Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 767: I Love To Feel with Brooke Bralove

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Episode 767: I Love To Feel with Brooke Bralove · The Trauma Therapist

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All right, welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gamiferson.
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My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible selves, to be
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human, to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer
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in who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires
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cultivating authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn
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more about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
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That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started. All right,
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here we go. So five four two and one, our folks,
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welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to have as my guest today,
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Brook Bray Love Brook, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much.
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I'm excited to be here. Appreciate that. So. Brooke is a licensed
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clinical worker, psychotherapist, Advance Accelerated Resolution Therapy practitioner, as well as an
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aa SECT certified sex therapist. She specializes in treating adults, couples and groups
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with depression, anxiety, trauma, and relationship challenges. Through her facilitation of
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Brene Brown's Shame Resilience Curriculum, she helps women let go of perfectionism and move
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toward greater authenticity, joy, and connection. Her new passion is accelerated resolution
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therapy or acer TEAK. Is that right art? You can say art or
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art either one art brief Freeman modality using bilateral eye movements to provide lasting relief
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and healing to patients with PTSD, trauma, phobia's, addiction, and depression.
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She Alwys agrees from the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University and has maintained
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a private practice in Bethesda, Maryland for twenty years. Welcome, Welcome.
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Before we get going, Brookes, share with the listeners where you're from original
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and where you are currently. I'm about two miles from where I grew up.
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So I grew up right outside DC and Bethesda, Maryland, and i've
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you know, went away for college and grad school and came right back and
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live really close to where I grew up. Awesome, awesome, So how
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did all this start for you? How did you get into this field?
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So back in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, Well, I was going to
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tell you how I got into art, but I certainly can go back even
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further if you want. Yeah, I'm really curious as to what pulls you
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pulled you into this field. Yeah, So I was in therapy kind of
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a little bit when I was nine, and then again when I was twelve.
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So I've always grown up with, you know, just no stigma in
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my family about mental health. So I think that really is kind of the
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basis for why I always felt it would be okay to go into this field.
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I majored in Afro American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and I
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was really interested in kind of bigger public policy social change on a really big
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scale. And then I realized that that, as many of us know,
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is an uphill battle. And I really thought to myself, you know,
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I want to impact people, and so I really decided that I kind of
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wanted to do you know, one on one and group work, and so
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I decided to get my MSW from Columbia and the rest is history. I
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did some domestic violence work for two years after I graduated, and then moved
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into private practice, which I've been doing for twenty years. Interesting to hear
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you say that, you know, you grew up in an environment where there
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wasn't really stigma around mental health. Nine years old sounds early. I mean,
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what was going on at nine, if I can ask, sure,
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of course, So my parents divorced when I was six, and I actually
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handled it pretty darn well. And then a few years later, you know,
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I was an anxious kid. I was a nail bitter. I was
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one of those kids who had, you know, stomach aches before every soccer
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game and test, and you know, I think they kind of knew I
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needed some extra help, and it was a really positive experience for me.
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And so then I was more willing to go back at different parts at different
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times in my life where I needed extra support. And you mentioned later on
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that you kind of shifted or pivoted into working with individuals. But why in
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that context. I love to feel, and I I love connection, and
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I wasn't feeling that at sort of a public policy kind of level. I
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did some you know, lobbied Congress for low income housing, and I of
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course believe in all of that, but I didn't feel that. I wasn't
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moved. And I want to feel in my life, and I like to
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feel the range of all of my feelings, and I certainly working with someone
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one on one really allows you to see their range of feelings and to access
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your own and I believe that's a gift a lot of therapists have, is
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that we use ourselves to deeply understand other people. And so I have felt
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more kind of satisfied and fed through this work. It's interesting to hear you
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say that. I think that's why I smile, because I haven't heard many
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people say that. I love to feel, and especially when we're talking about
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this work, I mean, you're gonna feel, and sometimes you've got to
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be careful about letting it show. And a lot of times it's not the
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best feelings that come, you know. Oh sure. I mean I'm not
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saying I'm some amazing human being who has mastered how to tolerate discomfort and pain.
