Latest / The Trauma Therapist / The Guest Host Series Jenny Hughes interviews Liliana Baylon
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gamiferson.
- 0:04Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
- 0:07Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
- 0:11Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
- 0:15Speaker 2: Five four three two one.
- 0:20Speaker 3: Hello everyone, and welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast with
- 0:23Speaker 3: Guy McPherson. I'm your guest host today, Jenny Hughes. I'm
- 0:27Speaker 3: a trauma psychologist and founder of the Brave Trauma Therapist Collective,
- 0:31Speaker 3: and I'm here with the amazing Lilliana Balen. She is
- 0:35Speaker 3: an LMFT in Colorado. She does so many amazing things.
- 0:41Speaker 3: She's an em DR therapist, a play a registered play therapist,
- 0:46Speaker 3: she's a supervisor, and she's also an advocate.
- 0:49Speaker 2: For so many things.
- 0:52Speaker 3: And this is actually a redo of an episode that
- 0:55Speaker 3: we recorded back in September that got lost in the
- 0:58Speaker 3: interwebs of technology, and we're really glad that we get
- 1:01Speaker 3: to redo it because in September we were talking about
- 1:04Speaker 3: cultural humility and immigrant trauma, which was very relevant, and
- 1:09Speaker 3: now today, as of February fourth, twenty twenty six, when
- 1:12Speaker 3: we are recording it, is ever more relevant for us,
- 1:16Speaker 3: and so we're going to talk about what is the
- 1:18Speaker 3: cost of witnessing all of this collective trauma and see
- 1:23Speaker 3: where it goes from there. So welcome the Leanna, thank
- 1:25Speaker 3: you for your time, your energy again and let's hit
- 1:29Speaker 3: the ground running.
- 1:30Speaker 4: Lady, thank you for the invite. Yeah, let's hit it.
- 1:33Speaker 4: So it's funny because every time that I'm talking for
- 1:35Speaker 4: all of you who are listening, when you think about
- 1:38Speaker 4: the parallel process that we are having with our clients,
- 1:41Speaker 4: when we're talking about what we're the collective trauma that
- 1:45Speaker 4: we're witnessing. So is not just our clients coming and
- 1:48Speaker 4: sharing with us in our sessions, but it's also what
- 1:51Speaker 4: we are noticing in the news, when we're noticing, if
- 1:55Speaker 4: you're advocating, what you're noticing when you go and protest,
- 1:58Speaker 4: if you're able by to do so, and how all
- 2:02Speaker 4: of that is actually all those migration narratives, social justices
- 2:07Speaker 4: or social injustices that we're witnessing are actually reshaping our
- 2:12Speaker 4: nervous systems, not just our clients, but us as therapists,
- 2:17Speaker 4: as containers, we are being reshaped, and we are in
- 2:22Speaker 4: a state of hypervilgions and collapsing. We are in both
- 2:28Speaker 4: every day. Right, So, even as I name this for
- 2:33Speaker 4: all of you, if you are not aware or if
- 2:36Speaker 4: you are aware, just let it think in Just notice
- 2:40Speaker 4: as we are naming this, what is coming up for you? Right?
- 2:47Speaker 4: So I want to start with we are witnessing migration
- 2:53Speaker 4: from a different lens. This time. We know that migration
- 2:57Speaker 4: has been historically here with us. This was made of migrants,
- 3:03Speaker 4: and migration is something that we have done from the
- 3:06Speaker 4: beginning of times. Can we start by naming that? So
- 3:10Speaker 4: it's not only a life event, it's a pro long
- 3:15Speaker 4: nervous system experience that is shaped by uncertainty, by laws,
- 3:24Speaker 4: by adaptation, an exposure threat, like the brain does not
- 3:31Speaker 4: know what is gonna encounter the brain, the nervous system
- 3:34Speaker 4: does not know what is gonna encounter every time that
- 3:37Speaker 4: we have to be adapting or assimilating to new places
- 3:42Speaker 4: and to the threat of how we're gonna.
