Latest / System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation / Guest: Dr. Thema Bryant

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Guest: Dr. Thema Bryant · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over:
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to long time listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
• 1:01
  Our guest today is Doctor. Tema Bryant, a clinical psychologist and twenty 23 of the American Psychological Association. She is also a professor of psychology at Pepperdine University and an ordained minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Doctor. Tema earned her doctorate from Duke University, completed her postdoc training at Harvard Medical School, and has more than twenty years of experience in trauma recovery.
• 1:31
  Welcome Doctor. Tema Bryant.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: Hi, how are you?
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: I am excited and honored to meet you truly. Wonderful
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: to meet you. Thank you for having me. You are so welcome. I'm so glad that you're doing this work and helping to spread the information.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: We just really want to amplify your voice and support your work. There's so many things I love about it, but also as a person with lived experience who's also a clinician and also really a survivor of some religious trauma to find your work and get to do my own homecoming that includes all of me. Talk about integration. It matters so much.
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: Wow. I love that. So necessary. And as you say, unfortunately, often hard to find spaces and places that hold room for for all those different parts of us.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Really, really. You were a keynote speaker for ISSTD at the annual conference, which is what introduced me to your work. I am loving it for so many reasons, and we'll talk about that, but I want to amplify your voice and let you introduce yourself as well.
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: All right. Thank you. I'm Doctor. Tema Bryant, a licensed clinical psychologist, professor of psychology at Pepperdine University, director of the culture and trauma research lab, author of several books, including Homecoming Overcome Fear and Trauma to Reclaim Your Whole Authentic Self, and more recently, Matters of the Heart, Healing Your Relationship with Yourself and Those You Love.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: I so appreciate you. You also have a podcast I listen to every morning when I'm working out.
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: And Wonderful.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: Well, you would think it's wonderful, but it is some work. You give homework? Yes. I have to take this to therapy. There's so much, but it's so good.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank thank you. There's the podcast. It's called the Homecoming Podcast, and it's on, all the major platforms.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Where just to get us started, where did you learn about or start getting into the field of even studying trauma?
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Yes. So in for undergrad actually, and graduate school, I went to Duke University and Susan Roth was a professor of psychology there, was a trauma psychologist. And I had the great opportunity to work with her and learn from her. And then in the victims of violence program for my postdoctoral training, I worked with Judith Herman, who also spoke at the conference, so that was a wonderful full circle moment. So both in in my training within school and after graduating, I had the opportunity to focus on trauma psychology.
• 4:50
  And I should mention as an undergraduate at Duke University, they had a special program where you could work in the community and the university would pay your salary. And so as an undergraduate, I worked for Rape Crisis of Durham. And so it was beautiful to be able to do the rape crisis work as a part of my student employment.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: That's incredible experience for undergrads.
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: Yes. Yes. Definitely.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: How did you get from there to homecoming and all the things sent?
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: So I really appreciate liberation or a decolonial or social justice orientation to the work. And a part of what that means is a real focus on dissemination, sharing the knowledge. And so I look for different ways to share what we know. So that includes writing books for the public, not just our textbooks, which are, of course, also very important, but then through social media, sharing information, through podcasts, and through the regular media, such as, journal articles or magazine newspaper programs and articles and interviews. So really valuing how can we maximize people's awareness of not only trauma, but the ways we can heal and also hopefully ways that we can prevent.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I love this so much. Listeners to this podcast know about Judith Herman. I talked about trauma and recovery on the podcast. I'm on faculty with ISSTD, and so we read her book as one of the textbooks for one of the courses. So I've talked about it.
• 6:47
  And for you both to be there presenting and that full circle moment.
