Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 829: Healing Happens in Relationship with Claudia Goetzelmann

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Episode 829: Healing Happens in Relationship with Claudia Goetzelmann · The Trauma Therapist

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  Trauma Therapist Podcast. Plus listeners can listen to episodes early and ad free right
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  now. Become a Plus listener by going to Apple Podcasts searching for the Trauma
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  Therapist Podcast and signing up today or welcome back to the Trauma Theapist Podcast.
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  My name is Gamiferson. My mission is to help Trauma therapist be their incredible
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  selves, to be human, to be real, not just a clinician.
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  I'm a big believer in who we are is more important than what we know,
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  and this requires cultivating authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires
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  intention. Can learn more about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma
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  Therapist project dot com. That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get
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  started, okay. So five four, three, two and one, our
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  folks, welcome back to the very excited to have as my guests today,
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  Claudia gets them in Claudia Welcome, Thank you for having me. You're welcome.
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  So Claudia was called to become a compassionate inquy facilitator and offers an abiding,
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  safe presence, deep listening, and curiosity as gifts for others. Her
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  work is held in the containers and modalities of compassionate inquiry, ifs and focusing,
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  and of life, among others. She says that these are her strengths
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  when supporting healing because healing happens in relationship with one another and specifically with the
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  self and body. Claudia, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, you're
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  welcome. So before we get going, share with our listeners where you're from
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  originally and where you are currently. Actually originally Germany and I am Buch also
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  in Germany right now, I'm in Berlin. Okay, okay, so let
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  me I know we're going to talk about certain but I want to ask you
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  to start kind of the question I ask everyone to start. How did all
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  of this start for you? How did you get here? How did I
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  get here? Yeah? So eight years ago I went through a death,
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  my own death, my divorce, and I'm a very curious person. So
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  I next thing I knew, I became an end of life do LA because
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  I was so curious around the topic of death. And that's how it all
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  started. Okay, that's the summary, that's the cliff notes. So you
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  the divorce, Okay, So divorce end of life doula. One doesn't automatically
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  draw up a straight line to that. Well, I felt something was dying
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  in me through the life I believed in which was no longer, and I
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  really fell in myself into myself, I broke apart and this I got really
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  curious what was dying? And then there was no language around death. There
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  was you know, it's such a big tapoo. So I got because I'm
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  very curious, So I wanted to learn became an end of life doula.
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  And then I realized that I do not actually want to work at the end,
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  on the bedside, at the very end. But there is so much
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  wisdom which we can bring to this part of our life, right into the
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  middle. And if we could share that embody that live that, then we
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  you know, could shape our lives in there. And this is very interesting
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  and it's almost hard for me not to share that. I recently went through
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  a divorce too, and I can really relate to what you're saying. But
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  I'm curious, did this divorce? Were you surprised by this divorce? It
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  was it something that was mutual and you knew that this thing was dying or
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  was it suddenly thrust upon you? Hmm, good question. Maybe there was
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  a coming. Two words there was a pass, but maybe I didn't want
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  to necessarily face that, or I was hopeful that it wouldn't be terminal,
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  and then at the end it was, so that became you know, it's
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  divorced, a life shattering. We put so much energy into this, it's
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  something future right oriented, We're built together, and then it's gone. So
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  what happened for you? You you started getting really curious about finality, about
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  things that are dying. So what did you do? What do you mean?
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  What did I did you? Did you did you say to yourself?
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  Or right? I got to find out what the hell is going on here?
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  I need to find I need to learn more about things that are dying.
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  And so that got you interested in becoming a doula. What happened?
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  Yeah, I just really was curious around the process of death. And you
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  know, there's the big desth our, final desk. We're born to die,
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  but then we actually get to practice death all day every day. There's
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  so many deaths. I mean, COVID really showed us there was like suddenly
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  we couldn't go to the restaurants anymore, we couldn't meet our friends. So
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  many things we take for granted, and if we give ourselves what we can
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  practice dying, and we get comfortable, then it's not necessarily so difficult because
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  we already know that something comes to an end endings. It's actually, you
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  know, maybe we can call it ending because when we how are we with
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  endings? Many people cannot be with endings. I mean, you know my
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  practice when I work with people, when my client relationship ends, for instance,
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  how our clients often they say, how can I keep calling you?
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  Can I keep texting you? You know, because there's they can't really end.
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  So that also is like so interesting and fascinating. It says so much
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  about our our inner landscape. So how do you work with people in this
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  context? I mean, this is what you do? People come to you
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  in what capacity, in what state, and they say, Claudia, help
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  me. Kind of it varies from very much in despair. I have been
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  in a major anxiety depression for months on end. I have numbed myself.
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  I couldn't I have addiction, maybe even suicidal, or it's also couldn't be
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  Wow, my kids are now out of the house and I don't know what
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  to do. I am empty nester. I mean, it all depends and
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  so walk us through how you would work with someone with this topic of endings?
