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Feel to Heal · Outside Issues

• 0:00
  Speaker A: I'm not politically articulate, but we do have a 20 year old Pug named Betty and she's blind and deaf, so she can no longer find the doggie door. So if we leave her for any amount of time when we come home, she will be wedged in between the stove and a kitchen cabinet, covered in her own fecal matter, crying.
• 0:20
  Speaker B: Oh, That's it. That's where I'm at.
• 0:28
  Speaker C: Hopeless,
• 0:32
  Speaker A: looking for leadership. And I wouldn't turn down a biscuit.
• 1:01
  Speaker C: Welcome to Outside Issues with Audrey and Patrick. Loving all your emotions. That's very. The concept of that is very interesting. I'm going through a breakup right now and I've been driving a lot. Thank you. I've been driving a lot. I'll go through the color wheel of like emotions as I'm driving because I have time to think and I think, yeah, one thing that's different for me at age 40 than it was at like age 20 is that like my relationship to pain and sadness, anger. I thought those needed to be stamped out. You know, I thought that those were negative emotions and they were harming me and actually driving me towards some place that I shouldn't be that wasn't natural to be. I don't know where I got these ideas, by the way, somewhere when I was little. But um, but anyway, my relationship to now, to them now, I guess I'm not going to say I love them though. Maybe that's like the next frontier for me. Who knows, right? I need, maybe I need some dbt. But like, but it's like I'm more of an observer of the emotion and kind of seeing it all as like integral to the life project. You know, what meaningful place I'm trying to move in my life. It's going to need a splash of anger, a splash of sadness. And you know, and I know, I know now that like, if I'm trying to stamp those feelings out, there's something inauthentic about that and there's something kind of self erasing about that that is ultimately harmful. More harmful than if I just let myself feel.
• 2:39
  Speaker A: You have to let. You have to feel the heal, you
• 2:41
  Speaker C: have to feel the rhyme.
• 2:43
  Speaker A: My therapist said that. A lot of things I get from
• 2:46
  Speaker B: my therapist, I never even thought of that rhyme. And I do. I say that all the time. Sit in your feelings. Sit in your feelings. You have to sit in your feelings.
• 2:53
  Speaker A: And that's the part about it. Because if we stop and stop and press down in our emotions, it is shown time and time again. It will Come back up at a less opportune time, and that happens. There are skills. What are the distress tolerance skills? If the motion does come up and you need to kind of say, hey, this is maybe not the best time to deal with this motion or handle this motion. Like Audrey said, like, my cat got sick and I had to go to the ER at work. I'm sure you had to be like, okay, maybe I can't focus on my cat right now, even though I have to deal with clients, like using those skills to kind of like, help us. Hey, maybe this isn't the right and best time maybe to feel this emotion. I can honor this at a later time.
• 3:32
  Speaker C: You guys are co workers?
• 3:34
  Speaker A: Yes. Don't mind me, like, moving and situating myself. I'm just kind of like, I'm cat sitting right now, so you may see some kitties come into action. The names are Biggie and Smalls.
• 3:42
  Speaker C: Really?
• 3:43
  Speaker A: Yep.
• 3:44
  Speaker C: You know, I had a girlfriend during COVID around that time, and we had a bunch of cats and I. I felt I got like, you know, inducted into the. The cat kingdom because I was raised. I, you know, I was more of a dog person growing up. Yeah. Yeah. But like, something about when you get a cat's trust really feels like next level. Because dogs are much more forthcoming. What I've found with their affections stuff.
• 4:11
  Speaker A: Thousand percent. No, dogs are. I love dogs, but cats definitely have like. Like you said, just cats have like their special place being just like. They're just very particular. Just like how you said, when you get the cat's trust, it's just. Oh, it's that sweet moment. So, yeah, my name is Ren. I've been. I'm almost coming up as like my year being a therapist. First year out of grad school too, so that's kind of like been a bit wild too. My background is in psychology and criminal justice, like with forensic psychology. So I was going to go down the whole route of profiling and everything. I was doing all those classes, like profiling, like psychopath, psychopathology, all those things. And I was just kind of getting numb to it. And I was remembering, oh, oh. We'd be talking about like all these things in our classes, like rape, murder. Ten in the morning, I'd be like,
• 5:00
  Speaker C: huh, Were you into those murder shows? Do you watch like, SVU and csi?
