Latest / The Trauma Therapist / This is Going to Sound Nuts with Ashley Buckner, LCSW

Transcript

This is Going to Sound Nuts with Ashley Buckner, LCSW · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show,
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Speaker 1: our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to
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Speaker 1: have as my guest today, Ashley Buckner. Ashley, welcome, Thank
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Speaker 1: you so much for having me. All right. Ashley Buckner,
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Speaker 1: LCSW is a founder and CEO of Anchor and Rise
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Speaker 1: Therapy and Anchor and Rise Academy, providing therapy, supervision and
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Speaker 1: consulting nationwide with the licensure across forty five more than
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Speaker 1: forty five states. A Master certified ARITE clinician, she integrates
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Speaker 1: trauma informed Semitic approaches with CBT and motivational interviewing, specializing
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Speaker 1: in trauma, anxiety, substance use, and complex cases. She has
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Speaker 1: a background in survivor advocacy and serves on George's Human
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Speaker 1: Trafficking Coalition. She also consults with behavioral health organizations and
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Speaker 1: is a sought after speak the trauma and system level challenges.
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Speaker 1: All right, Actually, before we get go in here, share
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Speaker 1: with the listeners. Where you're from originally and where you
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Speaker 1: are currently, and we'll dive in.
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Speaker 2: I'm originally from South Georgia near the swamp, so that's
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Speaker 2: where this accent is from. And yes all the alligators.
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Speaker 2: I currently live in St. Petersburg, Florida and love.
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Speaker 1: It all right, So how does this start for you?
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Speaker 1: How do you develop this passion this calling?
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Speaker 2: I think for me, you know, everyone says I always
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Speaker 2: wanted to help people. I didn't know how I wanted
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Speaker 2: to do that, had no clue. In fact, a master's
1:39
Speaker 2: in social work work with my schedule, to be quite truthful,
1:41
Speaker 2: that is why I actually went in it. In my
1:43
Speaker 2: first day, I thought, people do this and they get
1:45
Speaker 2: paid for it. It's so cool. I love it. So
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Speaker 2: I was very thankful to kind of stumble into that.
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Speaker 2: Did a lot of things over the years, but in
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Speaker 2: the last few years really started developing a passion for
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Speaker 2: trauma and seeing how it impacts every aspect of our lives.
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Speaker 2: Last year I learned about accelerated resolution therapy and took
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Speaker 2: that training and all the trainings that went along with it,
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Speaker 2: and it just really catapulted this love for helping people
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Speaker 2: in their darkest times and that's where I am.
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Speaker 1: Now that's the quick and dirty. So not many people
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Speaker 1: can say, oh, I started learning about trauma and I
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Speaker 1: wanted to learn more, or that called me what about
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Speaker 1: that specifically got you? Pulled you how?
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Speaker 2: I think one of the things that I have discovered
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Speaker 2: is that trauma is present in so many ways. It
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Speaker 2: impacts the way that we have relationships with our partners,
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Speaker 2: relationships that we have with our friends, the way we parent.
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Speaker 2: It impacts the way that we sometimes get illnesses, recover
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Speaker 2: from illnesses, how we go to work. So it's touching
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Speaker 2: so many pieces, and I just think that so many
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Speaker 2: times it's not looked at. So this idea of instead
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Speaker 2: of what is wrong with you, what happened to you?
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Speaker 2: Is so impactful. And I think if people started listening
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Speaker 2: with that lens, we might get a little farther. We
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Speaker 2: might see a lot more change in people.
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Speaker 1: When you started seeing that or recognizing that and or
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Speaker 1: learning about that, was there any sense of you know?
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Speaker 1: I mean this is because let's face it, trauma is
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Speaker 1: hard to hear about, to learn about it. I'm look
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Speaker 1: glad to see. But yet you were something about it
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Speaker 1: and trigued you. I mean, aside from the fact that, yes,
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Speaker 1: it's prevalent in everything personally. How what enabled you to
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Speaker 1: do that?
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Speaker 2: You know, I think everyone comes with their own lens
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Speaker 2: of trauma, and I have no exception to that. I
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Speaker 2: had a lot of trauma, some as a child, some
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Speaker 2: I created with my own unhealthy patterns as an adult.
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Speaker 2: But what I realized is that people were going to
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Speaker 2: therapy and they were working on one thing, you know
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Speaker 2: that maybe working on their ans or how they communicate.
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Speaker 2: And please know that those things are wonderful. But I
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Speaker 2: would have my client saying something else is wrong with me.
