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Guest Host: Jenny Hughes with Cesilia González-Esparza · The Trauma Therapist

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to the special guest host series of The Trauma
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Speaker 1: Therapist Podcast, where I'm going to be handing over the
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Speaker 1: mic to some incredible guest hosts. In each episode, you'll
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Speaker 1: hear fresh perspectives and unique insights to inform and inspire
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Speaker 1: you in all the while keeping the heart of this
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Speaker 1: podcast alive. So sit back and enjoy.
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Speaker 2: Okay, here we go five four three two one. Welcome
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Speaker 2: everyone to The Trauma Therapist Podcast with Guy McPherson. I
0:36
Speaker 2: am your guest host, Jenny Hughes, the founder of the
0:39
Speaker 2: Brave Trauma Therapist Collective and a trauma therapist myself. I
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Speaker 2: am joined today by Cecilia Gonzalez. She is a licensed
0:48
Speaker 2: professional counselor based out of Milwaukee. She is also a
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Speaker 2: certified Brain Spotting Therapist consultant, and she was the very
0:58
Speaker 2: first Bilingualanish and English trainer BIPOC trainer in the United States.
1:04
Speaker 2: And I am so so excited to have you here
1:07
Speaker 2: with me. Thank you for joining me today, Secy no.
1:12
Speaker 3: Aller, Jenny, thank you for inviting me my pleasure.
1:17
Speaker 2: I am so excited to share more about your story
1:21
Speaker 2: and your journey because you didn't necessarily set out to
1:26
Speaker 2: do all of these things I did it. Can you
1:31
Speaker 2: give us sort of like the cliffs Notes version of
1:34
Speaker 2: how you got here?
1:36
Speaker 3: Wow, that's quite a journey. So first, so I grew
1:41
Speaker 3: up in Mexico. I was born and grew up in Mexico,
1:44
Speaker 3: and we moved here to Milwaukee. Milwaukee, it's been my
1:47
Speaker 3: home for over twenty years now. We moved here when
1:50
Speaker 3: I was twelve. So you can imagine the transition if
1:53
Speaker 3: we look at trauma and what we know about trauma
1:56
Speaker 3: and acculturation, assimilation, adaptation, everything that we know about. I
2:02
Speaker 3: didn't know that back then, but that was part of
2:04
Speaker 3: my story, part of my experience. I went to.
2:09
Speaker 4: School, college, life, normal expectations, what are considering normal to
2:14
Speaker 4: be from an immigrant family?
2:16
Speaker 3: This is why you.
2:17
Speaker 4: Do to just go and do it.
2:19
Speaker 3: And I did my master's degree and I was just
2:26
Speaker 3: this love for working with people like it was just
2:30
Speaker 3: something that I could do that and the process together.
2:35
Speaker 3: I had a very strong and successful role model. In college.
2:42
Speaker 3: I did my undergrad w Madison and doctor Verta. Gloria
2:47
Speaker 3: was the person that we wanted to connect with and
2:51
Speaker 3: she was just again part of just happened. I took
2:54
Speaker 3: a class that was a requirement and she was Latina
3:00
Speaker 3: and the counseul in psychology, and she said, I have
3:04
Speaker 3: a counseul in you, I have a research group. Why
3:06
Speaker 3: don't you join us? Just come to the meetings, okay.
3:10
Speaker 3: And that was my first experience building community, in connecting
3:14
Speaker 3: with others and talking about trauma and experiences and normalizing
3:20
Speaker 3: everything that we've gone through.
3:22
Speaker 4: And then I graduated.
3:23
Speaker 3: Then my masters loved the work. And it just happened
3:29
Speaker 3: that where I was working the agency, they had money
3:31
Speaker 3: for training funds, and I said, well, what don't you
3:35
Speaker 3: just take a training. I reached out to my friends,
3:38
Speaker 3: what do I do. We have money, we need to
3:40
Speaker 3: spend it. And I said, you know, there's this really
3:43
Speaker 3: cool thing. It's called Braatin spoting. And back in the day,
3:47
Speaker 3: this was over almost ten years ago, and we had
3:51
Speaker 3: to travel. It was all in person, so we had
3:54
Speaker 3: to wait for the trainer to be in the area.