- 3:44Speaker 2: Be received by others.
- 3:47Speaker 4: Are we're gonna have belonging? Are we going to be rejecting?
- 3:50Speaker 4: Like what is said that is going to happen when
- 3:53Speaker 4: we are constantly moving while we live in a global entity. Now,
- 4:00Speaker 4: so I'm wondering, Jennys, I started talking about all of
- 4:04Speaker 4: the cust of witnessing in plant language. What are you
- 4:08Speaker 4: noticing when I started just by naming all of this
- 4:11Speaker 4: for you.
- 4:12Speaker 2: I mean for me in my own body.
- 4:15Speaker 3: I can just feel the activation in my chest, the tightening, right.
- 4:18Speaker 3: I also start to run through clients in my mind,
- 4:22Speaker 3: for whom this is literally front and center for them
- 4:26Speaker 3: every single day, who are having to change and modify
- 4:30Speaker 3: their behaviors, their routines in order to stay safe.
- 4:36Speaker 2: And you know, when.
- 4:37Speaker 3: We're thinking about the impact of this on us as clinicians,
- 4:41Speaker 3: something that I talk about a lot is the difference
- 4:43Speaker 3: between vicarious trauma and secondary traumatic stress because they get
- 4:48Speaker 3: use interchangeably a lot, but they are not the same thing.
- 4:51Speaker 3: Vicarious trauma is what happens to any kind of helper
- 4:54Speaker 3: or healer because it just happens through empathic engagement. It's
- 4:58Speaker 3: that kind of energy train for if you will, that
- 5:01Speaker 3: happens when you're helping someone and you naturally soak up
- 5:04Speaker 3: what's going on for them. The other side of that
- 5:06Speaker 3: is vicarious resilience. We also get to soak up the glimmers.
- 5:09Speaker 3: I always have to get that in there.
- 5:11Speaker 2: Yeah, but and so so I.
- 5:13Speaker 3: Vicarious trauma can only be experienced by someone in a
- 5:16Speaker 3: helping role. Yes, secondary traumatic stress, though, can be experienced
- 5:22Speaker 3: by anyone, and for us clinicians, we can experience it
- 5:27Speaker 3: in our personal lives, but also in our professional lives
- 5:30Speaker 3: and professionally, secondary traumatic stress shows up as PTSD about
- 5:35Speaker 3: the things that we are helping our clients with. And
- 5:38Speaker 3: so there are both of these things, vicarious trauma and
- 5:42Speaker 3: secondary traumatic stress happening for clinicians right now for so
- 5:45Speaker 3: many different reasons, and figuring out kind of what's what.
- 5:50Speaker 3: There's no perfect way to do it, but having some
- 5:53Speaker 3: language can be helpful because we respond to those things
- 5:56Speaker 3: differently as clinicians.
- 5:58Speaker 4: Yeah, so I love that your name is this this
- 6:01Speaker 4: stress response that we all having right as we're witnessing
- 6:04Speaker 4: not only in the room with our clients, but when
- 6:07Speaker 4: you turn on the TV, there's no channel that is
- 6:10Speaker 4: not giving you some glimpses of this, or when you
- 6:13Speaker 4: open your phone and your social media is just so
- 6:17Speaker 4: much collected trauma that you're saying. So what we're noticing
- 6:21Speaker 4: from clinicians, including but myself, I'm sure that is the
- 6:25Speaker 4: same for you, Jenny, which is we get easily triggered.
- 6:27Speaker 4: Now recovery is taking longer. Attention becomes to like narrow
- 6:33Speaker 4: more down, so hope can feel harder to access. So
- 6:38Speaker 4: this is everything that you're naming in naming the difference
- 6:42Speaker 4: between the two. Yet the nervous system, our brain cannot
- 6:46Speaker 4: differentiate in that moment because we're just in it.