• 5:07
  Speaker A: It definitely got ruined for me a bit afterwards for like, especially csi. Cause I took forensic science and like, it's just so ruined after that. Cuz like csi, the CSI effect is so real. Cause they're like, oh, this will get done in like less than 24 hours. Oh, this evidence is infallible. And it's like, you're lucky it gets done in a week and you're lucky that people.
• 5:28
  Speaker C: But is that what brought. Is that what brought you to the field? Was it like the. Those narrative versions of the work?
• 5:35
  Speaker A: That was kind of what brought me into profiling in that whole forensic psychology world. And that's just kind of where I was kind of like got numb to that aspect. And I always was really interested in psychology and I always had like this fascination with mental health and I had my own mental health struggles. So I was really kind of like wanting to be in there. Discovered social work kind of, because for me, criminal justice takes the person, the environment, and psychology looks at the individual and like the environment just as the individual me. Social work takes both those and combines both those. So I found that to be a really great outlet as well as learning about not just like the micro one on one, but especially meeting you and like you and Audrey, how you're more macro levels. Like, I love that because, like, I'm a very different. I'm like that micro level thinker and I love how social work is so broad into that field that like, it has room for this. People can go work in hospitals, you can do all sorts of different types of things. So I think that's kind of really what drew me also into staying in this part of the field is the aspect of also advocating for clients doing what's in their best interest. Our field of eth, our code of ethics, like, that's kind of what kept me in this field and especially like, as a clinician, like Audrey, like having those moments. Well, I don't wanna speak for you, but I'm sure it's like having those moments when you happen with your clients, like that, aha, like good click moment that like, keeps you in the field and keeps you wanting to keep going and learning new things. Like, I know you and I are going to geek out about DBT today, which I'm so excited about.
• 7:06
  Speaker C: I can, I can feel your passion for what you do.
• 7:09
  Speaker A: Thank you. I appreciate that. I can feel it both from you too. And like, I just, I love both of how like, you're journeying through that too. Like a buddy from my coworker, he's been sober, I think four or five years now. He and his wife are now having their kid and like, they're down in Texas and living their best life. And he's just like, I loved his reason for, like, why he wants to be in this field and why he's in it. He's like, addiction's a bitch. And he's like, yeah, that's why I'm here.
• 7:34
  Speaker C: Yeah. So you mentioned your own mental health struggles. So addiction was not encompassed by that. Or like, you didn't have struggles with addiction necessarily?
• 7:43
  Speaker A: Not so much. Mine was more anxiety, not depression is so much suicidality. Like, I have tried killing myself before. Incomplete attempt. Had some suicide ideations, definitely some, like, ruminations. I was like, definitely. So, like, one thing also important for me to, like, one of my clients and other people mentioned me. Like, they were like, oh, my gosh, these intrusive thoughts. I can never talk about it because it seems like our society also shames us for having such thought as any type of negative bad thoughts and having that. In that sense that I would have ruminations about or intrusive thoughts about hurting or killing people close to me, or like my hurting and killing family members. So then I would have like an obsessive thought kind of with the OCD part of it, which was the obsessive thought. And I would have to follow a compulsion. So I would cut or do another form of self punishment. So that was a part of, like, when my anxiety was very heightened and I would have these thoughts that would come in my head, my intrusive thoughts, which was like just random thoughts, which we all have.
• 8:44
  Speaker C: During that period of your life, like, how did you regulate, like, what was. Like, what did you turn to? What. What did anything help or like, you know, what's been your journey with kind of medicating that condition?