• 6:53
  Speaker 3: Right. Was beautiful. When I saw that we were both gonna be presenting at the conference, that was already very magical. And then to find that we were speaking back to back, that was just beautiful as I really credit the opportunity to learn from her early on in my career, really putting me on the track to do this work.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: One of the things that we've talked about with her when she came on the podcast was this piece you're saying about the sharing of information that healing doesn't come without the social justice and activist aspect because we are by nature part of community. And when I read Homecoming and learn about coming home to myself and including all of me in that, and then bringing that health to what is my community who do I need and want in my community who do I not need in my community yes and then your later work and podcasts about relationships
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: yes I think we often reflect on trauma and even trauma recovery as it's very individual enterprise. But a part of our healing does take place in relationship. I mean, we know that even as it relates to therapy that one of the big predictors of outcome is the therapeutic relationship. And often when we're looking at treatment goals, a lot of times we will include social support and people getting connected. When we look at trauma recovery research risk and protective factors, whether you are isolated or whether whether you have community makes a difference.
• 8:46
  And then, of course, we know from the work of Sarah Allman and others, the impact of the response to your disclosures that when we share our stories, you know, stories, you know, do people believe us? Do they support us? Or are we rejected or judged or blamed? So relationships and community can be an essential part of our healing. And when that is not supportive, it can add to our, trauma and distress.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: I think applying this even internally there this this podcast has a lot of listeners who have dissociative disorders or clinicians who treat them and applying that even internally. One of the things that you have shared through your work is how much good that we still have in us to find that even with lots of trauma and lots of deprivation of good that was missing of the kind of care we received or didn't receive, that part of what we're bringing to the table is the good that's still here. Like you say so many times, you're still here. Like, yes, it feels hard, but you're still here. Here you are.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: Yes. Absolutely. And for us to celebrate that as a win and to you know, part of it is training our eyes and our hearts to see our progress and our process, and perfection is not required. We often hyper focus on what we got wrong or the ways in which we still want to grow or change. And it's important to notice that, but it's also really important to think about what I know now that I didn't know then.
• 10:45
  What I'm able to experience now that is, you know, really a breakthrough. And some breakthroughs are very obvious as we would call these like moments, but many more are just subtle and nuanced ways that we show up for ourselves. And so being grateful and appreciative of ourselves for being present. What does that look like? How do
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: you talk about that with folks when we have this sort of cultural watering down of what showing up for ourselves means or self care? I remember one time you said something like, I'm not gonna get the words exactly right, but something like, Don't tell me about, like, what you whatever, whatever. Tell me how much you slept last night. Tell me what you had for lunch.
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: Yes. So I think I I was probably saying it like, it's not enough to tell me you love yourself. If you didn't use the words, if I only watched your actions, does the way you treat yourself indicate a level of love or a level of care. And so for us to activate that and then we know from a behavioral standpoint. So sometimes part of our healing is to begin the actions even if I'm not totally convinced of my worthiness.
• 12:18
  Right? So then I just try to imagine what would a person who loved themselves do in this moment. And so in my doing those things, that healing can start to take place because I can experience that for myself. And so the ways I show up for myself, you know, will vary by myself, you know, will vary by what I need in the moment that sometimes showing up for myself would be to acknowledge that I'm tired and to start saying no to some things, getting some things off my plate so that I can actually rest and restore. And there are other times when showing up for myself would be to call a friend and actually acknowledge that I'm going through a hard time instead of doing public relations or instead of disappearing when I'm struggling to let people care, to let people in can be a way of showing up for myself.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: That's heavy, and the train is like, we have the train back. I'm letting the train pass, but it was like warning bells of pay attention, alert. That's so funny. How do we talk about showing up for ourselves in ways that are about not giving ourselves away and some of those healthy boundaries? Because you do a lot of speaking about that as well.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Yes. So an impact of trauma can be self erasure and self neglect and people pleasing. So we can develop those strategies or ways of being as a way of protecting ourselves, as a way of trying to be acceptable to others with the hopes of not being harmed or not being abandoned. And so a part of our healing is to recognize that my needs and feelings and voice are also important and to slow down to actually check-in with myself instead of being, as we would say, easy to please or just going along with the flow, which usually means whatever anybody else wants is acceptable and never expressing to ourself or others what we need or what we want. And so to recognize with interpersonal trauma, those who offend are basically communicating that our voice and needs and wants don't matter.
• 15:18
  And so then in my healing, I have to reject any part of that script that I will not align myself with those who sought to dehumanize me or to erase me. And instead, I seek wholeness and and and empowerment and and humanizing myself and recognizing my truth and being willing to live from that truth and speak from that truth instead of shrinking.