- 6:51Speaker 2: It's just doing its job.
- 6:52Speaker 3: Those lower sub subcortical parts of our brain are not
- 6:55Speaker 3: making choices. It's just reacting and doing its job and
- 6:58Speaker 3: going into survival.
- 6:59Speaker 1: Now.
- 7:00Speaker 4: Yeah, So that chronic uncertainty, that power feeling powerless, that question,
- 7:08Speaker 4: or that moral injury that we are all having to
- 7:13Speaker 4: make sense of, and the ongoing exposure to these systems
- 7:18Speaker 4: can re traumatize not only our clients ourselves, not only
- 7:23Speaker 4: because we're witnessing when we go out, when we're turning
- 7:26Speaker 4: on the TV, but in the rooms with the stories
- 7:29Speaker 4: that our clients are telling us.
- 7:31Speaker 2: Or with supervises.
- 7:33Speaker 4: If you're supervising as well, so then your nervous system
- 7:37Speaker 4: is constantly getting this information. So it's just becoming harder
- 7:42Speaker 4: and harder to have those moments of regulation in order
- 7:46Speaker 4: for your nervous system to say I can breathe in
- 7:49Speaker 4: this moment or I am safe in this moment and.
- 7:54Speaker 3: Even kind of those like go to avoidance tactics. I've
- 7:58Speaker 3: avoid the media one. It's really hard. But also I
- 8:02Speaker 3: know for myself and a lot of other folks out there,
- 8:05Speaker 3: I start to feel like guilty and ashamed if I'm
- 8:08Speaker 3: avoiding it.
- 8:09Speaker 2: And so it's like, how do I.
- 8:11Speaker 3: Even know how much or how little or in what
- 8:14Speaker 3: ways to engage and to get the information that I
- 8:18Speaker 3: think is necessary to have so that I understand what
- 8:21Speaker 3: is happening to people in our country and in this world.
- 8:24Speaker 3: But then how do I protect myself and not feel
- 8:27Speaker 3: guilty for that too?
- 8:29Speaker 4: Yeah, so how do we put it in a context
- 8:31Speaker 4: because I keep thinking, all of you, I'm gonna outdate
- 8:34Speaker 4: myself right now, which is when I came into the field,
- 8:38Speaker 4: there was no social media. AOL took so long to
- 8:42Speaker 4: log in that I can still hear the music of
- 8:45Speaker 4: trying to log in.
- 8:46Speaker 2: It wasn't even music. It was just cracking buying and
- 8:50Speaker 2: loud pitches.
- 8:53Speaker 4: So the reality is that we had to trust journalism.
- 8:58Speaker 4: We have to trust the moments of because the news
- 9:01Speaker 4: was not twenty four to seven and we didn't have
- 9:05Speaker 4: access to which meant that we rely on newspapers. We
- 9:10Speaker 4: rely on storytelling, We rely on going out and meeting
- 9:15Speaker 4: people and being curious. We rely on the one on
- 9:19Speaker 4: one or community, not friendship community, which there was a
- 9:24Speaker 4: there's a different there's a distinction between friendship and community,
- 9:27Speaker 4: and also there being in exchange right now. So therefore
- 9:33Speaker 4: we have moments of being able to remove ourselves to
- 9:37Speaker 4: have time to critically think and organize that information that
- 9:42Speaker 4: we were given in order for us to also make
- 9:45Speaker 4: a conscious decision on how we're going to show up
- 9:48Speaker 4: and right now, depending on the platform that you're using,
- 9:52Speaker 4: you are allowing information to come in with that questioning
- 9:55Speaker 4: without very fine, without like it's all this, just consume
- 10:00Speaker 4: it and take it as a fact, when in reality
- 10:03Speaker 4: that's not true either. So then how do we do this?
- 10:06Speaker 4: So I'm here to tell you my way of numbing
- 10:10Speaker 4: is not healthy, but it's reading.
