And I think we can do better. I think we can do better than that.

Flattened Models And Hierarchies In Care

Maria 5:25

Yeah, absolutely. I think this is where I appreciate all your trainings because you're being pushing the idea or the curiosity of what if dissociation is a survival skill. What if it's your wisdom telling you you have to do this in order to survive this moment or to survive this experience? And even in non-traditional healings, dissociation is a way of coping. And in the in non-traditional healings, they tell us how the body is so wise in that moment in order to separate, and then what is it that we can do to come back, or how do we teach clients actually to come back and be mindful when they choose to do that? And and you've been talking about this for years. I think our field is finally catching up, but again, because of hierarchy or standards or not understanding, we still think of that is a symptom that we have to treat um and do something about it when in reality is it's a wisdom. Or it can be a wisdom.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

And I think therapists have been taught to be afraid when it enters their offices. And and fear is what causes trauma-related dissociation for the client. And then we we put our fear of them on top of the fear they came in with, and and that that feels like an unfair burden. You know, that that's not the way that that we should see any adaptation. And there are, you know, we we can all acknowledge that there are levels of dissociation, there's a continuum. And so there are some people that are living with so much pain-based fragmentation that it's not that our consciousness shouldn't raise to be more responsible or to be more involved or more of a co-organizer, but that doesn't have to equate seeing someone as sicker than someone else. And I don't think we've always had language for knowing how to do that. And the other thing I think that we see a lot is our our field has been taught all dissociation comes from trauma. It's it's all symptom instead of it also having gift or ability potentially connected with it. And I want to be responsible that if I come in and I see someone's different state of consciousness as a symptom that needs to be targeted and it wasn't from a trauma, have I started meddling with the family line of giftedness? Am I eliminating something that that could be passed on to descendants as a spiritual ability that some cultures might have worked centuries to cultivate? And and then my lack of humility and awareness, my presence of fear has caused me to meddle in these cellular stories. You know, I I own I don't want this to be an easy thing. And and what I said to a training recently is I want desperately for us to think with more complexity, but stop acting complex. Like think hard, act simple. You know, in our field, does the other way around when it comes to dissociation? We think very simply and then we try all these complicated interventions. And that's just that's reverse, I think. That's backwards of how we should be moving.

Maria 8:51

Yeah. But that's important, right? Because right now you just talk about cultural humility or cultural responsibility, and there's another word that was just coin, I just don't remember, but they combine cultural competence and cultural humility. Because you know, we like to complicate things too when it comes to culture, and the evolution of culture has come with too many words now. But I love that you went there because it's true. We go to study, we are in a field that believes that we are experts on everything and we should have answers and and we should make things very complicated and trade everything because we're gods. Yes, I said it. But I love the idea of culture humility because the idea that you keep sharing in your trainings, which is can I be curious about the person in front of me? Can I make can I not make assumptions about them, but be curious about them and their lineage, right? Because what if this is a gift that I don't understand and now I'm labeling it at something that is wrong? And and we need more of this, and even the parallel process of all the new therapists or and some therapists, period, that believe you should be a blank statement. Well, that's a form of dissociation. I don't exist to be in front of you so that I can be a blank template for you. That's fucking dissociation.

Liliana 10:18

Well, and I love Marshall, that you're pointing out, you know, we in the mental health field, like we we view people as complex, right? Like each individual, right? How many times is that said in training? Each individual in front of you is going to be unique and nothing is gonna be cooker like cookie cutter. And then it's like, but we have this book in black and white and these symptoms that must be met to have this diagnosis. And this diagnosis means these things, and it's like, how are we so switched off and you know, holding these two things that are very contradictory to each other? And it really does, yeah, dissociation bipolar was another one, and any any personality disorder was like, no, you're not equipped to handle that. That is something that needs a higher level of care. You get them out of your office, and it was like, oh my gosh, yeah, we're adding to the trauma in the name of being helpful.