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  How does that come up? How does that come up? So each
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  session, I mean it is an intake form and in the indec form people
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  will share a little bit about themselves and then each session has an intension and
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  usually is it's anchored in a real life situation something. Let's say you have
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  an issue with your work collic and you feel really upset and maybe it's that
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  far that you need to you want to quit the job, but you can't.
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  So we find out what's holding you back? What is it, why
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  you're not believing? What is it you? You know? What comes up?
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  I mean it goes back as too often to the childhood two believes patterns.
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  Does this understanding or uh? I think courageousness, right, It takes
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  a certain amount of courage. I think to look at death certainly and endings?
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  What has that given you? You know, your your ability to do
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  that? Because when you first started this, were you like, no freaking
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  way, I don't want to look at I don't want to look at death.
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  You know, what was your what was your attitude towards it? Initially?
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  Wow? Good question? I think I really was curious because I wanted
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  to understand the process which was internally and externally happening, and I wanted to
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  orient myself. I want needed to ground within that knowledge. I needed to
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  understand what it means to let go because every ending is also a new beginning,
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  So in order to newly begin, I needed to make peace with this
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  ending. For a lot of us, and me specifically, sometimes that's a
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  hard pill to swallow. You know, every ending is a new beginning,
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  because when you're in the ending and someone says, you know, you know,
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  when I start when I let people know that I had experienced a divorce,
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  because for me, it was like out of the blue. I didn't
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  expect it, and a lot of people in wanting to help me, they
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  said, well, you know, I know it's tough, but it you
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  know, it'll be the best thing that's happened to you. I didn't want
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  to hear that. I'm not ready to hear that in that moment. You
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  know, No, I mean, you're also grieving. That's the thing you
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  wanted to be acknowledged. You wanted to be just actually held in your pain,
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  witness and that what was going on with you. That's exactly right.
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  But isn't that also what we do when we accompany somebody when the person is
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  dying. We're holding them, We're being a secred witness. We're actually celebrating
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  their life. We're walking next to them, We're ritualizing that space of this
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  shift from form to formless or in a divorce, you know, suddenly this
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  new space is opening up, a dream is collapsing. So we're also bring
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  witness too, and by making it sacred, this ending can you know,
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  can take on a new form. How did this change your work? So?
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  Prior to this interest or an exploration in endings, were you working with
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  clients in a different capacity? Yeah? Before? Yeah, well I so
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  before I started this new past, I was a photographer, and as a
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  photographer, I always needed to make connection with people because I want to take
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  a picture, let's say, of you. I need to form a connection
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  very quickly. So we had to build a trusting relationship or a trusting exchange.
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  So I love people. Maybe that's how I just was how but this
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  gift was always present, it just shifted in something much much deeper. And
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  so after the divorce, then you started working with with with clients in a
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  sense as a as a therapist. No, I mean no, I still
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  did photography for a while, but then I went and did all these studies
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  in the background until now I'm only doing client work. Okay, So my
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  question is how did this interest in endings shift your relationships with people? When
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  you work with people? What changed? What shifted for you mm hm in
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  your work present? To be more present, yeah, to be more present,
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  to being actually give people more presence, to really lean into the ordinary
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  moments, to really listen to people what they share to Yeah, because everything
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  is ending, everything is just here right now and then it's gone. What
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  do you feel that what do you feel that does for your for your clients?
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  Give me give me an example. I want to I want to you
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  to give me an example. If you can get specific about what that looks
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  like, I think it informed. Also safety, for me, safety is
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  like the most one of the most sacred things, aside from presence. If
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  you feel safe with me, because as I am your witness, you're I'm
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  witnessing you without judgment. I'm just here. Even if we sit in silent,
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  you're able that whatever is present in you can come up and you can
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  start processing because there's no judgment. There is just this spaciousness, and we
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  need to often, we need to be witnessed, even if we sit in
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  silence. Yeah, that's so true. It's funny you said that because I
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  was thinking this morning that I wanted to, or need it, to talk
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  to one of my friends who doesn't judge me. You know, you can
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  tell them anything, and that's such a powerful thing to have. You know,
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  you can just say whatever whatever to that person. They're not going to
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  judge you. They're just gonna here. That's no fixing, right, no
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  fixing, no no fixing, no suggestion. You don't have to do anything,
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  you'd just be you was Was that always your orientation? Mhmm, it
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  was. Yeah. I think I needed to do that with photography as well.
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  Maybe with photography there's are more little bit more directions, you know,
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  I need had I had an agenda, I guess I needed to take a
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  photo of the person or whatever the situation was. But now I couldn't let
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  go of that. And to me, that's the most humbling process in all
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  of this work. When somebody comes to me and maybe shares for the first
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  time ever something which they have been carrying around their entire life, and that
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  in itself is so healing. No. On this podcast, we often talk
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  about how difficult and challenging that can be, you know, because I love
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  what you're saying, and a lot of people listening I think do as well.
