Latest / Chris Thrall's Bought the T-Shirt Podcast / The FEAR Within - Understanding Childhood Trauma | Tanya Stolfa

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The FEAR Within - Understanding Childhood Trauma | Tanya Stolfa · Chris Thrall's Bought the T-Shirt Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Hello friends, I'm your host, Chris Thrill. I'm a former
0:05
Speaker 1: Ruleries commando. I've adventured for better and sometimes worse, across
0:11
Speaker 1: eighty countries on all seven continents. Welcome to the Port
0:16
Speaker 1: the t Shirt Podcast. Tania, how are you doing?
0:27
Speaker 2: I'm well, thank you. How are you today?
0:29
Speaker 1: Yes, I'm absolutely wonderful. I'm just going to read off
0:33
Speaker 1: the bit of script. You sold me, so I don't
0:36
Speaker 1: you sent me? Rather, you sold me you sent me so,
0:39
Speaker 1: I don't do you an injustice. With over twenty years
0:42
Speaker 1: experience as a licensed professional counselor, you specialize in supporting
0:48
Speaker 1: young people and adults navigating the challenges of post traumatic stress,
0:54
Speaker 1: anxiety and depression. You rooted in evidence based practice, which
1:01
Speaker 1: we all should be. And you've got a deep compassion
1:06
Speaker 1: for healing individuals and families. And that's good because so
1:12
Speaker 1: have I. Yes, funny thing, isn't it? Like I said
1:18
Speaker 1: at the beginning there, if you were to ask, yeah,
1:21
Speaker 1: I speak to a lot of veterans. I'm climbing Mount
1:24
Speaker 1: Everest in April to shine a light for all those
1:27
Speaker 1: veterans out there who are still struggling like I once did.
1:33
Speaker 1: I also though I honestly feel Tanny like I'm the
1:37
Speaker 1: only person I think I am that is speaking out
1:41
Speaker 1: and saying we've got a massive veterans' mental health problem.
1:44
Speaker 1: We've got a crazily high suicide rate. All of us
1:48
Speaker 1: know many people now, Lovely, lovely. I was in the Marines,
1:53
Speaker 1: so our Marines are all male at the moment, so
1:56
Speaker 1: lovely lads. I'm just dealing with some stuff around one
2:01
Speaker 1: chap that I was interacting with now and it's awful
2:04
Speaker 1: just reading back through the lovely messages he sent me
2:07
Speaker 1: and then he killed himself, and I want to say, hey,
2:11
Speaker 1: why is nobody talking about the elephant in the room.
2:15
Speaker 1: It's childhood trauma. We all went through. Well, I say
2:19
Speaker 1: we all. Every marine veteran I speak to goes, yeah, Chris,
2:25
Speaker 1: we are quite challenging childhoods, didn't we. I'm like, yeah,
2:29
Speaker 1: we did. Wasn't that the reason you join up? Yeah?
2:32
Speaker 1: And that was the reason I joined up. So sorry
2:35
Speaker 1: if I've gone a bit long winded their tenure, Okay.
2:39
Speaker 2: I hear very similar stories that you hear from veterans
2:45
Speaker 2: or active duty members or even like their families. That
2:49
Speaker 2: is a lot of why people do join up because
2:52
Speaker 2: they're trying to escape chaotic childhoods. But we don't often
2:57
Speaker 2: shed light onto childhood trauma, especially if you grew up
3:02
Speaker 2: in the sixties, seventies, eighties, even the early nineties.
3:07
Speaker 3: It really has not.
3:08
Speaker 2: Become a movement until the two thousands and now to
3:12
Speaker 2: really recognize that trauma is at the root of everything.
3:16
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And it also makes you manipulatable, if that's
3:22
Speaker 1: even a word, you know, we when you look at
3:27
Speaker 1: the general public. Sorry, it might have sounded a bit
3:31
Speaker 1: of an obscure introduction to you. It's just this country
3:34
Speaker 1: is in absolute upheaval at the moment. And I tell
3:37
Speaker 1: you what, you guys know revolution, We're we're kind of
3:42
Speaker 1: at that stage. But everyone's a bit too traumatized to
3:45
Speaker 1: sort of actually do anything. And I'm not suggesting that
3:49
Speaker 1: they do. I'm saying. I'm saying that there's a lot
3:52
Speaker 1: of projecting going on, you know, a lot of shoutiness
3:55
Speaker 1: and a lot of blaming this and blaming that. There
3:58
Speaker 1: isn't a lot a lot of work being done to
4:01
Speaker 1: look inside the shadow work as I believe it's right.
4:04
Speaker 1: I believe it's cooled, and I'm making a bit of sense.
4:07
Speaker 2: You are, Yeah, and I think it's really we are
4:10
Speaker 2: still in that phase of destigmatizing mental health and that
4:14
Speaker 2: it's okay to have mental health and it is a
4:19
Speaker 2: good thing to work on yourself, because, as you referenced,
4:23
Speaker 2: you know in the beginning, many people hide it and
4:27
Speaker 2: then are We do have very very high suicide rates,
4:31
Speaker 2: both in the military and in the general population because
4:38
Speaker 2: of just the stigma behind mental health. And I as
4:42
Speaker 2: a practitioner, really work to destigmatize mental health as much
4:48
Speaker 2: as possible and normalize it for people that it's okay,
4:53
Speaker 2: like there's you're not broken, there's not something that is
4:58
Speaker 2: innately and eternally with you. There's just some things that
5:02
Speaker 2: you have to work on and you can come out
5:04
Speaker 2: on the other side.
5:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're going to come out it's a cheesy quote,
5:09
Speaker 1: but you're going to come out a better person for it.
5:11
Speaker 3: M M.
5:12
Speaker 2: Yeah.
5:13
Speaker 1: Not just better than you were, but better than the
5:15
Speaker 1: majority because they haven't had that experience. And would you
5:20
Speaker 1: agree to you that empathy is a big part of
5:23
Speaker 1: this because to hear yourself from trauma and work out
5:26
Speaker 1: what the hell's been going on in my life and
5:28
Speaker 1: why have I got in this state? You've got to
5:30
Speaker 1: learn to love yourself.
5:32
Speaker 2: Yes, And that's a huge part of it too. That's
5:34
Speaker 2: a huge part that drives anxiety because anxiety lies to
5:39
Speaker 2: us on a regular basis in our brain and tells
5:42
Speaker 2: us things that aren't true. But when we have so
5:45
Speaker 2: much trauma and increased to anxiety, we start to believe
5:51
Speaker 2: those things, especially if those are messages that came from
5:54
Speaker 2: our childhood as well.
5:56
Speaker 1: Yes, can I peel it back to the veterans? Because
5:59
Speaker 1: what on see it? You know, no one will talk
6:02
Speaker 1: about this, but when so many people are taking their
6:06
Speaker 1: own lives and I'm going to be crassier and I
6:09
Speaker 1: don't apologize, it is because their crap at life. They
6:13
Speaker 1: haven't they can't deal with it. And I'm not I
6:17
Speaker 1: should make a caveat here. I'm obviously not talking about
6:20
Speaker 1: people that are deeply mentally scarred from some of the
6:25
Speaker 1: hideous stuff that's gone on, for example Afghanistan. What I'm
6:31
Speaker 1: saying is there's a few things here. Is First of all,
6:36
Speaker 1: you know, no matter how much hideous stuff you go
6:39
Speaker 1: through us now and I've been through some stuff. You know.
6:42
Speaker 1: My best friend drowned on our holiday and I had
6:45
Speaker 1: his dead body at my feet and you know, even
6:49
Speaker 1: more trying right out because we was absolutely off our
6:52
Speaker 1: Edgit at the time, and I had to deal with
6:53
Speaker 1: all the police, the interviews, the morgue, whilst being a
6:57
Speaker 1: little bit sideways with the world. But you know what,
7:02
Speaker 1: I was an adult and I compartmentalized it. I kissed
7:05
Speaker 1: him goodbye and went, sorry, mate, I'm never going to
7:07
Speaker 1: think about this again. And I literally as I walked away.
