Latest / Doug Has Questions / Episode 8: Cesre McQuaid: A Counselor’s Journey Through Trauma, Faith, And Community Healing

Transcript

Episode 8: Cesre McQuaid: A Counselor’s Journey Through Trauma, Faith, And Community Healing · Doug Has Questions

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, thanks for joining us for this episode of Doug Has Questions.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_02: If you enjoyed today's conversation, please like, subscribe.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_02: We're available if you want to watch us on uh YouTube or if you just want to listen to the podcast version on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and each episode goes live on Thursday morning.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_02: So I hope you enjoy this episode and we're happy to have you listening.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Hi, this is Doug, and welcome to this episode of Doug Has Questions.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_02: Today my guest is Cestrae McQuaid, licensed counselor.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'll let you explain all your different because you've got a lot of letters after your name.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_02: I'll let you talk about what each one of those is.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_02: And she's the owner of Southeast Alaska Professional Counselors Associates.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: Did I get that right?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_02: You did.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_02: So what do all what do all the letters behind your name stand for?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: They all mean I should have just gone and got a doctorate, but but um so the licensed professional counselor.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm also licensed in North Carolina too.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: So North Carolina has a different version, licensed clinical mental health um and so provider.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: So so that's why there's some difference be you know um in those two uh types of initials behind my name.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So but they all translate to a master's level um therapist.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: And you specialize in trauma, PTSD, grief, and then also relationship issues, correct?
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you and I talked about before we came on here, this is not a counseling session.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: This is not professional advice to anybody that's watching, that if they do feel like they need counseling, reach out.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think your calendar is booked right now, but there's a lot of professionals such as yourself out there, whatever part of the country is, please reach out to one of them, have your own counseling session with them so they can treat you one-on-one.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: We're just doing like an overview on things that because that I've known you for several years, but I got to know you as a counselor during the landslide event in 2020.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so we'll we'll touch on that later, but that's kind of why I want to talk about the trauma, the grief aspect that that you specialize in and your role in that during that time period.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: But before we get to there, okay, you grew up in Michigan.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I did, I did.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, um, my father worked for Halliburton, so he was an engineer for Halliburton, and so um, and he was he's from uh Kansas, and so we always had a farm, we still do, uh ranch in Kansas, and so I was born in California, that's where my mom's from.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: My parents met when my dad was in the Navy, actually, so um met in California, and but I uh uh when I was two, I have three older sisters, so they're all quite a bit older than me.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: They're um 16, 17, and 11 years older than me.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um So you're the baby.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I am the I'm the bonus.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're the bonus.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've heard me talk about how I got my name, that's you know, it was teenagers in the 70s, they all wanted a baby brother, and um, you know, they got a sister, and so that's my name is completely made up, and it's you know, it's from my older sisters are Debbie, Elaine, and Cindy.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: So they got to make my name up in the 70s.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_03: So your your sisters made up your name for you.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yep.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a bonus.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but yes, so I was um so actually only one of my sisters really um both of my two oldest sisters were pretty much out of the house.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: I have a niece who is um just a couple years younger than me, so um, but uh we we always um with my husband or with my father's job, we um we moved um quite a bit when I was when I was younger.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So um I lived in Ohio for a year, I lived in Indiana, Pennsylvania for a year.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um we oftentimes went in the summers back to Kansas though, because they always had the ranch.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so my uncle would um take care of that when we were gone.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: But um so we so what what age were you when you moved to Michigan then?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: I was in the third grade.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_02: Third grade.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yep, I was and then from third grade through high school all the way in Michigan the travel would stop at that point.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Well they still traveled, so they went and actually um when I was 15, almost 16, they um they went to Egypt.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um they were in they were in Cairo and they were also in a place right above uh you didn't want to go to Egypt?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I did actually.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: You did get over there?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I did.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm hoping you didn't like no I'll stay in Michigan.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to go to Egypt that yeah.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, by that time, you know, I was you know, I had already met Eddie, my husband.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So um uh certainly didn't want to leave friends.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: I I went to a small private Catholic school and so had a pretty good solid um you know friend and and community connections, and my sister also, um Cynthia, who's 11 years older than me, she was um in college at the time, so um it made sense for us to stay, and then I I would go back and forth, so I would still go and visit them and things like that.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was pretty exciting.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_02: So how how old were you when you were visiting Egypt?
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I I was 16 when I first got out yep all by myself.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: The first time I'd ever um traveled alone and I traveled on an international flight.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um I got to see the I stopped over in in Heathrow and then in Rome and uh I got to see my first uh actual fist fight in LaGuardia airport.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's quite dramatic.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think I fell asleep afterwards, how dangerous, right?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: So um long layovers.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but yeah, no, I went to um I visited them often when they were there.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_02: So what what was that like?
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: What was your f impression of Egypt?
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, it was over 30 years ago, of course, so it was um uh probably it's probably very different now.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it was it was amazing.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was amazing to travel and to go and pyramids and right there and that whole that whole area is just so rich in history.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it goes back to the founding of civilization.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: That's oh I'm jealous.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: One of the things that was amazing is like, you know, the um, so they have the Cairo Museum, and uh there's like all the King Tut, all of that stuff, right?
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Is that tours usually um when it's there, um it's in the Cairo Museum.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And when you go and you visit the Cairo Museum, there's armed guards everywhere.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: But at that time it was like the the cases were just these these regular cases with like these diary locks on them.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh as we were walking there, wait a minute, is that that seems so you know it seems when that not very guarded, but in the in the late 70s when that was in Seattle, the first time the King Tud exhibit, my mom had a show uh down at Aptex for fabrics, and she Sarah and I went with her and we went to see we went to see the King Tud exhibit.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was so wild.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_02: It is that was I mean, just the artwork and the craftsmanship.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: That's amazing, the the detail and everything, plus I mean, a lot, a lot, a lot of gold.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, but that was that was phenomenal just looking at that.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think I was in third grade or something when we did that, and it was yeah, amazing.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: So special.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can feel the history, like you can feel the the timeline of you know, the the human race, you know, when you're in some of these these places.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um when we would travel up, it was uh we would go to a place um above Alexandria.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was called I probably am pronouncing this wrong, but it was called Mossumetru.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was a small um small little area um that was on the Red Sea.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And uh when we would travel through there, we would travel kind of like in a caravan and you'd be going through the desert and you'd look out and it was like biblical.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: There was, you know, it was like the Bedouins off in the distance and all the I mean, you know, it was it was again like I say it was like you were back in time.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: So and you could feel that you could feel the the like I say the timeline of civilization sort of.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: Did you do you think you fully understood the the magnitude of what you're seeing when you first went there at 16?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: Or did that sink in later that you're like, oh my gosh, I was I was happy like you're you're like you're reading historical text and stuff, and then you're like oh my god, I was there.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think um, well, I mean, of course, I was a 16-year-old who was like gonna be missing out all summer.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like the first time I think I went, I was gonna be missing out all summer on the, you know, I think I was just gonna be getting back in time for basketball camp and things like that.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: So of course I was probably oh, I was more worried about, you know, what my friends were gonna be doing over the summer that I might be missing out on.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but no, I think as soon as as soon as, you know, you see the Nile and you see the um, you know, everything is so different, it was it was easy for me anyway to become um really enthralled with being there and getting to see as much as possible.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you know my mom and I got trapped one time uh and I took a picture of her or I think maybe of her or a donkey cart, and I took a picture in front of a house that was, or we took a picture in front of a house that was um I'm I'm not sure exactly, but politically, and whether it was Ballaston or who we took a picture in front of, but the the home was uh one that was some you know somehow politically contested in some ways.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: And as soon as we took that picture, we were swarmed by guards and all and of course people speaking different languages, you know, language that we did not speak, um, and not knowing.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_02: And um, you go to Egypt for your summer vacation and you cause an international incident.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh they quickly carted us off.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: We had to go with them.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget we had to go.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: My mother was telling me, you know, just just stay calm, stay calm.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: She somehow um got a hold of my dad.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we there was always a driver and things like that, and so somehow they got a hold of the company.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so the you know, they they sent certain individuals to come and assist in um getting us out.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and believe it or not, they handed us back.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: We thought for sure they'd take the film and everything like that, but they handed us back and you know, the the camera with the film, but when it was all said and done.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but lots of gifts were exchanged and things like that.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was really intense.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think my mom didn't want to leave the flat.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: No, and that was my mom would say that.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: My mom's deceased now, but um, we would talk about that, you know, like why did why did not we develop that?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why did we, you know, we didn't, we didn't.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: There could have been something really cool.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um I think when it sunk when it sunk in, like how serious, like, oh my gosh, where would we, you know, we were lucky um that that all worked out as well as it did.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it was an adventure.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think my mom did not want to leave the flat, and then you know, where you know, the most of the um the other wives and things like that would go and stay.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think we we stuck pretty close to to that area afterwards.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: She wasn't thinking that shows when you're traveling and you're working in another place with a large multinational corporation behind you that it makes it easier to get out of situations like that.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I think so.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: I think you're right about that.
• 10:37
  unknown: Yeah.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_02: So when you travel, do you take pictures in front of random houses anymore?
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_02: I don't anymore.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think I ever did after that.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was a one and done.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a one and done.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: All done.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was a one and done.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: Looking around, just making sure.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was pretty exciting.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: So first time I ever had figs, and they had they have figs over there that are like the size of uh of um uh softballs, so that was amazing.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they were wonderful, wonderful.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: They also um now again I'm sure things are very different.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a long time, but um you know, traveling down the streets, you'd also see the meat hanging and they'd be spraying raid on it.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they keep the bugs off of it.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: So a little extra season.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: This was in the 90s though, so I don't know.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure things have uh have changed.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_02: When was when was the last time you were in Egypt?
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it would have been let's see, Eddie and I got married in ninety-five, so um, and they actually they went to Nigeria um the year that we got married, so um so he was transferred.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So it would have been like ninety, it was probably ninety-three or so, whenever.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_02: So your parents were there for like three or four years?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And they went to Nigeria after that?