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Speaker 2: Now what do I do?
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Speaker 1: Now?
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Speaker 2: Where do I go? And so I look at a
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Speaker 2: lot of treatment programs and think that they fix one
4:13
Speaker 2: thing and then we refer to someone else. But I
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Speaker 2: wonder what would happen if we actually got to the
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Speaker 2: root of it and again said what happened to you?
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Speaker 2: What if that was a start for not only understanding that.
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Speaker 1: I'm going to I'm going to stop you right there. Yes,
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Speaker 1: you touched upon your own story. Yes I want to
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Speaker 1: hear that. Okay, this is what this is about. Okay,
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Speaker 1: we all know everything else, but this is for you. Yeah, people, people,
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Speaker 1: their listeners want to know about you, because obviously you're
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Speaker 1: a strong woman, Obviously you're passionate about what you do.
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Speaker 1: I want to find out how you got here to
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Speaker 1: the extent that you're you're you feel comfortable sharing, and
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Speaker 1: what went on for you.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know. I think I had parents that also
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Speaker 2: had trauma, and they did the best that they could,
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Speaker 2: but they suffered with addiction and mental health concerns, and
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Speaker 2: that was that was not a good space growing up.
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Speaker 2: And I was actually telling my daughter, who's an adult now,
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Speaker 2: I was telling her the other day, you know, I
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Speaker 2: went through these phases of my life. I went through
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Speaker 2: this phase of I was always afraid of everything due
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Speaker 2: to religious reasons and my family reasons. I was fearful
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Speaker 2: of everything. So I was the perfect child, truly. I
5:32
Speaker 2: joked with her that I need her to take some
5:34
Speaker 2: lessons on that. But I was. I was doing all
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Speaker 2: the right things because I was scared to do anything wrong.
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Speaker 2: And then I got to a point where I got
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Speaker 2: very depressed because I thought I can't do everything right.
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Speaker 2: It was a lot of weight for a little kid
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Speaker 2: to carry. When I started getting depressed, probably about ten
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Speaker 2: ten years old, Wow, yeah, okay, and went through it.
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Speaker 2: I went through a lot, like emotionally trying to figure
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Speaker 2: this out. You know, we rationalize these things. And again,
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Speaker 2: perfect student. I really applied myself. I didn't break the rules,
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Speaker 2: never broke the rules. And then I started getting angry.
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Speaker 2: When I was thirteen, I just started getting angry, like
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Speaker 2: you're the adult here, what are you doing? And not
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Speaker 2: just angry at my parents, but honestly other adults that
6:26
Speaker 2: I felt like saw things and didn't help me. And
6:29
Speaker 2: so I just became pretty mad and I went through
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Speaker 2: anger for just a little bit. I kind of felt
6:35
Speaker 2: like it was all the stages of grief because I
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Speaker 2: was grieving the movie version of my life even as
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Speaker 2: a little kid, because my reality version looked very, very different.
6:44
Speaker 2: And then I got over my anger a little bit
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Speaker 2: and I thought, Okay, your way out is education. That's
6:52
Speaker 2: your way out. And in my mind, I just needed
6:55
Speaker 2: a master's degree. I didn't know what that did for me.
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Speaker 2: But in my head, if I have a master's degree,
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Speaker 2: I don't live in poverty, and I don't have abuse,
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Speaker 2: and I don't have drug and alcohol around me, I
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Speaker 2: don't have mental health concerns. This is my ticket, kind
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Speaker 2: of my golden ticket. And so I really.
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Speaker 1: Could imagine that I did.
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Speaker 2: I thought that was my golden ticket, and so that's
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Speaker 2: what I pushed for. It was all about the grades,
7:20
Speaker 2: and it was you know. And I got married really young,
7:24
Speaker 2: very young, and had my daughter. I was nineteen when
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Speaker 2: I got married, and we had our daughter. I was
7:33
Speaker 2: about to turn twenty two years old. I was very young,
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Speaker 2: and I had no idea who I was, no idea
7:40
Speaker 2: how to have a functioning, healthy relationship. And that ended.
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Speaker 2: It ended about eight years after we got married. And
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Speaker 2: then that was a whole other trauma, because divorce is
7:51
Speaker 2: the death of a dream. It's absolutely that. And we
7:56
Speaker 2: are fine now, he and I. We function well, and
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Speaker 2: we have raised this fabulous adult child. And he and
8:04
Speaker 2: his wife have a wonderful family as well, and I'm
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Speaker 2: involved in their life. A lot of healing came when
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Speaker 2: I realized that I could not fix other people, that
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Speaker 2: I had to fix myself.