3:58
Speaker 3: So I waited and I drove to the training side.
4:03
Speaker 3: Wonderful experience. I was a late driver, so it was
4:07
Speaker 3: my first time taken the highway to go on my own.
4:11
Speaker 3: So you can imagine all my notes and everything that
4:14
Speaker 3: I had had the GPS and I had.
4:17
Speaker 2: It wasn't that quest.
4:19
Speaker 3: Every day I taped out directions, print them and posted
4:22
Speaker 3: them like on the dashboard, just in case. All of
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Speaker 3: this trauma experience, and when I had my very first
4:34
Speaker 3: dying at a practice experience with brank spotting, I processed that.
4:38
Speaker 3: I processed that a fear of driving on the highway
4:40
Speaker 3: and getting here, and it was just an amazing experience.
4:44
Speaker 3: On my way back, I drove back after three day
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Speaker 3: training so comfortable, I didn't meet the dashboard after and
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Speaker 3: I was there was actually I looked out the window
4:56
Speaker 3: like notice there were all their cars and people, there
4:58
Speaker 3: was a view. It was just quite a that experience
5:03
Speaker 3: and I loved it. I loved brain spotting and I
5:06
Speaker 3: continue using it with all my clients. It was just
5:09
Speaker 3: this amazing experience. Got certified, went through that process, and
5:15
Speaker 3: then during COVID, I venture and open in private practice
5:21
Speaker 3: literally two weeks before the world shut down, and it
5:27
Speaker 3: was a lot of uncertainty. I had unknowns, a lot
5:30
Speaker 3: of growth and figuring out what to do, where to go.
5:34
Speaker 3: I started as a solo provider sharing space with three clinicians.
5:39
Speaker 3: So we wrote alternate Rotate the time space in the
5:43
Speaker 3: meantime I continue to work with brain Spotting, participated with
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Speaker 3: community supporting groups. And then one day Martha Jacoby, a
5:57
Speaker 3: trainer in New York, she posted on Facebook that she
6:02
Speaker 3: had a training and it was moved to virtual and
6:05
Speaker 3: she needed more assistance. She needed people to support because
6:09
Speaker 3: it was larger than she anticipated. And I'm like, well,
6:12
Speaker 3: I have nothing to do. You know, let's COVID time.
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Speaker 3: I can just jump on zoo. I love praise Spotty.
6:18
Speaker 3: Sure I'll do it. So I sent her a message
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Speaker 3: and she said great. She was looking for certified brain spotters.
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Speaker 4: I'm gonna be great.
6:26
Speaker 3: I'll do this like this. Here's my certificate is what
6:29
Speaker 3: I have. Perfect, and I helped all three days. It
6:33
Speaker 3: was just wonderful to connect with people. It was also
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Speaker 3: my first experience with virtual trainings and brace Spotty, so
6:41
Speaker 3: it was just a really nice transition, like what that's
6:44
Speaker 3: gonna look like and what that looks in real life.
6:47
Speaker 3: And that happened. A couple of weeks later, she had
6:53
Speaker 3: another training and she sent an email to all the
6:56
Speaker 3: assistants that helped last time, and I said, sure, I
6:59
Speaker 3: can have, but here's my time, like I only had
7:03
Speaker 3: our specific times available, and she said sure, come in,
7:06
Speaker 3: just whenever you're ready. And I remember she sent everyone
7:13
Speaker 3: to the swiwer room, so she gave us our duties.
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Speaker 3: This is what we're gonna do. And everyone went out
7:18
Speaker 3: on their way and she said, Cecilia, don't go anywhere.
7:22
Speaker 3: And I'm like, you can imagine am.
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Speaker 2: I getting sent to the principal's office.
7:30
Speaker 4: Virtual just me and Martha.
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Speaker 3: I can imagine everything that I do something wrong last time?
7:35
Speaker 3: What happened, all of this hypervigilant survival response. I don't
7:41
Speaker 3: know what's going to happen. And she said, have you
7:45
Speaker 3: ever considered becoming a consultant? I said, I said, well,
7:51
Speaker 3: I thought about it, but it wasn't like something that
7:54
Speaker 3: I considered, just transitioning over in practice. She said, no,
8:00
Speaker 3: opening a group and I would like for you to join.