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But I always think, you know, when you can feel the depth
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of that, you can feel the depth of joy. And I just don't
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think we can do one without the other. I just don't think that's the
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way life works or the way we operate. You don't know joy unless you
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know pain and vice versa. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So how did
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you move into this profession? How did things unfold for you? How was
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it working with DV? Yeah, domestic violence work is really challenging, and
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I do think there's you know, quite a burnout. So I applaud anyone
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who can go into that type of trauma work and stay there and do it,
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you know, for their whole careers. That didn't quite work with me.
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I loved my experience there. I learned a lot. That's how I
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really learned how to work with trauma. But I after about two years,
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decided that I wanted to see sort of a breath of issues, not just
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that one issue. But I certainly think one of the main things it taught
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me is really about intergenerational trauma and to hear histories of how you know,
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many of these women that's mostly who we worked with. Many of these women
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experienced domestic violence in their homes growing up and often could even go back another
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generation. And so I've been really interested in breaking the cycle and empowering people
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that they can change their lives so that they don't pass it along to their
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children. What was it like for you in a feeling way to be sitting
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with that as you started, Because that's intense, no two ways about it,
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Yep, very intense work. I think. I think in the beginning
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I was a little shell shocked, just like anyone coming out of grad school,
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you know, and a little shell shocked with the sort of depth of
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pain, the re traumatization. Right, not just intergenerational, but the women
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that we worked with, this was not their first you know, rodeo with
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trauma. Right. I mean, obviously I don't know exactly the percentage,
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but a high percentage of women had already been victims of sexual abuse, physical
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abuse, emotional abuse by parents, caregivers, teachers, and had already kind
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of developed patterns of interpersonal relationships in which they were also victimized. And I
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think the hardest part, I want to be honest, it's not a very
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sort of optimistic thing to say, but one of the hardest things was empowering
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people, seeing them grow, and then seeing them go back to their abuser.
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And one thing stands out to me. So much as I had worked
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with a woman, we had a great connection, it really felt like she
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was feeling more empowered and recognizing the cycle of violence and the honeymoon period and
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all of that. And two weeks later she came in and she'd been beaten
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so badly that she'd lost eyesight in one of her eyes. And that's hard,
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right, That's hard to watch and know that you tried your best and
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that you know it wasn't It wasn't landing with this woman and she was not
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able to metabolize what she was learning. Yet correct me if I'm wrong here.
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Isn't it like a common ununderstanding of even addiction, right or domestic violence?
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It's relapse relapse? Yep? Absolutely, The average woman leaves seven times
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before she leaves for good. So you're absolutely right. And I needed to
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get used to that right and to begin to accept that and not take it
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personally or not feel like a total failure. We cannot help everyone. We
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do not help everyone, and sometimes we're not the right therapist for everyone.
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And I think that's important and also important to share if you believe that.
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If you're working with someone and you begin to feel that this isn't a great
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fit, then I think it's our obligation to also share that with someone and
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talk it over. Do they feel that way? Does the patient feel that
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way? Or are they really feeling connected? And then why am I not
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feeling connected? Or why am I not feeling useful and like I'm really being
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a helper? Well put, so, when you started an issue when you
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went to UFP, you had what ideas of really helping the world out making
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a dent, and then you shifted talk to us about your idea of help,
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you know, creating change. What did that mean to you? Yeah,
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well again I think I I mean, I'll be honest. It caused
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me to be depressed in college when I was trying to work with sort of
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race relations on campus and I got depressed. It wasn't a happy It didn't
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make me happy because it was such an uphill battle. And so then you're
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right, I did kind of rethink this idea of helping and you know,
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each one, teach one, each one, reach one. That became more
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of my motto and so I found that literally I was happier doing it one
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on one and on a smaller basis, because I really do believe that empathy
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is what is lacking. I really truly believe that if everyone could see the
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commonalities. Right. So, yes, I don't know what your life is
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like that you are you know, living in poverty, and are you know,
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maybe a single parent. I may not know that, but I do
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know feeling overwhelmed. I do know feeling incompetent. I do know feeling I
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do know what it's like to feel all alone in something, and if I
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can tap that within myself, I'm much more likely to be able to reach
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that person. And I really you know again, I'm trained in Brene Brown's
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work. I use it all the time, and you know her differentiation between
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empathy and sympathy. I think it would change the world if people could true
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truly understand what empathy actually means and what it looks like in practice in real
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life. Right, what's a demonstration of empathy? Empathy is not just a
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feeling. It's how we show up in total presence, acceptance, and with
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curiosity not judgment. I love the extended finger here. So well, that's
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a great segue. How did you get interested in Brene Brown's work? You
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know, I was like everybody else, I just saw this amazing Ted talk
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and thought, oh my god, yes, yes, yes, you know.