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Speaker 1: How did you realize that.
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Speaker 2: When you look back and you have relationship failures and
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Speaker 2: I don't just mean one, but you know these multiple
8:24
Speaker 2: or regrets that you have of things you may have said,
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Speaker 2: or things you have done, or things you didn't say
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Speaker 2: or do, because again, you don't want to rock the boat.
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Speaker 2: You don't want to create chaos. I'm actually writing a
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Speaker 2: book right now. It's called Are You Motivated or Are
8:40
Speaker 2: You Traumatized? And it really discusses my path of feeling
8:45
Speaker 2: that I had to be perfect, that it wasn't enough
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Speaker 2: to like when I decided to start running, I didn't
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Speaker 2: run a five k. I ran a fifty k. That
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Speaker 2: was my goal. I didn't know how to do things
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Speaker 2: in a small way. I felt like I was always
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Speaker 2: proving myself and I started seeing that, and then I
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Speaker 2: got into my forties and thought, this is exhausting, and
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Speaker 2: I'm never reaching the bar because I'm always moving it
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Speaker 2: to another point, another point you.
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Speaker 1: Felt you needed you needed you needed to prove yourself because.
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Speaker 2: Why because it protect you. I thought it would protect me.
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Speaker 2: If I was good enough, then I would not get
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Speaker 2: in trouble by my parents. There wouldn't be they wouldn't
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Speaker 2: use drugs or alcohol. There wouldn't be physical abuse, there
9:30
Speaker 2: wouldn't be emotional abuse. If you did the right things,
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Speaker 2: none of those things happened, which as an adult, I
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Speaker 2: know is incorrect. But as a child, I thought if
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Speaker 2: I could control everything, I could keep myself safe, and
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Speaker 2: I knew as an adult that wasn't the case.
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Speaker 1: At what point, Ashley, And I appreciate you sharing this
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Speaker 1: what you shared. I appreciate that. What was there ever
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Speaker 1: a point where as a young, younger person you felt
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Speaker 1: you needed help, you needed to see a therapist.
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Speaker 2: Or yes, when I was when I was twelve, I
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Speaker 2: would get so nervous I would faint and I remember
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Speaker 2: that it would just and I kind of joke it
10:13
Speaker 2: was like the fainting goat, but really it was reality
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Speaker 2: to have that much anxiety that your body says I'm
10:20
Speaker 2: done just by I realized that at twelve that started happening,
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Speaker 2: and that happened for maybe a year, and we were
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Speaker 2: a very religious family, and so it was mental health
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Speaker 2: was not talked about and it was just pray about
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Speaker 2: it and it will get better. And that made me
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Speaker 2: angry too, because I felt like, lives is happening, you know,
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Speaker 2: can this stop? So I don't think I even realize
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Speaker 2: the impact of mental health until I was an adult.
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Speaker 2: As a child, I just clung to those people that
10:55
Speaker 2: I thought were healthy, my teachers, I had, my babysitters.
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Speaker 2: They raised us truly, but they were wonderful people, and
11:04
Speaker 2: so I clung to those people that I thought were
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Speaker 2: healthy because I did not know what mental health looked like.
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Speaker 1: So you get go through high school, how are you surviving?
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Speaker 1: What are you doing in addition to fainting? What are
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Speaker 1: you doing to I don't mean that as a joke
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Speaker 1: that I wish you was some kind of a coping
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Speaker 1: it was. But in addition to that, how well, and perfectionism. Clearly,
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Speaker 1: how were you coping?
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Speaker 2: That was pretty much it. It was. It was perfectionism
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Speaker 2: and really pushing towards this goal in my head of
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Speaker 2: a master's degree and I have to pass. I do.
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Speaker 2: I have two younger sisters. We had very different experiences
11:46
Speaker 2: growing up due to the age gap.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. So you get into college and I love the
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Speaker 1: way you just talked about that the psychology program. Let
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Speaker 1: just fit your schedule, it did do this.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I got a I stayed local because again,
12:07
Speaker 2: my entire life was I was married young and it
12:11
Speaker 2: was my church. So that was my way to escape
12:14
Speaker 2: that and that was it. That was life. I went
12:20
Speaker 2: to college, even though I had multiple scholarships. I went
12:23
Speaker 2: to the local university and got a associate degree in business,
12:29
Speaker 2: graduated while I was pregnant with my daughter, and then
12:31
Speaker 2: right after she was born, I went to a program.