8:02
Speaker 3: It would be a consultant. Yeah, I said, you know,
8:06
Speaker 3: let me think about it. I've heard it's expensive, like
8:09
Speaker 3: all of this things that I've heard about. And she said, well, yeah,
8:15
Speaker 3: but it's part of your growth and I would love
8:17
Speaker 3: to have you. And I shared it with her. I'm
8:20
Speaker 3: opening my business. It's COVID. There's so many things happening.
8:24
Speaker 3: She said, I don't have a problem with that. I'll
8:26
Speaker 3: work with you, I wonder in my group. I'm like, okay,
8:30
Speaker 3: thank you, send me the details. I'll look into it.
8:34
Speaker 3: And I assumed that's it. We're not gonna hear about
8:38
Speaker 3: it before after like it's just done. And a couple
8:42
Speaker 3: of weeks later, I get a text message and the
8:48
Speaker 3: text just like remember clearly, she said where are you?
8:52
Speaker 3: You missed the meeting.
8:54
Speaker 2: But another moment of like, but it wasn't no number.
9:00
Speaker 3: I didn't have her registered. I didn't know that it
9:02
Speaker 3: was her, so I blocked iteling I don't know, but
9:08
Speaker 3: I don't know what meeting, I don't know what this
9:10
Speaker 3: person is. Just get this random numb done. And like
9:17
Speaker 3: two weeks after that, I get an email from Martha,
9:21
Speaker 3: very lengthy.
9:22
Speaker 4: Very clear, Cecilia, you missed the meeting. I haven't received this.
9:27
Speaker 4: We had our first CIT consultant in Consultant in training
9:31
Speaker 4: meeting and you weren't here. I need your paperwork, I
9:35
Speaker 4: need this, this is the schedule. And then I realized
9:39
Speaker 4: I blocked her it was her, So I started that jerious.
9:44
Speaker 4: I immediately sent out everything. I did everything that she
9:48
Speaker 4: needed at the moment, like she really wants me to
9:51
Speaker 4: have that opportunity to be part of her cohort. When
9:57
Speaker 4: I started working with her, the program wonderful. Both clinicians
10:01
Speaker 4: all over the US, very small. Martha has so much
10:05
Speaker 4: expertise and just preparing us to be the brainspotting consultant.
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Speaker 3: And then I asked her, I was just very curious, Hey,
10:15
Speaker 3: what about our bilingual community. I'm struggling to find us
10:20
Speaker 3: a bilingual clinician and now in private practice, I use
10:24
Speaker 3: a lot of brain spotting, but I'm also connecting with
10:27
Speaker 3: others in Spanish, and where are those resources? What do
10:32
Speaker 3: we have? And she there, let's connect you with Glenda
10:37
Speaker 3: Glenda Villa Marien, our senior trainer in Ecuador. And she said,
10:43
Speaker 3: let's just connect you with her, send her an email. Said, well,
10:46
Speaker 3: I don't have her email. Maybe I can try like
10:48
Speaker 3: Facebook messating. She said, no, give you her number and
10:51
Speaker 3: her email. Just let her know. Martha referred to you
10:54
Speaker 3: like this is the plan and that's it. I'm like, okay,
10:58
Speaker 3: I'll do that, and I did. I email her and
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Speaker 3: I just said, hey, Glenn, that this is Celia. Martha
11:04
Speaker 3: referred me. I'm just curious if we can maybe do
11:07
Speaker 3: something in Spanish. For the bilingual clinicians here in the US,
11:13
Speaker 3: and Glenda just confirmed it, just the same response from Martha.
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Speaker 3: I was like, sure, let's do this, let's sedule it
11:19
Speaker 3: and go for it. And that was that journey of
11:25
Speaker 3: starting and offering spaces trainings for bilingual clients or bilingual clinicians.
11:34
Speaker 3: We had our very first training. We only had four participants.