- 10:13Speaker 2: What do you mean? Okay?
- 10:15Speaker 3: So you're when you say my way of numbing is reading?
- 10:18Speaker 3: Do you mean reading the news? Are you talking about
- 10:20Speaker 3: like reading not reading the books?
- 10:22Speaker 2: Okay? I love that. What do you mean? That's not healthy?
- 10:25Speaker 4: It's not. First of all, it's really expensive. Two, I
- 10:29Speaker 4: have a horror thing of books. Everywhere.
- 10:33Speaker 2: Have you heard of Liddy? My friend?
- 10:38Speaker 4: But I am looking for storytelling, like tell me about
- 10:42Speaker 4: your story, tell me about what you went through and
- 10:47Speaker 4: how you organize it. So, yes, I have to look
- 10:50Speaker 4: at the news, but I'm limiting the news. It's not
- 10:52Speaker 4: the first thing in the morning, and it's not the
- 10:54Speaker 4: last thing before I go to sleep. I'm very I
- 10:58Speaker 4: do not check my social media. I work really hard
- 11:02Speaker 4: on not looking at social media before I go to sleep,
- 11:04Speaker 4: and not the first thing that I do in the
- 11:05Speaker 4: morning either. I want my nervous system to have time
- 11:10Speaker 4: to wake up and then have time to disconnect and
- 11:14Speaker 4: just be one to one before I go to bed
- 11:20Speaker 4: and then do what other ways. So I'm going to
- 11:24Speaker 4: community events tell me you know, tell me about this,
- 11:28Speaker 4: But I'm looking for can I hear you, can I
- 11:31Speaker 4: get to know you? And then reading. Honestly, I am
- 11:35Speaker 4: so thankful there's so many specifically migrant authors who are
- 11:39Speaker 4: talking about their stories that now we have more representation.
- 11:43Speaker 4: It's not something that we had when I first started
- 11:47Speaker 4: in this field. So I am listening and learning about
- 11:50Speaker 4: migration status, discrimination, language vocabulary that they're using. What are
- 11:57Speaker 4: the barriers, what is the economic strength that they went through,
- 12:01Speaker 4: or that we are going through the stories about family separation,
- 12:06Speaker 4: about what they went through, but all of them through storytelling,
- 12:10Speaker 4: so I can make many of the symptoms. Then they're
- 12:14Speaker 4: showing up in my room, right, so they're helping me,
- 12:18Speaker 4: but it's in a different way of not this brutal I.
- 12:22Speaker 2: Don't even know.
- 12:24Speaker 4: Yes, So that like I want to be informed, I
- 12:30Speaker 4: want to be able to have curiosity, I want to
- 12:32Speaker 4: be able to have empathy, but most importantly, I want
- 12:35Speaker 4: to be able to have capacity to listen, to integrate,
- 12:39Speaker 4: to organize, to integrate, and to link to what is
- 12:43Speaker 4: coming into my room. And if I'm just doing it
- 12:46Speaker 4: through social media or whatever we call it news, which
- 12:51Speaker 4: is not news anymore, do not give me feel like
- 12:54Speaker 4: a lady now, then it will be as ke to
- 12:59Speaker 4: one length versus what I'm looking for, which is the
- 13:03Speaker 4: storytelling of different voice.
- 13:07Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, and I love this on so many levels.
- 13:10Speaker 3: So one this term you keep using that, I want
- 13:13Speaker 3: to point out the storytelling. Our brain and our relationships
- 13:17Speaker 3: function in those ways.
- 13:19Speaker 2: That's why we have.
- 13:20Speaker 3: Whole cultural traditions that are founded on and passed along
- 13:24Speaker 3: through storytelling. You know, initially anyway it like you said,
- 13:29Speaker 3: it helps our brain to make sense of things.
- 13:32Speaker 2: It gives us sort of a beginning, middle.