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then they went to Nigeria after that.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: Did you did you guys did you visit in Nigeria?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: No, nope, I never went there.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_02: So mom and dad are in Egypt.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: You're finishing up high school in Michigan.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_02: Were you staying with your sister then who was in college, or were you with other family friends?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um staying with my sister.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: So they had got us a condo and um now.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: Did you make life easy on your older sister or were there some times when she tried, but I we need to verify this with your older sister?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: She might have a different story.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: She might have a different story.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: But um, no, I think for the most part we got along pretty well.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And like I say, I did have a you know um a close group of friends, and so had um, you know, parents from the you know, my my close friends who we were often always together anyway at at our various houses, and so life didn't change too much, which is I think was the point of my parents, you know, agreeing to me being able to stay.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: So they figured you had it dialed in.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, yeah.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_02: So it was what your last three years of school you were?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um by the time they actually were both gone, it was my last two years.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: Last two years?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my last two years.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: I was young when I graduated in high school.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: So you met Eddie and your husband Eddie in high school.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I was in the eighth grade, he was in the ninth grade actually.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I know cradle robbery.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: So whenever and we got married when I was 20 and he was 21.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So now when anything goes sideways, I always tell him, like, Well, what do you expect?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: You married a 20-year-old.
• 13:13
  unknown: What do you expect?
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: So didn't have it all figured out.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_02: So child or high school sweethearts.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then through how high school, what were you involved in any activities, any clubs?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: What yes, actually.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: So went to we we both went to a small private Catholic school there in um Mount Pleasant, Michigan is where I it's a college town.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um I later went on, you know, I went to grad school there um years later, but um when we moved back to Michigan.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh yep, basketball played a lot of sports.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um mostly sports was the and then, you know, I was I liked school, I always have, so um National Honor Society, all that good stuff.
• 13:54
  unknown: Yeah.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: So then out of high school.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Out of high school did you go to college right away?
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: I did.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So my parents came back from Nigeria the um the year I graduated um from well actually, no, I take that back.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: They they they came back.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: There was a space, actually, I take yeah, um I'm totally missing my own timeline.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: You can't be changing your story here because they went from Egypt to Nigeria when you got married again.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm missing my timeline here.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: So they came back from Egypt whenever I graduated high school and they went to Louisiana.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: So so there was a couple years that they were in Louisiana, and so that's how I got to LSU.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because they came, I was all set to go to um school in a town that was 15 minutes from where I went to to high school.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh and it was a small school.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna be a lawyer, so I had that all set, and um, they came back and um said we're we're gonna be living in Louisiana.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, where are you?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've never even been to Louisiana.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um so so they went to Lafayette, Louisiana, and um, and they said I had to come.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so he he laid out, my dad laid out some books in front of me and said, You can go to any of these schools, and I looked at him and I said, Which one's farthest from you?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: He said, That would be LSU, and I said, That's where I'm going then.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I'm going, because I was all mad at him.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but so then, yeah, so they there was a couple years that they were in Louisiana, that's how I got, and then when Eddie and I got married, that's when they went to Nigeria.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: So 95.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: See, I I I did not know you were a LSU tiger.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I didn't graduate from there.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I went.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Still, you're there for two years.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: I was there for two years.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: There's some there's some bad blood that developed in those two years when you were down at LSU, yeah.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and I went there when so Shaquille O'Neal had um his girlfriend was still there in our dorms, and um he would come and visit, and um he'd pull up, he had this little like gold sports car, and he'd fold himself all into this gold sports car, this little Porsche, little gold Porsche to pick her up, and he'd come and he'd visit.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um he had to walk past the athletic dorm to get to the um where we all ate, and um, and you'd see him and so you were there a year after he had gone pro?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think so, because he still had he was there to visit, you know, friends and and his girlfriend who was in our dorm.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: So two year old freshman.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_03: This is this is all over the place here.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: This is kinda the I'm I'm I'm kind of jealous that you you look at the different places.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds much more fascinating than maybe it was.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it usually sounds more fascinating to the people that weren't there than the ones that go through it.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: That's true, right?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because the people that haven't had the experience are going, oh my god, that'd be really cool.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the people that are doing it oftentimes I mean, man, that was hell.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: That was back and forth, I wasn't getting settled anywhere.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's a there's downfalls to it too, but just looking at the different not only in the United going to Egypt, but also within the United States, the different places you were on both coasts, you're in the north, you were in the south, you're seeing a lot of different the cultural areas of the United States while you're growing up, yes, and seeing those cultures and the way people were interacting and their their habits and and things like that at a very young age, I think is a very good foundation for the rest of life.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, and I think that that's though you didn't want to be in Louisiana.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think it wasn't want to be a such good.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I have two lifelong friends who are still like my sisters today who I would not have in my life if I had not gone there.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So absolutely.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: So while you're in Louisiana, where's Eddie?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he came, he followed me.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: He followed me.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So he followed me down there, and um he was planning to go in the military.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: He was a year older than me in high school, um, and so he had already been out for a year.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think he was gonna try the school route, um, but then kind of always knew he wanted to do military, and then um, so he went, he he came down to to be with me for just a little bit and then went into the military, went into boot camp.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: So what service the army army went into the army, yep.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so you're finishing up school, he's in the army.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: We decided to get married.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, take off to So you're af you got married after your two years at LSU?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah, because he did his hardship tour.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: We got we decided to you know that it would be easier if he did his hardship tour um the year before we got married.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we did that.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: So he comes back from his hardship tour.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: You got two years into school.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_02: Did you just start figured out where he was gonna get assigned next and apply for schools there?
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: And where did that end up being?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: That was in Georgia.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_02: Georgia.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Georgia.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: So Hinesville, Georgia.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, Hinesville, Georgia, and so um near Savannah.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so we um we got married and um moved to Georgia.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: That was our that was our honeymoon.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was our move, and um and it was pretty easy.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think most schools, you know, near military bases certainly made it easy for spouses and things like that.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: So what what school did you go to in Georgia?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I went to um Georgia Southern University in the Georgia Southern Statesboro.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, yeah.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we lived in Statesboro.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: He commuted for a little bit of the time we lived in Statesboro and he commuted, and then for a little bit of the time we lived on base.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: So did you finish your bachelor's at Georgia Southern?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because he got transferred and you probably went somewhere else.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: We did, exactly.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: So we went to Colorado.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Colorado.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: But we um we had a surprise.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: We um we had our first, we got pregnant with our first um child.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so that sort of slowed things down a little bit um for my undergrad, but not too much.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I we ended up going to Colorado Springs um after after Georgia, and um so my actual my undergraduate is from the University of Colorado.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_02: So wait a second, University of Colorado is in Boulder, but you're in Colorado Springs.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they have a campus.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_02: They have a campus here?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Because I thought it was in Colorado Springs.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, that makes sense that they have another campus here.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: So you're you're raising a young child.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: Finishing up school.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just yep.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Just got, I mean, just had a baby.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So just had a baby.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: Finishing up got your undergrad.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: Got my undergrad.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: Is it what'd you get your undergrad in?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: In sociology.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I was a political science major.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna go, you know, my whole plan the whole time was to go to law school.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: I was gonna w work for a DA somewhere and put away bad guys.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: And believe, you know, at that time I kind of believed in sort of believed in restorative justice, which I probably do.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: I probably have more access to that now in this career than than I would have in that that career.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_04: But yeah.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that was my plan.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then kids, you know, then we got surprised by at first.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: So you got your first child?
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_02: How did that change what you got your degree in sociology?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_02: What did you immediately decide to go into graduate school?
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Did you look for jobs in the field?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well what did what did that look like?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what it looked like was um, so about um, so our kids are eight months and eight days apart.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we got our second surprise um quickly after our first.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Army Doctor, um, for not explaining things as well as right.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're waiting for the army doctor to explain things?
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I guess we did we didn't we didn't understand things right.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um no.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: So our like I say, our kids are eight months and eight days apart.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: Our our second um child, um, our son, he was born uh premature.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: So um what what ended up happening was um again got you know we we had just had Paglin um found out we were pregnant again and we were pregnant for about a month and then um uh my water broke and so then there's this amazing hospital in Colorado Springs called Memorial Hospital, who unbeknownst to us, um so right across town from Evans Army Hospital um in Colorado Springs is this amazing NICU.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so when you know Eddie and I are I think 22, 20 or maybe 23 at this point, um, so we're very, very young, and along comes Addison, and um, of course, a very scary um situation.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: They um I my water broke actually at um I was 21 weeks pregnant at that point when my water broke, and I was in the hospital in what they call Trembellenburg upside down.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um the doctors had kind of said, Hey, it you know, it seems you know they had prepared us basically and said, you know, you'll have to deliver and he won't make it, those kind of things.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were really prepared for that.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: But as the days went by, they said, Well, wait a minute, you're you're not losing as much amniotic fluid as we thought you would.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and he seems to have moved in this area, so we can try.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we were and there's a bigger story there because Eddie and I, um, although we were raised Catholic, I don't know that we at at that point we didn't necessarily have a complete understanding of who God was and is is, and so um I had I guess I should backtrack here um because this is a big part of this the story too.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So um right before um my water broke with Addison, I had been visiting my oldest sister in um in Kansas because Eddie was uh deployed somewhere, and so um Page and I would often go and visit family or friends whenever he was deployed.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I had been visiting her and um visiting her church, and she had um they all have their hands in the air and they're all you know praying and singing.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what do you what do you see?
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: What do you what are you guys all looking at?