11:39
Speaker 3: We had four people join us virtually. They received the
11:43
Speaker 3: manual in Spanish, they received the book in Spanish, they
11:46
Speaker 3: received all of this continent and support, and we learned
11:51
Speaker 3: a lot from that space and just connecting with other
11:54
Speaker 3: people U seeing their native language or their native language
11:59
Speaker 3: or their clients. And it was just this very open
12:04
Speaker 3: and curing opportunity to grow and deepen our trauma work,
12:09
Speaker 3: deep in our performance work, like everything that we do
12:13
Speaker 3: with brain spotty. So it was just this wonderful experience.
12:17
Speaker 3: So how do we do this, how do we get
12:20
Speaker 3: to that space and meet the community.
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Speaker 2: And you know, I can't help but notice that throughout
12:29
Speaker 2: this journey that you've been on, you have had really
12:33
Speaker 2: really important guides through other Latinas, right, other women who
12:41
Speaker 2: are able to really say, like I understand, I do
12:46
Speaker 2: not know your life or your experiences, but I am
12:51
Speaker 2: happy to guide you. What was it like to be
12:53
Speaker 2: able to have these women come in and sometimes force
12:57
Speaker 2: themselves into your life, and knowing that a lot of people,
13:02
Speaker 2: especially BIPOC folks, aren't able to access those kinds of supports.
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Speaker 3: It It was definitely a corrective experience. It triggered a
13:16
Speaker 3: lot of my own experiences of what's it like to
13:20
Speaker 3: have a strong latina like Glinda yep, and she lives
13:24
Speaker 3: in it like she she's not response, but she was
13:28
Speaker 3: not like in any way mandated to work with me
13:32
Speaker 3: or to do There were a lot of things that
13:37
Speaker 3: came up for me that part of that growth as
13:39
Speaker 3: a clinician as a person of healing. Some of those
13:42
Speaker 3: things that I didn't know were there. At one point
13:46
Speaker 3: I even shared with Martha, so you know, Martha, you
13:51
Speaker 3: took a risk with me. And Martha looked at me
13:54
Speaker 3: and she said, I never took a risk.
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Speaker 5: I knew.
13:57
Speaker 3: I was giddy that was not a risk. And to
14:01
Speaker 3: hear that and then have Glinda be that support or
14:05
Speaker 3: be that ongoing, very very persistent. Yes, we only have
14:11
Speaker 3: more participants, and I've thought maybe we failed because I
14:15
Speaker 3: don't know I've gone to trainings or we had thirty
14:17
Speaker 3: fifty people I don't know, And she said, no, we're
14:21
Speaker 3: planting those seats, like this is where we need to be.
14:25
Speaker 1: Yep.
14:25
Speaker 3: We just need to reach out to them. We need
14:27
Speaker 3: to start creating building those spaces. So it was just
14:32
Speaker 3: this very deep healing opportunity. And as I was doing that, Jenny,
14:39
Speaker 3: I was just thinking, how can I continue to pass
14:42
Speaker 3: this on two hours? How can I continue to create
14:45
Speaker 3: those spaces for others.
14:47
Speaker 2: Yep, so that they too can move from viewing and
14:51
Speaker 2: experiencing themselves as a risk that someone's going to take,
14:55
Speaker 2: and moving into knowing how powerful they are, how what
15:00
Speaker 2: a strong healer they are, and that they don't have
15:03
Speaker 2: to do it by themselves, that there are other people
15:06
Speaker 2: there right alongside them, and that.
15:08
Speaker 3: They are healthy, supportive, strong people. Connecting with Glinda, connected
15:16
Speaker 3: with other BIPOCK clinicians, connected with the BIPOCK trainers. It
15:21
Speaker 3: was just creating the space. So now we have something
15:26
Speaker 3: that we can continue to work and build on. And
15:29
Speaker 3: Martha did a wonderful job too. Once I transition to
15:33
Speaker 3: working with the BIPOCK community, working with very side by
15:37
Speaker 3: side with Glenda, Martha kind of step aside, like this
15:41
Speaker 3: is where I'm done. I did, this is what I
15:45
Speaker 3: was next up, now you figure it out with all
15:48
Speaker 3: the support that you have, so as this very carrying
15:53
Speaker 3: and passing out of like, this is what we do,
15:56
Speaker 3: and that's what we do with our clients, that's what
15:58
Speaker 3: we do with our work, what we do as people
16:02
Speaker 3: in general? How can I have those relationships?