Maria 11:14

Wait, unless you're an intern and then you get all those clients because you need the experience.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

And even we'll give an assessment and we'll be like, oh, 29, fine, 30, oh no. You know, like what are we doing? Yeah, you know, how are we not just saying that my job is to show up and to welcome where you are? And and it might be that we move slow sometimes, and sometimes we might move quicker, and sometimes and sometimes, and and there I should always be asking, you know, and in the same example, hey client, I want to check in with your body, but I want your body to decide if that feels okay. Like, do you give consent like you know, like we we can be navigating these things with so much compassion and and care that doesn't have to be caution.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:24

No, it's when we treat people with caution that that enters into the relational field and that has meaning to the other person. You know, it they they walk out, have felt that they were being handled, you know, instead of met. And I I I think we can all rise up a bit, you know, and figure out how we wanna how we want to overcome some of the generational wisdom that the field has cultivated around these dynamics.

Liliana 12:51

Yeah, I love that. Are you because of the world we're existing and surviving in right now, are you seeing more of this show up? And I know you do consultations and trainings. Like, is this starting to become kind of a bigger conversation? Do you think that's partly because of what we are surviving right now?

SPEAKER_03 13:13

I know, I know I'm dissociating one. So probably, you know, yeah, I think Maria, that there's probably so many intersecting factors. You brought up one, you know, just kind of the the nature of how we interact with the world, having so much information fed to us so quickly. You know, I think the natural byproduct of that has to be some dissociation to counterbalance or the hyper arousal that's inherent to that. So I think that's a dynamic. I think there's so much harm and so much risk and so much threat everywhere that there's only so much of that you can afford to attend to. But then there's also dissociation and there's cultivated ignorance, you know, and so that's those are even different states. And because not all people groups have the privilege to get to dissociate from threat, right, you know, and so it it even that becomes a bit of a complication. I'm seeing more and more mixed state presentations, you know, where we make it sound like in our field you're either regulated or you're hyper-aroused, or you're hypo-aroused. And I'm watching people, you know, come in with a limb in all three states, and and I I think we're all starting to realize, oh, that chart wasn't meant to be literal.

SPEAKER_02 14:34

Yes, right.

SPEAKER_03 14:35

You know, that that's that's not how the human mind actually works. And so I'm seeing more of those dynamics. And I just think people are afraid and enraged. And and when the intensity of those emotions are so prominent, yeah, yeah, I think we're gonna have to see people float away. It now then it becomes an individual presentation of how does this person dissociate?

SPEAKER_02 15:02

Yeah.

Mixed States And The Limits Of Charts

SPEAKER_03 15:03

And and is it more thought-based or emotion-based or body-based or time-based? How pronounced is it subtle and really well masked, or is it very prominent and and noticeable, visible? And so they're the presentations are still really varied, but well, and you see, to be honest, clients and and and other kinds of helping professionals are far more aware of dissociation. And whenever we start learning about a phenomenon, I think that also increases it a little bit. You know, it's it's kind of like there's just like a like a cool mental health topic every decade or something.

Liliana 15:45

ADHD was all the rage. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Yeah, it it seems like dissociation has been having its time of going around TikTok and people getting, you know, 20 seconds of information about it. And and I'm I'm not mad at any of those things, but I I do think those are all factors as to why we might hear it talked about and see it more. But I don't think just because maybe someone identified with something over a video makes it, it's not any less valid as to what they're trying to say. You know, it's kind of like when a kid would come into a play therapy session and all they would want to do is play out scenes from a movie. You know, there's a reason why that movie is lodged in them. And so even if maybe we wouldn't say they have the same struggle as the character they're playing out, there's an identification that's trying to communicate something. So it feels the same no matter how it arrives in our office, there's there's a message to be heard. Yeah.