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I'd had some really deep conversations with my sister around God and around um faith and and um and to this day she'll say she has no idea why she said it.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I remember telling her, like, I don't Eddie and I have always been together.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I, you know, yeah, I don't know that I could change how I think about um faith and about God if He doesn't.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, and she says she has no idea why she said it.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: She goes, Well, you never know, something could happen, something big could happen, then you know, and both of you could really have an understanding of where your faith really um really is.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and she says to this day, she's like, and then two weeks later, my water breaks, and and all of a sudden, Eddie and I are faced with this sense of like, you know, wait a minute, are we we're really praying for the very first time, and we're really moved um by the spirit, and we're really understanding the power of prayer for the very first time in our lives.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: So two weeks earlier, your sister said that two weeks earlier, and she'll to this day she'll say, I have no idea.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they're they're both of them are are in ministry and things like that, and and she said, you know, she felt bad about it, actually.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, she was like, Well, that might be what it takes, you know, is something big happening to you or the kids, or something big happening.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um so that's a so here is so wow.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm I'm sorry, I just gotta yeah.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_02: No, because I was earlier we were talking with Vince Hansen, and I was talking to him about being during the slide, and the time that you know I just broke down when had to talk about David and Janae being presumed deceased, and you were a big part of creating what I was saying on that at the time.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: And uh just just feeling in that moment, you know, that that connection, like okay, now I understand what people are talking about.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_02: I had no idea you had a moment like that.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I was when my water first broke, I was again, this was I had just been to my sisters, you know, and I had just been really, I would say, grappling with my faith for the very first time as an adult.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because again, we were raised Catholic, we went to Catholic school, nuns, priests, where we were in mass.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: At one point we were in mass every day, actually.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but here I am for the very first time, alone in a room, and you know, and I hear as well, I'll probably cry too, um, you know, for the very first time, you know, calling out to God and saying, I don't, you know, please don't don't take him.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: Don't, you know, don't do this.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and just feeling the whole room fill up with a presence saying, Trust me, trust me.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: So by the time Eddie gets to me, this is I can backtrack here too.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: By the time Eddie gets to me on the night that my water broke, I have such a sense of peace.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he probably thought that I had gone crazy.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: He had no idea right as a young man what was actually happening.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_03: Um He's thinking you're gonna come in and you're just losing your Yes.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: He thinks I'm yeah, he definitely is thinking, and he probably, you know, at that point he didn't know what to expect either.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but very much so I had had um uh uh what I would say definitely is a, you know, oftentimes I think people can go their whole lives, and I really, I really admire those people that have not had these, you know, what I would say is just a an encounter, just such an encounter with God.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And like I say, that room filled up with this, that sense of trust me.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget the ceiling tiles and just seeing like a cross kind of form with the ceiling tiles and I mean all of a sudden that just come.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like I always think of those, those um, I forget what they're called, but those pictures where you have to like dilate your eyes and all of a sudden you can see the the picture behind them, right?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was like that.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: So by the time Eddie gets to me, I'm like, I don't know what's gonna happen, but we're gonna be okay.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be okay.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna be okay, we're gonna be all right.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, then uh, you know, the doctors never there telling him absolutely not.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's you know, your child's not going to live and these kind of things.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm but then it was within you said a few days the doctors start telling you, like, hey, we got a chance now.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, we can try.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, yeah.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody that came in, it was just unbelievable.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: The the nurses, um, the the the lady who came every day and who was on the cleaning staff who, you know, just said, you know, can I pray with you?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Would that be okay?
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it was like, yes, absolutely.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, there was such a strengthening of our faith during that time.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, uh, like I say, I mentioned earlier, a friend who is is like a sister to me.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, she and I that had been an area that um she was very sure of um in as a young person.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Her her parents had passed away when she was a baby, and um she has a connection um and an understanding of of her own spirituality from a very early age, and so um that just strengthened our relationship too during that time and um and so many um just it changed everything, and so so there was a lot of change going on during that time um for us both um you know faith-wise and and personally um because I would have probably gone, you know, was planning to go to law school.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: That was our plan.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: We were gonna go back to Michigan when he got out of the military, and um my plan was to go to law school, but Addison um came early and um then he we did well and they got us over to the other hospital and where they had three neonatologists and um one of the neonatologists actually um was one of the ones that was invented the the vent that kept babies alive.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: So here you had you know just the best of the best in the country um right across town.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is the same.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_02: And you wouldn't have been there if Eddie wasn't in the army, right?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I think those meant to be, and so um, but it was an it's an amazing hospital and an amazing NICU.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um they take such good care of their their nurses.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um they they really they the the way it's set up is that the nurses get to pick the families, and let's say the nurses had, you know, maybe just worked with a family that the baby didn't make it.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um they give those nurses a chance to to decide whether or not they want to be the primary nurse based on how they were mentally and things like that.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so um that was my first experience with um with anything mental health-wise.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um I had no concept, no idea of anything, you know, in terms of mental health in in my family of origin.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was something that's you you know was you never talked about, or was something that was not even a real science or those kind of things.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_02: So um but before you go further, okay.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_02: How after Addison was born, how long was he in the NICU?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was in the NICU for a hundred and twenty-two days.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_02: Holy guy.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Vented for 88.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where that hospital was so amazing.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: I got to hold him.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_00: We got to do this kangaroo care, um, which was also um traumatic in many ways.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um he coded on my chest um the very first time and they had to resuscitate him.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but what they said was is that for him to have the best chance was that skin-to-skin contact.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: So Eddie and I would both, Eddie did better at home with Paglin, and I did better at the hospital.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so we were a good team during that time.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um but he um I I it was harder for him to be just sitting as, you know, and again, here is, you know, the army was amazing.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: They had his soldiers on rear detachment, so he could, you know, go and check in and then be, you know, at the hospital or with us and things like that.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but it was uh we, you know, we would do this what's called kangaroo care.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so um because my first instinct when I saw him the very first time, right?
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: We have him and um and he's in the NICU and the NICU is uh they don't have the little he was too small for what the little incubators and so they're all on these in these bays, right?
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a big bay, and it's open actually, um, so they can get to the babies quickly if they need to.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so the first time I saw him, you know, he's all he's you know, he's he was the size of a beanie baby.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: He was one pound seven ounces.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, just tiny, tiny little human.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and if you've seen him now, he is a big guy like Eddie.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he's a big scrapping guy.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: So he's a little ways away from one pound seven ounces.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he's part of it.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Which is funny because Paglin was seven pounds one ounce.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: Crazy.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: So crazy.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh the first time I saw him, I remember just thinking, like, I just want all those wires off him.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: I just want, you know, just give him to me kind of thing.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so it was again, I think why he is he has done as well as he did, um, is that that hospital was just uh way ahead when it came to care.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: What's the name of the hospital?
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: It um Memori Memorial Community Hospital, so in Colorado Springs.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um yeah, just amazing.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so they I mean they had it down.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um and one of the things they had down was that um when it was time to for the nurses to charter all those kind of things, they just kind of pushed the family into these family groups.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: So they had, you know, um parents for you know who had had graduated from the NICU and things like that come and talk to you.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And they just they had your they they were so dialed in from day one on how to do that.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: Their support system was right dialed in.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: So dialed in for not for the nurses, for the parents.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: So you had staff, you had the parents taken care of.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: And they sent a therapist um to the house.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was just something that they just they just signed you up for.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure they might have asked, and I must have said, okay.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um I don't remember that.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but so they sent a therapist, and that was the very my first experience with the therapist, and she came to the house, and I'll never forget because of course it was traumatic, and of course there was, you know, there was I I actually had had quite a bit of medical trauma too because um they had given me so much medication to keep me from having contractions and things like that, and it was very scary to have him.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: We couldn't um we couldn't have any more children, so whenever he was born, it was a it was a very traumatic birth.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so of course that's not even in my mind, right?
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: But it was in hers, and so she talked to me about things that I didn't even know that I was probably suppressing or or keeping track because it was uh all I was so focused on was him and um and taking in care of him and and Pagelin and so you're and you're 22 years old in the set twenty three.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: Twenty-three.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, I'm 23.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, 24 years old.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll never forget she told me, and I still use this with clients today, she said, you know, nobody wants to make uh, you know, if you think of a filing cabinet, nobody wants to make uh a file folder for trauma or for something very scary that happens to you.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's like so one of the first things you have to do is you have to just acknowledge that it happened, right?
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: You have to just it's okay to say that what is really is, right?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 34:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and then, you know, because if you don't, um it's all your experiences are gonna jam up on you.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you're not gonna be able to close that, eventually close that filing, you know, and eventually then you're gonna have to like you know, pull that filing cabinet back out, reach in there, get all those, you know, sheets that you know haven't been filed away, smooth them out and you know, and put them into the into the file folder basically.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what therapy is oftentimes.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Folks have, you know, have not addressed things, and so they really do um they don't have a place to go in our big filing cabinet of self.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so, but it was so amazing.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, I I had no idea that I even needed to see somebody.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And um and how how you know this stranger who came into my home who was so loving and caring, and my first thought was just like, wow, how I didn't even know these these kind of people existed.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: So this kind of profession existed, or um yeah.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_02: While while you're telling this story, I'm I'm just thinking in my head through all the stress factors that would have been on you and Eddie at this time.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: That and I'm I'm probably not even imagining all of them, but just the ones that I can think of are rather overwhelming.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_02: You're 23 years old, he's 24, you've got an infant at home, you've got a kid in the your youngest in the NICU for four months.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: He's in the army.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, they're making we all know the military doesn't get paid nearly what they probably deserve.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I can't imagine trying to handle all keeping all those balls in the air, much less this the stress factor and what that's doing to each of your bodies uh at the same time.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_02: You guys must have been exhausted.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_02: We were.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_02: We were definitely exhausted.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: I don't even when I look back now, I don't even know how we did it.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like when did I sleep?
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because um, you know, having a little one at home.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like I say, I really give a lot of um, you know, m people can say a lot of different things about the military, but our experience definitely with the army was they were amazing to us.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: They were all of a sudden, you know, things changed, you know, with his day-to-day um responsibilities and things like that.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: So they gave us a lot of they gave him a lot of opportunity to be with his family.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um and I don't know that it's always the that's always the case, but um, but that was our experience.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_00: So it was yeah.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_02: Now did the did the prayer and the faithfulness continue?
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: It did.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: It did, because here, so then, you know, of course, you know, my my sister and brother-in-law come and um and like I say, they're they're in ministry, and so they're you know, they brought with them, you know, again, their their prayer groups, all of these um new experiences to us, very different than than um than what we had we had experienced before.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was a bit overwhelming too, but at the same time, um it was one of those things where like this is working.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is just felt right.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: It just felt right.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: So um so yeah, there was there was some changes there.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: We had some different experiences, and I think, you know, they got in touch with different, a couple different pastors, and then they came to visit us at the church or at the you know in the hospital, and then um we had different, you know, we had different supports and um and and if you know anything about Colorado Springs, it's a very divided community because you have focus on the family there and then um then the rest of the community.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: So um even you know, it's it's a a community that has, you know, some a little divided there, um, or at least was.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um so you bring Addison home from the hospital.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
• 38:37
  SPEAKER_02: Was that a little nerve-wracking?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, just a little.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Just a little.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because he came home on oxygen in a G tube, and I'll never forget my um my sister came back again.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_03: How how big was he when you brought him home?