7:10
Speaker 1: The other lad we were with he just had a
7:13
Speaker 1: complete breakdown. He couldn't and he was like, why are
7:17
Speaker 1: you not upset? I said, because I can't go down
7:20
Speaker 1: that route. I've been depressed, I've been anxious before, not
7:23
Speaker 1: doing it again. I love that guy. He loved me,
7:26
Speaker 1: and if he was standing up now, he'd say, Chris,
7:29
Speaker 1: just go on and live your life, mate, don't you
7:31
Speaker 1: know write this one off. And that's exactly what I did.
7:34
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not a complete sociopath, Tanning. I did
7:38
Speaker 1: have a good cry about a month later. Enough, it
7:41
Speaker 1: just like hit me out of the blue. I had
7:43
Speaker 1: a good cry over some tea bags. Believe it or not,
7:46
Speaker 1: I won't I won't explain that. And then I went
7:51
Speaker 1: on and lived a legendary life and you know, because
7:54
Speaker 1: I'm an adult, that trauma is not deeply buried inside me.
8:00
Speaker 1: And what we're seeing with the veterans is, yes, you
8:02
Speaker 1: may well have seen something horrible in combat. Most veterans
8:06
Speaker 1: don't have a horrible time. It's only very small percentage
8:11
Speaker 1: of soldiers that actually see service, and an even smaller
8:16
Speaker 1: percent you actually get to see witness something particularly you know, horrifying.
8:21
Speaker 1: And so I'm sorry again I'm being a bit long winded,
8:24
Speaker 1: but this is a subject really close to my heart,
8:27
Speaker 1: and I'm suggesting that no, these soldiers are leaving the forces.
8:32
Speaker 1: They're facing all the usual challenges that people have in life,
8:36
Speaker 1: you know, an idiot boss, paying the bills, and what's
8:41
Speaker 1: happening is that voice is coming up from from an
8:43
Speaker 1: absent father, or an abusive father, or a neglectful mother,
8:50
Speaker 1: and you're going, you're no good. You're just knowing nobody
8:53
Speaker 1: likes you. You're just you're yeah, yeah, they're all talking
8:56
Speaker 1: about you. But you know, and because of our troop mentality,
9:00
Speaker 1: that the massive indoctrination we went through in our training period,
9:05
Speaker 1: which took me a guy. I just wanted to join
9:08
Speaker 1: up because you know, I looked like a great fun job.
9:11
Speaker 1: I never thought about killing when I came out of training.
9:14
Speaker 1: When I came out of training, it was like, right,
9:16
Speaker 1: who can I kill as quick as possible to prove
9:20
Speaker 1: I can do this job? You know. So yeah, sorry,
9:23
Speaker 1: like I say, bit long winded, but no apologies, folks,
9:26
Speaker 1: this is you know, I've got Tanya here. I'm never
9:30
Speaker 1: going to be able to ask you know, someone like
9:32
Speaker 1: yourself this again.
9:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, it definitely is like you said when you talk
9:38
Speaker 2: about the training and the indoctrination and then the coming
9:41
Speaker 2: out and going back into civilian life. That's very difficult.
9:45
Speaker 2: And trauma is rooted in the brain. So whether you're
9:48
Speaker 2: remembering childhood trauma or you didn't recognize that you had
9:52
Speaker 2: childhood trauma, your body never forgets. So the brain is
9:57
Speaker 2: always going to come back and remind you if it
10:00
Speaker 2: feels like you're in that same position again, and it's
10:04
Speaker 2: going to you know, whether it's sending signals to your
10:08
Speaker 2: body giving you headaches, giving you stomach aches, giving you anxiety, flashbacks,
10:15
Speaker 2: it's it's going to always come back if it stays unresolved,
10:20
Speaker 2: because it keeps the score and it will always go
10:24
Speaker 2: through with you throughout your life, especially moving back into
10:28
Speaker 2: the civilian world.
10:29
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that you nailed it. That's that's exactly
10:33
Speaker 1: what we're seeing. Why do you think it is, Tanya
10:36
Speaker 1: that for example, myself, I got so low that I
10:42
Speaker 1: had an epiphany, you know, I couldn't get lower. It
10:45
Speaker 1: woke it literally woke me up a bit, and I thought,
10:48
Speaker 1: hang on a set, what are they? What have they
10:50
Speaker 1: done here? And I just started to take action to
10:54
Speaker 1: stop doing the behaviors that had sent my life out
10:57
Speaker 1: of control, which obviously was taking drugs and bad thinking,
11:01
Speaker 1: you know, negative thinking. What's the difference then when someone
11:06
Speaker 1: doesn't get to that point and for you know, they
11:09
Speaker 1: end up taking their life. I'm just wondering what the
11:15
Speaker 1: difference here is, if that makes sense.
11:18
Speaker 3: Some of it goes back to.
11:21
Speaker 2: Not necessarily like resiliency, but who are your supports in
11:26
Speaker 2: your life? Do you have a support system, Do you
11:29
Speaker 2: have a family. Do you have just friends that are
11:32
Speaker 2: like your family, that are behind you, supporting you, you know,
11:37
Speaker 2: cheering for you, checking on you. Some people who don't
11:41
Speaker 2: have any of that can fall deeper and deeper into
11:46
Speaker 2: you know, that kind of abyss of depression, or if
11:51
Speaker 2: they're just coming out into civilian life into very non
11:55
Speaker 2: supportive situations that can definitely make it worse.
12:00
Speaker 3: As well.
12:01
Speaker 2: So I think that that's kind of some other difference
12:04
Speaker 2: that we see too, and the access to mental health
12:09
Speaker 2: care or just medical care through the VIA and the
12:14
Speaker 2: different vas in the different states of the availability of
12:19
Speaker 2: the resources that people have to them too.
12:23
Speaker 1: Yes, of course there's something here that I can't put
12:27
Speaker 1: my finger on, but I'm trying to sum up. You See,
12:30
Speaker 1: I didn't have any of that support. I couldn't go
12:32
Speaker 1: to the medical community. They just they didn't get me
12:36
Speaker 1: as a veteran, as quite an independent person, I didn't
12:39
Speaker 1: want them mucking around with my life. They catch up,
12:42
Speaker 1: give me these drugs and do this and do that. Yeah,
12:44
Speaker 1: I was just like, you don't. You're trying to treat
12:47
Speaker 1: me like a normal person. No, just suspect the normal people.
12:50
Speaker 1: But veterans are not normal people. We are we've lived
12:55
Speaker 1: a crazy life, you know. Yeah, and we're fiercely proud
12:59
Speaker 1: of yadda yady yet. But but my thing was, there's
13:03
Speaker 1: something in me from my upbringing that like, I don't
13:07
Speaker 1: give a shit about any other support. The less support
13:12
Speaker 1: I have, the more just I'm more proud of myself.
13:16
Speaker 1: That makes sense.
13:18
Speaker 2: That does make sense because you are accomplishing it on
13:21
Speaker 2: your own and being able to kind of pull yourself
13:24
Speaker 2: out of that abyss. Some people have that innate ingrained
13:29
Speaker 2: in them and other people don't have that opportunity to
13:33
Speaker 2: have ever felt that. And that's where therapy comes in.
13:38
Speaker 2: Is really helping, you know, as a practitioner, we you know,
13:43
Speaker 2: go back to empathy, is really helping people to find
13:47
Speaker 2: that within themselves, because going to therapy isn't about you know,
13:51
Speaker 2: me telling you oh, do X, Y and Z. It's
13:55
Speaker 2: about me developing, you know, a tailored treatment plan with
13:59
Speaker 2: you to really help you heal. But I'm just the
14:04
Speaker 2: guide in the map and you know, getting people to
14:08
Speaker 2: do the work within themselves so they can't have that
14:11
Speaker 2: feeling that you have. And I'm so so grateful that
14:15
Speaker 2: you do have that feeling and that you've been able
14:18
Speaker 2: to do that for yourself.
14:19
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful we're having this conversation, Tanny, and I'll
14:22
Speaker 1: tell you why because I just thought of something. Even
14:25
Speaker 1: though our family, my family growth was chaotic. I think
14:29
Speaker 1: my parents got remarried about I think it's five times
14:33
Speaker 1: between them now. I went to six schools before I
14:36
Speaker 1: was eleven years old.
14:39
Speaker 3: Wow.
14:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had so many step parents come and go
14:43
Speaker 1: that it's like I forgot their names. I'm joking, of course,
14:48
Speaker 1: but you know it were and that was just the
14:51
Speaker 1: you know, relationship stuff going on, the other stuff going on,
14:54
Speaker 1: don't I don't you know, I don't even talk about.