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: It seems like such a simple thing, and also it's so much work and yet it feels like that is the beginning of liberation. How would you even talk about a liberation framework for folks or clinicians who have not learned about that or who did not get a more complete training?
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: So with a a liberation framework to trauma, we recognize the critique, which is often psychology has overemphasized the individual and ignored context and history and systems. So to really take in that I am actually more than my thoughts, affect, and behavior, but that we have social, we have social influences, we have intergenerational intergenerational influences. We have political influences. We have economic influences. All of those things influence influence my risk for trauma, my experience of trauma, my healing from trauma.
• 17:19
  So we won't take an a historical perspective, but instead we will see people in context. So that will mean asking, you know, questions related to these different aspects of our identity so that we can really understand people more fully. So, you know, it's a ripple effect. If I don't ask about certain things, then it's not gonna be in my case conceptualization. And then if it's not in my conceptualization, it's definitely not gonna make it to my treatment goals.
• 17:57
  And if it's not in my treatment goals, it will be totally ignored and overlooked. So then what we are presenting is a half healing, a partial healing, but we have communicated directly or indirectly that certain parts of your identity and experience are not welcomed here. And so to shift that, we want to look at the ways in which all of these various systems and realities, are affecting survivors?
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: It can be in some of the most subtle ways. I am one generation separated from my indigenous tribe to be able to do full re enrollment and all of that, but I can, I have been doing re entry and been able to go to language classes and these song classes and all these things that have been so amazing for me? But one thing that I noticed that is such a, it seems like it's such a silly, tiny, subtle thing, but where I have lived always my whole life, I've just been an early morning person. Other people are night owls, all respect, but I was an early morning person, but I could not get in sync with my days because society is organized around this eight to five schedule in Western America and how it just didn't, the rhythm didn't fit with me and it was really, really hard. But recently I moved back to what is much closer to actually the land of my ancestors in that way.
• 19:44
  And it is so far north that the sunlight and the amount of sunlight and when sunlight happens actually fits with when I already wake up without alarms or anything. And it is the time I felt like my body fit with the rhythm of the day.
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow. That is incredible. And, you know, it connects me with this notion of indigenizing psychology. And, you know, that could be in music, in language, in community, in time, right, in rhythm, in land. And so, like, what you just shared really exemplifies and embodies all of that way that it sometimes gets framed as culture is medicine.
• 20:37
  And so learning about our culture, about our heritage, about our history, about the communities that we come from can be an integral part of our liberation.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: As you were sharing that, the thing that came to mind is the other story. I'm deaf and I have cochlear implants and stories are such a part of deaf culture and indigenous culture. And the other story that came to mind is all of my children are adopted from foster care. And that is its own epic trauma journey and adoption is such a traumatic story. And that's all, those are all different side quests, but we've worked really hard to keep as connected to their families as we could in the ways that were safe to do so.
• 21:25
  But my oldest, her family was just not like ready to receive the support we could offer or were trying to do, or were not willing and different things that made it really hard. And so one of the things that we did when she turned 12 was take her to Africa to connect with, like we had found extended family and identified her tribe and we went and lived with them for the summer. And we were so excited for her. We imposing upon her what we thought was good for her. We're so excited for her to get to be living among her actual tribe and to reconnect in these historical ways and to where everyone else had the same color skin as her.
• 22:14
  But you know what? That is not the meaning she made out of it. What she identified was that her belly button matched. It's not I don't get to say what is healing to her or restorative to her. She was like, these are my family because we have the same belly buttons.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: And this is such a a great example of us holding the space to hear people's meaning, perspective, insights, because, you know, it can be absolutely totally different. And you can see something and, you know, think in the moment, oh, I know what must be happening for this person. And then it'd be something totally different. So yeah.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: How does that unfold in sessions with clients? Yeah.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: So one of the ways that we can experience and reconnect with culture and liberation is through the arts. And so and the arts are a wonderful resource and tool for being able to speak about things that are hard to speak about, like trauma. So we can use music. I will often have instruments in my office. So if people want to play an instrument, we can do it that way.