• 8:55
  Speaker A: I was cutting so that for me, which I've never smoked cigarettes, but I've heard akin to it is it gives you this cutting, gives you this immediate release. So you feel good immediately in the first moment when you do it. Because what happens is when you cut, you release a bunch of endorphins are coming out. Because when your body's like, oh, shit, we gotta stop and like, cauterize the blood. We gotta, like, it sends a bunch of hormones. So when you do cut, it relieves this kind of like almost endorphin kind of feeling. So it feels really good in the short term and not necessarily long term. So like, I used to cut up my stomach, so then when I would put jeans on later on, they would hurt. So that was kind of like a longer term, not great effect for that. So in that kind of sense, that was sort of like my short term, more dangerous kind of self Destruct coping skill. Later on when I kind of learned more coping skills, a lot of it was anxiety learning, like anxiety based, like coping skills of deep breathing, using some of the tip exercises, using the intermediate exercises, doing deep breathing, pace breathing, I didn't learn back then, but I kind of wish I learned opposite action, you know, learning these kind of skills as well as. That's why I really love about dbt. I totally drink the Kool Aid and that's why, like, I'll just keep harping back to it, but I love about it is it has all these skills that everyone can learn. We just don't know them necessarily. Mainly it was cutting. I don't think I ever burned. No, but, no, it was mainly cutting and then kind of developing some of those longer good coping habits, which took time and, you know, building skills which kind of wish I knew my own little DBT skills back then, but that kind of really helped me get me into this field. Not get me in the field, but keep me in to understand. Like, people have experienced this. People have experience dark shit in their life. And we all need someone sometimes. And we all need, like, to learn skills and understand that this is not something that makes us not normal. Like, we're all. We're all human. We're all going to have different parts of our journey in our life. It's not going to be one straight path.
• 10:54
  Speaker C: So when did you come to that understanding? Or was that. When was that shift? You know? Because while. While you were doing that, while that was happening, I'm sure your attitude towards a lot was a lot different, right?
• 11:05
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, completely. I was, you know, a little pissy teenager.
• 11:09
  Speaker C: So, you know, I was so pissy. I was so pissy.
• 11:12
  Speaker A: I was so pissy. I'm like, what the heck? Everything's about me, you know, I was straight edge.
• 11:18
  Speaker B: I. No alcohol for me, no drugs for me. Second, I got into college, boom, whiskey. And then it was gone from there.
• 11:27
  Speaker C: So once you found out how good it was, you, you were just like, all right, we're off. Yeah.
• 11:31
  Speaker B: Or off to the racist. Yeah, that was my coping skill, was drugs and alcohol. And I don't want to speak for you, Patrick, but I do. And so was yours.
• 11:41
  Speaker C: Yeah, big time. I was just very awkward, sexually frustrated, alienated ball of nerves at, like, age 16, 17. And as soon as I started doing drugs, I was able to neutralize all that. And so that I figured, oh, this is my plan, you know, or this is gonna be, you know, my way of life, because I. I can throttle my Emotions that I don't know how to deal with that are just so powerful and. Yeah. And so that took me for a while. It worked until it didn't. I hit a bottom and I had to do some things to readjust. But, Bren, you'd said something that jumped out at me about realizing that it wasn't all about you. Something larger than yourself it could unburden you from.
• 12:26
  Speaker A: Oh, yeah, exactly. And I did also lean into, like, drugs and alcohol a bit. When I was going through that. For me, it just, like, I didn't found it to be as creative as a release as I would have. Like, as I heard some people when I was in college, I'd be like, oh, my God, I needed it. This would help so much. And I would, like, hit a massive bomb with them or something. Or hit, you know, and I'd be
• 12:45
  Speaker B: like, ren, could you tell us a little bit. I know, obviously, tell us a little bit about what your focus is on in therapy and how you work as a therapist with the. And what db.
• 12:58
  Speaker A: Yeah, Dialectic is kind of taking that two things can be true at the same time. So a lot of therapies have, like, acceptance and change part of it. The really great thing about this therapy is it takes both those and puts them together. So the four of them that are like mindfulness, stress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal practice, the acceptance skills are using, like, the mindfulness and distress tolerance, kind of like accepting what our reality is, kind of accepting where we are. And the change skills are going to be emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness and personal effectiveness is kind of looking at, hey, like, how do we want to be in relationships? As well as make sure we don't lose ourselves in relationships. The stress tolerance is, you know, when we're really at a heightened level, we need to get right back down really quickly. So we're having a crisis situation, we need to get right back down. Mindfulness is kind of really looking at kind of where we're at in accepting this moment, where we're at using kind of the what, how, and using wise mind. So a big part of, like, mindfulness is using wise mind, which is emotion mind and reasonable minds. Combining both those and seeing the value in both these ideas, using the what skills kind of help us to stop and describe where our moment is and help us slow down from where we're at. So it's like observing the moment and kind of just making sure we can stop, observe, and describe. Biggest part of this, which is hard for some of the people, is like, we can't read each other's minds. I can't describe what you're thinking and feeling because I can't use any of my senses for it. So, like, you may be annoyed and like roll your eyes at me, but I can't tell that's you just being annoyed because I'm not in your body. I can't like smell it on you or something.