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And and honestly, Brene is such a straight shooter. And as you
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can probably already tell, so am I and so I just related and she
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put things into words that I have felt inside but I couldn't articulate. I
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just couldn't do it. And so I saw Ted talk. There's one clinician
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trained in the DC area in you know, what's what was called then the
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Daring Way, and I immediately signed up. I've been trained since twenty thirteen.
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I was one of the I think I was the third or fourth person
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in the entire you know, DC, Virginia and Maryland area to be trained
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in the Daring Way. And I think now they're about thirty six practitioners in
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the DMV and I've led over twenty intensive you know group weekends where I basically
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use this shame resilience curriculum called Daring Greatly to help women figure out why they
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are not showing up, being seen and living brave in their lives and what's
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in what's getting in the way of that, and shame and perfectionism are at
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the root of that, and especially in the DC area, we people are
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quite educated here there. You know, there's a lot of elitism in this
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area, and the perfectionism is off the chain and it is harming all of
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us. Okay, so this is this is great here. All right,
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let's just pause here for a second to thank our sponsors. All right,
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we are back. So let's take a couple of steps back and summarize,
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if you will, what the curriculum is that Darren Lee is because I think
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many people might know that Renee Brown is associated with the word shame. She
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kind of highlighted that. But give us a summary of what the work is.
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A curriculum is, Yeah, so the curriculum, you know, is
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a shame resilience curriculum. But the topics we explore, we explore. I
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mean, the format is basically, we watch videos of Brenee teaching us,
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you know, something a topic, and then we have a beautiful workbook that
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we concretize and personalize the lesson that we've learned by writing and exploring, and
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then we do kind of open sharing, which is where the shame just disappears
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when you're sharing things. But the topics we explore are shame, vulnerability,
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trust, perfectionism, empathy, self, compassion, and we learn how all
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of those are related and what we are willing to give up in the face
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of trying to be more vulnerable and authentic. And so, you know,
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we look at what are the messages we got about being vulnerable? What does
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vulnerability mean to you? And we learn, you know, quickly, and
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then we practice it in the entire weekend. So we're learning about vulnerability,
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and then we're putting it into practice live and some people say I could never
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share things that are vulnerable with a group of strangers, and I'll say,
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you'd be surprised. In fact, sometimes it's just easier to do that than
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with the people we love. And so we're practicing. We're learning that when
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we share our most vulnerable, shame filled truth, people don't walk away,
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they lean in. And so one of the things Grene talks about so much
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is that vulnerability is the first thing we look for in other people, and
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it's the last thing we're willing to show in ourselves. Okay, this is
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so good. When I look down a little bit, is this just for
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women? So I'll be honest, I do not do co ed daring Greatly's
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I do? And I've pulled all the women I've worked with again twenty weekends
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since twenty fourteen, and people really do agree that they would not feel comfortable
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doing it in sort of a mixed gender. And again, these are people
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who identify as women, so we have you know, non binary and trans
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people participate as well. I've done nineteen weekends for women and one for men.
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That weekend with men was absolutely magical and they did the most brave work.