• 23:45
  We can also play music. They may have, you know, a theme song or a song that's really been resonating with them. And so to explore and get a sense of, you know, when I'm in a place of despair or anxiety, there are songs that can match my mood. And then there are songs that can elevate or shift my mood. And, you know, there's room for, you know, both of those.
• 24:18
  And so thinking about using music in that way or self expression, There is also, of course, using music for our meditation. But instead of us all using, like, the same songs to actually think about the culture of the person or allowing them to select the songs for themselves are ways of making that more culturally attuned. We can also do it with embodied practices so that we're not just in our heads doing a lot of intellectualizing or rationalizing or ruminating, but instead recognizing in most cases, our body is the site, s a s I t e. It is the the very site of the trauma. So we cannot leave the site out.
• 25:19
  And so beginning to bring movement into session. And using the word movement can often be less intimidating for people than if we say dance. If you say dance, some people say like, oh, I don't dance or I don't know how to dance. But just to talk about in trauma, we often hold ourselves very tightly. And so we just want to take some time as an invitation to move our bodies.
• 25:51
  And we can do that in a number of ways. We can do mirroring where one person leads and the other one follows, or we can do improvisation and just be led by your heart. We can even do choreographed movement that we come up with around a certain theme. But as I introduce movement and other exercises, you know, I will often say something about body sovereignty. And even if I don't, depending on the client, use that word, if that feels like a big word, sovereignty, is to say you get to choose.
• 26:32
  That I'm gonna offer you several opportunities for various exercises, and it's always for you to pause and think about it, check-in with yourself to say, do I want to do that? Would I like to try that? Because this, you is not for me to dictate your healing process, but these are some things that many people have found helpful, but each person what applies to them is different.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: So that's important part of the frame of bringing it into therapy. I love what you said about the site of the trauma being our We have talked a lot on the podcast about the difference between now time and memory time and how to notice when memory time sort of invades now time or comes into now time or surfaces in now time. But in that context of our body being the site of the trauma that is with us all the time.
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Mhmm. And so, you know, when we think about nine eleven and these other traumas that are, you know, site specific, you know, people find ways of, like, honoring the site. Right?
• 27:58
  And so, you know, for us to to do that with our bodies.
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: That is just heavy. That is just sitting on me in a very raw way. Thank you for sharing that.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And, you know, this can be very private, personal, ceremony ritual. You know, it can be in the shower or the bath. The ways that I, you know, take, I like to call it sacred pause and just acknowledge this body and all this body has been through.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I will take that to therapy. That is a deep heart piece. And I think it's so interesting because so many of us with any kind of dissociation, even if it's not DID or something, any kind of dissociation, that's one of the things we dissociate from is our bodies.
• 29:07
  Speaker 3: Yes. Yes, definitely. So that needing to to reconnect tonight, you know, love the language around reclamation. You know, I wanna reclaim my body, reclaim my breath, reclaim my movement, reclaim my freedom, reclaim reclaim my ability to define myself. Right?
• 29:31
  Reclaim, as you said, my pace, my own timing. So we get to get those things back. And for those who are survivors of very early trauma, it may feel less like a reclamation and more like claiming it for the time, and we can do that too. Get the things, and I think we'll still say get back the things that we never had, or that we don't have a memory of having.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: I, that's just really has gotten my attention. I know sometimes in indigenous culture or in other cultures, we sometimes talk about the spirit wandering or the spirit on a journey. I don't know if I just thought I was on vacation or what I thought that I didn't connect. I was dissociating from the fact that I dissociate from my body because my body is the site of trauma. Mhmm.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: Yes. Then we're out there wandering and wondering.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Yes. And then then we get in these reenactments or in your in your work, you call it entanglements because we're getting tangled with other bodies instead of coming back to our own Can you talk about that a little bit? Speak to entanglements?
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Sometimes when we feel empty or when we feel less than or when we feel insecure, from ourselves, we seek out meaning and validation through other people. And so then we can give people a lot of power in the sense of like, if they say I'm okay, I'm okay. Right? If they say I'm deserving, then maybe I'm deserving.