Maria 16:45

I I love that, right? Because now we're going to even in this association, I love that you asked the question, how does this person dissociate? Which I think it's a really important question, not only with clients, but with supervisees, because it's their parallel process. And then can we also start talking about how there's certain dissociations that are acceptable? So now we're saying if you are just scrolling, that's not okay. But if you're reading, oh my God, you're reading, that is so good. So now we're deciding what levels of dissociations are acceptable. The hierarchy again, right? Yes, the hierarchy again. If you're watching tragedy TV, oh my God. But if you're watching documentaries, oh my God. If you are spending all this time on, you know, whatever it is, so it seems like again, that hierarchy of I get to decide what form of dissociation is acceptable and not acceptable, what form of addiction, if we want to label that too, or what form of so here again that projection and those labels that we continue insisting in our feel to do in order to prescribe something.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

You're exactly right, Liliana. But because I'm I'm using those four domains of of thought, feeling, body, and time that that comes from the fruit and inlaineous model around trauma-related altered states of consciousness. And what when I've started really playing with those domains, what I've realized is you see how much our field privileges thought domain. Because if someone can come in and their mask or their regulation lives in the thought world and they can speak coherently, we we aren't trained to notice that time and body and emotion might be gone. Or, or maybe we might start picking up, oh, they're I'm asking a feeling question and they're responding only with thought.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

Yeah.

TikTok, Trends, And Valid Signals

SPEAKER_03 18:40

Um and but to be honest, some of our clinical models like move people there. And so it, if we are over-privileging only one domain of someone, we're not getting the whole spirit. Yeah, you know, we we aren't holding spirituality. You you have to give all aspects of a person equal right to be noticed and also equal right to step aside, you know, and and it's that that permission that I think starts to reconnect people to their intuition, which I mean, what what greater goal is there if you come out of a healing relationship but to have increased connection to your own intuitive ability? That's that's what spirituality is, is there's a knowing in me that's reliable. And I my dissociation sometimes might be muting my knowing, but other times it is the knowing. And we have to be open to all of that.

Maria 19:38

Yeah. Well, and even like that, right? I love that you bring in this spirituality because most people still confuse spirituality and religion. Then we go again because I see religion more of I'm telling you what to do, labeling what you're doing. You have to prescribe this if you're following this religion, which is completely different than that wisdom of your spirituality.

SPEAKER_03 20:04

Yeah. Yeah, that that becomes dogma. And you know, I I think absolutely like religion can be an amazing resource for so many of our people. If it helps, you know, keep them organized and anchored, if it's providing them resources. But you do see when it starts to cross over into like any resource, it can become abusive whenever it's then overriding, you know, your own sense of also knowing something, you know, in an ideal world, what's organized knowing or or ancestral knowing or pre-recorded knowing should get to meet our sense of perception of all of that. And and I think that's where religion and spirituality could can really dance really beautifully, you know, in full, neither of you will be surprised by this, but in full transparency, in addition to some medical trauma, there's some religious trauma in my background. And so that's not that's not something I find as an available resource to me at this season in life. But spirituality stays a resource, you know, regardless of your stated beliefs. You know, it can be from agnosticism to, you know, one of the major organized religions to, you know, some small group that that maybe no one even has a name for. But they're all they're all equally accessing of of spirit, could could be theoretically. Or, you know, they could be really, really hurtful.

Liliana 21:42

Everything has that potential, I think. Yeah, and I think that that's really helpful because I know we've seen an increase of people seeking services because of religious-based trauma and being able to help them separate spirituality from the organized religion is is one of the big steps for them. Because, you know, if they've been in I want to say I was gonna say entrapped, but if they've been involved in an organized religion that did become dangerous or abusive towards them, losing that feels really big and scary because it's everything is so enmeshed in in those systems.

unknown 22:23

Yeah.

Domains Of Thought, Feeling, Body, Time

SPEAKER_03 22:24

I love that, Maria. Because there I think one of the things that often feels true is when things are happening in the world around us that is not allowing a position of non-duality, like and you are being forced between binary options that are forced and not real. They're made up. We lose health. You know, we lose perspective. We lose security. I have a friend in the room with me right now. And one of the ways that we're often talking to one another is saying, okay, two things are true right now. Like almost like it's become a conversational habit for us. And I I think right now in our world, very few groups of people will allow two things to be true.