12:36
Speaker 2: It was on campus through Savannah State University for behavior analysis.
12:42
Speaker 2: And then again you still have to have a master's
12:44
Speaker 2: degree run so in my mind, so then I was like,
12:48
Speaker 2: where do I go? And this program was two days
12:51
Speaker 2: a week and it was two hours away, so I
12:53
Speaker 2: could work full time and take care of my family
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Speaker 2: and my daughter, and then I could drive two days
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Speaker 2: a week to go to go do this program. And
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Speaker 2: I remember even on the first day, a family member said,
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Speaker 2: what kind of mother leaves their child to go to school?
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Speaker 2: And I thought, the one that doesn't want to be stuck,
13:10
Speaker 2: the one that wants to break some of this. And
13:12
Speaker 2: so I went to school, and thankfully it was something
13:15
Speaker 2: that I loved. But I had no clue what a
13:18
Speaker 2: social worker did. And then I realized this path, this
13:23
Speaker 2: path was for me. I have a tattoo that says
13:27
Speaker 2: a more fawty, So you know, love your fate. So
13:30
Speaker 2: either things that happen or for your good, or things
13:33
Speaker 2: that are bad happen and they will turn into good.
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Speaker 2: They will teach you some good in your life. So
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Speaker 2: I'm a big believer in that and always have been,
13:41
Speaker 2: and thankfully that path has not steered me wrong. But
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Speaker 2: I was working on Oh, I was gonna say, I
13:47
Speaker 2: was working on people's mental health long before I worked
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Speaker 2: on mine, though embarrassingly.
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Speaker 1: Well that's the way it goes for a lot of us. Yes,
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Speaker 1: At what point did you start realizing you needed toquote
14:00
Speaker 1: unquote work on your own?
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Speaker 2: Probably fully when I was gosh, not until my thirties,
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Speaker 2: Not till my mid thirties, not until I had a
14:11
Speaker 2: long string of hurts and sadnesses and wood ifs and
14:15
Speaker 2: could a should have woodas. Then I thought, you know,
14:18
Speaker 2: maybe there's a common denominator, Maybe you need to look
14:20
Speaker 2: at what you're doing. And I realized that I needed
14:24
Speaker 2: some help, and I got that yeah, in the form
14:27
Speaker 2: of what I did.
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Speaker 1: You know.
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Speaker 2: I did traditional therapy for a while, but the game
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Speaker 2: changer for me truly came last year when I took
14:36
Speaker 2: accelerated resolution therapy. I was burned out with social work,
14:41
Speaker 2: burned out with life period, and I went through a
14:47
Speaker 2: very bad time in my life with my daughter's health,
14:50
Speaker 2: and it shook me and shook my entire foundation of
14:53
Speaker 2: what I knew, and so I didn't want to be
14:56
Speaker 2: a therapist anymore. And I didn't want to talk to people,
14:59
Speaker 2: and I I was just mad all the time. So
15:02
Speaker 2: I took this training thinking someone might use it, maybe
15:05
Speaker 2: it'll revamp my my therapy practice. And as all good
15:09
Speaker 2: trainings are, it was therapists working on each other, and
15:13
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, in one session, something I'd worked
15:16
Speaker 2: on for ten years went away. And it was because
15:21
Speaker 2: they removed the physical sensations in my body. And it
15:23
Speaker 2: started making me think, gosh, you know, trauma shows up
15:26
Speaker 2: in a lot of ways, and for me, it had
15:28
Speaker 2: shown up in a lot of the physical and the
15:31
Speaker 2: somatic symptoms that I had.
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Speaker 1: For our listeners, if you don't mind kind of giving
15:38
Speaker 1: us the nutshell of what.
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Speaker 2: Accelerated, Absolutely, it's this idea. It uses eye movements to
15:45
Speaker 2: work on trauma, and so what it says is that
15:47
Speaker 2: when trauma happens, that your body holds that in some
15:50
Speaker 2: way and that's why you get the lump in your
15:52
Speaker 2: throat or the tightness in your chest, or the butterflies
15:55
Speaker 2: in your stomach. So what if you were able to
15:57
Speaker 2: think about a situation and you were able to move
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Speaker 2: those icky feelings that you have in your body and
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Speaker 2: the trauma you still know that it happened. You still
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Speaker 2: remember it fully, but it doesn't have the physical impact
16:09
Speaker 2: on you anymore. That's the basis of the therapy game
16:12
Speaker 2: changer for me. I speak about it all across the
16:14
Speaker 2: world at different conferences, and it has changed my life
16:18
Speaker 2: personally and professionally. I look at it, take a step back.