14:57
Speaker 1: But one thing my dad used to because I think
15:01
Speaker 1: he recognized a lot of what I was going through
15:04
Speaker 1: with like different step dads and stuff, is one time
15:08
Speaker 1: he said to me, Son, there's nothing wrong with you.
15:11
Speaker 1: There's nothing wrong with you. And I knew what he
15:15
Speaker 1: was trying to tell me, Tanya. He was trying to say,
15:18
Speaker 1: you're going to get a lot of shit in this life, son,
15:21
Speaker 1: and you excuse my French, but you just got to
15:24
Speaker 1: treat like wankers, you know, if you've got to love
15:28
Speaker 1: yourself and understand they're the ones with the problem, it
15:33
Speaker 1: ain't you. And I think maybe that was something that
15:36
Speaker 1: gave me this determined personality.
15:40
Speaker 3: M M.
15:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's definitely because that's a positive message from your childhood.
15:44
Speaker 2: Despite your your childhood being chaotic, there was somebody who
15:49
Speaker 2: gave you that positive message to hold onto and you
15:53
Speaker 2: were able to kind of find the wherewithal and hang
15:56
Speaker 2: on with hang on to that to be able to
16:00
Speaker 2: do the work.
16:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I'm picturing another veteran in my situation who
16:05
Speaker 1: maybe didn't have a dad that told him those things,
16:08
Speaker 1: maybe didn't have a dad on the scene at all.
16:11
Speaker 1: He's going to be there, you know, like I was
16:14
Speaker 1: living in squalor. But he isn't going to have that
16:17
Speaker 1: self belief and he might genuinely think that no one's
16:20
Speaker 1: going to miss him, which is so sad because everybody's
16:24
Speaker 1: massively loved from what I can see. Yes, absolutely, Yeah,
16:28
Speaker 1: So I don't know where to really begin, But let's
16:33
Speaker 1: just go with anxiety.
16:35
Speaker 3: Okay.
16:36
Speaker 1: It's a big thing, isn't it.
16:37
Speaker 3: It's a huge thing.
16:39
Speaker 2: I would say probably everybody experiences some type of anxiety
16:45
Speaker 2: across their life at some point in time, whether it's
16:49
Speaker 2: you know, a full blown anxiety disorder or it's situational
16:54
Speaker 2: anxiety is very prevalent in everybody's everyday worlds.
16:59
Speaker 1: How come then, Tanya, Right. I used to hear the
17:01
Speaker 1: word anxiety growing up, and until I was twenty nine,
17:07
Speaker 1: I had no clue what it was because I never
17:10
Speaker 1: experienced it, right, and it was only after doing all,
17:15
Speaker 1: you know, doing too many drugs that one day and
17:18
Speaker 1: I can remember when it was, I was going off
17:21
Speaker 1: to Africa to work with street children in Mozambi because
17:24
Speaker 1: a volunteer worker. This is after this is like part
17:27
Speaker 1: part of my recovery, you know, it's like somebody I
17:30
Speaker 1: had to go and help other people now, you know,
17:33
Speaker 1: and it being in service, they call it, don't they.
17:36
Speaker 1: And I was packing all my stuff and I started
17:40
Speaker 1: to get this weird sort of shaky feeling that I'd
17:44
Speaker 1: never had before. And my neighbor happened to come in.
17:47
Speaker 1: She was a lovely girl called Sarah. We were good friends.
17:49
Speaker 1: She knew I'd been through a lot, and she said,
17:53
Speaker 1: You're going to be all right, You'll you know, you'll
17:55
Speaker 1: be fine, and that was it. It really leveled me,
17:59
Speaker 1: and I was like, yeah, what what what was I think?
18:01
Speaker 1: You know, what was the think I've done? You know,
18:02
Speaker 1: I've gotten aeroplanes gone abroad so many times. And then
18:07
Speaker 1: funnily enough, when I got to South Africa, I needed
18:11
Speaker 1: a connecting flight to Mozambique. I met this girl in
18:15
Speaker 1: South Africa and she stayed at the backpackers where where
18:19
Speaker 1: we stayed, and she looked at me, said you are right.
18:22
Speaker 1: I said, I'm just I've been getting this nervous feeling.
18:26
Speaker 1: And she said, don't worry about a thing, because every
18:32
Speaker 1: little thing gonna be And I was like, you you
18:37
Speaker 1: noticed everything's always fine, isn't it? Everything?
18:40
Speaker 3: It is?
18:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I won't say that put, you know, my
18:45
Speaker 1: future anxieties to bed, because I've had periods in life
18:48
Speaker 1: where I totally forgot that wonderful advice she gave me.
18:51
Speaker 1: I don't really think there's probably anything I could have
18:55
Speaker 1: done anyway, and I've really experienced it pretty hardcore, you know.
18:59
Speaker 1: So what is it? Then? When we're experiencing anxiety.
19:03
Speaker 2: It's fear and it's lies that our head tells us
19:09
Speaker 2: that it's not going to work out and or or
19:13
Speaker 2: we might if we're if we've messed up before and
19:17
Speaker 2: we're trying to make it better, that we're just going
19:20
Speaker 2: to continue to mess up. And anxiety is very much
19:24
Speaker 2: so a chemical imbalance of your brain that can happen
19:30
Speaker 2: whether it's extremely severe or you know, just situational things.
19:35
Speaker 3: But it's rooted.
19:38
Speaker 2: In in fear of failure and going back to places
19:44
Speaker 2: that you don't want to go back to.
19:46
Speaker 1: Yes, a couple of things come to mind here then,
19:49
Speaker 1: So it's triggering your flight fight or freeze mechanism. So
19:54
Speaker 1: you're natural sort of a flood in your body with quartiso,
19:57
Speaker 1: isn't it so?
20:00
Speaker 2: An adrenaline yep?
20:01
Speaker 1: And also that when this is happening a lot, you
20:05
Speaker 1: end up in a hypervigilant state weight not only more
20:11
Speaker 1: easily triggered, but the effects get worse and worse.
20:16
Speaker 2: Yes, they do, because your brain can kind of get
20:18
Speaker 2: stuck in that fight flight or freeze state the more
20:23
Speaker 2: you experience anxiety. And then that's how it becomes worse
20:27
Speaker 2: and worse is when the brain continues to send signals
20:31
Speaker 2: that there's danger or that something bad is going to happen.
20:37
Speaker 2: And that's where we rework to interrupt, like those those
20:44
Speaker 2: synapses that are being sent and those messages that are
20:47
Speaker 2: being sent with different modalities of therapy.
20:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll come on and talk about those, So am
20:54
Speaker 1: I right then, if it was to say, when we
20:57
Speaker 1: lived saying in nature with our tribes or you know,
21:01
Speaker 1: our clan, that we'd be out there going about our day,
21:05
Speaker 1: probably trying to stay dry, trying to gather food, moveing
21:09
Speaker 1: from one you know area where we collected our food
21:13
Speaker 1: to the next place we could, we could get some
21:16
Speaker 1: and we hopefully live in some sort of nirvana, and
21:20
Speaker 1: that piece would only really be shattered when we had
21:24
Speaker 1: to fend off a predator or possibly another tribe. But
21:28
Speaker 1: when that was over, we'd go back to being a
21:30
Speaker 1: peaceful kind of in harmony with a nature type of being.
21:36
Speaker 1: But what we've got now in society is the opposite.
21:39
Speaker 1: Is we perceive we're being attacked all day long, whether
21:43
Speaker 1: it's putting someone on the phone, reading a social media comment,
21:49
Speaker 1: you know, going into the workplace and wondering who the
21:52
Speaker 1: hell's upset with you today, or if you maybe not
21:55
Speaker 1: done your job properly. And then of course you get
21:57
Speaker 1: these medical narratives which just scared a hell, you know,
22:02
Speaker 1: the kind of propaganda side of it that just scares
22:06
Speaker 1: the hell out of people. And these were terrified. And
22:10
Speaker 1: even just go outside the front door, you've got cars
22:12
Speaker 1: whiz and along a ton of metal and fifty or
22:17
Speaker 1: in our case, seventy mile an hour. It's easy to
22:23
Speaker 1: get into this sort of hyper stress state.