• 31:32
  And so, yes, a part of our identity is in the collective and simultaneously, we want to be able to feel and know and see ourselves even as people make different choices. So some people will be present for a season and then they may disappear. Right? They may make another choice. So then who am I in the absence of that person is gonna be a necessary step in my journey to be able, to still see myself as whole, as sacred, as worthy.
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: You you have let me see if I can find it really quick because it's one of the pages I go back to a lot in your homecoming book. Yes. You say these affirmations of letting go even of I release you, I release you from my emotions and from my heart and my mind and my body and my spirit. And then even talking to myself then, I choose you. You are worthy of love.
• 32:54
  You are worthy of grace. You are worthy of compassion. I choose you. And that bringing me to a place of the strength to liberate myself because I can't liberate myself if I'm still not allowed to exist.
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I like to often use the phrase, I give myself permission or can you give yourself permission because sometimes because of the ways we've been socialized and traumatized, the offender may no no longer be present, but their imprint can be very active in our lives such that we are standing on our own wings, such that we are shrinking and hiding, such that we are living beneath our possibility. And so can I give myself permission to come out of hiding? Can I give myself myself permission to use my voice? Can I give myself permission to walk away from things that do not honor me?
• 34:09
  Can I give myself permission to change, to be different, to heal?
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: One of the themes that's really powerful for me that I experience is so empowering from your work is because it's incorporating that spiritual aspect. It's also so healthy in that spiritual way where I can do the work that you're speaking to, that you're talking about without it being about the other person is bad or the other shaming or blaming or all of these games of just, this is what's good for me. Mhmm. I release you to what's good for you. And how how do you talk about that?
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Right. It's so important that there are times, many times when we are different or desire different things, and it doesn't mean that there is that one of those ways is necessarily right or wrong. So in this these examples, I'm not, of course, talking about abuse, but just different people can want different things out of life in this season of their life. Their ideas about relationship can be very different. So, you know, as you're amplifying, we can release the need to turn people into villains or monsters monsters when they just have a different way in terms of, you know, choices that are not harmful.
• 35:45
  It's an approach to living. I was, you know, talking to a client recently and they were realizing, like, their idea around friendship is people who, like, do life together in a particular way as opposed to some people's kind of idea of friendship is more occasional, like, oh, every so often we may get together for brunch. And so those are are two different ways of doing friendship, and neither of them is that. You just have to know, like, what you want and what you're looking for, what feels good to you, and to, you know, gravitate toward those who are wanting to do life or friendship in a similar way.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: How would you speak to that dynamic in the context of the sort of the religious trauma where we polarize ourselves or good or bad or worthy or unworthy and then entangle ourselves with that in a way that saying no or setting those boundaries or wanting to do things in our own rhythm, even if it's just like me with the sunlight in the morning, right, that where it feels like it's tied to worth and we get that all tangled up. How do you untangle that?
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So I have a dear friend, Asia Adebow, who's a poet, and she has this poem where she repeatedly says, who lied to you? And I think a lot of these shoulds or rigid regulations, these assumptions around worthiness and unworthiness are often lies. And so the way we untangle them is to dare to actually ask questions, to wonder, to explore, to consider possibilities, to expand our notions, to deconstruct. And it is, I would say, for the therapist, if we're talking about religion or spirituality, we want to be mindful and careful about that process because there are a number of mental health professionals who are anti religion.
• 38:28
  So then if if they are against religion, then what they may be doing with a client along these lines is more their own agenda of trying to talk someone out of their faith. So that's not what I'm talking about. It is coming from a vantage point of respect and an openness and to know, you know, the aim is liberation. So you your liberation may look like you being liberated liberated within a spiritual or religious context, or it may be you being liberated outside of it so that we're not equating liberation means you must leave the thing that I don't endorse, that I am not a part of, but to let people explore and define the liberation for themselves.
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: That is the piece that has literally changed my life over the last six months since I found out you were coming to the annual conference, since I found your podcast and your books of what does liberation mean to me?
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: What
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: is the context in which I'm living, not just relationships. My my therapist also says all the ships. You have said you have talked about the ships. But also the context, the politics, the election, this or that. Like, what side of of any of those pieces?