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Speaker 1: You said when you did that, when you took that
16:25
Speaker 1: course or workshop, something changed for you.
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Speaker 2: Taking immediately immediately. So this is going to sell nuts,
16:34
Speaker 2: but it is my story. My daughter. My daughter has epilepsy,
16:39
Speaker 2: and when the thing that I'm the most proud of
16:43
Speaker 2: in my entire life is being a mother. My past
16:46
Speaker 2: taught me how to be a good parent unintentionally, but
16:49
Speaker 2: it did so. When she would have her her seizures,
16:54
Speaker 2: I couldn't do anything about them. I would stand in
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Speaker 2: the corner and just scream, truly frozen. And the last
17:01
Speaker 2: set that she had, her doctor said, you know, if
17:03
Speaker 2: you would have given her her rescue medication, this would
17:06
Speaker 2: have stopped. And they were not being ugly, they were
17:09
Speaker 2: just being truthful. But I thought, I have to do
17:11
Speaker 2: something about this. And I had talked to the best
17:13
Speaker 2: therapist and I still couldn't move in the moment. So
17:16
Speaker 2: I did one session of accelerated resolution therapy, and all
17:20
Speaker 2: of a sudden, I wasn't frozen anymore. I could see
17:25
Speaker 2: that happening in my mind and knew exactly what I
17:27
Speaker 2: was going to do, and it changed my entire life.
17:30
Speaker 2: I think it changed my family, to be honest. And
17:33
Speaker 2: so after that, I thought, maybe I should work on
17:35
Speaker 2: some other stuff, Maybe I should work on all this
17:37
Speaker 2: past stuff and crazy story. It felt like my body
17:42
Speaker 2: was on fire and I could feel it moving up.
17:45
Speaker 2: I knew it was anger, and it was so calm
17:50
Speaker 2: and peaceful, which I didn't expect. The heat gets all
17:53
Speaker 2: the way to the top, and it was like little bubble,
17:56
Speaker 2: the smallest of bubbles, and all of a sudden, I
17:58
Speaker 2: didn't feel angry anymore. And for me, it's just been
18:02
Speaker 2: a change.
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Speaker 1: What was happening with the accelerated resolution.
18:07
Speaker 2: Therapy, I'm so what was happening is is so it
18:11
Speaker 2: uses voluntary image replacement and removes the somatic symptoms in
18:18
Speaker 2: your body. So all of a sudden, I wasn't frozen anymore.
18:22
Speaker 2: That's this. I didn't get the not in my stomach
18:26
Speaker 2: and tightness in my chest, so it removed that and
18:30
Speaker 2: In addition to that, I actually could picture myself giving
18:34
Speaker 2: her her medication, which I had never been able to
18:36
Speaker 2: do in therapy before, and all of a sudden, I
18:39
Speaker 2: could be the mom I wanted to be. And that
18:41
Speaker 2: healed a lot of things for me. By the way, WHOA.
18:44
Speaker 2: So it was it was a game changer to remove
18:47
Speaker 2: the physical symptoms. It did not take away what happened.
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Speaker 2: My memory is still fully there, but I don't have
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Speaker 2: that sensation in my body when I think of those
18:55
Speaker 2: things anymore.
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Speaker 1: And it removes the physical symptoms through visualization.
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Speaker 2: Well, it's voluntary image replacements, so you're able to insert
19:07
Speaker 2: your own images there. But they use bilateral stimulation to
19:12
Speaker 2: remove people have heard of EMDR. The difference is the
19:16
Speaker 2: amount of time. This is one to five sessions, and
19:20
Speaker 2: so it is accelerated. Right, The treatment is accelerated, and
19:25
Speaker 2: in one session all the things I had wanted to
19:29
Speaker 2: deal with for a long time. Even if I talked
19:31
Speaker 2: them out through therapy, they were not gone, but with
19:34
Speaker 2: accelerated resolution therapy they were. It really changed my life.