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  But it's not always easy for people to do just to sit and to
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  create that safety. You know, we talk about safety, we talk about
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  vulnerability and presence and all these buzzwords, but these elements, these modes of
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  being, they can be very challenging for a lot of us to cultivate.
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  Yeah, especially I mean in our society where we're constantly doing, we're not
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  being, where we're afraid of our stillness because of the voices coming up,
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  because we're strangers to our emotions. Yeah, so when I start working with
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  somebody, I do ask how it is when we connect to the body,
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  And even that in itself is a very difficult thing. Often to connect to
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  the body is not a safe space. So we can orient, I do
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  a crounding short grounding, and we can orient in the room just holding on
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  to something. You know. It's this from the bottom up approach that maybe
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  we just notice our feet. We noticed the toes touching the ground, and
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  that could just be a little bit. What helps to establish that for a
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  safety in the bio I read you know there was there's a mention of I
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  f S and other different modalities. How do you incorporate those? I mean,
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  there's so many different modalities out there, right, what what do you
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  what do you find important? What speaks to you? And how how do
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  they speak to you? For instance, I F S talk to us a
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  little bout how you integrate that? Mm hmm. So when I work with
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  people which maybe go tend to go into the head because they need to justify
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  the thoughts or there's logic thinking like the reckoning, if I you know,
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  do the justification. A lot of us live in our heads, right,
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  we don't live in our bodies. We live in our heads. So often
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  that is a good approach to bring parts work in mm hmmm, because what
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  would that look like? For example, give us an example with the client,
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  Well, maybe there, maybe I asked the person to go into the
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  body and then bush our part comes in a numbing part and next thing,
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  we know the logic, all the reckoning, all the thoughts, all the
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  words are happening up here. So then I could say, well, what's
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  happening and we slowly access what's happening in the mind. And usually then there's
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  a voice where where usually we are very familiar with the critic and the protector.
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  Just to start with yeah, and and that's a good way to sort
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  of start breaking down this internal family. We're caring and befriending and getting to
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  know why there is a voice. We often live with these voices our entire
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  life, and we've never actually made contact. Even so, these voices talk
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  to us every day twenty four to seven. And just to be clear,
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  you're talking about the kind of normal chatter, normal voices we kind of all
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  experience. We're not talking about, you know, the associative identity disorder and
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  so forth. No, I mean necessarily, Well, that's that would be
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  a very complex example to give you. I want to keep you very simple,
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  but I mean it starts with the with the inner critic. What's the
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  function of the inner critic. It's we're all familiar with the inner critic,
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  but we don't usually have a relationship. Usually we hate this part when it
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  comes up. But if we get to know this part, this part might
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  be our survival mechanism, our coping mechanism, which save that little person way
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  back when, and now it's this huge roadblock right now and it inhibits us
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  to live authentically. But we need to get in touch with it. I
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  mean, if we're curious, we want to, we choose to. But
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  then it's sort of we get to know it. We can have a conversation.
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  Maybe it becomes more silent, maybe it wants a different job. Maybe
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  I mean so many options, right what could happen? And then through that
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  we become more hole again. So Claudia, you have an obvious passion for
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  this. I mean, this is this work. What we're talking about here
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  is obviously you. You can feel it and what keeps you going in this?
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  You know what what excites you about this work? I find it enormously
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  humbling when somebody comes and trusts me that much and shares something, as I
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  said earlier, never shared before, and through that can leave after the session
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  and feel lighter and more connected to self. I think that's that's It's very
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  simple, but it really nourishes me. I find it very beautiful because we're
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  we live in a world, we're so disconnected where we don't really give presence
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  to another and sometimes I feel this is the first time that somebody really listened
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  to that person I'm working with, so really, for the first time have
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  eyes and ears and be like, wow, I see you and that's so
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  touching. You know, there are obviously a lot of therapists of all different
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  kinds listening to the survivors. What would you say to someone who wants maybe
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  wants to develop this presence that you're talking about, this being this that you're
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  talking about a lot of self work, because I also truly believe I can
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  only meet my clients as much as I can meet myself. So I need
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  to understand who am I when whoever shares something with me? Am I triggered?
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  Am I going into story? Am I losing that person? Or am
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  I really still present? Can I internally take three short breaths and come back
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  to you? I think that's you know, that's the thing. We really
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  need to know who we are. And that's endless work. I mean,
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  it's continuing, it's not done, it's always again, fresh and fresh and
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  fresh. You get to get curious around ourselves, all right, Claudia,
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  Look, I feel like I can talk to you forever. How do people
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  get in contact with you? Yeah? Instagram? Okay, my handle permission
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  underscore to bloom and my website also permission to blome dot org. Okay,
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  and we'll have that linked up here the show notes page at the Trauma Taps
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  podcast dot com. Claudia, Look, you are welcome back anytime. I'd
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  love to bring you back on the podcast. You just have this amazing presence
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  and energy and I love it. Thank you, seriously, thank you so
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  much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. All right,
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  take care, hye a people desire I keep day at day often keep rounding