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But I do find it's a little bit harder to sell to men,
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to say, hey, you want to go talk about shame for two and
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a half days and vulnerability, but they need it even more many did even
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So why first of all, define shame and then why does shame fit so
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prominently in this work and maybe even her work? So you know, shame
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to me is the inherent belief that you are not good enough, and that's
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that you are actually quite flawed. Shame is something is wrong with me.
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Guilt is I did something wrong, So guilt and it's important to know these
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distinctions. If we didn't have guilt, I don't know what we'd all do.
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Right, you want a little bit of guilt or to make you not
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do you know, bad things to other people or you know, But shame
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is I am worthless, something is wrong with me, And it's person centered.
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So we always want to kind of It's not that one is necessarily better
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than the other, but they do. You know, guilt does not produce
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addiction, domestic violence, you know, all sorts of problems, and shame
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does. Shame is deeply correlated with you know, early pregnancy, addiction,
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and you know, dropping out of school, all sorts of things. Guilt
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is not it's actually sort of inversely correlated with those things. So the work
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here is looking at shame, looking at its origins, how it's impacting us.
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And you also mentioned a couple other words that I love. Vulnerability is
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one of those. Yeah, how do you define that? So one of
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the great exercises we do is, you know, we there's these all these
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sentence stems and it'll say and again, we just we write them down.
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You know, vulnerability is vulnerability feels like if vulnerability were a color, it
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would be what uh if it had a texture. And I love seeing what
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people come up with because they can be very different. You know, what
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would it smell like, what would it taste like? All sorts of things.
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But vulnerability is about risk and taking risk and opening your heart and not
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knowing what will happen. And I know one of your favorite questions is you
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know, what's your favorite quote? And one of my favorite quotes is life
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begins at the end of your comfort zone. Right, nothing magical happens when
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you're in this kind of comfort. You know, I got this, I
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know this, I'm safe it happens when you walk outside of that. And
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I'm a big fan of liking it, you know, I love you know,
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metaphors and similes. Therapy to me is like going to the gym.
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If you do the same exact thing over and over again and expect a different
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result, it's not going to happen. So the only way we improve at
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the gym is by experiencing some discomfort. Now, we do don't actually do
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well if we go to a trainer and it's a it's this you know,
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aggressive workout, and then we're so sore that we never go back right.
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So I'm not asking you to jump off a cliff when you're sitting with me.
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I'm there to support you, but I am going to gently push you
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just a little bit outside, help you learn how to tolerate that discomfort.
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Do it anyway, and that's where the growth, the learning, the getting
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stronger really happens. I agree with that, but I want to kind of
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go back on the really, what what is vulnerability? I mean, you
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talked about how to get there is vulnerability, the the openness, our sharing
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of who we are. Yeah, well, vulnerability is risk and emotional exposure
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with no guarantees and so yes, to me, I like to do kind
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of motion to reflect, you know. So I guess nobody could see.