19:38
Speaker 1: That's incredible. I just want to say something. You know,
19:41
Speaker 1: you started out talking about the work you do in
19:49
Speaker 1: a general way and when you started talking about your story, Ashley,
19:58
Speaker 1: something shifted. It's like I felt like I could feel
20:08
Speaker 1: your energy, I could feel your power, I could feel
20:11
Speaker 1: everything you've gone through, and it just feels like there's
20:15
Speaker 1: so much more weight now behind and strength behind the
20:20
Speaker 1: work you're doing. Absolutely clear, the experiences the childhood that
20:26
Speaker 1: you've had has been the engine behind this work you're doing.
20:31
Speaker 2: Yes, who knew? I wrote a list in my twenties.
20:38
Speaker 2: It was called Things they Didn't mean to teach Me,
20:41
Speaker 2: and it was basically about just people in my life
20:44
Speaker 2: and experiences that I've had that again were not intended
20:49
Speaker 2: to be told. They were not on the learning objectives,
20:51
Speaker 2: but I learned them anyway. And now I look back
20:56
Speaker 2: and I think, gosh, you know people can't get help,
21:00
Speaker 2: Like we're not stuck in this space. I had a
21:01
Speaker 2: professor that used to say, everyone tells you to pull
21:04
Speaker 2: yourself up by your bootstraps, but there's times you don't
21:07
Speaker 2: have shoes. I give people shoes now because someone gave
21:11
Speaker 2: me shoes, And that's a really powerful thing to me.
21:16
Speaker 1: Someone gave you shoes, they gave me shoes. You and
21:19
Speaker 1: you walked into that situation.
21:22
Speaker 2: Just trying to get a master's degree, trying.
21:24
Speaker 1: To get a master's not thinking you were going to
21:27
Speaker 1: get help yourself. No, possibly this could help you somewhere
21:31
Speaker 1: down the line, maybe help someone else.
21:34
Speaker 2: Maybe yeah, yeah, And then all of a sudden, I'm
21:39
Speaker 2: living my dream and a dream I didn't even know
21:43
Speaker 2: I had. Right look at you, You're.
21:45
Speaker 1: Like this, this this box of like gifts that just
21:49
Speaker 1: keep opening up. How did this happen to you? You know?
21:54
Speaker 2: I wonder sometimes I don't know why I don't have
21:56
Speaker 2: this same luck playing the lottery, but I feel that
22:00
Speaker 2: I've had so many, so much luck, blessings, whatever you
22:06
Speaker 2: want to call it. In our family, we referred to
22:08
Speaker 2: them as nuggets. Like the gold miners. They would be
22:11
Speaker 2: ready to pack it up, and they would find one
22:13
Speaker 2: nugget and it would keep them going. I've had nuggets
22:16
Speaker 2: throughout my life that have just carried me and I
22:18
Speaker 2: just feel so thankful.
22:21
Speaker 1: So obviously the work you're doing now with anger and
22:25
Speaker 1: rise and how did that come about? When did you
22:28
Speaker 1: get to the point where you're like, I'm going to
22:30
Speaker 1: start my own thing.
22:31
Speaker 2: I never wanted to do that because I knew my
22:33
Speaker 2: boss would be a total jerk. I knew I already
22:35
Speaker 2: knew they would work me way too hard. But last year,
22:39
Speaker 2: when all of this stuff was happening with my daughter,
22:41
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't know what to do, but
22:43
Speaker 2: I cannot continue doing what I'm doing, which was climbing
22:46
Speaker 2: the ladder I met. You know, every goal ever achieved
22:49
Speaker 2: or every goal ever set for myself, I was able
22:51
Speaker 2: to achieve. So last year I was just like, I
22:55
Speaker 2: don't know what to do, and I for me, it
22:57
Speaker 2: was a faith thing. And I actually heard one day
23:02
Speaker 2: you need to anchor in your strength and rise in
23:04
Speaker 2: your purpose. Well I'm not that creative, so I listened
23:08
Speaker 2: to that, and that's our logo. We have an anchor
23:12
Speaker 2: with a starfish, and the anchor is obviously anchoring I
23:17
Speaker 2: like Florida. That has to do with that. The starfish
23:19
Speaker 2: is from the Starfish Story of where the person's picking
23:22
Speaker 2: up the starfish and throwing them into the water and
23:24
Speaker 2: someone says, you're never gonna save them all, and they
23:27
Speaker 2: said that I made a difference for that one. So
23:29
Speaker 2: it's this idea that we can make a difference in
23:31
Speaker 2: people's lives one at a time. And I had no
23:34
Speaker 2: idea what I wanted to do with anchor and rise therapy,
23:36
Speaker 2: but it has grown into something beautiful. I'm licensed almost
23:39
Speaker 2: in the entire country, hopefully I will be in the
23:41
Speaker 2: next four weeks, do clinical supervision and train the next
23:46
Speaker 2: group of social workers to provide culturally competent care, provide
23:51
Speaker 2: a lot of gender affirming care. I help people that
23:54
Speaker 2: don't have a voice. That's really what I do, and
23:57
Speaker 2: I love it.