• 14:30
  Speaker C: I always tell myself that when I'm worried somebody is annoyed with me.
• 14:33
  Speaker A: Our anxiety only gives us the worst case scenario. And I do the same thing all the time. And one thing is like, okay, if we can only if we're going to just focus on the worst case scenario, we need to focus on the best possible case scenario. Let's say we're really worried we're going to go into work. We're really worried we're going to get fired after being on for a long time.
• 14:50
  Speaker B: Right.
• 14:50
  Speaker C: That's anxiety. Right? Speaking. That's what anxiety is really. It's, it's a kind of catastrophizing.
• 14:55
  Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And anxiety is trying to help you, which is the beautiful part about like dbt, again, I'm always going to just keep going back to it. Emotion regulation is we have to learn to love our emotions.
• 15:07
  Speaker B: And dbt. I love dbt, not only because it has so many acronyms, but I love the acronyms. I like the acronyms too. It's, it really does ground you. And especially that mindfulness part that you're talking about. Like, especially when you're talking about non judge, non judgmentalness.
• 15:28
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 15:28
  Speaker C: How do you treat somebody with, I mean, using dbt? Like, well, what you see, you've described kind of like what it is, the frame, the framework of it intellectually. But like, how then do you, how then do you give that to other people?
• 15:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, totally. So I have a couple people that I use specifically a lot of skills with. So one lady who I, who actually kind of made me start going down this train work made me kind of help me. My own therapist was like, hey, do some DBT with this person. Like, it's going to be great. You need to help do this. Because I was like, how do I best support this client? Because I was like, I, I, I feel like this is my wheelhouse. And she's like, get a DDT training, keep the DBT manual, go through this and just do these skills with her week by week. So I was doing that and doing these skills and I started taking this class and I learned. So the really big core component with those start in kind of hard. You don't always have to start with it. But most of the time they're going to be like, you need to do mindfulness. You have to learn mindfulness skills because those skills are going to tie into the other ones. So I did mindfulness with a couple of my clients. Now after that I kind of have been moving differently around. So one of them and one of my clients we, after we did mindfulness, we are starting on distress tolerance skills because they are kind of going through their own trauma and their own PTSD trauma as well. So we are learning these kind of skills before we go on and start kind of a little bit more processing and processing so we can have these fundamental skills to lay back on. So right now we just learned to do tip the other day, which I need to send them videos about. Good reminder for myself, another client and I she Right, right, good. Another client and I were doing interpersonal effective skills because they find they need to really be kind of working on how they communicate with members as well as people that they volunteer and work with because it's really important to them that they have a good relationship with these people and that they don't get their feelings trampled over all the time. So then we'll say, hey, this is the skill we'll work on for this week. How can we use this in our day to day life? How can we use this in this example? Let's roleplay, let's do it again. And a really great one to do that with is Dear Man Interpersonal effective skills. Your man is focusing and asking for what you're getting. The deer is like describing the situation. E express your feelings. A is assert yourself, R is reinforce the person and M is mindful. Like mindful focus on your goals. A appear confident and end negotiate, give to get. So like even the dear man part you have to learning the mindfulness skills are extremely helpful because the dear part, that's the what? That's what we're asking for. And the man part is how we're asking for it. So using those skills we can ask and kind of get more we want rather than just kind of assuming or maybe how we ask for things in our day to day life hasn't gone well in the past. Clients and I will go through this. I will play oh yeah, the first time you ask me how to do something I'll say yes. Then the second time I'll say no. That's when we have to go back and use that skill. Renegotiate. We have to keep going back and like, you know, how can we find the way to be make sure that both parties are draining the. What they want out of this? So that's what those kind of interpersonal effective skills work on, as well as making sure the person is not losing, like, you know, giving into the. Or losing themself in that. Giving in and not doing something that they found they're crossing against their own boundaries. So I find that to be really helpful. And that's kind of those skills I'm using with a couple different. My clients. If the client's coming in to me describing, oh, like, this is going on with like parent clients I have who have little kiddos who never get time for themselves. I said, we work in the police skill with emotion regulation. Pleases treat physical illness, see a doctor, take meds. That's P and the L and then E is eating, like balanced eating.
• 19:19
  Speaker C: So this, this is an acronym that's just for parents.
• 19:22
  Speaker A: Not just for parents, for anyone.