- 13:34Speaker 3: And end for things, which means that we don't have
- 13:37Speaker 3: all these kind of open loops all the time that
- 13:40Speaker 3: we're wanting to close.
- 13:42Speaker 2: And it also is what.
- 13:43Speaker 3: I hear you saying, it is giving you new perspectives
- 13:46Speaker 3: and even new skills, so that you are maybe tell
- 13:50Speaker 3: me if I'm wrong, but feeling a little bit less helpless,
- 13:52Speaker 3: like you have a little bit more that you can do,
- 13:54Speaker 3: whether in the room with one client, one family, or
- 13:57Speaker 3: at a community event.
- 13:59Speaker 4: Yes, right, And it's less reactive. So that's what I'm noticing.
- 14:03Speaker 4: I knew since last year when the political environment changed,
- 14:08Speaker 4: that I needed to go back to reading. I needed
- 14:11Speaker 4: to go back to looking for community engagement so that
- 14:16Speaker 4: I can be informed and not reactive, so that I
- 14:20Speaker 4: can be informed and linked to what is happening in
- 14:22Speaker 4: to my sessions, versus being so triggered that I didn't
- 14:25Speaker 4: have capacity to sum out and make sense of what
- 14:29Speaker 4: was happening. So the reading, which is my addiction, which
- 14:33Speaker 4: is my way of noting, because I got walking through
- 14:35Speaker 4: the world with that device or with the book and
- 14:38Speaker 4: not looking at people but being invested in the story.
- 14:43Speaker 4: It's what's helping me have hope and make sense of
- 14:47Speaker 4: what is happening. In attention to even books to talk
- 14:51Speaker 4: about cycles of historical events helped me make sense of like, oh,
- 14:56Speaker 4: we have been here before, or these were the voices before,
- 15:00Speaker 4: and this is what they went through. I don't have
- 15:02Speaker 4: to reinvent the wheel.
- 15:04Speaker 3: That's a really, I think powerful way to look at it.
- 15:06Speaker 3: Because sometimes when I like kind of like historical dramas
- 15:10Speaker 3: and stuff to watch, Yeah, and I'll be watching something
- 15:14Speaker 3: and I'm like, they're doing this, They're dealing with the
- 15:16Speaker 3: same fucking shit that we are that was like sixty
- 15:20Speaker 3: eighty one hundred years ago, Like does nothing change?
- 15:22Speaker 2: As I slam my desk. But what I hear you
- 15:26Speaker 2: saying and reminding me of is.
- 15:29Speaker 3: That you're right, things are cyclical or like people talk
- 15:32Speaker 3: about the pendulum, right, And so when we look at
- 15:35Speaker 3: these things, we have to remember that when we're going
- 15:38Speaker 3: back or we're reading a novel that is based in
- 15:40Speaker 3: a different time, that's a snapshot of that time and place.
- 15:43Speaker 3: It doesn't mean the same thing has been happening all along.
- 15:47Speaker 4: Yeah, Because I think there's something that we're not naming
- 15:50Speaker 4: yet we're naming. It is through all this trauma that
- 15:54Speaker 4: were witnessing. The thing that is not organized because we're
- 15:57Speaker 4: in it is the grief that we're going through, the
- 16:01Speaker 4: collective grief that we're going through right that last, the
- 16:06Speaker 4: loss of systems, the ambiguity of everything that is happening,
- 16:12Speaker 4: the collective and cultural grief for what we're going through.
- 16:18Speaker 4: And when you're reading books or when you're going to
- 16:21Speaker 4: community events and you see like this happened before, so
- 16:24Speaker 4: it's the grief of how come are we here again?