22:26
Speaker 2: It is because media plays a big part in it.
22:31
Speaker 2: Now we live in a much more technological society where
22:36
Speaker 2: we hear about all of the horrible negative things that
22:39
Speaker 2: happen in the world, and we don't often hear about
22:43
Speaker 2: enough of the good things. We hear about all those
22:47
Speaker 2: awful negative things through the news, through Facebook, through Instagram, TikTok,
22:54
Speaker 2: and we don't get enough of the warm and fuzzies
22:59
Speaker 2: so to speak of what the world is, and the
23:02
Speaker 2: world then becomes a very very scary place and a
23:05
Speaker 2: very stressful place.
23:06
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, this is why more and more people I
23:11
Speaker 1: associate with now we don't watch the media, certainly don't
23:16
Speaker 1: watch the mainstream media, but I think sometimes, I think
23:20
Speaker 1: sometimes the alternative media can can be just as bad.
23:23
Speaker 1: If all it's doing is terrified, you know, fighting you
23:27
Speaker 1: every time you turn it on. So what what are
23:30
Speaker 1: the possible courses of action? Then? So for someone watching now,
23:35
Speaker 1: you know they're getting that, they're recognizing what we're talking about.
23:39
Speaker 1: What can they do? Tanya? Obviously they can contact your
23:43
Speaker 1: good self. Tanya's details will be below the video. Friends.
23:47
Speaker 2: So a lot of the things that you know we
23:51
Speaker 2: talk about in therapy go back to kind of self
23:53
Speaker 2: care and boundaries and learning who in your life serves
23:59
Speaker 2: you who doesn't. So, and I don't mean like takes
24:04
Speaker 2: care of you or waits on your hand and foot,
24:06
Speaker 2: but more like serves your inner peace inside of you?
24:10
Speaker 2: Like is our people causing chaos in your life? Are
24:14
Speaker 2: there other relationships that are more peaceful? Is your work
24:19
Speaker 2: environment just a very toxic place that maybe a change
24:23
Speaker 2: in work environment would help, but not letting others steal
24:29
Speaker 2: that inner piece by uh, you know, spreading their toxicity.
24:35
Speaker 2: It's very much what the phrase that your dad had
24:38
Speaker 2: told you is. There is often something wrong with someone else,
24:45
Speaker 2: and that's how our inner worlds get shaken up is
24:50
Speaker 2: by you know, allowing people to, so to speak, persuade
24:55
Speaker 2: us that there is something wrong with us and the
25:00
Speaker 2: way that we handle things. But if we have firm
25:05
Speaker 2: boundaries and are not afraid to say yes or no
25:10
Speaker 2: to something, are not in relationships where it's a power
25:14
Speaker 2: struggle on one side or the other, and there's equality
25:17
Speaker 2: in your relationships. There's definitely lots of ways to get
25:23
Speaker 2: help besides therapy. You know, there's helplines and there's text lines,
25:30
Speaker 2: different organizations that also help. If a person is not
25:35
Speaker 2: ready to kind of go down the therapeutic process.
25:38
Speaker 1: Yes, what can someone physically do? And I'll try and
25:42
Speaker 1: chip in here because breathing. It's important to get on
25:47
Speaker 1: top of your breathing, isn't it.
25:50
Speaker 2: Yes, Yes, when you're having a panic attack, it is
25:53
Speaker 2: important to get on top of your breathing. And it's
25:57
Speaker 2: as simple as breathe in for four, hold for four,
26:02
Speaker 2: and breathe.
26:03
Speaker 3: Up for four.
26:05
Speaker 2: And if you remember the four four four rule, it
26:09
Speaker 2: will start to calm the vagus nerve in your body
26:13
Speaker 2: and just stopping and taking those deep breasts. We work
26:18
Speaker 2: with people on a technique that's called like a happy place,
26:25
Speaker 2: and that can be a real place or make belief place,
26:29
Speaker 2: and because it's your place and it's a place where
26:33
Speaker 2: people kind of go in their head to.
26:37
Speaker 3: Visualize that.
26:40
Speaker 2: To help calm down and to help regulate their breathing.
26:45
Speaker 2: Another great technique is called grounding, where you use your
26:48
Speaker 2: five senses. So if you're having high amounts of anxiety
26:54
Speaker 2: and you just can't focus, if you just start going
26:58
Speaker 2: through your senses. Name five things you can see, four
27:01
Speaker 2: things you can hear, three things that you can touch,
27:08
Speaker 2: two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste,
27:11
Speaker 2: and you can mix them up. There's no right or
27:13
Speaker 2: wrong on how to do them or if you're just
27:17
Speaker 2: so heightened in that moment, even if you're just getting
27:21
Speaker 2: the things that you can see, you will interrupt your
27:24
Speaker 2: brain synapses then because your brain can't focus on being
27:27
Speaker 2: anxious and also naming all the things in the room.
27:31
Speaker 1: Yes, I found what helped for me was I heard
27:34
Speaker 1: about this thing called mindfulness. It sounded a bit airy
27:39
Speaker 1: fairy to me at the time, even though I was
27:41
Speaker 1: actually working as a substance misuse specialist in a clinic
27:46
Speaker 1: at the time. And so I shouldn't have been so dismissive, really,
27:50
Speaker 1: because when I learned what it was and I started
27:53
Speaker 1: to use it, it was a very powerful tool. And I
27:57
Speaker 1: think with a lot of this stuff, it never does
28:01
Speaker 1: any harm if you adapt these therapies and strategies to
28:05
Speaker 1: what works for you. So what I would do when
28:08
Speaker 1: I drive to work in the car and I'll get
28:10
Speaker 1: a particularly sort of stressful environment to go into, and
28:14
Speaker 1: I'd just I would zone it all out. And for me,
28:17
Speaker 1: I was tuning into the universe. And as such, when
28:22
Speaker 1: you become universe, everything else drops away because that's not important.
28:26
Speaker 1: You know, the petty squabbles of life, and this person's
28:30
Speaker 1: going to say this and that person is going to
28:32
Speaker 1: do that and your money might come or you know,
28:36
Speaker 1: you you have to pay this or none of it's
28:41
Speaker 1: going to kill you, is it. You know, it's literally
28:43
Speaker 1: none of it is going to hurt you in any way.
28:45
Speaker 1: It's just all noise, it is. Yes, So I wouldn't
28:50
Speaker 1: obviously shut my eyes because I'd be driving, but I
28:53
Speaker 1: would be sort of And now I just turned that
28:56
Speaker 1: to sort of meditation by I could be sat in
28:58
Speaker 1: this chair and sometimes I just got to switch off
29:01
Speaker 1: and I just do that tourn and I shut off.
29:03
Speaker 1: I'm not thinking, yeah, you know, I the thought comes
29:05
Speaker 1: in my head, I just let it go and I
29:07
Speaker 1: just enjoy being still and nothing. And I developed that
29:14
Speaker 1: into you know, when you love yourself enough and you
29:17
Speaker 1: love your family, and there's thing what you've set up
29:20
Speaker 1: for yourself. Excuse my language, but fuck anything coming in
29:23
Speaker 1: and ruin that for you, whether that's the person, the situation,
29:28
Speaker 1: screw that, no you have you haven't earned the right
29:31
Speaker 1: to come in to my my kind of metaphysical space exactly.
29:38
Speaker 1: And it really I'm finding that that's got quite powerful
29:43
Speaker 1: for me.
29:44
Speaker 2: And sometimes it's giving people permission, like sometimes people need
29:48
Speaker 2: to hear it. So I'm really glad that kind of
29:50
Speaker 2: you brought it up and we're talking about it because
29:53
Speaker 2: it is okay. And if you make people mad, well
29:57
Speaker 2: then those people aren't really meant to be in your life.
30:00
Speaker 2: If those people walk away, those are not the people
30:03
Speaker 2: that care about you and that you want, so to
30:06
Speaker 2: speak in your own you know, bubble of space to
30:11
Speaker 2: mess that up, like you said, and people will show
30:15
Speaker 2: you who they really are, and it's okay to have
30:18
Speaker 2: the courage to do that. Like, you're not a bad person,
30:21
Speaker 2: You're not doing something wrong in those situations. You are
30:26
Speaker 2: just like you said, you're you're protecting your mindfulness and
30:30
Speaker 2: your peace.
30:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll just come in there and say friends at home,
30:34
Speaker 1: if you're considering severing ties with someone, and I strongly suggest, yeah,
30:39
Speaker 1: that's a good way for if someone doesn't respect you,
30:42
Speaker 1: they're not your friend. You know, a friend will maybe
30:46
Speaker 1: disagree with you, but that's fine. Yeah, they won't actually
30:50
Speaker 1: try and sort of tear you down for it. And
30:53
Speaker 1: all I was going to say is, if you are
30:54
Speaker 1: going to save a ties with someone, if you can
30:57
Speaker 1: do it as you kind of like, you know, you
30:59
Speaker 1: can do that thing on social media where you stay
31:01
Speaker 1: friends but you just don't see any of that shit.
31:04
Speaker 1: I would suggest doing that, folks, because otherwise when it
31:08
Speaker 1: comes to me in them, it can then just trigger
31:11
Speaker 1: off all your stress going off. Frick I unfriended this
31:14
Speaker 1: guy you know a year ago and we've known each other,
31:19
Speaker 1: you know you, I mean some of these people I've
31:21
Speaker 1: known thirty years. Yeah? Is that a good it is?
31:27
Speaker 2: It really is a good tip because sometimes it's just
31:30
Speaker 2: more not engaging. It's not so much in the words
31:34
Speaker 2: that you say, but like you said, the actions that
31:37
Speaker 2: you do for yourself. So if you are friends with
31:40
Speaker 2: them on social media or you know, just not responding
31:44
Speaker 2: as much or in you know, engaging with them as
31:48
Speaker 2: much or blocking it out, and then it doesn't bring
31:52
Speaker 2: up those massive triggers for you if you have to
31:55
Speaker 2: encounter them again and the confrontation that it might present, then.
31:59
Speaker 1: What would you say then, tanure to someone who's drinking
32:03
Speaker 1: too much? And lets be honest, anything more than a
32:06
Speaker 1: drinking night really or a couple of drinks a week
32:09
Speaker 1: is you know, I can have a devastating, highly damaging
32:13
Speaker 1: effect on your life, and different effects on you at
32:17
Speaker 1: different times in your life, and different effects on different people.
32:20
Speaker 1: Right so you get this. I found this a lot
32:24
Speaker 1: in my own coaching, is you'll get people that are
32:27
Speaker 1: drinking a lot, smoking weed every day and then complaining
32:32
Speaker 1: that they've got anxiety or they're getting depressed or this
32:36
Speaker 1: kind of thing. What would we be saying there?
32:40
Speaker 2: I would ask them what are they trying to forget? Like,
32:44
Speaker 2: when you're doing these substances and you're getting that temporary
32:47
Speaker 2: feeling of relief, what is the relief from What does
32:52
Speaker 2: that do for you in terms of providing that temporary relief,
32:57
Speaker 2: Like what is it that makes it temporarily go way?
33:00
Speaker 2: And I would also work with them and tell them
33:04
Speaker 2: that it is temporary. So the two three drinks that
33:09
Speaker 2: you have a night to forget the anxiety when you
33:12
Speaker 2: wake up in the morning, you're just going to continue
33:14
Speaker 2: to need more and more of it because it's still
33:17
Speaker 2: going to be there, like your body's like, hey, temporary
33:19
Speaker 2: coping skill. Here I am again. And so the more
33:24
Speaker 2: and more that you're going to need it and want it.
33:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. And also the come down of the mean
33:33
Speaker 1: of any drug, whether it's alcohol or whatever. You're you've
33:36
Speaker 1: totally destroyed your natural energy.
33:38
Speaker 3: Haven't you You have? Yeah?
33:40
Speaker 1: I mean you're poisoned is essentially yeah. Yeah, And I
33:47
Speaker 1: guess I mentioned this because I think most people would
33:49
Speaker 1: find if you knock the booze on the head and
33:52
Speaker 1: everything else, within three days, you're going to be being
33:55
Speaker 1: a different person, you know.
33:57
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, because it will reduce those feelings of anxiety
34:02
Speaker 2: and that those withdrawal symptoms. And if you start to
34:08
Speaker 2: put healthier coping skills in place, you will feel very
34:13
Speaker 2: very different.
34:14
Speaker 1: Exercise, you know, getting air in your lungs, moving your body.
34:20
Speaker 2: Hobbies, things that you enjoy. Some people, you know, enjoy bowling,
34:26
Speaker 2: some people enjoy golf. Some people enjoy uh, movies with friends,
34:33
Speaker 2: having dinner parties. Some people love pets. Pets are also
34:39
Speaker 2: a huge source of comfort in being able to, you know,
34:45
Speaker 2: have to sustain another living beings, life, exercising, running, moving, swimming. Uh,
34:56
Speaker 2: there's the gamut of different things. And I think it's
35:00
Speaker 2: finding what you truly enjoy that it shouldn't feel like
35:03
Speaker 2: something you have to do, but it's bringing you some
35:07
Speaker 2: kind of piece enjoy to your life.
35:09
Speaker 1: Yes, it's you time, isn't it? Or me time?
35:13
Speaker 3: Yes?
35:14
Speaker 1: Uh huh, it's special. I mean I love it. I
35:17
Speaker 1: find if when I get up in the morning. If
35:19
Speaker 1: at the very least, if I can't go for a run,
35:22
Speaker 1: or I can't go for a swim, or I can't
35:24
Speaker 1: go to the gym, and that's because you know, maybe
35:26
Speaker 1: I've got an appointment very early on in the day,
35:29
Speaker 1: I at least can walk around the block because I
35:32
Speaker 1: just need that time to love life and love myself.
35:35
Speaker 1: So that's a bit weird, doesn't it. But you know,
35:38
Speaker 1: it's just it's just great to get out and love
35:42
Speaker 1: life and just I like to walk around when no
35:44
Speaker 1: one else is up and listen to a podcast always
35:50
Speaker 1: trying to learn, always trying to learn something, and listen
35:52
Speaker 1: to a lot of scripture scriptural decodes because I find
35:56
Speaker 1: that I find that quite fascinating, especially as a lot
35:59
Speaker 1: of it relates to the body's endocrine system, which is
36:03
Speaker 1: ultimately what produces these chemicals that kind of make, you know,
36:08
Speaker 1: can keep us balanced. So yes, friends, there you go.
36:13
Speaker 1: So if you're out there and you're feeling a bit down,
36:16
Speaker 1: Tanya and I have come up with some really simple things.
36:19
Speaker 1: Always to always take action, because if you hide away,
36:24
Speaker 1: everything just way either stays the same or it can
36:27
Speaker 1: get worse. If you take action, you show life. You're
36:31
Speaker 1: the boss, don't you. You know you you have the power.
36:34
Speaker 1: Make your bed. There you go. Look, you've won the
36:36
Speaker 1: day already, You've shown yep. Yeah, and then take a shower. Shower. Yeah.
36:42
Speaker 1: It's funny, isn't it that our personal hygiene is the
36:45
Speaker 1: first thing to go when when we're not quite feeling well.
36:49
Speaker 1: And yet it's also to the other side of the corn.
36:52
Speaker 1: If you're not feeling well, go and have a shower
36:54
Speaker 1: and a haircut and a shave, brush your teeth. Bang,
36:57
Speaker 1: you feel a million million dollars? Yes, how come then
37:04
Speaker 1: this sort of stuff, like I say, it came to
37:06
Speaker 1: me late on in life and it kind of my
37:11
Speaker 1: you know, heavy drug use over the years undoubtedly brought
37:15
Speaker 1: brought it, brought it on. But what I feel for Tanya,
37:19
Speaker 1: and I know you've got experience in this is when
37:22
Speaker 1: you have it in children, Yes, anxious children. And what's
37:28
Speaker 1: the reasons behind that. I'm guessing possibly having an anxious
37:32
Speaker 1: parent is probably not helpful.