• 19:24
  Speaker C: Okay.
• 19:24
  Speaker A: I just use it specifically because this skill itself, There's a letter in here specifically. This client and I will work on together because there's the ABCs, there's. There's a lot of acronyms.
• 19:35
  Speaker B: There's a lot of acronym.
• 19:36
  Speaker A: So many. And please is one of them using those things though, the police, like, especially people who may be a little bit more health conscious being like, oh, my goodness, I'm having this pain that's going on here. Let's go through our skills. What's going on physically for us? Are we feeling a different pain? Maybe somewhere we haven't felt before? Okay, what about have we ate? Have we slept? Have we taken any drugs? Have we, like, exercised? These things can also help to change our moods. So the skill I meant actually to do was improve, which is a distress tolerance skill, which I meant to talk about imagery, meaning prayer, relaxing. One thing at a time. V is vacation and E is encouragement. My client and I are working on that V part, that vacation, which doesn't mean as much as we would love to all go to the Bahamas for a week. Not realistic.
• 20:21
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. It's more about like, how can we. How can you make like a micro vacation?
• 20:26
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 20:26
  Speaker C: You know, and without having to disrupt a bunch of scheduling stuff that might be impractical. Staycation.
• 20:31
  Speaker A: Yeah, for them and I, we've been kind of like, hey, what's five minutes that you can go to the guest bedroom, pull the covers over your eyes and just have five minutes where you don't have to be on, like. And that working that in is A mini vacation as that vacation in that Peru skill. So, like, I love it.
• 20:47
  Speaker C: Yeah.
• 20:48
  Speaker A: Right. We need that time.
• 20:50
  Speaker C: Well, I love it because it's a way out. Like, I mean, and, you know, out. Because I. So parents are slammed, obviously, but it's also the work. Like, you know, and parents who work, but just workers in general. You know, wages aren't catching up to the cost of living, and so there's just less and less time to attend to mental health needs and things like that. So. Yeah. So if you can kind of find some way of. Of getting relief to people or creating a little window, It's a huge thing.
• 21:20
  Speaker B: What I really like about DBT is it taught me that when I'm having a panic attack, I just stick my head in a bucket of ice. Yep.
• 21:27
  Speaker A: The diverse effects. So when you immediately put your head underwater, your head's gonna be like, oh, shit, we need to not freeze.
• 21:33
  Speaker B: I think it's getting more well known. Like, I think DBT in general is becoming more exposed and more Gaining more attention, especially with wonderful clinicians like Ren and you. Thank you. I just winged. But same. I've had several panic attacks where I just, you know, I either go under a cold, cold shower or really hot shower just to, like, change the temperature. Right. And like, it. It shocks your nervous system.
• 22:02
  Speaker A: Oh, it's.
• 22:02
  Speaker B: Personally, I was in a DBT group about 12 years ago when I was still in my addiction. I was misdiagnosed with borderline personality disorder. And if it ended up just being. Because I had all of this impulsive behavior and a lot of drug using, a lot of drug use, a lot of alcohol use, and I ended up being diagnosed bipolar about, like, 12 years later. But I went to a DBT group. And DBT, which I love, is. It's tailored specifically also to people who have borderline personality disorder, which is a very severe mental. Mental health disorder that is really painful for a lot of people. And I was experiencing that pain, obviously, because I was using drugs and alcohol to numb myself. And so I went to this DBT group. It was in person. This was like, what, 2013, 2014. So definitely before COVID and all this telehealth stuff, I went into this DBT group. There was about 10 of us. We did mindfulness in the beginning, and we did a little sound bath kind of thing to really get us in the moment. And we had little diary cards, and I think Ren could probably speak on diary cards for every day. We had little. We had little diary cards to, like, you know, check off like. Like she was saying like, don't use any substances, like get exercise, go outside, etc. I would always lie and say that I didn't consume any mind altering substances. Always, always lied about that one. But I found it really helpful because it not only connected me to the people in the group, but it also taught me all these skills to like, okay, if I'm feeling this huge emotion, then I have these skills to like, you know, lessen it.