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so he had to get to he had to pass four pounds to be able to go.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: So yep, and we had just we kept like teetering on it and teetering on it and things like that.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so yeah, and I thought we thought he was huge, right?
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: We thought he was just huge.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_03: Twice as big as the gap.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: Of course he's gonna let you know.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: More than double the cuts.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: And at that time, you could only the only place that sold preemie clothes was the gap.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it was like all my girlfriends went to the gap and got him got him clothes and stuff like that.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: So tiny little, tiny little clothes.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: So he was um, he did really he he had all the issues that uh um uh little preemie uh born at 23.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he I was actually born at 23 um in five days.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: That was his official um at the time, you know, what they had said, how old he was.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it was amazing because all the things that um are happen in utero um happen on the same timeline, and so like his eyes opened when they would have been opening in utero, just whenever but when he was in the NICU and things like that.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_02: So but um how how long from when he came home to when you're like okay this This kid's gonna make it.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_02: Or was it when he came home?
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_02: You can just take him like two.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think you gotta be.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if you ask the kids, I might still might go on.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: I um I you know, he didn't necessarily enjoy school.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think even in his early years of school, I would be like, Well, he's alive.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if he wasn't doing the grades, I'm like, well, he's alive, we're seeing her.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it might have been the grades as well.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that we're gonna really work on that.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: He'll be fine, he's alive.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_00: So um, I think I probably always had, well, uh, and again, I I attribute this to how dialed in the hospital was.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_00: They brought um, again, they brought um parents who not only had graduated, but who had also lost children.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, so they had um they we had opportunity to speak to um many different parents and to be mentored by um whether it was, you know, other parents or other health professionals, and and had the opportunity, and this is again is another mental health, um one of the one of the social workers came in and talked to us and and very specifically said, you know, don't let this be your child's identity.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: Do now you can't you can't take all of your anxiety now and hover.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I, you know, I'm very proud every once in a while you'll hear him talk about things and he'll say, like, yeah, I have this big scar, I have these things.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, and I know I was a primi, but um, I don't know a lot more about it, other than that.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, such a big deal.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and he had some he had some deformity in his hands that he may or may not have had anyway.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um his dad was or hit Eddie's dad was in um Vietnam and there was um some Agent Orange, and so um he had his his uh digits were fused, and they and he also has kind of a mark that they can attribute now to what they think is agent orange, and Eddie does too, and so and his siblings do, and so they kind of attribute to that maybe he would have had that s these same deformities um within his hands had he been born full term, but it's also something that happens with premi.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: So he he also had to have some additional surgeries and things like that, but um, and you know, it was very hero harrowing whenever he was in the the NICU, you know, it wasn't this, you know, it wasn't smooth sailing, it was day to day, very day-to-day.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: And um, you know, he was his heart rate would drop and things like that, and he was um the way that it worked, all those n all those neonatologists, unless they agreed, all three of them agreed, they did not move forward with anything that they did.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so they all had to to give a yes um for for there to be any like um surgeries or things like that, which was amazing because they were all, you know, they all had their different um different specialties, and so it's in such good hands.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there was one of the doctors that all the families we all called him Dr.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_00: Death because or Dr.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_00: Doom.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Dr.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: Doom, because uh he whenever he would come to you to tell you anything, it was Doom.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so when he came and told us that Addison would probably always need glasses while Eddie's sitting there in his glasses and I have my contacts in.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he tells us, I mean, he tells it to you in a way it's the worst.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're just like, and we're being punked, like what's that, you know.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: And but that was his, he everything was serious.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: There was no, he was not lighthearted, there was nothing.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: So he would he would deliver everything in that same manner.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he got used to it.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but it was reassuring though, too, that you had um you had three of them deciding um what was gonna go on, and he was almost, they did not end up doing it, but um he needed a surgery um where they um uh Nissan and G tube were um to stop him from regurging because that was what was causing his heart to drop.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and they had not done it on a baby that that young before.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but they felt that they needed to, um, and then they uh they decided not to.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: They told us we had to we had to risk it and and he made it, which was good.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh they almost did.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: So like I say, he was each day brought um something new early, you know.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um so he probably wasn't.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I felt like we were out of the woods.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I think it it felt good to leave the hospital for sure, and they had us dialed in.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is another part of my, you know, being a therapist, is they had us dialed in to OT speech and um physical therapy um right from the NICI of so we went and it gave me something as a parent to do, right?
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because you feel so powerless, you feel so helpless, and um and so with the sensory integration that was so that was my first um experience with sensory integration.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I uh that's a lot of you know, in in the mental health world, you're working with people and you're recognizing that some of this is actually, you know, physiological.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: So sure we don't, you know, some of these anxieties and things like that are are coming from your people's environments and some people again sound and and all of those, you know, have some sensory integration issues.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's been something throughout my career that I'm um so thankful that I knew early on, because I think at times it has helped me in my career um to to notice with folks sometimes to say, like, hey, sure, this is causing some anxiety, but I also think we need to bring on board um an you know an OT that specializes in sensory integration and things like that.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: So Addison's home from the hospital.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Now you you said that the Army was really good about working with Eddie.
• 45:44
  SPEAKER_02: Did his did their plans for Eddie as far as when he would have been transferred somewhere else, did that change?
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_02: Did you guys do you think you guys stayed in Colorado Springs longer than you might have if you hadn't had a child in the NICU?
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, no.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think we were still on the you know, I think he was still within that that his deployment time for for there.
• 46:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um it did change our decision to stay in, because he, you know, we were going back and forth, you know, prior to that of if he was gonna make a career out of it because he kind of thought that it did fit for him to to um have a career in the military.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um but that you know we didn't know how much help Addison was gonna need.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_00: He had um he didn't have any brain bleeds, which was um which was amazing for a baby his, you know, born at his age.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um but they did tell us, you know, we're not quite sure yet on what long term um his care will look like or what he'll need and things like that.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we thought being, you know, um going back to Michigan or you know, being closer to some family would be a good idea at that point.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_02: So at how how long after he got out of the NICU?
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm I'm assuming from what you're telling me, Eddie g finalized his commitment to the military and then you guys moved back to Michigan.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's about a year and a half in there.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_02: So was there some trepidation that even though it's a year and a half, you've had this amazing support system at the hospital that now you're you're leaving all of that support system.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_02: You go you've got friends and family and everything in Michigan, but that had that had to be a little scary.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was, because we, you know, we had our you know, we had a home there.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: There was a, you know, the first home we'd ever bought was there.
• 47:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we had, you know, yeah, there was some things that we were comfortable with for sure.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, a lot of support.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that I think it helped our the physical therapist um that was there, she was from Michigan, and I think, you know, it kind of, I don't know, made there were there were some connections there that kind of spoke like, okay, this is probably a a good place for us to to go.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_02: So when you made the decision to go back to Michigan, what was what was the game plan going back to Michigan?
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the timeline, um, Eddie did have to go, you know, he had to be deployed at at a certain point to um, and so um just with his regular duties and things like that.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_00: And so um we kind of knew um that uh the kids and I might be going ahead of him back to um to Michigan.
• 48:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that is so we put our house up for sale and it sold very quickly, so that changed the timeline there as well, too, it kind of sped up the timeline.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so I ended up living with his parents and getting to experience his childhood for for a couple months there before he, you know, when he was getting out.
• 48:37
  SPEAKER_02: So he's deployed, you're back at your in-laws with two young toddlers, one of whom just a year a little less than a year and a half out of the NICU.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that was that's pretty bold of him to invite that.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you you do it for your kids and stuff, but still that's that's a lot to bring into the house.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they had so um my Eddie's younger siblings um were still in high school and stuff.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_00: Still in high school, yeah.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it was a packed house, so yeah.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I understand him so much more now after.
• 49:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_02: So what what was the plan?
• 49:15
  SPEAKER_02: Were you gonna be a stay-at-home mom for a while?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because Well, I knew that I was not going to leave them.
• 49:22
  SPEAKER_00: And he was still, um, I think by that point he had we didn't leave um until he was off of oxygen.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a pretty big milestone right there.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_00: We knew we would stay.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so uh he was still on the heart monitor, I believe, um, but he had gotten off of oxygen.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, he no longer needed his G tube.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so we we'd hit some pretty big milestones before we went back to Michigan.
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: We I mean we stayed where we, you know, the the comfort of the the doctors that we had right out of the NICU.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but I had been looking because my plan was to go, you know, to to grad school um to law school anyway, and so I had already been looking.
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, then I was like, well, wait a minute, what is this counseling thing?
• 50:09
  SPEAKER_00: What is this social work?
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_00: What is all this, you know?
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's you know, of course, a difference between a a licensed professional counselor and a social worker.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I started to explore that.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I think I I naturally already had this.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, my friends would say, you know, people just come up and talk to you, people just tell you things.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_00: So when I do, we still do.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when I first started talking to my my my girlfriends and my you know confidants about it, they were just like, of course, this sounds great for you.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like a loan.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 50:41
  SPEAKER_00: So um and I looked into it and the Central Michigan University had a wonderful program for for um for therapists, a master's degree there.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: So um, and I knew that the kids were not gonna, you know, I wasn't gonna um we couldn't afford to put that him in any daycare that would um he would need like a a nurse and things like that at this point still.
• 51:02
  SPEAKER_00: So so that was kind of already chosen for us.
• 51:05
  SPEAKER_00: And um and uh Eddie's dad worked for it was GTE, yeah, GTE still at the time.
• 51:13
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so the plan was for Eddie to come back and be start being in telecommunications, a telephone man.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_05: So Okay.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_00: So that was kind of in fact he he got out of the military and the very flew home and the very next day he's he started his job.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_02: So there was a there was not even a so did you but you're saying you didn't you couldn't have him, you couldn't have Addison at a daycare with needed a nurse.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_02: So if Eddie's going to work, you're starting school, or did you wait a while before you started?