- 16:28Speaker 4: Or lately I'm listening to therapist telling me all the
- 16:31Speaker 4: work that we're going to have to do to undo
- 16:34Speaker 4: what is done is like this, I'm exhausted. I thought
- 16:38Speaker 4: we were done. And I remember interviewing a book author
- 16:43Speaker 4: and she said, this was two years ago, and she said,
- 16:47Speaker 4: we tend to think about social justice from a problem
- 16:51Speaker 4: solving lens, where we have a problem problem A, and
- 16:54Speaker 4: then we go to B and then it should be done.
- 16:56Speaker 4: And she said, historically that has not been our history.
- 17:00Speaker 4: It keeps ongoing because there's always someone who wants to
- 17:04Speaker 4: go back to their normalcy and is forcing us to
- 17:09Speaker 4: their narrative. So is this keep going on and like
- 17:14Speaker 4: going back, going forward and then going backsteps And that
- 17:20Speaker 4: refrain helped me make sense of Oh, that's why we exist,
- 17:26Speaker 4: not only because we're helping our clients makes sense of
- 17:31Speaker 4: their story. So think about from a trauma lens or
- 17:35Speaker 4: in the art lens, making sense.
- 17:37Speaker 2: Of their story.
- 17:40Speaker 4: And then how can we reframe enough for the purpose
- 17:43Speaker 4: of a positive lens? But what is it that you
- 17:47Speaker 4: were not able to see? Like can wetzoom out? Can
- 17:53Speaker 4: we address not only the grief but the identity piece?
- 17:57Speaker 4: Can we like address like it's all these pieces, write
- 18:02Speaker 4: all all these switching that is happening in it and
- 18:08Speaker 4: then connecting. And I will forever forever be thankful to
- 18:14Speaker 4: her and in her book and and keep thinking I
- 18:20Speaker 4: need to be in and out.
- 18:24Speaker 2: I need what book? Is it? Just so the listeners can.
- 18:28Speaker 4: Why supremacy is all around us?
- 18:30Speaker 2: Okay?
- 18:31Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 18:32Speaker 2: By that to connect?
- 18:34Speaker 4: She is amazing And the way that she explained her
- 18:37Speaker 4: book it was just outstanding. So if you have not
- 18:39Speaker 4: read the book, it's one of those books that is
- 18:41Speaker 4: a mass read, take your time reading it. Do not
- 18:45Speaker 4: read just to read it and say I read it,
- 18:48Speaker 4: but read it close. Think about what you read, think
- 18:52Speaker 4: about how it applies in your world, because once you
- 18:55Speaker 4: see it, you're not going to be able to unsee it.
- 18:58Speaker 4: It's everywhere, but it's beautiful reading that book.
- 19:02Speaker 3: One thing you said, I think you said this came
- 19:04Speaker 3: from your conversation with her of that question of like
- 19:07Speaker 3: I thought we were done, now it's happening again, and
- 19:10Speaker 3: people trying to get back to their different quote unquote normals,
- 19:13Speaker 3: right or like or like sense of being in normalcy.
- 19:17Speaker 3: It made me think of, especially when we're working with
- 19:20Speaker 3: families and family systems, a lot of times we have
- 19:23Speaker 3: to do this education around homeostasis, right when one person
- 19:27Speaker 3: in the system starts to change the whole system box
- 19:30Speaker 3: because it had figured out how to be all balanced
- 19:33Speaker 3: within all the chaos.
- 19:35Speaker 2: Right.
- 19:36Speaker 3: So yeah, I see you nodding a lot. Is that
- 19:39Speaker 3: something that had come up for you?