• 23:48
  Speaker A: I had a little bit with my own therapy with a little bit of DBT with a little bit of mindfulness in it and I found that to be really helpful in the motion regulations. Um, I, I just found it super helpful when I was, I got a couple clients who were kind of very experiencing kind of these intense highs and lows of emotions, intense relationships with people, intense, like not having boundaries and senses. So I found just like I fell in love with understanding, like hey, these things are like, these skills are what people need to learn and these are skills that people can learn. We just don't know how to do it. And one of the things I love that they said and like, and this is, you know, a lot of people, you know, going into this, of course they don't, they're like, why do I have to change? What do you mean I have to change? Why am I have to change? Why can't everyone change? And I found from these videos one that says like, you know, as much as we would love for you and I to go out and change everyone else, is that effective use of our time? No.
• 24:50
  Speaker C: Well, also what comes up for me with that is because it comes up a lot in these circles is I just want to feel better. You know, I want to feel better. And is it, is it, is the faster road to feeling better waiting for somebody else to get, get their act together or to change or to do something that I want them to do. What if the road goes through me and I can, you know, try some things or change some things, you know, and if that, if I start feeling better then is that kind of. So I'm just saying you can look at, focus on what you need to change through completely self interested lens. I want to feel it's in actuality, it's just better for you know, your communion with everybody else. But it's, you know, I just want to get relief, man. Yeah, these last couple of months there's just such a feeling of like cyclical intractability to like these problems that Audrey and I have been saber rattling about. I've turned down the Volume on my news consumption. I'm kind of understanding more and more, like, why the average American just unplugs. Do you let any of that stuff in, or do you struggle with, you know, the state of the world?
• 26:02
  Speaker A: Yeah. There's some people who can watch the news, have that, like, reaction, be like. And then like, just kind of, like, let it slide, roll off in, like, water. I'm like, how. How do you do this? How? Like, it just makes me so. So I totally get that, like, I will consume some media. I had a professor in grad school.
• 26:23
  Speaker B: He was very.
• 26:24
  Speaker A: He was like, pick three things. The whole point of what this is doing is to numb us and to overload us and over sensitize everything. Pick three topics to focus on, and that's it. Because if you do more than that, it. You're just gonna get overloaded. So pick, like, three sources. Pick whatever. Just, like, three things. Cause otherwise we're all just gonna get so overloaded.
• 26:47
  Speaker C: I like that. It's like, I like. I like the way that you're breaking things into components so that they're easier to understand and to kind of, like, navigate. And I think that there's something of that in, like, you know, living a successful life, living a more intentional life. Right. Is that you've gotta. You can't. You can't. You gotta take little bites. You can't just, like, do the whole thing.
• 27:10
  Speaker A: Can't do the whole thing. And that's why in, like, a big part of this, like, radical acceptance, like that and, like, opposite action, which we talked. Yeah, we talked about already a little bit about radical acceptance. Definitely one of my favorites and also one of the hardest. The reason I keep saying and is like, in dbt, one of the big components is, like, we always are like, oh, my gosh, this is great ingredient, but something else but negates everything we just said. So that's why, like, when we say something, use the word and like, oh, I hate what they did, and I still love them anyway. Two things can be true at the same time. And that's kind of. With radical acceptance is like, with radical acceptance, we have to accept the reality as it is now. We have to accept it as it is now. Acceptance is not approval. It does not mean that we approve. It doesn't mean we condone. It doesn't mean that we're happy about. It doesn't mean anything. It means this is the reality of where we're at, and this is what's going on, just as saying as that. And we can only Control what we feel, what we think. We can't control what's going on.
• 28:10
  Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, and we. Maybe we have influence, but it's a limited influence and we gotta really. We gotta be really tactful. I don't know what comes up for you with this, Audrey.
• 28:19
  Speaker B: You know, I, I was thinking about the different, you know, modalities, or what are they called, Modules of.
• 28:24
  Speaker A: No, whatever.
• 28:26
  Speaker B: And, and specifically mindfulness. And when I, when it comes to the news and comes to, like my, my political work, I try to be as non judgmental as possible, even though it's extremely.
• 28:39
  Speaker A: It's so hard.
• 28:41
  Speaker C: But we're, we're judgmental as though you're
• 28:43
  Speaker B: judgmental as, you know. And, and in my personal beautiful. Yes, yes. And in, in my, and in my personal own mental health struggles, violence and injustice and everything like that, I have to accept that that's the way it is right now. And mindfulness helps me not judge myself. Mainly like, oh, you're not going out and organizing because you're too tired from work. Oh, you're not. You're not. You know, that's the only example I can think of right now.