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_02: I waited.
• 51:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I waited.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I waited probably a good probably about another year and a half or so before I started school.
• 51:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the things that made it a little easier though was that the program that I got him into was part of the univers at the university.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so there was already kind of this connection of knowing like, okay, where he's gonna go and get some services.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um it seemed, you know, it seemed like to wait a minute, I could start to take some classes, I could start to do this.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: So um so all of a sudden it seemed like it was a it was a little bit more of an option, um, just based on on how um his care was set up too.
• 52:21
  SPEAKER_00: So started grad school, applied to grad school, got in.
• 52:28
  SPEAKER_02: So you got your master's.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I go to grad school, get my masters.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_00: I um and then while I'm in grad school, um I I meet a friend who um we had been in the same circles but had never like you know really known one another in high school.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we both interned at the same place and uh through that realized that there was an option for us to start our own business.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and so right out of grad school started a counseling agency um where we had interned was closing, and so it was an easy fit for us to start something and um take over.
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um it was at the hospital actually where we we both interned and they no longer wanted to be running this program out of the hospital, and so we were like, hey, we could do this, we would have to expand it to be able to make a living.
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we could do this, and so we we started Central Michigan Professional Counseling Associates, which is still up and going today.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm very proud of that.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_00: So still still going.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_00: So and we became the um we became the field uh site supervisors for the program that we graduated from.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um we brought on another um I I forget how many um graduate interns went through the program and went through um and so uh yeah, so we started a we started a business together with a good friend and so you're 27 when you're starting all this.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 54:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yep starting your business empire.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: Empire.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we we were both young mothers, and so um it was pretty important to us that we, you know, um we watched each other's kids and things like that whenever one of us was working late or those kind of things.
• 54:20
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so we were it was a good environment.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: So So you're Michigan for how long?
• 54:26
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think your next step is North Carolina, correct?
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, is North Carolina.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: So we're in Michigan for about eight years, and um, and then um by that time GTE had sold out to Verizon, and then um Verizon was expanding, so Eddie worked, and um they sent him down to North Carolina to do storm damage after Hurricane Ivan.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so Eddie goes down and um he just loves North Carolina, and um, and the company is talking sort of layoffs and things like that.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: So we were also like, oh man, this could, you know, we're not quite sure of this future, you know, here.
• 55:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it was, you know, difficult because I I loved my, you know, I loved my job, I loved my the company and things like that.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: So um that was going very well, but his job had the future of and they really did, they went through quite they started to do quite a few layoffs.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so we were like, wait, you know, we probably should really take a look at transferring within the company.
• 55:26
  SPEAKER_00: So he worked for the same company for 17 years until we came to Alaska, actually.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: So um they just changed, they were GTE and then they were Verizon, then they went to Frontier.
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so we transferred um to um Burnsville, North Carolina, which is right outside of Asheville, so it's western North Carolina.
• 55:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um we went down there a few times.
• 55:48
  SPEAKER_00: We went down and visited him whenever he um, because again, like after Hurricane Ivan, it was a huge, of course, um storm and rebuild.
• 55:56
  SPEAKER_00: So he was down there a couple, you know, different times, but um really, you know, again, fell in love with it.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and like you said, you know, I I came from an early childhood experience where there was lots of travel.
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_00: There was always travel, actually.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so that seemed like something we would want to do.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_02: And then you're in North Carolina nine years, eight, nine years.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I think we were there for there for eight years.
• 56:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think we're there for eight years.
• 56:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so bad with dates.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_00: No, notice I'm bad with dates.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then so I I understand you go from Michigan to North Carolina.
• 56:31
  SPEAKER_02: Eddie loved it because he went down there with storm damage.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_02: North Carolina to Alaska.
• 56:38
  SPEAKER_02: Well, okay, so that seems a little bit more of an extreme of a move, Seth.
• 56:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it does, it does, but there's again, so so I'm sure there's a story.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_00: So Eddie has it figured out.
• 56:47
  SPEAKER_00: He he has it figured out when I when I graduate that um he has always loved Alaska.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_00: And Alaska is a lot.
• 56:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean there's some there's had he been to Alaska?
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_00: He hadn't, no, neither of us since we first the idea of it.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_00: The idea of it.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so uh he well my family had actually lived in before I was born, they lived in Fairbanks.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um so uh so my family had a uh like my sister, we would talk about, you know, the the time that they spent um in Alaska fondly, right?
• 57:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so um so he had you know that as well.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I guess close to close to being here.
• 57:28
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but yeah, so he when I when I graduated, and of course I had student loans.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: When I graduated, there was these programs where I could get my student loans paid if we went to Bethel.
• 57:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we had no idea and um how remote that would be.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time the kids were young, and we still like Addison still saw specialists for different things and things like that.
• 57:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't an option, but we researched it right when I graduated.
• 57:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we were kind of like, hey, is this an you know an option?
• 57:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think Eddie saw this, um, he saw the postings for here, um, and I'll never forget, and I still don't know what um reality TV show.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think it was Casey Anderson with the bear.
• 58:10
  SPEAKER_00: He comes and he visits maybe Khrushchev.
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_00: He visits, I don't know, he visits somebody, but we see we saw a documentary um on the Chilcat Valley, and I remember telling Eddie, because it was and it had it had the um it had Chrysol's um yeah, it had him in it because uh again, we I remember like watching and seeing the the mountains and everything, and I remember telling Eddie, like, well, I'll move to Alaska wherever that is.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I was like, that looks wonderful, I'll move there.
• 58:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so and then you know that was that was early on.
• 58:46
  SPEAKER_00: So he's called away because then fast forward years later, right?
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we had been in North Carolina, and then um in my um I had developed some health issues.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have an autoimmune that's in my lungs, and at that point we didn't know it's called sarkadosis.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: At that point, we didn't know what it was, and so I had I'd been having a little bit of health issues, and my girlfriend, who kind of is like a family member, um, lives in Salem, Oregon.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and Eddie's company was uh there as well.
• 59:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so she kept saying to me, you know what, why don't you come here?
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_00: There's we have these great doctors here, we have, you know, the kids can have these experiences, we can be closer to all those kind of things.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, so we thought, wow, we'll try it.
• 59:30
  SPEAKER_00: We never lived in, you know, since we're a big city, we always lived in small rural places that you could go to big cities, but never, you know, lived in a big city.
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_00: So where where in Oregon?
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: Salem.
• 59:39
  SPEAKER_02: Salem's not a big city.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, to us it was.
• 59:41
  SPEAKER_00: To us it was really, yeah.
• 59:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're Nashville?
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we we didn't live in Nashville.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's yeah.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: We were outside.
• 59:47
  SPEAKER_00: We were in the in the mountains, probably 45 minutes from Asheville.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so we um we go there and and the the cool thing about North Carolina too, with my job is that I had always, you know, I had worked big.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, private practice in Michigan.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: We had a we had a what we ran was an employee assistance program.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's also too where I started working a lot with trauma.
• 1:00:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I started working a lot with first responders.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_00: We kind of my business partner and I she wanted to work with kids, and and I then said, okay, well, as we're gonna kind of divide up our specialties here, and we're gonna start to get different certifications and additional trainings.
• 1:00:25
  SPEAKER_00: And she went the kid route and I went the the trauma first responder route and the couples to work with couples.
• 1:00:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so um so that that's um that starts there, and then when I get to North Carolina is my first experience with community mental health, and community mental health is very different than you know private practice or or running your own EAP.
• 1:00:49
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and I started working in um well with in North Carolina, they have different levels of care, and uh they have outpatient care, of course, that's where someone's coming in, and then they have these service lines, uh delivery lines to where people are going out into the community.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so I first and in these little teams, and so you have a therapist and then like two qualified health professionals, um, like what Scott is.
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so then you have a team, and that team then has you know takes care of people in the community for the people who are um severely persistently mentally ill, the people who cannot, you know, aren't aren't gonna be able to really make their their office visits.
• 1:01:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so so I start working in North Carolina um in these in community mental health, which had been completely different than what I had been doing, and um worked for a company then and and held a couple different positions, um, but started working mobile crisis.
• 1:01:43
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually I go to mobile crisis.
• 1:01:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and um and so I I learned so much there about trauma.
• 1:01:50
  SPEAKER_00: I learned so much there about um delivery of of services and care right in the community.
• 1:01:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I really those two pla you know, my experience in Michigan, my professional experience in Michigan, and then follow up with North Carolina, then it really rounds out my experience.
• 1:02:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so at that point too, I was also kind of burned out from community mental health and things like that, um, and then having some health issues, and then you know, so that's sort of how what gets us to to Oregon briefly.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um but Salem to us is is a big place.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and Eddie was actually working in Portland Hillsboro.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_00: So he's working it, so he's commuting to Hillsborough.
• 1:02:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and that was a you know, that's a huge cultural change to go from rural North Carolina, the mountains, you know, to then working in basically all around Portland and all around um, you know, and commuting two hours basically.
• 1:02:51
  SPEAKER_02: I was gonna say that's that's not a short commute.
• 1:02:53
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's not.
• 1:02:54
  SPEAKER_00: No, with traffic, it's not at all.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_02: So we um so of course I So that's that's like a 12-hour day when you didn't commute on there.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was.
• 1:03:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we didn't realize that.
• 1:03:06
  SPEAKER_00: We did not realize that at all.
• 1:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so, um, so of course, he then, you know, hey, remember the place we did we could go to and I see him, and I I always joke, it's like it's like you put a grizzly bear in an apartment because I was like, oh, this is gonna be so much fun.
• 1:03:21
  SPEAKER_00: We've never lived in an apartment.
• 1:03:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna live in an apartment, it's gonna be great, all this kind of stuff.
• 1:03:25
  SPEAKER_00: But we were gonna have like all this urban living kind of thing.
• 1:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: And oh boy, you you know, uh Eddie is, you know, you know him.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_00: He is he's always dabbling, he's always outdoors, he's always doing something, and he slowly stopped doing all those.
• 1:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, in fact, it was the only, the only time I've ever seen him depressed.
• 1:03:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it was sad.
• 1:03:44
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was terrible, actually.