• 40:10
  Like, where do I fall? What are the nuances, the complexities, my children, what are they experiencing in school and on the playground? And all of the context in which I find myself in this day and age of this is my life happening and I don't want to miss it. If I'm going to be alive, I want to reclaim my life and my experience of living. And what is that going to take to get me to a place safe enough where I can do that?
• 40:41
  And I literally had to move a thousand miles. For me, that's what it meant. That's not what it's gonna mean for everybody. But doing that work of what is supporting my liberation, what is entangling me. And I had this, it just felt like I was underwater, like there's seaweeds, like pulling me down that I was caught in.
• 41:03
  What do I need to release myself from? And so much healing has happened. I don't even have words, just so much gratitude.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's so beautiful. I'm so glad you have given yourself the freedom to to choose and to choose again and to choose yourself most of all.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: What else would you say? Is is there anything else that you would say to survivors specifically?
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: I would say to survivors, the thing one of the things that many people don't tell you is that healing can be uncomfortable, that healing is circular, that healing can feel messy, that there are growing pains because the ways you survived may not be the ways you want to live. You developed we developed ways of being in order to navigate hostile toxic spaces. We developed various ways to get through that. And so you can appreciate yourself for your strengths and for the shifting and the censoring and all of the things that you did, even the warrior part of you that was crafted in those spaces. But then to say, I don't want to just stay in survival mode.
• 42:45
  I want to live an abundant life. I want to live a liberated life. And so I will outlast the discomfort of change that my automatic responses may not always be the healthiest or even honoring of myself. So I'll let myself slow down before I respond. And even if the healed action or the healed statement feels awkward, feels fake, feels inauthentic to allow myself to stretch, to allow myself to grow, because I'm creating new patterns.
• 43:34
  And so as I repeat those over time, they will become more and more of me instead of my wounds running my life.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, that was so good. Thank you so much.
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: You're welcome.
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: That the reality that it is, I mean, it's part of why they call it work because it is so much stretching and growing and doing things differently that it's not the same as just, I can push the easy button and everything, it's better. It really is the work of these changes and adjusting to them. What about clinicians? Any last words for clinicians?
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: I would say, or clinicians, let us give ourselves the care that we so desperately and faithfully give to everyone else. I would say to clinicians, let us be intentional about cultivating mutual reciprocal relationships that we do not surround ourselves and our personal lives with one-sided relationships where we are the strong one, but for us to be thoughtful and open to creating spaces and relationships where we can unfold, where it is okay for us not to know, where we can lean and not just be leaned upon, to know that we are deserving of that.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: It so elevates the baseline of what we as humans need for care. Yes. Oh, that could be its own podcast, I think. Anything else that you wanted to share today that that we didn't get to?
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: I will just say so my web website is doctorteyla.com. And in addition to, like, the digital and hardback versions of the book, they're the two books are also in audio, and it is myself getting to read them to you. So for those of you who are like some folks I know who don't who would say, like, I'm not a reader, you can still listen to the book, and it can still be accessible to you.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. We will put those links in the show notes, and I am so grateful to have gotten to spend time with you today.
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: Oh, thank you so much for having me. It was wonderful.
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: You're so kind and helpful. How we got from humans who don't deserve any of that to it being such simple care for ourselves and each other. It would solve so many problems.
• 46:33
  Speaker 3: Right. Oh, it really, really was.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I wanna honor your time, but thank you so And I appreciate it. And I will keep reading and also take all of this to my own therapy as well.
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: Oh, good. Thank you so much. Take good care. Bye.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to us, and for all of your support for the podcast, our books, and them being donated to survivors and the community. It means so much to us as we try to create something that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing. One of the ways we practice this is in community together. The link for the community is in the show notes.
• 47:22
  We look forward to seeing you there while we practice caring for ourselves, caring for our family, and participating with those who also care for community. And remember, I'm just a human, not a therapist for the community, and not there for dating, and not there to be shiny happy. Less shiny, actually. I'm there to heal too. That's what peer support is all about.
• 47:50
  Being human together. So yeah, sometimes we'll see you there.