SPEAKER_02 23:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:08

And that is forcing split. That is forcing disconnect from spirit. That is then creating a version of dissociation.

SPEAKER_02 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Because we should have, we should get to have co-occurring streams of consciousness. And anything that says that that's not real is limiting our ability to be fully fully human in life.

Maria 23:27

Oh my gosh, yes. The fear of being canceled, if if you are right and I am wrong, or vice versa, right? But I want to come back to your ancestral knowing because I, you know, we have known each other for a while and you have helped me connect to be like be curious about my ancestors. And not because I was born just in another country, but because of my family culture. And I loved this, uh, especially since George Floyd, like there was like this wanting, like more and more people wanted to go and tap up, tap and be interested in like learning about this. But now also this ancestral knowing is becoming very commercial because of commercial because of our feel.

SPEAKER_02 24:15

Yeah.

Maria 24:16

So same thing as the spirituality, right? Which is very like tied to religion and I'm telling you what to do, and you have to give me money, and this is right and wrong. Even now, the term ancestral knowing and seeing so many things on social media in our feel about these kinds of rituals is also really scary. So, like those two parts can coexist. People being interested in learning about, and then people also misusing same thing as religion, same things as dissociated, like not understanding, and then just monetizing it, which now we're talking about colonizing all over again when it comes to all these topics. But what do you think about if you want to share? Because I love when you share, what do you think about people misusing their ancestral knowing to make money right now?

SPEAKER_03 25:10

That's my all sets at all, but if you want to say anything, I don't mind speaking about that at all. I I mean the compassionate part of me knows that there's so much scarcity mindset. Yeah, and people are afraid. And and even that sometimes it might be a non-conscious part that's like, oh, this seems to be a way people are finding a way to survive, and and that I can understand. But you know, I I I think we can become deeply irresponsible when we're chasing a popular topic that maybe hadn't been at home in us, you know, and and I, you know, I have some friends that that are teaching in those areas, and they're people I know that have been practicing with themselves in this way for a long time. And that that feels very soothing to me. I don't know that about all the people who are teaching and writing. I'm hoping that it's not just, you know, they and the robots got together, had a conversation, and decided to tell you what they learned last week. That I I deeply hope that if you're gonna start sharing with groups of people about how to access their own ancestry, then that's been a practice that that you've been personally going through and that you've been mentored in. And that's not a thing you read a book about and then have enough knowledge to facilitate. So I have like so many topics for me. I get I get a little tight when something becomes mainstream that that feels maybe it hasn't been all the way thought through.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

Yeah.

Religion, Spirituality, And Harm

SPEAKER_03 26:50

Um and and also I get a little tight when certain subjects start to show up. And maybe we're having the same night, we're like, oh, this is a topic from that really has been largely cultivated and inspired and brought to us from people groups that are not represented in those who are primarily doing the teaching. That that feels uncomfortable to me. And at some point, you know, I I don't I don't think the responsibility lies in the people who are trying to make a living exclusively. I think that they they need to make sure they're checking motivations, just like I need to be, and I know you too do as well, but it's the consumers. You know, like how are you vetting, you know, where you're getting information? Are you just chasing, you know, the authors who make you feel a certain way and give you a sense of belonging? Or are you making sure that there's some pattern of study and self-report that that qualifies them to be someone who's earned the right to speak into you? You know, that's a that's an area of spiritual responsibility that's more on us as consumers than not only on the people who are standing up and saying the things.

Liliana 28:07

Yeah, absolutely. I what I'm hearing, Marshall, is the invitation to like peek behind Oz's curtain and verify the sources that you're consuming and being a responsible consumer rather than just blindly, I mean, and just thinking about you know, my mind went to like pop culture, thinking about you know authors who have massive followings and made cultural shifts for us, and then peeking behind that curtain and finding out, oh, they're actually a not kind, dangerous person. I need to now reevaluate, right? And I think, you know, not everyone will always be honest, but I think you know, it with the internet these days, it doesn't take very long to become a sleuth and find is this someone I should be putting my faith and resources into.

unknown 29:03

Yeah.