• 1:03:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so very quickly realized, like, wow, this is not gonna be the case.
• 1:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: So we thought we would go back to North Carolina.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_00: That was the plan.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_00: We'll let the kids, we already felt like we moved the kids around too much.
• 1:03:54
  SPEAKER_00: The kids settled really well.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they made friends, they had friend groups, they were in youth groups, those kind of things.
• 1:03:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so we were like, well, we've got to definitely let them finish high school here.
• 1:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: We already had felt like we had disrupted their their high school enough.
• 1:04:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so um the plan was that we would um have them finish out, then we were gonna go back to North Carolina.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_00: In the meantime, though, he again looks at APT and he says to me, like, hey, remember that place you said that you do it.
• 1:04:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'll entertain it.
• 1:04:24
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to say that it's that place.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_00: And um, he's like, No, I think it is.
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's really that place.
• 1:04:30
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, sure it is.
• 1:04:32
  SPEAKER_00: So he's you know, he's talking to APT, they're going back and forth, they're doing the interviews, and at first it was funny too, because the the recruiter calls and, like, do you know where you apply to?
• 1:04:43
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sure?
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so once that all got cleared, um, an APT brought us up here, and um, and we got to visit, and it was it just felt right.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_00: It felt like a good one.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_03: And that was what year?
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_00: That was in um 2017.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_02: 2017.
• 1:05:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yep.
• 1:05:01
  SPEAKER_00: So just felt right.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: The kids, we were new empty nesters, and the kids were definitely like, peace out, mom and dad.
• 1:05:08
  SPEAKER_00: We do not know what you guys are still hanging around here for.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_00: So Yeah.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_03: Have go go do your midlife crisis in a last year.
• 1:05:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they kind of they kind of were like, sure, you know, kind of laughing or whatever.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but again, both of them just seemed to to fit right in, you know.
• 1:05:23
  SPEAKER_00: Page went to OSU, Addison um started out at community college there um in Salem, and so uh, and had a really you know strong friend group that he still has to this day.
• 1:05:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um, yeah.
• 1:05:39
  SPEAKER_02: So that's enough now you're in Alaska.
• 1:05:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're in Alaska.
• 1:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now we're in Alaska.
• 1:05:44
  SPEAKER_02: When you first got here, were were there was there any this isn't what I saw on TV.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_03: Or was it or was it oh my gosh, this is better than I saw on TV.
• 1:05:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we drove out the road and it was kind of like, wow, this is, you know, what we saw on TV.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, you know, we we both loved it.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, the mountains, the water, and and you know, being from Michigan, very used to um being able to go to the Great Lakes, all of those kind of things, the outdoors, um, there were a lot of things that, you know, the I think the first winter that we was were here, it was very similar to Michigan winters.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I think both of us had missed that.
• 1:06:18
  SPEAKER_00: North Carolina doesn't have those winters.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, certainly Oregon doesn't have the same um climate.
• 1:06:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so I think it was, you know, it felt good um to be to be here.
• 1:06:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I it was funny because you know, you've heard me say this before, but multiple people, and I understand after living here, um, would say people would ask, you know, how long, how long are you gonna stay?
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: How long, you know, do you think you live here?
• 1:06:39
  SPEAKER_00: And my standard answer was always like, well, I don't know, it depends on how y'all act.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: I meant that.
• 1:06:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, well, as you know.
• 1:06:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but uh, but you know, I I was while I waited for my license to transfer, um, I had I someone knew that I was bored and said, Hey, there's these uh these production companies that film uh reality TV here and uh and there's these you know job openings you could go work for for reality TV.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: And um I said, well I've never done that, but I'm I'm game and I kind of was like, yeah, this will this will be fun.
• 1:07:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so uh I had a really and I again I'm really thankful for that because um in the you know in my role there was I had a chance to go and was always purchasing things and meeting everybody, um, you know, purchasing things for the for production and so that's how I first met you when you're coming in and getting stuff for Gold Rush.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yep.
• 1:07:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:07:39
  SPEAKER_00: So um so that was a nice introduction.
• 1:07:40
  SPEAKER_00: I thought even and it was a nice introduction to um as a therapist, oftentimes you don't, you get um you you know, and I think you know, and understandably so, um people just see you as you know as as the helper in that way, and and that's certainly important, and I certainly, you know, don't don't want to um dismiss how important that is and what an honor that is.
• 1:08:03
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, not everybody gets to know you, you, right?
• 1:08:07
  SPEAKER_00: They start to know you as the therapist or you as you know.
• 1:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, so it was a nice way.
• 1:08:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was really I I felt like it was a nice way to get to know the community first, um, and then start marketing.
• 1:08:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, when therapist.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_02: When you had said that you were leaving raw TV and you had gotten this job with search or whatever, uh for me, it w I wouldn't say it was a surprise because just our interactions, it did surprise me that was a job you had, but never in our conversation up to that point had you ever mentioned about your credentials in your career or anything.
• 1:08:43
  SPEAKER_02: It was like, oh, wow.
• 1:08:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think I was hiding up.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_03: You were hiding up.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_03: I was hiding up.
• 1:08:50
  SPEAKER_00: I was a little, yeah.
• 1:08:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was really interested.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_03: That's a whole different level of sensory that I had no idea existed.
• 1:08:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:08:57
  SPEAKER_00: I remember, you know, there was a day there that I think everybody was all up in arms about something that the talent had done.
• 1:09:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I remember sitting across the room thinking, I usually am helping people that are suicidal.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt a little, I wouldn't say shame, but I felt a little, I missed my profession.
• 1:09:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew it was time to go back.
• 1:09:17
  SPEAKER_00: I knew I was just like, wait a minute, there are people out there that are hurting in different ways that I actually have some skills for, and I actually um need to be back to um to that role um with with my community members.
• 1:09:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so as you know, it was fun.
• 1:09:35
  SPEAKER_00: It was a great time.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I wouldn't trade it for anything.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was a lot of fun, but at the same time, there was that moment of me really realizing, wow, I have I really have been fortunate across my career to have just some really wonderful mentors, um, some amazing, amazing colleagues um that I've learned so much from.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it did feel a little like, okay, you need to be, you need to get serious.
• 1:10:00
  SPEAKER_03: Enough for the enough of the show business.
• 1:10:02
  SPEAKER_03: Enough of the show business.
• 1:10:03
  SPEAKER_03: You need to get back to what you're doing.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I do, and I do think that everybody sort of like had that same kind of uh reaction that you're saying to.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_00: They were like, wait, what do you what do you do?
• 1:10:13
  SPEAKER_00: What did you really do?
• 1:10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Are you sure?
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yes, I'm sure.
• 1:10:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so then so you're with search for a couple years, and then December 2020, yeah, have the landslide here in Haynes, and we I was the mayor at the time, we call up the uh emergency operations center, and I kept seeing you and the first day or so, you and Kelly and Riley were always around, and I'm like, yeah, why are these guys always here?
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I I had no I had no idea.
• 1:10:51
  SPEAKER_02: And then during the meetings, you know, Kelly would start giving us information.
• 1:10:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'd talk to you and Riley in different places and everything.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_02: That was such a key, I had no idea.
• 1:11:02
  SPEAKER_02: I I didn't have any idea about any, but I'd never been in that situation before.
• 1:11:06
  SPEAKER_02: But the feedback and the the training you guys were giving us to help us with the community, help the community at that whole time, and looking out for the people that were in the EOC.
• 1:11:20
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't I didn't think we needed any help.
• 1:11:22
  SPEAKER_02: We were just sitting in a room.
• 1:11:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I thought you guys should be out with all the search and rescue people and everything that you kept coming to the room.
• 1:11:29
  SPEAKER_02: We're like, we're not doing anything, we're just sitting here.
• 1:11:32
  SPEAKER_02: It dawned on me later why you guys were there.
• 1:11:35
  SPEAKER_02: It didn't take me long to figure out because you go you go home enough nights crying yourself to sleep.
• 1:11:40
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, now I understand why they're there.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:11:43
  SPEAKER_02: And uh yeah, that was that was a huge learning experience for me, and having having you guys there, and as you as I'm guessing you remember the number of times that you guys help me write things, that's like, okay, this is stuff we need to put out to the community.
• 1:12:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I was always leaning on you guys.
• 1:12:04
  SPEAKER_02: How do we do this in a way that not only gives people an idea what's going on, but also helps them with their own trauma and their own the grief that's going on, the trauma in the community.
• 1:12:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because that was everybody was affected.
• 1:12:21
  SPEAKER_02: And so I appreciate you guys helping me with that.
• 1:12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of people are like, oh, that was a great job.
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just I'm just I'm just reading what they wrote for me.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_03: That's all I did.
• 1:12:31
  SPEAKER_00: It was an honor to be able to do that, and I think that it it comes full circle because I think that's exactly where I, you know, my how my career started with somebody helping me when I didn't know that I was in the midst of trauma, right?
• 1:12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, when that therapist came and that, you know, and she the hospital was providing tools in real time.
• 1:12:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, you can have the, you know, oftentimes it it um if you look at um the work of Sue Johnson and and and when we talk about like survival of the the fittest, really what we're talking about is survival of the most nurtured, survival of the most take, you know, the who who is most resourced.
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so if in real time someone can be resourced, somebody can be taken care of during trauma, it does not cement into PTSD, or it can, you know.
• 1:13:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it you have a better chance of that trauma not being stored within the body, not being stored.
• 1:13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and it's moved through.
• 1:13:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that was our whole goal the whole time.
• 1:13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Down to the, you know, again, I I I credit uh just having amazing mentors early on in my career.
• 1:13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Isabella County in in Michigan, um, lady named Kathy Tarrant, um, she uh she did the um crisis intervention, the the Mitchell model, the crisis intervention stress management um protocols, and she all across Isabella County and then Grasshet County, the the county next to ours, and she had teams, you know, she this is what they did at this place called listening ear, and I had a chance to be trained in that.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so that those models to be able to do the crisis intervention um stress management, the crisis intervention debriefings, right?
• 1:14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um I again, these things are just these the research shows us that if we are if we're utilizing these models and if if folks have a way to talk about what they're experiencing, um not you know, you can't you're not gonna process it, but if you have a way to understand it and to know what's happening within your body and and to be told that often, right?