- 19:41Speaker 4: Yes, because I'm like, just because let's say we live
- 19:45Speaker 4: in a country that believes in two parties. So just
- 19:47Speaker 4: because one party push it completely to one side, the
- 19:51Speaker 4: other party is going to show up and try to
- 19:53Speaker 4: push it to the other side. There's no middle ground. Somehow,
- 19:56Speaker 4: we do not believe in middle ground from how we
- 20:01Speaker 4: believe on these extremes. So once you see that, you
- 20:05Speaker 4: realize how we constantly have to reset. So right everyone
- 20:12Speaker 4: is talking right now or posting about empathy and empathy
- 20:15Speaker 4: postes the statement as I feel with you. What we're
- 20:21Speaker 4: not talking about is the absorption, which is what is
- 20:25Speaker 4: it that I'm carrying with you or as you name it,
- 20:28Speaker 4: the victoria vicarious trauma, which is my world view and
- 20:33Speaker 4: my body changed through this exposure exactly, or the supervisors
- 20:38Speaker 4: or even yourself or myself. The burnout that we're going
- 20:42Speaker 4: through and is year one, the depletion from the chronic
- 20:46Speaker 4: demand without enough recovery or support for someone.
- 20:53Speaker 3: Absolutely, and when you are the helper, it's so hard
- 20:57Speaker 3: to ask for help because you're the one that provides it, right,
- 21:02Speaker 3: And so for everyone listening, let this be your invitation
- 21:05Speaker 3: to whomever is your system, your support, whatever it might be,
- 21:11Speaker 3: know that it's okay to ask for help.
- 21:14Speaker 2: You're not a burden.
- 21:15Speaker 3: Just like you feel good helping other people. Other people
- 21:18Speaker 3: feel so good helping you, especially because they probably know
- 21:21Speaker 3: how unlikely you are to ask for help.
- 21:24Speaker 2: And it's okay.
- 21:25Speaker 3: It doesn't mean you're not strong enough, that you're not
- 21:27Speaker 3: cut out for this, and there are people that can
- 21:30Speaker 3: support you and that love you.
- 21:32Speaker 2: I love that.
- 21:32Speaker 4: There was a podcast where I listen to someone saying
- 21:36Speaker 4: I'm having a hard time asking for help, and I'm
- 21:39Speaker 4: the person who said to dialogue. And the person said,
- 21:42Speaker 4: how come you didn't text me or call me? And
- 21:44Speaker 4: they said I did. And this person's like, I went
- 21:46Speaker 4: back and I checked on my phone and they said, hey,
- 21:48Speaker 4: do you have a minute. And this person was like,
- 21:51Speaker 4: I'm so mad because you didn't say I need you.
- 21:55Speaker 4: So it's like, how do we develop this? So with
- 21:58Speaker 4: my circle of friends, I started saying, my name is
- 22:01Speaker 4: Liliana Baalum. I have a problem. I do not know
- 22:03Speaker 4: how to ask for help, So.
- 22:07Speaker 2: Hi loya.
- 22:10Speaker 4: But in a lot of times, right through humor, I
- 22:12Speaker 4: have to remind myself as a migrant, as an older daughter,
- 22:16Speaker 4: as a person who had to figure things out for
- 22:20Speaker 4: my family, as a cultural broker. Then I learned that
- 22:25Speaker 4: I have to be so autonomous and self sufficient that
- 22:29Speaker 4: asking for help feels so foreigned. So part of my
- 22:33Speaker 4: work for the last couple of years is asking for help.
- 22:37Speaker 4: And a lot of times my text will say I'm
- 22:39Speaker 4: having a hard time.
- 22:42Speaker 3: Right and can I just acknowledge how scary it is
- 22:45Speaker 3: to write those words and hit send, and I just
- 22:48Speaker 3: I have so much just respect and what's the word
- 22:55Speaker 3: I'm looking for. I'm just so grateful that you're taking
- 22:58Speaker 3: the leap into sending those works to people.
- 23:01Speaker 4: Yes, I had this thing, and I'll share this so
- 23:05Speaker 4: that we can put it in perspective. So I was
- 23:07Speaker 4: having a hard time in December. I sent to two
- 23:09Speaker 4: people a text and I said, I need to get
- 23:12Speaker 4: out of the house. I'm I'm having a hard time,
- 23:14Speaker 4: like and we were having conversations. So I said, we're
- 23:17Speaker 4: going to this event for all of you who are there.