Maria 29:04

And I think uh like the even connected this because I went back to cultivated ignorance. So we're so much in pain, either our clients or therapists, because of the parallel process of witnessing so much trauma. There's just so much information, so much misinformation, so much need to label, to treat, to make money, to it, it's all of these things. And then we are choosing to dissociate by just being ignorant or just believing, or just have this need of give me something to believe so hard. Can you give me something that fulfills me? There's a void, right? And I'm like, excuse me, that's part of dissociation too.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

And and even to remove loneliness, yeah, almost every therapist I know is just desperately lonely.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yeah.

Two Things Can Be True

SPEAKER_03 30:01

And and so they're like, oh, when I listen to this person teach or read this person, I feel less alone. That's that's fine, right? But to make sure that we're naming that that's meeting a need for us, that we're not necessarily in that moment fully screening if this would be true for our clients, you know. And and when we go into trainings or to read books, we need to have our mind of does this feel true to me and does this meet the people who are trusting me? And and I think sometimes we don't ask the second question, we just go to what feels good or feels popular or makes me think, oh, I could be included here. That that's where it I get a little worried. And then I get even more worried when then you get included in a community. And then the message is, and if you disagree with us, you're not a part of our community. And so then we end up coming into a door of maybe learning about ancestral wisdom and ancestral trauma and and resources. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, I finally found a little bit of belonging. And now if I change my mind or I challenge the authority, or if I say something unpopular, or if I have a conflict because I feel like my people group weren't represented, then I lose a seat at this table. And then that then again forces dissociation. So then we're learning through a dissociative mind because I'm not allowing all of my intuition to be here because that might actually cause me to have to go out in exile again. And so we got dynamics, you know, that it's easy to have compassion for, but you still got to call out as a real problem within the field.

Liliana 31:43

Oh my gosh.

Maria 31:43

I have to say, like, I love all of this right now. And then I'm thinking, oh, is it that why we just don't give a shit to be included? And we prefer to be alone and to read books and to be with my dogs instead of people. Did I say that? I think there's many reasons. Okay. I'll continue using that I'm an introvert then.

Liliana 32:06

Marshall, thank you so much. I think this is really helpful, and I think it's you present this information in such a way that it it's it's hearable. Like I can I can hear this, and especially because you're talking about, you know, two topics, even just for our little time together, that have been so villainized in our field that it does is you know, you can be it can feel very off-putting, like, oh, dissociation. No, I don't know. I'm not, I don't want to learn how to work with that. That's still so big and scary. So I appreciate you humanizing it with such compassion that it's oh, this feels like a natural step forward, and this feels like a good starting place to relearn and unlearn what our programs spoon set us.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

Oh, yeah. I I appreciate the chance to talk about these things. And, you know, I'm I might just say in closing that we we could include ethics in this conversation. And as we kind of move out into our individual spaces and process this, maybe a good question would be are there ethics I've been taught that are causing me to be less accepting, you know, less believing, less encouraging of intuition, less encouraging of autonomy? And if so, is that the kind of ethics that I want to believe in? And so if if we could just come back to a guide of what's it like to be a part of the harvest and to stop mining from people, then I I think we're all gonna be fine.

Liliana 33:42

Yeah. Oh, I love that so much. So much. We're all gonna be fine.

unknown 33:48

Okay.

Maria 33:49

Thank you, Marshall. Thank you, lazy nurse. We will include Marshall information below this podcast description. Please reach out to him. He loves to hear from you.

SPEAKER_02 34:01

Um just joking.

Ancestral Knowing And Monetization

Maria 34:06

Any complaints, send them to Maria. Um, but we will include his contact information so that you can reach out and pay for consultation. It's not free. So we will include his link sex link so that you can pay for consultation, which is well worth it, as you just noted with this podcast. Yeah, thank you, everyone. Until next time.