• 1:14:38
  SPEAKER_00: These are things that are occurring for you, these are um then then going home and crying is exactly what needs to happen because you're having that discharge over and over and it's not getting you know stored again and again.
• 1:14:51
  SPEAKER_02: I remember one of the things you guys were talking about, and you can correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but about um, you know, when the when our bodies feel danger, you know, there's that fight or flight, and you can kind of get you're in that until you kind of feel safe.
• 1:15:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I didn't realize how because I I thought after the initial event that we're out of the EOC, um I didn't realize how long that would take.
• 1:15:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_00: The body only calms down.
• 1:15:28
  SPEAKER_00: You only calm and it so part of what I do and as a therapist is a lot of the somatic awareness work.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's a big part of trauma, is that um and and that's you know, your heart and your gut has neurons, just like your brain does.
• 1:15:46
  SPEAKER_00: But your heart and your gut don't you know doesn't have language.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we want to be able to think from our heart and our gut up into our head.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Up here is where all of our fears exist, up here is where all of that conditioning exists, right?
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And if we start up here at the top and then we drop down into our heart and our gut, we can just really have a lot of angst.
• 1:16:06
  SPEAKER_00: But if we can if we can start here from our heart and our gut using those neurons and think up into our brain, we can traverse a lot in life.
• 1:16:16
  SPEAKER_00: We can get through a lot of things.
• 1:16:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um because none of us, of course, get out of this life without having, you know, um experiencing pain and experiencing uh trauma, big T trauma, little T trauma.
• 1:16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's just part of the human experience.
• 1:16:31
  SPEAKER_00: But um so having you think, you know, having you again drop down into your heart and gut and come back up and think then again, now I can think through this, right?
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um your your system only stands down when it truly believes that the thing that has happened to you is over.
• 1:16:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it only believes that that the trauma is over when enough good things have happened for you to believe, okay, this is finally over.
• 1:17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that was one of the things that that worried me the most professionally.
• 1:17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And again, you and I have talked about this.
• 1:17:09
  SPEAKER_00: I saw it, you know, I was I was the on-call uh provider at the time, and all my years of of experience with mobile crisis and all that, um, I'm so thankful for because I just went into, you know, just went on an autopilot, right?
• 1:17:21
  SPEAKER_00: And just you know, went right to to where I felt like I needed to be and and it turned out to be the right spot and all that good stuff.
• 1:17:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh the pro the thing that worried me was that we there was so much unknown and what was happening just kept continuing to come.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we had the wind and the rain, and so you had all of these things that just continued night after night to where our systems were not going to stand down because um because we were in the midst of trying.
• 1:17:50
  SPEAKER_00: We had the black hawk you know landing in the middle of town, we had um yeah.
• 1:17:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, and even the changes, you know, we originally thought we were gonna be able to open Beach Road within four or five days.
• 1:18:04
  SPEAKER_02: And then having the geologists come and tell us it's like, oh no, this could this could be worse.
• 1:18:10
  SPEAKER_02: We gotta we gotta study this, and then it's like okay, that's a big hit.
• 1:18:15
  SPEAKER_02: And feeling it for those of us manage the situation, but then also seeing how that affected all the people that were on the other side of the slide.
• 1:18:23
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, in the midst of a pandemic.
• 1:18:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it's yeah, we're in the midst of the pandemic as well.
• 1:18:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 1:18:28
  SPEAKER_02: But just that trying to balance all of that, um, and knowing that everybody is dealing with it differently.
• 1:18:39
  SPEAKER_02: One of the key things that you guys had told us, I think it was Kelly that mentioned it to us, because we were really struggling with um messaging.
• 1:18:49
  SPEAKER_02: We thought we were getting all this information out to the community, we're doing Facebook posts, I was giving stuff to the radio station, everything.
• 1:18:55
  SPEAKER_02: And we kept just getting slammed that you guys aren't telling us anything, you guys aren't telling us anything.
• 1:19:01
  SPEAKER_02: How how are we not?
• 1:19:03
  SPEAKER_02: That was kind of like we're we're obviously talking two different languages, and and Kelly was in the room one day when we were discussing that, and she goes, You guys are missing the point.
• 1:19:14
  SPEAKER_02: She says, in moments of trauma, correct me if I'm getting this wrong, but as I remember it, she says, in moments of trauma, people revert back to their oldest, the the age of where their development stopped, or there's their so you could be talking to you could be talking to somebody that's in kindergarten.
• 1:19:36
  SPEAKER_02: They look like they're 30 years old, 60 years old, that they're a well functioning adult, but in trauma, we're gonna recess back to a previous point in our life.
• 1:19:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so you need to your messaging needs to be, and somebody said what at a kindergarten level?
• 1:19:51
  SPEAKER_02: She said, Exactly.
• 1:19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're like, Okay, how do we do that?
• 1:19:54
  SPEAKER_02: Because this is a lot of complex stuff that we're trying to explain on what's going on, and so then trying to make It fit into that paradigm, that was like, okay.
• 1:20:06
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know how we're gonna do that because that's that's added ten times the difficulty.
• 1:20:11
  SPEAKER_02: We were struggling to get it out in terms that we could uh you were so painful.
• 1:20:15
  SPEAKER_02: That we could understand, yeah.
• 1:20:17
  SPEAKER_02: But then getting it to that point was I'd I had no idea how we're gonna do that.
• 1:20:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think we ever got it right.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and and what you're up against is that in survival mode.
• 1:20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, survival mode goes to it is black and white, survive or not survive, right?
• 1:20:35
  SPEAKER_00: People are gonna do whatever they need to do because the end goal is just survive, right?
• 1:20:38
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've if you've survived whatever it is, then then that's a win, right?
• 1:20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're gonna say what you need to say or do what you need to do, as long as you survive, that's the win.
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so the problem is that people's minds get stuck in that, right?
• 1:20:52
  SPEAKER_00: That black and white, it's either all good or all bad.
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Someone's giving me all the information or not enough information, right?
• 1:20:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that that's the hard part right there when someone's in survival mode.
• 1:21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and you know, you had people again through that were having all kinds of different experiences without the k uh around the community being impacted.
• 1:21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so where, you know, some folks maybe were more resourced and had more support um than others.
• 1:21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so you were very patient.
• 1:21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um very available, and I think it I go back to just how amazing that that was, right?
• 1:21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And compassionate.
• 1:21:33
  SPEAKER_02: It uh I I don't I don't look at doing it.
• 1:21:39
  SPEAKER_02: It's like I think anybody else would have done the same thing.
• 1:21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 1:21:43
  SPEAKER_00: I think that you were the right person at the right time.
• 1:21:45
  SPEAKER_00: I really do, Doug, because you know the the reality is that you you couldn't have the answers.
• 1:21:50
  SPEAKER_00: There was no answers for you to have, right?
• 1:21:52
  SPEAKER_00: We were in the midst of of the unknown, and it's so how do you tell somebody like, hey, embrace the uncertainty, right?
• 1:22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you did that in such a way that it was like, I don't know what's gonna happen, but we have each other.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the day, that's that needs to be the takeaway, right?
• 1:22:10
  SPEAKER_00: We don't have all the answers, but we know we're gonna get through it.
• 1:22:14
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know, but we know we're strong.
• 1:22:17
  SPEAKER_00: We know we got these folks in the community, we know we got these folks in the community, and that was the thing.
• 1:22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think we loved being in Haynes already, but the the events that occurred and the way people showed up, I think made us fall in love with our new community even more because you saw people who, again, in the midst of a pandemic, were feeding one another, were, you know, people that I knew already were like very much on, you know, we were new to you know, still to be like, wait a minute, you guys are really opposite on opposite sides here of of political things without skipping a beat, taking care of one another.
• 1:22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so much of that in the community, you know, was just felt.
• 1:23:00
  SPEAKER_00: And that at the end of the day, what else do you have, right?
• 1:23:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can't you don't have it all figured out, you're trying to trying to figure out the what to do, but knowing that, hey, we don't know.
• 1:23:12
  SPEAKER_00: What we do know is that we have each other and we've got strengths here, and we're gonna draw upon them.
• 1:23:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you did a very good job of communicating that over and over.
• 1:23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And showing your own humanity.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you gave, you know, you gave people permission to seven like right now, you know, you gave per people permission to to be scared, to feel, to and then take care of what they needed to take care of.
• 1:23:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's weird that we're for me, as a profession, you probably don't think this is weird, but this is still something that I mean we're a month short of five years.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:23:48
  SPEAKER_02: This still hits me hard.
• 1:23:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:23:51
  SPEAKER_02: It was it was about seven months from my last day in office before I kind of felt closer back to who I was.
• 1:24:04
  SPEAKER_02: Because I don't think you can get I think I was in that fight mode that whole time because we dealt with still dealing with stuff from the slide now, five years later.
• 1:24:21
  SPEAKER_02: But that whole three years that I was mayor every week, and for that for the first year and a half, it was every single day.
• 1:24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean, there was so much of that going on, just trying to trying to start the recovery process.
• 1:24:39
  SPEAKER_02: And um yeah, there's the first few months after it, I was hiding in the back of the store.
• 1:24:44
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to talk to anybody.
• 1:24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Just trying to get some I was making excuses, sweep floors, cut down boxes, whatever.
• 1:24:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's like let me I don't want to talk to people.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_02: But in in the job, you have to.
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I have to go back to the borough office and you have to talk to people, you have to go to meetings.
• 1:24:59
  SPEAKER_02: But man, I yeah, I didn't want to talk to anybody.
• 1:25:02
  SPEAKER_00: I always wondered if you had ever reached out or had any other, you know, um leaders who have gone through something similar talk to you about because I can you know again, this is this is something that's I profound and no, no, not during it.
• 1:25:19
  SPEAKER_02: I've reached out to some people that have had stuff happen afterwards.
• 1:25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there's other incidences in Southeast and stuff, and I'll I've reached out to those people just like hey, you need if you need somebody to talk to, I got about I don't have I don't have solutions for you, but I know what you're going through right now.
• 1:25:37
  SPEAKER_02: So reached out and had those conversations with them.