• 29:19
  Speaker A: So much going on. You're doing a, you're doing a podcast and you're doing this and other things. You're studying for the exam. You literally were texting me earlier about being like exam questions. Like, let's not pretend over here that you're not doing other things too.
• 29:32
  Speaker C: You've been planning your wedding. And I mean, that's amazing because that's
• 29:36
  Speaker A: a piece of cake. You know, everyone plans a wedding in just one day, right?
• 29:39
  Speaker B: We're plugging away. It's. It's a very small wedding, a very small mini moon. But, you know, we're excited.
• 29:46
  Speaker A: We're so excited.
• 29:49
  Speaker C: Yeah. You know, it struck me, I, I did listen to. There's this guy who does an interview show. I think it's really good. Joshua Citirella. And he, you know, he interviews people from the left, like really great thinkers and, and some politicians, but then, you know, not just the left, but kind of across the spectrum, different people. But there was a guy who was talking about, who was on and was talking about how people on the left, they could tell you right away what they're not and what they don't believe in and kind of like what the negative vision for the world that they'd like to inhabit is, but they're not as quick to say, well, this is what we want. This is what we're moving towards. This is where I think, you know, we should set the bar, you know, for. And I think to have kind of like a positive and affirmative. Being able to make affirmative cases for how we'd like the world to be and working towards that and not just saying, this is what we're against. This is what. Because I. I feel like that's. I'm noticing that about myself. I think that, like. And it's easy because it's like the second Trump administration, it's the worst thing ever. So, like, you know, every day is just this laundry list of, like, no, no, no. Hate that. Unspeakable. Just vile, you know, over and over. But, like, I. We need to, like, be. Carve out some imagination for, like, what. And I think it's just like, we're so kind of. We just feel so beaten down, you know, like, what could we really expect? You know, like, what's. What's reasonable to expect? But I mean, we have to do it because that's like, you know, I'd like to think that's what makes us different.
• 31:24
  Speaker A: That and like, the same professor who told me about that, he was like, context, purposes. He's. He's African American queer, man. He's like, you know, we've gone through these things in our country before. We've gone through this. And he's like, I've gone through this. My own community time and time again. Things will. Things will get worse before they get better. But things always go back and forth. It's a pendulum keeps swinging back and forth. We can't. It's never. And we're repeating history in so many different ways that it's just.
• 31:54
  Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's pretty ridiculous what we're experiencing. And that's where me and Ren come in to help folks who. Who are. Who are struggling with the world and with their own internal. Their own. And, you know, usually we have to be, like, trained in certain things to, like, really, really get into the nitty gritty of people's psyches. And, like, I. What I love about Ren and DBT is that she's so passionate about it and is like, well, that about you, too. I don't want to say. I know you said no expert, but, like, in my heart, you are an expert, but not.
• 32:38
  Speaker A: Thank you.
• 32:39
  Speaker C: Do you both have the same type schedule? Audrey tells me about, like, the hours she's working, and it's, like, pretty intense. Like, is it the same with you, Ren, and all your clients?
• 32:48
  Speaker A: Like, I work mornings, kind of opposite schedules. Yeah, it can definitely be intense at times. My Wednesdays, like, I have seven clients. Those are my days. So I'm just like. Just like I'm dead. I can't talk. I'm not a person. I can't function.
• 33:02
  Speaker B: My hours go late into the evening. Probably like eight, sometimes nine. Ren's texting me, and I'm. I wake up and I'm, like, still in bed here, you know? And I'm texting Ren, and she's like, oh, I just had an 8am client. I'm like, I just woke up, just
• 33:18
  Speaker A: finished my 7 or my 8am clients. You're like, what?
• 33:21
  Speaker B: I know. I'm like, how do you do this? And then I go home extremely exhausted at 7pm anyways, so it's like, I don't know. I don't know. I did it to my bed by seven.
• 33:32
  Speaker A: I'm like, I can't do that.
• 33:33
  Speaker B: So. Yeah, because at our organization, we're able to, like, pick our own schedules. And so I somehow, over the course of two and a half years, decided to be in person at both clinics that I work at.
• 33:44
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 33:44
  Speaker B: Why? I don't know. Why was this choice? Well, I think. Also, I think it. It came about because I had a client who was schizophrenic over in Redmond, and before I moved over to Northgate when it happened, we have a Northgate office that Patrick was at.