24:00
Speaker 1: I love talking to you because clear you do when
24:03
Speaker 1: you talk to us about when someone comes into your office,
24:10
Speaker 1: what do you how do you what do you do?
24:13
Speaker 1: How do you quote unquote work with them? What's your
24:15
Speaker 1: what's your process? Obviously it's different for every person, but
24:20
Speaker 1: give us a.
24:20
Speaker 2: Hint, tell me your story. I want to hear it.
24:25
Speaker 2: I'm not here to fix everything. I am here to
24:28
Speaker 2: cheerlead with you as you fix it. And I want
24:31
Speaker 2: to work with you because I want to empower people.
24:35
Speaker 2: And I don't just mean that in a general sense.
24:37
Speaker 2: I want people to leave a session with me and go,
24:40
Speaker 2: I'm about to do something great, and not because I
24:43
Speaker 2: gave that to them, but because they finally just felt
24:46
Speaker 2: the courage to say, I've got somebody backing me. So
24:50
Speaker 2: I really like going into situations and just finding out
24:52
Speaker 2: people's stories. I say that social workers are nosy and
24:57
Speaker 2: they just get paid for it. But that's that's what
24:59
Speaker 2: I want to be. I want to know, you know,
25:02
Speaker 2: tell me about what what happened when you grew up
25:05
Speaker 2: your first relationship, What do you enjoy doing? I think
25:08
Speaker 2: we leave that out a lot of times, Like what
25:10
Speaker 2: does life look like? What did the movie version look like?
25:14
Speaker 2: What's the reality version looking like? So really being able
25:17
Speaker 2: to go in and let people decide how they want
25:21
Speaker 2: to live their lives and just empower them.
25:24
Speaker 1: You talked about that, the movie version versus reality. What
25:29
Speaker 1: when you were younger, what did your movie version look like?
25:32
Speaker 2: My movie version was that I was going to be
25:35
Speaker 2: married to the same person for seventy years, and I
25:40
Speaker 2: was going to have this house and you know, a
25:43
Speaker 2: few children, and I was going to go to school
25:47
Speaker 2: and travel a lot and do all of these things.
25:51
Speaker 2: And my reality version's whole lot better. But I just
25:56
Speaker 2: didn't realize that at the time. I didn't realize I
25:58
Speaker 2: had the capacity or the ability to be able to
26:00
Speaker 2: reach for them.
26:02
Speaker 1: Actually, when you started working with clients, what were some
26:09
Speaker 1: of the things that were maybe challenging for you initially
26:15
Speaker 1: because I'm guessing when you started working out, when you
26:19
Speaker 1: started working with clients, you weren't yet quote unquote working
26:23
Speaker 1: on yourself or hadn't worked on yourself, right, So imagining
26:26
Speaker 1: there was some maybe some challenges there. Talk to us
26:29
Speaker 1: a little bit about that.
26:31
Speaker 2: One of the challenges was that I grew up in
26:33
Speaker 2: an area where everyone looked the same, everyone went to
26:36
Speaker 2: the same kind of church, So I didn't have any
26:38
Speaker 2: clue about cultural diversity I went to when I went
26:43
Speaker 2: to Savannah State, that's an HBCU, and I'm so thankful
26:47
Speaker 2: for that lens and the things they taught me there.
26:50
Speaker 2: So I first of all started with this curiosity of
26:54
Speaker 2: cultures and that cultural humility. So I was doing great
26:58
Speaker 2: work from the book. I was doing good work straight
27:01
Speaker 2: from a book, but it hits different when it comes
27:05
Speaker 2: from your heart and from your experience. So as I
27:08
Speaker 2: started working on myself, I realized different passions I had.
27:12
Speaker 2: I connected with people in different ways. I was able
27:16
Speaker 2: to instill a hope, not because a book told me to,
27:19
Speaker 2: but because I knew it was possible. And I truly
27:23
Speaker 2: believe that the efficacy depends on the therapist and their
27:26
Speaker 2: belief in it too. And I sometimes think, Gosh, I
27:31
Speaker 2: wish I would have had this different lens years ago,
27:33
Speaker 2: but my story wouldn't be the same if I did.