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But to me, vulnerability is literally like opening your heart. It's a heart
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opening and saying this is actually who I am. You can see you know,
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my degrees, you can see my job title, you can see uh,
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the way you know I show up with, you know, my perfect
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outfit for the perfect occasion, and you know all and the botox and the
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photo shopping and all of that, that's not vulnerable at all. Those are
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masks. And so one of the things we do at the end of Daring
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Greatly is to really say what shields you know, are you willing to take
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off? And what do you need to leave on? You know. So
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we do a creative project in Daring Greatly where everyone goes home and basically puts
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shame into some sort of their shame into a creative project. My applute favorite
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was a patient that I'd worked with for a number of years, and she'd
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had more plastic surgery than lots of people, let's just say. And she
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was a beautiful woman, but she had really I mean, so much of
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it was how she looked and So she came in and she took every concealer
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she owned. She like attached it to a like a black vest, and
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she came in and she said, I am done with concealer, I am
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done with the masks, and she, you know, took it all out
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and threw it in the trash can. So that's what she was willing to
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do. But she also was identifying that right now she needed to keep a
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few things, like, for instance, I know some of my armor is
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self deprecating humor. I'm going to poke fun at myself before you can,
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right. That's a defense. That's that's that's a shield, you know,
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armor that I put on. But you know what, I kind of like
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that part. So I'm not really willing to give that up. But you
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know what I'm willing to give up, you know, feeling like I have
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to wear makeup to go to the grocery store. I actually don't feel that
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way. But I'm giving you an example. You know what, am I
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willing to give up? The perfectionism of, you know, making it look
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like my kids are perfect. My kids aren't perfect. I'm imperfect. They're
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imperfect, And I'm okay talking about that. I really don't believe that people
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want a therapist who shows up as perfect. And I often ask people,
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you know, think about that one perfect person from high school that you just
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thought was just on this pedestal, and think about how alone they probably felt
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because they had to be perfect all the time. And I've talked to the
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woman from high school that I admire and thought was perfect. She wasn't really
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happy. She had just put so much, you know, and she you
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know, had an eating disorder and she had alcoholism in her family. So
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it's not that it's to say, Haha, you aren't perfect. It's to
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say, we all struggle. We all struggle, and yes, to different
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extents and about different things, but that's common humanity, and that is again
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how we relate to other people. You don't have to know someone's exact experience
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to be empathic. You have to tap that same emotion in you and then
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relate that. That is what empathy is. And empathy isn't about saying the
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right thing or solving it. Most of these problems that people are coming in
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with, I can't solve for them. They're much more complicated. But I
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can sit with them, and I can have eye contact, and I can
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show them, you know, by touching my chest or letting out a side
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that I deeply am receiving them what they're saying, and I'm with them.
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I'm right there, and I'm not going anywhere because I don't want to give
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the impression that what they're saying to me or a friend is overwhelming. I'm
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just here and you know I can't do anything about it, but thank you
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for sharing me. I believe what I do is sacred and an honor to
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see people's true vulnerability and authenticity, a true honor and a gift. Wow,
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you're very intense. I mean in the best way. I'm thinking to
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myself, my god, this is exactly what I want this podcast to be
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about. I mean, getting to that point. The people who come to
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you, or the people who come to these what seminars, these weekends,
27:57
whatever weekends? Yeah, why are they coming? I would say a lot
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of people feel stuck and it's a great place to go do a deep dive
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of two and a half days. You know, there are limitations to forty
28:17
five minute weekly psychotherapy, right, and so going in getting vulnerable on the
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Friday night, and you know, I always say tears are welcome early and
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often, and somebody gets the award for going first, you know, for
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modeling vulnerability. And guess what, sometimes it's me because I read a poem
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at the beginning of daring greatly and it touches me deeply, and occasionally,
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you know, I'll be a little teary. It doesn't last very long,
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but occasionally I'll do it. And then So it's really women who feel stuck.
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It's a lot of women who say there is something I don't know,
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but something is missing. I can't feel joy or you know, I'm with
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my family and I can't be present. It's women again, who have it
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all going on. They can point to the car and the house and the
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job and the two point two children. I think it's more than that now,
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the average, but something is lacking and they can't put their finger on
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it. And mostly it's because they're not being brave, they're not trying new
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things because they are addicted to being perfect and being looked at as perfect and
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feeling perfect on the inside and there's there's no meaning there, it's meaningless,
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and not willing to be vulnerable or show that imperfection, right, yeah,
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because it's terrifying, right, people don't walk around like me saying here,
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let me tell you what's wrong with me or what? You know, what
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what I'm struggling with? People don't I don't know why I do. You
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know, many ways it doesn't always work out. I fall flat on my
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face, but you know, you have to be willing to fall flat on
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your face sometimes because through that is where you feel most alive. I will
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tell you that when I am most vulnerable, it may not go well.
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You know, I may get rejected something, you know, but often beautiful
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things happen. But I have a deeply felt sense of being alive. And
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I always tell people anxiety and excitement show up very similarly in the body.