16:07
Speaker 2: And I'm guessing and I sort of have a little
16:10
Speaker 2: insider knowledge of knowing that you get to do this
16:14
Speaker 2: for fellow biopoc clinicians now too. What's that like for
16:19
Speaker 2: you to know that you are now in this role
16:23
Speaker 2: of guiding them and handing things off to them when
16:27
Speaker 2: you know they're ready, even if they aren't quite sure.
16:31
Speaker 3: It's amazing. It's just so much healing and rewarding. I
16:38
Speaker 3: started doing that when I was graduated as a brains
16:42
Speaker 3: butting consultant. So I completed the training with Glint with Martha,
16:47
Speaker 3: and then I joined the Spanish CT program with Glinda,
16:52
Speaker 3: So I did.
16:53
Speaker 2: And you did that one all the way through, right,
16:55
Speaker 2: So you've done the c T in both English and
16:57
Speaker 2: in Spanish.
16:59
Speaker 3: Yes, so learning brainspiding really in Spanish Spanish. Yeah, from
17:04
Speaker 3: learning from Glenda, and when I graduated the programs, I
17:10
Speaker 3: opened the first bilingual support group for clinicians who are
17:18
Speaker 3: trained in brain spidding or who want to learn more
17:20
Speaker 3: about brain spiding, who never heard about, people who want
17:24
Speaker 3: to build a community. We're here. And that was my
17:28
Speaker 3: very first experience providing that space, providing the support for them.
17:34
Speaker 3: The support group started as a monthly group and we
17:38
Speaker 3: would meet it for two hours. We'll do one hour
17:40
Speaker 3: of questions connecting, and then one hour of brain spidding sessions.
17:47
Speaker 3: And we had a lot of times we had demos.
17:50
Speaker 3: So for example, I would ask them what do you
17:54
Speaker 3: want to know or what I want to do for
17:55
Speaker 3: next month, and they're like, well, we're curious about what
17:58
Speaker 3: brainsbidding looks like. Working with that leads perfect. So I
18:02
Speaker 3: would find an athlete who has received or has not
18:06
Speaker 3: received grace botting before and I would invite them to
18:09
Speaker 3: come in and vi a demo and I will do
18:12
Speaker 3: the grace bodying debt. This is what we do. So
18:15
Speaker 3: it was just that space of listening to them, this
18:18
Speaker 3: is what they need, this is what they're asking that.
18:21
Speaker 3: It's going to provide their connection and supporting them kind
18:25
Speaker 3: of what I receive that support and now I'm passing
18:27
Speaker 3: it out like this is all We're going to do
18:31
Speaker 3: when working with children or working with trauma, a single
18:39
Speaker 3: event or ongoing. It was just this beautiful discussions that
18:43
Speaker 3: we can have and sharing their experience, validating their wisdom too.
18:48
Speaker 3: From many trainings and many years of experience in the field.
18:53
Speaker 3: It was just this wonderful space to create safety for
18:57
Speaker 3: everyone and to create that space of I can do this.
19:02
Speaker 3: The space. We have people all over the country who
19:06
Speaker 3: join the space. We have people connect with virtually and
19:12
Speaker 3: when they will travel, they will meet in person. So
19:15
Speaker 3: it's just this powerful chain of relationships and what that
19:22
Speaker 3: looks like in the space I continue to host. How
19:27
Speaker 3: the support group we do it accordingly. It's an amazing
19:31
Speaker 3: experience we can It's very flexible with what the group
19:35
Speaker 3: wants or needs. We've had moments we had a space
19:40
Speaker 3: where it's only in Spanish and we talk about a
19:42
Speaker 3: brain sputting in Spanish. We have meetings where we just
19:48
Speaker 3: talk about how wonderful or how challenging it was when
19:53
Speaker 3: we talk about everything that's happening in the world and
19:56
Speaker 3: it's impacting us. It's this lovely community where we come
20:00
Speaker 3: together and we're just here for one another, validating each other.