• 34:02
  Speaker C: I feel so privileged. I've seen all the.
• 34:04
  Speaker B: All the places in our clinics except for Redmond. And I had a schizophrenic client. There was something about me, like, I couldn't. I couldn't just leave them high and dry. And so I was like, look, like, this is. My focus is on, like, people with bipolar, schizophrenia, schizoaffective and other delusional disorders. And there's not many, unfortunately, a lot of people who can want to take those kind of people take those kind of cases. And so I was like, you know what? I'm going to stretch myself thin and stress myself out and completely give myself up to the mental health gods. You know, I was actually reflecting yesterday. I had an intake yesterday or two days ago, and this client called me a hero. And I was like, excuse me, you know. You know, like, I was like, me? No, me. No, you can't be talking about me.
• 35:03
  Speaker A: Yes, they are.
• 35:04
  Speaker B: And maybe it's a complex, too, but, like, you know, I just. I really wanted to see people who are struggling with delusional disorders, like, in both areas, both on the east side and the west side of Seattle. That's why I Decided to torture myself and go into office five days a week.
• 35:20
  Speaker C: It's a gift to have drive for whatever it is, like some passion, some interest. Like I was talking with a friend of mine about one of his sponsors recently and he's been kind of treading water, for lack of a better term. He's probably got some undiagnosed stuff, but he's just been kind of in and out of the rooms for like 15 years or something like that. But he's really got like part of what we, you know, we were trying to like spitball, like, you know, how do we help him or like get over the hump. And he doesn't really have like as many like a real passion or interest or a thing that's like, you know, a carrot. As hard as it is sometimes it's a real lifesaver because it's like, you know, it's a kind of fuel that pushes us through the madness.
• 36:05
  Speaker B: Yeah. And especially with my crazy hectic schedule and a lot of people that I see that are very high acuity and very high need, I do have to learn and implement some of these skills that Ren is talking about, especially mindfulness. Like if, if, like, because there's a lot of people who have, you know, psych, they're in active psychosis and they have what are called negative psychosis symptoms where like the, the essentially like the light of them has been taken out and they're very flat and blunted when they're talking to me. And that can instinctively make me feel like, what am I doing wrong? If somebody's not just looking at me and like, you know, they're completely flat. Instinctively I completely forget that that's a symptom of a mental illness. And I judge myself and sometimes I judge the person. I'm like, why are you not talking to me late? You know. And so when I put myself in that mindfulness position of non judgment around like things around me and people around me, it really helps with, you know, the severity of like what I deal with on a day to day basis. And so I really have to have that mindfulness skill. And on top of having panic attacks and dumping my head in ice gives well also.
• 37:22
  Speaker A: Don't judge your judging girl. That's one of it too. Don't judge the judging humans. We are going to judge. It happens. Can't judge judging. You want to name them? And you were observing your thoughts? Hey, I'm having this thought. I'm having this thought. That's amazing. That's the first thing you got to do. And then. Hey, I had maybe a judgmental thought. Okay, cool. Don't have a judgment about your judgmental thought. You're allowed to have judgments. We all are allowed.
• 37:49
  Speaker B: Yeah, I. We need to. We need to collaborate and get it, like a.
• 37:53
  Speaker A: All.
• 37:53
  Speaker B: All these acronyms, like, onto paper. Yes.
• 37:57
  Speaker C: Are you all done with school? Ren, are you going to do more or.
• 37:59
  Speaker A: Flirting with the idea of getting my PhD.
• 38:02
  Speaker B: The.
• 38:02
  Speaker A: Also, the idea of coming up with a dissertation, though, is very. Just.
• 38:05
  Speaker B: Yeah, I. I've been flirting with the idea of a PhD as well, but then I'm realizing that a lot of, like, academic funding is getting pulled, so it's just, like, I'm close to getting all of my hours done and all this stuff, so I'm just going to be licensed and go from there.
• 38:21
  Speaker A: Nice. That's kind of where I'm leaning at.
• 38:23
  Speaker C: Ren, thank you so much for hanging with us.
• 38:25
  Speaker A: Gosh, thank you so much for having me on.
• 38:27
  Speaker C: Hope and advocacy. It can come from a lot of
• 38:30
  Speaker B: different places, especially when you take care of yourself.
• 38:32
  Speaker C: Yeah, working on that, too.