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So you can keep calling it anxiety, or you could start calling it maybe
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there's a little bit of excitement in there, and then you know, it's
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like a rollercoaster. You kind of want to throw up, and you're super
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excited. Right, So, I think the best things in life happen in
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that space. It's crazy too, because our culture certainly pushes up against allowing
31:07
ourselves to be vulnerable, being willing to show our imperfections. I mean at
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every turn, right, I mean, I don't look at Instagram because of
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that, because everything is so perfect. Yep. Yeah, it's very triggering.
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It's very triggering for people, and they immediately go into shame and comparison,
31:26
you know. And I mean I tell my kids this all the time.
31:30
You know, Comparison is the thief of joy one hundred percent. And
31:36
it's really you know, I say, keep your eyes on your own paper,
31:38
you know, stay in your lane, you know, really just think
31:41
about, you know, what what is How does this feel to me?
31:45
The second you look over there at somebody else's work, you're either going to
31:49
feel better than or less than. And I don't think there's much in there
31:56
in either of those places for us. As we kind of wind down here,
32:02
you know, what you're talking about to me is really exciting because it's
32:13
allowing creating a space where people can be themselves, people can understand that it's
32:20
okay to be themselves. What do you feel, Brooke, you bring to
32:27
this that allows you to do this work authenticity? I mean, I really
32:32
believe that's kind of you know, a little bit of the gift I have
32:37
and the willingness to model the vulnerability. You know, I've done this twenty
32:45
times, and each time I sort of do some of the exercises myself,
32:54
and then very sparingly, I might share something. If people are struggling to
32:59
go deeper, I might you know, share a little something about an exercise
33:04
that everyone else is doing. So I kind of do the curriculum along with
33:08
them, you know. I know it's sort of backwards and forwards now and
33:14
I'm choosing. You know, the thing about Brene's work is you can do
33:16
the curriculum over and over again because at the beginning of the weekend, you
33:21
identify an area of your life you want to focus on, so she calls
33:25
it an arena. So it could be, you know, your marriage,
33:30
parenting, your career, it can be any of those things. And then
33:36
you can just do the entire curriculum again by just choosing a different arena.
33:40
So it's always a little bit fresh for me because I'm like, what arena
33:45
am I struggling with the most right now? And you know, I don't
33:50
do everything and I don't share everything, but they feel like I'm in it
33:53
with them, and we do this wonderful sharing at the end where I have
34:00
each member give feedback to every other member and I have them press record on
34:08
their voice memo on their phone, because you know what's the hardest thing.
34:14
The hardest thing is hearing good things about yourself and hearing and people are so
34:20
uncomfortable and there's not a dry eye in the house, and I know they
34:24
can't be fully present for it, and so I have them record it so
34:29
they can listen again. And guess what, when I'm having a week where
34:34
I'm not feeling like a great therapist, I will also listen to their feedback.
34:38
For me, it's not always one hundred percent positive, but a lot
34:45
of it is. And what most people say is thank you for being vulnerable
34:50
yourself because then we had the courage to do it. And I really encourage
34:54
more therapists to do that. I don't want to be a blank slate.
34:59
I don't want to see someone as so much better than me who's a therapist.
35:04
I want them to have the wisdom and the good boundaries, and not
35:07
to overshare, of course, but to model that they make mistakes too,
35:14
and I really believe that's a gift. That's awesome, all right, Brooke
35:20
man, weird people get in contact with you, so certainly my website,
35:27
which is just my full name, Brookbraylove dot com and then Instagram is at
35:32
Brooke Braylove Psychotherapy. I'm also on TikTok and Facebook and come join me in
35:42
a daring greatly We can so and people can. I'll have those linked up
35:46
here at the shows page at the Trauma Davis Podcast dot com. Brook awesome,
35:51
man. Love to have you back. You're so inspiring. We didn't
35:54
even get to what I thought we were talking about today, so well,
35:59
I'll have you back. Yeah, thank you so much, guy, Thank
36:01
you all right, take care