20:06
Speaker 3: And of course I talk about bracebotting and as the
20:08
Speaker 3: trainer brain a lot more of the maybe we can
20:12
Speaker 3: try this thing, or let's go back to the basics.
20:17
Speaker 3: But it's just this a space where I continue to
20:21
Speaker 3: empower others, yeah, to feel confident, to feel comfortable, and
20:25
Speaker 3: who they are as a person, who they are as a.
20:27
Speaker 2: Clinician and on that. You know, as we come close
20:32
Speaker 2: to our end here just honoring our time together, what
20:36
Speaker 2: is that number one thing that you want trauma therapist
20:40
Speaker 2: listening to know, whether they're a brain spotter or not.
20:44
Speaker 2: What do you think is the one takeaway, the one
20:46
Speaker 2: thing that you want all of our listeners to know
20:49
Speaker 2: right now?
20:51
Speaker 3: Oh, something that we always talk about. And I teach
20:54
Speaker 3: and emphasize this in the brains putting trainings. I do
20:57
Speaker 3: trainings both in English and Spanish bi lingual. I do
21:01
Speaker 3: them in person, I do them virtual. And the one
21:05
Speaker 3: thing that it's always consistent across all of them, and
21:10
Speaker 3: I take this from from David too, and our brain spotting,
21:13
Speaker 3: our biggest intervention is our presence yep. And I see
21:20
Speaker 3: that when I show up into the support group when
21:23
Speaker 3: we open up spaces. Our biggest intervention anything, our biggest
21:28
Speaker 3: tool prevention the weekend is just being there, just showing.
21:33
Speaker 2: And that's something that we can all do as trauma therapist,
21:36
Speaker 2: whether we are brain spotting or not. Right exactly, So
21:43
Speaker 2: tell us more about how people can find you and
21:45
Speaker 2: especially find the support group.
21:48
Speaker 4: Yes, so.
21:51
Speaker 3: These is why my website.
21:53
Speaker 2: Which will be linked in the show notes for everyone listen.
21:56
Speaker 3: So Growing Mindful Psychotherapy website. It's yes, yes.
22:03
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Growing Mindful Psychotherapy dot Com.
22:06
Speaker 3: Yes, I had to think about it. My website is
22:12
Speaker 3: also in English, and then there is to have all
22:15
Speaker 3: Spanish exactly, so free thing is there. I have information
22:19
Speaker 3: about the trainings, information about consultations, or just the work
22:23
Speaker 3: that we do. So now I have a group practice,
22:27
Speaker 3: so I've expanded from solo to now I have employees
22:30
Speaker 3: and we offer and provide additional support to our community.
22:36
Speaker 3: Now there's also the registration for our support group, which
22:40
Speaker 3: again it's open to anyone who works with brain spotting,
22:44
Speaker 3: or wants to learn about brainspotting, has questions, or just
22:48
Speaker 3: wants to be part of the community and building that space.
22:51
Speaker 3: To join us. You can stay for as long as
22:53
Speaker 3: you are able to or leave when you need to.
22:56
Speaker 3: We know we have business schedules. What we're here for
22:59
Speaker 3: you again, we are creating that space and our presence.
23:05
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
23:06
Speaker 2: Thank you so so much, Secy. This has been such
23:09
Speaker 2: a nourishing conversation and to be able to receive your
23:15
Speaker 2: story again. I can feel it, you know, right here
23:19
Speaker 2: in my body and the way that it helps to
23:22
Speaker 2: fill me up to know that again about you. Right
23:25
Speaker 2: when we get to hear stories over and over again,
23:28
Speaker 2: they expand and then they deepen our connection. So I'm
23:31
Speaker 2: so grateful for your time with us and for being
23:35
Speaker 2: my guest again. All the listeners go to Growing Mindfulpsychotherapy
23:41
Speaker 2: dot com and you can learn all the things.
23:43
Speaker 3: Thank you, Sessy, thank you, thank you.
23:46
Speaker 5: Jenny mail dom COmON