37:35
Speaker 2: Having an anxious parent, yes, or anxiety that runs in
37:38
Speaker 2: families definitely is not helpful. But we live in a
37:43
Speaker 2: very much so more fast paced world now where children
37:47
Speaker 2: have much more access to the media and YouTube and
37:56
Speaker 2: different games that they play through my Craft Roadblocks on
38:03
Speaker 2: the Xbox. Things tend to be very violent in nature
38:07
Speaker 2: now and the things that these kids are exposed to
38:12
Speaker 2: if you even look at the culture of you know,
38:15
Speaker 2: school shootings, even going to school isn't safe. When I
38:21
Speaker 2: went to school, and I'm not terribly old, we did
38:25
Speaker 2: tornado drills. We didn't do lockdown drills. But now we
38:30
Speaker 2: live in a society where lockdown drills are necessary. So
38:37
Speaker 2: kids are faced with so much more pressure, peer pressure,
38:42
Speaker 2: pressure to fit in, bombarded with different things in the
38:48
Speaker 2: media that they don't understand that we don't talk to
38:51
Speaker 2: them about often, and it can create a very fearful
38:56
Speaker 2: world for them to live in.
38:57
Speaker 1: Yes, and I think the psycho paths that think they're
39:01
Speaker 1: in charge of this world, they love all this stuff,
39:03
Speaker 1: you know, I think the one thing they love is
39:06
Speaker 1: a traumatized child because they know that they've got them
39:10
Speaker 1: for life. Then you know, they've got them on the alcohol,
39:14
Speaker 1: the drugs, the rubbish dyet, the believe in that everything
39:18
Speaker 1: they see on the on the news, you know, they've
39:22
Speaker 1: got the next load of people to send off to
39:25
Speaker 1: war to fight their you know, corrupt, corrupt battles, and
39:31
Speaker 1: and of course people that are broken tend to buy
39:34
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff, don't they don't? Yes, you know,
39:37
Speaker 1: yes in captain of society, what what do you do
39:41
Speaker 1: to try and fix everything? You buy more stuff, don't you? So, yes, folks,
39:46
Speaker 1: I'm flagging this all up because, again relating it to
39:50
Speaker 1: our country and our situation over here at the moment,
39:53
Speaker 1: there's there's so much that we can be doing before
39:57
Speaker 1: we even go out the front door to be addressing
40:01
Speaker 1: that the low vibrational energy state in which this nation
40:07
Speaker 1: finds finds itself. And I think one of the problems
40:10
Speaker 1: with trauma, Tanya is playing the victim, isn't it. You know,
40:15
Speaker 1: if other people would do this, and if those if
40:18
Speaker 1: the leaders would just do this, and if the military
40:21
Speaker 1: would just come to our rescue, and it's like, hang
40:23
Speaker 1: on a sec what are you doing to raise it?
40:28
Speaker 1: You know, to what are you doing to raise the energy?
40:31
Speaker 1: You sat there, you want all this change, and yet
40:34
Speaker 1: you're drinking a bottle of wine every night. You're you know,
40:38
Speaker 1: you're being vile to people over the internet, and you're
40:42
Speaker 1: watching rubbish on on on your TV. What what? What?
40:47
Speaker 1: What's going on here. How you know, how how's this
40:49
Speaker 1: supposed to work?
40:50
Speaker 2: So?
40:50
Speaker 1: Yes? So yes, So we outlined the factors that can
40:55
Speaker 1: make not a particularly pleasant childhood and one that lead
41:00
Speaker 1: to anxiety. How do you approach therapy them with children?
41:05
Speaker 2: Therapy with children is definitely very heavily rooted in cognitive
41:09
Speaker 2: behavioral therapy. So we work on self esteem skills, We
41:15
Speaker 2: work on those autonomic negative thoughts to rework them into
41:22
Speaker 2: positive thoughts and thinking. And it's very much so like adults,
41:26
Speaker 2: as we teach them to love themselves and to be
41:29
Speaker 2: their own person and that it's okay to stand up
41:33
Speaker 2: for themselves and not be afraid to do so. We
41:40
Speaker 2: teach them mindfulness. We do a lot of mindfulness teaching
41:44
Speaker 2: with children for relaxing their bodies and teaching them deep
41:50
Speaker 2: breathing and grounding so that when they are in these situations,
41:55
Speaker 2: whether it be at school, in the community, and their homes,
41:59
Speaker 2: they have a basis to be able to calm themselves down.
42:03
Speaker 1: Yes, And do you find is there a particular type
42:08
Speaker 1: of background that children who are suffering mental health conditions
42:13
Speaker 1: come from? Is it, you know, is it to do
42:15
Speaker 1: the parents or is it just the fact is that well.
42:19
Speaker 2: Mental health is often genetic, so it can come from
42:23
Speaker 2: your parents, your grandparents, anywhere in a family line of
42:28
Speaker 2: mental health issues. Now, how bad a mental health issue
42:32
Speaker 2: gets exacerbated is going to be environment the you know,
42:39
Speaker 2: the type of environment that they live in. That if
42:43
Speaker 2: there's a lot of chaos in the family, if there's
42:46
Speaker 2: any type of abuse going on for them, that will
42:51
Speaker 2: exacerbate a situation. So, while mental health does genetically get
42:56
Speaker 2: passed from parents a child, circumstances definitely will determine how
43:03
Speaker 2: bad their mental health will get.
43:06
Speaker 1: Yes, and are you does this kind of a you know,
43:09
Speaker 1: a therapeutic approach with children, does it have much much success?
43:13
Speaker 2: Yes, we do find a lot of success with cognitive
43:18
Speaker 2: behavioral therapy and children. We use trauma focused cognitive behavioral
43:23
Speaker 2: therapy with traumatized children, and we find once they you know,
43:28
Speaker 2: complete about six months of therapy, they're functioning a whole
43:33
Speaker 2: significant amount better than when they walked into the therapy room.
43:38
Speaker 1: Good, good, and tany're moving on to depression because that's
43:43
Speaker 1: another weird one. Again. I just use myself as example.
43:48
Speaker 1: I didn't know what I honestly didn't know what it
43:50
Speaker 1: was until well, I knew what drug related depression was,
43:56
Speaker 1: because that's cool to having to come down. And when
43:59
Speaker 1: you have a chronic substance misuse problem, then you have
44:03
Speaker 1: some chronic come downs. And we're talking week, well months,
44:07
Speaker 1: probably over a year. I was chronically depressed. I didn't
44:11
Speaker 1: know what depression was, though, because no one had that.
44:15
Speaker 1: Your mental health wasn't talked about when I was young,
44:17
Speaker 1: No one really knew what it was. And know if
44:20
Speaker 1: your mum was suffering some sort of you know, neurological problem,
44:24
Speaker 1: she went off to the doctor and she'd have some pills.
44:27
Speaker 1: You'd never see them, but you know, you later leon
44:32
Speaker 1: when you're an adult, that your mum was popping pills
44:35
Speaker 1: or all your life and this sort of thing. So
44:38
Speaker 1: I didn't. I just didn't know. I just used to know.
44:41
Speaker 1: I had an overwhelming lack of energy for anything, and
44:47
Speaker 1: the future just seemed so bleak, except when I could
44:52
Speaker 1: go out and score something, you know, and then it
44:55
Speaker 1: was the complete opposite. Then I was hyper and everything
44:59
Speaker 1: just seemed seemed great, well, temporarily great. But the point
45:03
Speaker 1: I'm getting to is I went away to school in Norway.
45:07
Speaker 1: This is where I trained to become a volunteer development
45:11
Speaker 1: instructor to go and work in Africa. And I was
45:14
Speaker 1: at this school in Norway for six months. It's kind
45:17
Speaker 1: of like you know, international community college. And it was
45:22
Speaker 1: in a mountain hotel on it was a ski lodge,
45:26
Speaker 1: an old ski lodge on top of the mountain, and
45:29
Speaker 1: it was great. There was seven seventy international students all
45:33
Speaker 1: running around from different countries around the world. We all
45:36
Speaker 1: got on great. There was no drugs, no alcohol policy there,
45:39
Speaker 1: so that you know that that was no issue. And
45:42
Speaker 1: we used to have tea and cake in the afternoon,
45:44
Speaker 1: which was just everyone looked forward to the team before
45:49
Speaker 1: I'd say that. And anyway I found, I found I
45:53
Speaker 1: was getting misunderstood or no, I found Sorry, someone said
45:58
Speaker 1: this to me in Hong Kong once. They said, Chris,
46:00
Speaker 1: no not, it's not you don't understand the people. It's
46:05
Speaker 1: that the people don't understand you, right, And this is
46:09
Speaker 1: what was happening at this this this community college tenure,
46:12
Speaker 1: is that I started to feel like isolated in myself
46:18
Speaker 1: and as a result, I just take myself away and
46:22
Speaker 1: I go and sleep in my room. And sorry, I'm
46:26
Speaker 1: not I'm making a bit of hash of explain it.