27:35
Speaker 2: So I have it now, and now I'm coming from
27:40
Speaker 2: a different place. I've got the background, I've got the education,
27:42
Speaker 2: but I also have the experience.
27:47
Speaker 1: Do you feel that it's challenging to be working with
27:53
Speaker 1: people who've experienced trauma?
27:55
Speaker 2: Absolutely? Absolutely, But I also think trauma is much more
27:59
Speaker 2: prevalent than we then we assume. So if we go
28:02
Speaker 2: in just kind of automatically assuming that people have their
28:05
Speaker 2: stuff and sometimes they've packed it away and leaving a
28:09
Speaker 2: space to be able to unpack it should you want to.
28:13
Speaker 1: That.
28:14
Speaker 2: So I just assume everyone has trauma. Everyone I pass
28:16
Speaker 2: in Walmart, everyone that I see in my in my sessions.
28:21
Speaker 2: I just assume that that on some levels, someone has
28:26
Speaker 2: had something that has impacted them.
28:29
Speaker 1: Your your experience with the what's the acronym acr art art, Yes,
28:37
Speaker 1: was amazing. I mean it feels like it just shifted
28:41
Speaker 1: everything everything for you.
28:43
Speaker 2: I actually that's really my passion. Now, That's what I do.
28:50
Speaker 2: I see other therapies and I'm like, oh, I wonder
28:52
Speaker 2: if I could do some eye movements. I wonder. I'm
28:54
Speaker 2: watching TV and my family gets so annoyed because I'm like,
28:57
Speaker 2: I wonder if I could do accelerated resolution there be
29:00
Speaker 2: on them and they're like, stop it. But it's been
29:04
Speaker 2: that much of a miracle to me, And so yeah,
29:07
Speaker 2: just a big game changer. You're not removing what happened,
29:10
Speaker 2: but you're just removing how your body feels about it,
29:12
Speaker 2: and that's crazy impactful.
29:15
Speaker 1: You mentioned the book. Is that something that's going to
29:19
Speaker 1: be coming out soon? What's the process for that?
29:21
Speaker 2: I am. I am still in the works, but part
29:26
Speaker 2: of it is my story, and then part of it
29:27
Speaker 2: really talks about the adverse childhood experiences and the personality
29:32
Speaker 2: traits that those create in people, especially when I see
29:36
Speaker 2: how achieving women in particular, I'm proud of them want
29:41
Speaker 2: to be their biggest cheerleader, but I also wonder, what
29:44
Speaker 2: are we proving? What are we doing?
29:48
Speaker 1: And finally you mentioned the consulting you do. Who do
29:51
Speaker 1: you consult with for brother?
29:54
Speaker 2: I actually work with a lot of companies that are
29:57
Speaker 2: nationwide that or either they want to expand nationwide. And again,
30:03
Speaker 2: because I'm licensed and almost all the states and provide
30:06
Speaker 2: clinical supervision, there I can provide this continuity to be
30:11
Speaker 2: able to expand and grow with a culturally competent lens,
30:15
Speaker 2: again really focusing on trauma and education. And so I
30:20
Speaker 2: contract with companies that have that same mindset of we
30:23
Speaker 2: want to grow, we want to grow bigger, but we
30:25
Speaker 2: want to do it in the right way. So those
30:27
Speaker 2: are the people I work with.
30:29
Speaker 1: Awesome, right, Actually, how do people learn more about you?
30:32
Speaker 1: What's this way?
30:33
Speaker 2: They can absolutely contact me on my website it's anchor
30:37
Speaker 2: and spell it out riseurse dot net. And so I
30:41
Speaker 2: would love to be able to reach out. You can
30:44
Speaker 2: catch me on LinkedIn or some of the conferences I'll
30:47
Speaker 2: be presenting out this year. So I'm just I definitely
30:51
Speaker 2: appreciate this opportunity. I'm used to talking about other people,
30:54
Speaker 2: so it was nice to kind of say, I.
30:59
Speaker 1: Know you tried to get away from it, but we
31:01
Speaker 1: pulled you back than you're because you're amazing. Your story
31:06
Speaker 1: is incredible and you are so friggin inspiring. I love it.
31:10
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
31:11
Speaker 1: We exude this strength. Thank you. It's a pleasure meeting
31:16
Speaker 1: You'd love to have you back you as well.
31:18
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for the opportunity. Have a great Day,
31:20
Speaker 2: Sake Care,