- 23:20Speaker 4: I have ADHD obviously, and they never asked questions. They say, yes,
- 23:27Speaker 4: I'm saying this because we went to a big Bengal
- 23:31Speaker 4: night but it was with nineties music. It was in
- 23:35Speaker 4: a nightclub and when we got there, I'm like.
- 23:38Speaker 2: Oh my god, can we go?
- 23:41Speaker 4: And I tuned around and the person was you never
- 23:44Speaker 4: asked for anything, so we figured this was important to you,
- 23:48Speaker 4: so that's why we're here. But the three of us
- 23:50Speaker 4: were like, can we go? So we started laughing because
- 23:59Speaker 4: the that of friends came out where like I'm too old,
- 24:02Speaker 4: it's too noisy, it's too dirty.
- 24:06Speaker 3: I know when they're like looking around the coffee bar
- 24:09Speaker 3: and they're like, why are we the.
- 24:10Speaker 2: Old people here now?
- 24:13Speaker 4: But in that moment, from an attachment lens, from a
- 24:17Speaker 4: collective trauma, from trusting my circle, it reinforced idea that
- 24:24Speaker 4: I can ask for help and people will show up
- 24:27Speaker 4: right for them, was this is important to you? You texted,
- 24:31Speaker 4: we're here right. So for all of you who are
- 24:34Speaker 4: out there and said like, this is so hard, yes,
- 24:36Speaker 4: I didn't say.
- 24:37Speaker 2: It was easy.
- 24:38Speaker 4: It's one of the hardest things that I have to
- 24:41Speaker 4: learn and un learn, which is just because I'm a helper,
- 24:47Speaker 4: that doesn't mean that I can do it all, or just
- 24:49Speaker 4: because I do it all doesn't mean that I do
- 24:52Speaker 4: not need help.
- 24:54Speaker 2: Doesn't mean you have to do it alone.
- 24:55Speaker 4: I don't have to do it alone. I love that
- 24:57Speaker 4: I don't have to do it alone. Part of my
- 25:00Speaker 4: journey in the last three years has been learning to
- 25:05Speaker 4: ask for what I need and trusting that the people
- 25:11Speaker 4: will listen and will show up. So for all of
- 25:13Speaker 4: you who are there listening, we're talking about collective trauma.
- 25:18Speaker 4: We're talking about what we're witnessing, and none of us,
- 25:21Speaker 4: even as helpers, even when you said, I have a
- 25:24Speaker 4: master's degree.
- 25:24Speaker 2: A PhD.
- 25:26Speaker 4: Your nervous system was not designed to carry all of
- 25:30Speaker 4: it and to show up for everyone with that fulfilling
- 25:34Speaker 4: your cup.
- 25:36Speaker 2: Exactly.
- 25:38Speaker 3: Thank you for helping me to unpack some of this,
- 25:42Speaker 3: for sharing your beautiful, vulnerable, and courageous experiences, and I'm
- 25:49Speaker 3: so happy to know that this is going to be
- 25:50Speaker 3: an ongoing conversation. So keep an eye out for upcoming
- 25:55Speaker 3: episodes with Lilliana and myself as we keep talking about
- 25:58Speaker 3: this stuff. Reach out so on Instagram. I'm at Brave Providers.
- 26:04Speaker 3: Do you want to share your handle?
- 26:05Speaker 4: Yeah on Instagram and I'm at Lilian at Baylan.
- 26:09Speaker 3: We'll put that in the show notes too, But as
- 26:11Speaker 3: you're listening, reach out. Let us know what questions you have,
- 26:14Speaker 3: because we would love to be able to talk about
- 26:16Speaker 3: those things on future episodes as well.
- 26:18Speaker 4: Yes, please take care, please disconnect and join me in
- 26:22Speaker 4: my addiction of books.
- 26:24Speaker 2: I love it. Thank you, Liliana, Thank you Jen