46:28
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just trying to explain for our friends
46:31
Speaker 1: at home that, for the first time in my life,
46:34
Speaker 1: put in the party scene to one side, I was
46:38
Speaker 1: experiencing depression. You know, I like, I like, I got it,
46:44
Speaker 1: and yeah, it's what what is depression? Then?
46:49
Speaker 2: Depression is like a profound sadness that just doesn't leave,
46:55
Speaker 2: or just a profound numbness that really does not leave you,
47:01
Speaker 2: so like, no matter what you do in terms of
47:05
Speaker 2: being with people, I've heard people describe it as I
47:09
Speaker 2: could be with a whole group of my friends and
47:12
Speaker 2: still feel completely alone. And you could be in a
47:18
Speaker 2: crowded room at school or you know, at a party
47:21
Speaker 2: and still feel just this profound sense of a loneliness
47:25
Speaker 2: and numbness or sadness. It can often then manifest into
47:32
Speaker 2: you know, sleeping too much because people don't like that
47:36
Speaker 2: feeling and not knowing how to make that feeling go away,
47:41
Speaker 2: and that is really kind of where depression comes from.
47:45
Speaker 2: It's also a chemical imbalance of your brain, so it
47:49
Speaker 2: can genetically be passed down as well.
47:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's when you said that. That's what I
47:55
Speaker 1: was thinking, that all these factors go together. To me,
48:00
Speaker 1: you're not in you're not in a good place, and
48:02
Speaker 1: as such, your brain isn't producing the right chemicals, whether
48:06
Speaker 1: that's serotonin or d MT or these these kind of things. Yeah, right, yeah,
48:13
Speaker 1: I get it. Yeah. How do you when people come
48:17
Speaker 1: to you with depression? Do you find that people actually
48:20
Speaker 1: come to you or did people come to you when
48:24
Speaker 1: they're coming out of it? No?
48:26
Speaker 2: I find that people come in the middle of it
48:29
Speaker 2: A lot of I find that, especially adults, will come
48:36
Speaker 2: and say, you know, I just have all this anxiety
48:38
Speaker 2: and all this depression and I just don't know what
48:41
Speaker 2: to do, or I just can't take it anymore. Not
48:45
Speaker 2: to the point where they're suicidal, but they're just it's
48:48
Speaker 2: now impacting their life in heavier ways, whether it's work
48:53
Speaker 2: or you know, their personal lives, you know, in friendships,
48:57
Speaker 2: in marriages and relationships, where it's just now kind of
49:02
Speaker 2: taking over.
49:03
Speaker 3: And that's really like.
49:04
Speaker 2: The peak of anxiety and depression is when it starts
49:08
Speaker 2: to take over so much that now you can notice
49:11
Speaker 2: that noticeable shift in your life where it's affecting everything
49:15
Speaker 2: that you do.
49:16
Speaker 3: So oftentimes that's.
49:18
Speaker 2: When people will seek out therapy or come into therapy.
49:22
Speaker 2: Most often they'll go to their primary care doctors first,
49:27
Speaker 2: and doctors will often recommend going to therapy to help.
49:31
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's sorry, just I'm getting sort of reminiscences
49:36
Speaker 1: of that feeling of disconnection with the world. And yeah,
49:42
Speaker 1: I feel quite lucky because having come sort of away
49:45
Speaker 1: from that, I find that if for whatever reason, I'm
49:48
Speaker 1: going back there a bit, I can deal with it
49:50
Speaker 1: much better now. I know. I know, it's just it's
49:53
Speaker 1: it's temporary. Go away, treat yourself, you know, sit on
49:57
Speaker 1: the count, what's your rubbish, you know, what's your film,
50:01
Speaker 1: and just you know, just don't kind of let it
50:05
Speaker 1: get under the skin, so to speak. But obviously, when
50:08
Speaker 1: people are experienced seeing it before any kind of therapy,
50:12
Speaker 1: whether that's like my case, I've always been my own
50:16
Speaker 1: sort of therapist, but all regular therapy, like you off
50:20
Speaker 1: for Tanya, the future must seem awfully bleak.
50:25
Speaker 2: It does, and until people kind of learn that they
50:28
Speaker 2: can come out of it in different ways to come
50:31
Speaker 2: out of it and what works for them, because one
50:33
Speaker 2: thing doesn't work for everybody, then they don't have that
50:39
Speaker 2: hope that it's ever going away. But as you said,
50:42
Speaker 2: now you're much more equipped to when it does come
50:46
Speaker 2: on to be able to handle that. So, whether it's
50:49
Speaker 2: PTSD or anxiety or any or type of depression, once
50:54
Speaker 2: people learn some adequate skills and learn what works for
50:58
Speaker 2: them and see that they can come out of it
51:01
Speaker 2: when they're retriggered or re experienced these feelings, they're much
51:05
Speaker 2: more able to kind of bring themselves out of it.
51:08
Speaker 1: And I guess with all these conditions, if I can
51:11
Speaker 1: call them that a lot of a lot of it
51:13
Speaker 1: is underpinned by your childhood makeup.
51:17
Speaker 2: It can be.
51:17
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I mean, if you've grown up, you've got
51:20
Speaker 1: a bit of a downer on yourself. Anyway, you wouldn't
51:23
Speaker 1: be surprising if you're more predisposed to be to get
51:26
Speaker 1: depressed in later life. Absolutely, you know, if you're used
51:29
Speaker 1: to kind of I don't know, maybe like running away
51:32
Speaker 1: from problems or self medicating or burying your head in
51:37
Speaker 1: the sand, that's that's kind of not that happy, get
51:40
Speaker 1: up and go kind of feeling that you need to
51:45
Speaker 1: kind of get out of a depression or something. Okay,
51:49
Speaker 1: So if I was to come to you or someone
51:51
Speaker 1: came to you and I'm just I'm empty, I feel void,
51:56
Speaker 1: I don't want to do anything. I'm in a job
51:58
Speaker 1: I hate it. You know, I can't feel any sort
52:02
Speaker 1: of love from a family, even though that they're there
52:05
Speaker 1: for me, and you know, all the sort of signs
52:07
Speaker 1: of depression. What how do you you know, how do
52:11
Speaker 1: you go about interacting with them? And what what what?
52:14
Speaker 1: What's what's your therapeutic approach?
52:17
Speaker 2: So the first step is kind of the intake process,
52:20
Speaker 2: which is kind of a deep dive into pretty much everything.
52:25
Speaker 2: So family history, your childhood experiences, you've been through. It's
52:30
Speaker 2: a lot of questions, you know, in the very first
52:33
Speaker 2: session that we meet, and then once you can gather
52:38
Speaker 2: all of that history and that full picture understanding, it's
52:43
Speaker 2: starting with you know, a lot of psycho education on
52:47
Speaker 2: understanding what a client understands about depression or anxiety or
52:55
Speaker 2: PTSD and helping them to understand it more of so
53:00
Speaker 2: we start to build up that feeling of Okay, I'm
53:03
Speaker 2: not broken. There's something intricately like going wrong with my
53:08
Speaker 2: thinking process right now in my brain, but there are
53:11
Speaker 2: ways that we can help. I use cognitive behavioral therapy
53:17
Speaker 2: and dialectical behavioral therapy. I also use different art techniques
53:23
Speaker 2: with kids, but I do them with adults too. If
53:27
Speaker 2: they happen to enjoy that type of medium. I'm also
53:32
Speaker 2: going to be in October starting to offer E M
53:36
Speaker 2: d R, which is I movement the rapid desensitization which
53:43
Speaker 2: helps with PTSD and anxiety and depression of helping to
53:48
Speaker 2: reverse those thoughts in the brain and rewire the brain,
53:52
Speaker 2: so to speak, into understanding that it's safe. So I
53:58
Speaker 2: kind of present all the options to everybody and I
54:01
Speaker 2: give them a you know, a lot of psycho education
54:04
Speaker 2: in the first couple of sessions, and I ask them
54:07
Speaker 2: what they'd be willing to, you know, try out with
54:09
Speaker 2: me and work on, and what is important to them
54:15
Speaker 2: to be able to work on, and where would they
54:18
Speaker 2: like to be so we can kind of make a
54:21
Speaker 2: tailored approach that is going to meet their needs, not
54:26
Speaker 2: anybody else's agenda. Definitely, therapy should never be a therapist's agenda.
54:32
Speaker 2: It should always be very client centered and person centered
54:36
Speaker 2: in what is the client looking for and how do
54:38
Speaker 2: we get there. So it may not be that one
54:42
Speaker 2: size fits all, which is why I tend to use
54:44
Speaker 2: several modalities. So if one is not appealing to a
54:48
Speaker 2: client or it doesn't work for a client, there's some
54:52
Speaker 2: other different ones to fall back on.
54:55
Speaker 1: It's a bit tough offering well, working with clients because
55:00
Speaker 1: you know, you must have experienced this. I've certainly experienced it.
55:04
Speaker 1: Many times. They'll rock up, they'll have one session with you,
55:07
Speaker 1: and then you never see them again, and it leaves
55:10
Speaker 1: you feeling a bit like oh God, and then I
55:15
Speaker 1: I'm obviously worldly wise enough to go no, it's probably
55:18
Speaker 1: where they are. They they you know, there's a lot
55:21
Speaker 1: of resistance to change there. And in a therapeutic relationship,
55:27
Speaker 1: it's you've you've got to come to the table willing
55:30
Speaker 1: to take a take a bit, you know, be told
55:34
Speaker 1: we look this. You know, if you come to therapy
55:37
Speaker 1: and your therapist or or in my case, your coach says,
55:41
Speaker 1: oh you're awesome, You're great. You find literally perfect the
55:45
Speaker 1: way is such a wonderful you know, your everything's then
55:49
Speaker 1: you haven't got anything to work on you or to
55:53
Speaker 1: learn or to get over. Have you experienced this that.
55:58
Speaker 2: Sort of thing was So I've had clients who, like
56:02
Speaker 2: you said, they'll come to one or two sessions and
56:04
Speaker 2: then they're just in the wind. And so that that
56:08
Speaker 2: feeling of I have to reframe it of Okay, they're
56:10
Speaker 2: not ready, they're not ready. To kind of change or
56:14
Speaker 2: or work on things or things that are just a
56:16
Speaker 2: little too scary right now that it really doesn't have
56:18
Speaker 2: anything to do with me. I also have had clients
56:23
Speaker 2: who come in and are just stuck in the nothing
56:28
Speaker 2: will work mentality or I've tried this, I've tried that,
56:32
Speaker 2: it doesn't work. So we're stuck in these stages of
56:35
Speaker 2: change where they're not ready to take that next step
56:39
Speaker 2: or maybe not open to hearing about it. So we
56:42
Speaker 2: have to work much more on rapport building to get
56:44
Speaker 2: them into Okay, how can we get you into the
56:48
Speaker 2: next stage of change where you actually want to work
56:52
Speaker 2: on yourself And that can take some weeks of therapy
56:57
Speaker 2: that they kind of attend and until the light bulb
57:00
Speaker 2: goes off. Sometimes it goes off for people, and sometimes
57:03
Speaker 2: it doesn't. And then you get those clients who come
57:06
Speaker 2: in and are just like gung ho and really willing
57:08
Speaker 2: to work and you know, are just all in. But
57:13
Speaker 2: I do have to say, no matter which form you're
57:15
Speaker 2: coming in, it's okay, Like it's okay to be where
57:20
Speaker 2: you're at in that moment.
57:22
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, And I'll just add to that and say
57:26
Speaker 1: it takes time, you know, change takes time. I mean,
57:32
Speaker 1: we've if you if you start coming to therapy or whatever,
57:35
Speaker 1: even at thirty years, oh, there's thirty years of really
57:39
Speaker 1: powerful condition you've had that's taking you that you know,
57:43
Speaker 1: slightly slightly the let's just call it down a challenging path,
57:47
Speaker 1: and it takes time to sort of bring it bring
57:49
Speaker 1: it around again. I know that because even as I
57:52
Speaker 1: sit here now, I'm I'm really making some good gains.
57:57
Speaker 1: You know, I just feel it. I just feel in
57:59
Speaker 1: myself life so much, everything just gets better and better.
58:03
Speaker 1: But I've stuck at it. You know, I've really had
58:06
Speaker 1: to look myself in the mirror and think, right, you know,
58:10
Speaker 1: this has got to go, that's got to go. That's
58:12
Speaker 1: not helping this reacting in this way. That just stop it,
58:17
Speaker 1: you know. And Yeah, I just say to anyone out there,
58:22
Speaker 1: be patient, be kind to yourself, just but commit absolutely. Yes, Tanya,
58:28
Speaker 1: we're going to put all your links below the video.
58:31
Speaker 2: Wonderful.
58:31
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for everything that you do.
58:34
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me and talking about these important topics.
58:37
Speaker 1: Yes, please give my best wishes to Virginia as in
58:43
Speaker 1: the state folks, not not talking of friends or something.
58:48
Speaker 1: As I said, Yes, I had a great time in Norfolk, Virginia,
58:52
Speaker 1: very long time ago now though it must have been
58:54
Speaker 1: nearly thirty five years ago, though it seems just like yesterday.
58:58
Speaker 2: Yeah.
58:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, we hopped in a higher car. It took us
59:03
Speaker 1: two and a half hours to drive out of the
59:05
Speaker 1: naval base. Oh wow, the naval base in the town
59:09
Speaker 1: I live in. You can drive through it in about
59:11
Speaker 1: three minutes. Everything's so much bigger in America, it is. Yes,
59:18
Speaker 1: it was incredible. And we drove up to Washington and
59:22
Speaker 1: saw the you know, all the memorials and the White House,
59:26
Speaker 1: and back then they used to have guys that were
59:30
Speaker 1: kind of protesting about the prisoners of war left behind
59:33
Speaker 1: in Vietnam. I don't think there was much truth in that.
59:38
Speaker 1: The Vietnamese are not that nasty. They would have kept
59:41
Speaker 1: prisoners for you know, another what would it what would
59:45
Speaker 1: it be? Would have been thirty thirty years. But yes, amazing, amazing, wonderful,
59:52
Speaker 1: wonderful people. The Americans.
59:55
Speaker 3: Thank you.
59:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're welcome, right, friends at home, Tanya, just stay
59:59
Speaker 1: on the line so we can thank you properly after
1:00:01
Speaker 1: I've just played this out. But we'll put all your
1:00:04
Speaker 1: links below. Folks, don't be backwards in coming forward. Remember,
1:00:08
Speaker 1: every time you take action, universe gives you back. And
1:00:11
Speaker 1: it might be you know, you could come to me
1:00:13
Speaker 1: for life, coach, and I think now, Chris, you're you
1:00:15
Speaker 1: know it's not for me at this moment in time,
1:00:18
Speaker 1: or you're not. That doesn't matter, the fact is you're
1:00:21
Speaker 1: gonna learn something from it that takes you to the
1:00:24
Speaker 1: next stage in your journey. So please like and subscribe, folks.
1:00:30
Speaker 1: Massive thank you to everyone that supports me on Locals, Patreon,
1:00:34
Speaker 1: or just becomes a YouTube member one ninety nine with
1:00:38
Speaker 1: lots of perks including free VIP tickets to my annual events.
1:00:44
Speaker 1: And one last thing, massive thank you to everyone that's
1:00:47
Speaker 1: chipped in a fiver for my upcoming Mount Everest Summit
1:00:52
Speaker 1: to shine a light for struggling veterans, but also to
1:00:56
Speaker 1: raise awareness of this all important link between childhood TRUA
1:01:00
Speaker 1: and the veterans mental health crisis that we're seeing. Much love, friends,
1:01:07
Speaker 1: thank you for listening to the Bought the t Shirt podcast.
1:01:10
Speaker 1: Please like, subscribe, and share, and don't forget to follow
1:01:15
Speaker 1: me on social media use the name Chris Throll, Instagram,
1:01:21
Speaker 1: Chris dot Throll. Thank you