• 1:25:40
  SPEAKER_02: But uh no, that's and this is something that you know going in, I'd I'd been on the assembly and I'd I had an idea what the job was for being mayor.
• 1:25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um I had no idea I was gonna learn as much about trauma and geology as it did for a really short period of time.
• 1:25:59
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 1:26:00
  SPEAKER_02: Those are two things that I had, and you've been good over the last few years.
• 1:26:04
  SPEAKER_02: Always, you know, you'll find a good book and you're like, hey, you should read this.
• 1:26:08
  SPEAKER_02: You should read this.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so I've done it, I've done a lot of reading on it.
• 1:26:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the one, the latest one that um you recommended a few weeks ago was um Are You Mad at Me?
• 1:26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and the author is Meg um Josephson.
• 1:26:23
  SPEAKER_02: Josephson.
• 1:26:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm almost done.
• 1:26:26
  unknown: Okay.
• 1:26:27
  SPEAKER_02: But one of the one of the things that has struck me about this, I don't understand the fawning thing.
• 1:26:35
  SPEAKER_02: We can get into that if you want, but I I'm not sure what all that's about.
• 1:26:39
  SPEAKER_02: I've reread that section a couple times and I kind of understand it, but the trauma response, so yeah, but the the thing that really struck me was the generational trauma.
• 1:26:50
  SPEAKER_02: That there's different groupings, indigenous peoples, stuff that that say like seven years, seven generations, that trauma can cover over seven generations.
• 1:27:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I've had conversations with people that oh, this trauma thing, everybody's overblowing it.
• 1:27:08
  SPEAKER_02: People, you know, it's life sucks sometimes, you just gotta get with it.
• 1:27:12
  SPEAKER_02: But then I read like seven generations, and you look at go back seven generations and the things that have happened in this world.
• 1:27:20
  unknown: Right.
• 1:27:21
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot, there's a lot of trauma there.
• 1:27:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 1:27:24
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of trauma there that's carried over.
• 1:27:27
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:27:28
  SPEAKER_02: Do you as somebody deals with trauma?
• 1:27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Are you buying into that that there's generational trauma that carries over through from one generation to the next?
• 1:27:39
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Because again, in different, you know, again, different parts of the country, different um cultures um have had different, you know, will have very profound different experiences with with generational trauma.
• 1:27:53
  SPEAKER_00: But you just look at um folks who, you know, whether they had a parent who, you know, had a substance abuse issue and are or had maybe um sexual abuse in their um in in their lives, and how profound that is in their ability to attach and bond, and then they pass that down, and they pass that hurt down, and they pass that wound down, and and oftentimes the person who is uh coming into to therapy doesn't even know what wound.
• 1:28:25
  SPEAKER_00: They know that there's a wound, right?
• 1:28:26
  SPEAKER_00: They know that this has been part of their family of origin um experience, and they might not even understand the the significance of a grandparent or great grandparent that has, you know, experienced uh trauma.
• 1:28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when we start to look back at it, we start to, you know, do the genogram, we start to look at who who they you know have learned things from, how how again when I go back to like that, the your your heart and your gut has neurons and so does your brain, but the conditioning is all up here.
• 1:29:00
  SPEAKER_00: So when in therapy, when we start to look at that conditioning and we start to uncover um where those beliefs about who you are and how the world works, um we often uncover the the generational trauma.
• 1:29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we know that that is just stored within the body.
• 1:29:18
  SPEAKER_00: We know that that's physiologically passed on, um neurodevelopmentally, um especially you know, um for folks that have experienced uh sexual violence.
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_02: So how do you how do you trace that back?
• 1:29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because I mean if if a if you have a client coming in and they don't know anything about their grandparents, their great grandparents, that there's that how are you able to find that there's this trauma without if the if the person doesn't really know anything that bad happened?
• 1:29:57
  SPEAKER_02: Because a lot we we usually don't talk about that.
• 1:29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:29:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, when we have trauma and stuff, the natural tendency is to hold that tight and you don't want to share that.
• 1:30:04
  SPEAKER_02: You want to be strong, you want to be, you don't want to tell everybody you have a weakness or this happened.
• 1:30:08
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying it's a weakness, I I think acknowledging it and working on it is is a strength.
• 1:30:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and not too long ago that you know.
• 1:30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, that was even like I I'm trained to do the EMDR.
• 1:30:21
  SPEAKER_00: And um one of the, you know, if if you look at um the founder of EMDR, like one of the those, you know, major stories that she talks about is like how uh this young woman who her father actually um she was in the car um when her father died.
• 1:30:36
  SPEAKER_00: They were in an auto accident, and and um she didn't bring it up uh right away.
• 1:30:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the doctors all around said, Well, if she's not talking about it, don't talk to her about it.
• 1:30:46
  SPEAKER_00: She goes on then to go through life and have just some just like difficulty in relationships with men and difficulty and difficulty.
• 1:30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, throughout her work in therapy in the EMDR, then it's discovered she has these you know, this kind of felt sense, these memories, or whatever.
• 1:31:01
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes back and talks to her mom.
• 1:31:02
  SPEAKER_00: Their mom says, Yeah, you were in the car.
• 1:31:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he yes, you were, it was your birthday.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_00: He was going to buy you a, or you had this candle, and you know, she had this kind of adversion to to candles and things like that.
• 1:31:13
  SPEAKER_00: And um, here's a very successful person at that there's something like a you know, there's there's kind of a darkness, or there's something that is uh with her that she can't necessarily define, right?
• 1:31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so many times people come into to therapy um with a felt sense, what we call a felt sense.
• 1:31:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so the the the important thing as a therapist is that it, you know, you're following just the the framework of like, I believe you, tell me more about it.
• 1:31:39
  SPEAKER_00: What are we gonna do about it, right?
• 1:31:42
  SPEAKER_00: What do we think we need?
• 1:31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And people have those answers within them.
• 1:31:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so what you're doing in therapy is you're providing a very safe place, a very structured, structured ways of of beginning to experience that felt sense in a safe way, and it becomes revealed.
• 1:32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I will tell you, many times people do not have like what we would say, like, you know, well, there for a while it was all the repressed memories, right?
• 1:32:10
  SPEAKER_00: They they don't.
• 1:32:11
  SPEAKER_00: They won't say those things, right?
• 1:32:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now they may talk start to talk to family, or they may start to put together and say, yeah, that kind of always was kind of a weird thing in our family, or there was whisperings about it, or there are these kind of things.
• 1:32:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so so people find those um validation or find that the kind of truths, right?
• 1:32:31
  SPEAKER_00: But oftentimes, um once people are understanding what they're carrying in a way, they they form a new relationship with what it is, you know, the trauma that they're experiencing, and you don't necessarily need to know why.
• 1:32:45
  SPEAKER_00: You don't necessarily need to have, but you develop this understanding of like, okay, there is, you know, there's this felt sense of of things that I experienced.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_00: I would say in my own life, right?
• 1:32:55
  SPEAKER_00: My mom's mom, she wanted to go to school, or she she did go out to some college, and um, and but she was, you know, this was um my parents were older when they had me, and so um, and how she then, you know, dealt with things, um, then is how my mother dealt with things and um and certainly was unavailable in different ways, but always said you can you can do whatever you want, you can be whatever you want, you know, go to school, go to school.
• 1:33:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you can look at that generational trauma, right?
• 1:33:25
  SPEAKER_00: How that that translated.
• 1:33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in my case, right, that translated to generational resilience, because then you have, you know, a parent who's saying, like, go and go after your dreams, go and and explore these things, go and be, you know, um, go after it.
• 1:33:40
  SPEAKER_00: So we also have generational resilience too.
• 1:33:43
  SPEAKER_00: So you want to remember that.
• 1:33:45
  SPEAKER_02: So so with that, like if we're if we're talking seven generations, does that compound?
• 1:33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Because everybody's gonna have trauma in your life.
• 1:33:56
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, if if you don't have something happen in your life that causes some form of trauma, I I don't think you're living you're there's bad things that are gonna happen to us.
• 1:34:07
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 1:34:08
  SPEAKER_02: And we can't avoid that.
• 1:34:09
  SPEAKER_02: For for for all of us, yes.
• 1:34:11
  SPEAKER_02: Some of them are gonna be more serious than the others, but there's gonna be so if if you go over seven generations, does that compound over each generation?
• 1:34:21
  SPEAKER_02: So the further you get along, if if that's not dealt with, that it gets worse, or is it just individual?
• 1:34:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, is there any studies on that?
• 1:34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um I wouldn't I wouldn't feel comfortable without, you know, really looking at what's most up to date right now with answering that.
• 1:34:38
  SPEAKER_00: But what I can tell you is that what I know to be true in all of the different things that that uh you know I have studied and then my own personal life is that there is no way we would have made it this far as a human race if we didn't have resilience and love, and we didn't have right alongside that trauma um experiences of connection and bonding.
• 1:35:01
  SPEAKER_00: And um and so I I don't I don't think that I would say uh professionally and personally that any of us are ever gonna really be able to understand or know for certain what is held within the body.
• 1:35:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think we just have to acknowledge it.
• 1:35:23
  SPEAKER_00: We have to acknowledge that there is such a thing as generational trauma.
• 1:35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to acknowledge that if something were to occur, it will be passed down unless it is attended to.
• 1:35:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um so if if we attend to it, the people that are dealing with things now, if they attend to it in a positive manner, uh-huh, we can keep that from transferring to the next generation.
• 1:35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 1:35:48
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:35:51
  SPEAKER_02: Because I I I I agree with you on the resilience thing.
• 1:35:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that I don't know if it's still okay to say this what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
• 1:35:59
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know if I don't know if that's correct way to frame it.
• 1:36:04
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, but I but I I I you know that's when we were a kid, you know, like rub some dirt on it, move on.
• 1:36:11
  SPEAKER_02: Uh but reminding people of their strengths.
• 1:36:14
  SPEAKER_02: Remind the people of their strengths that yes, there's yeah, bad things are gonna happen.
• 1:36:19
  SPEAKER_02: Not all of them are your doing.
• 1:36:21
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of this is things that you can't control, and just because somebody else does something bad to you or bad things happened in your life, that's not necessarily a reflection of you, but it can't, it's usually a reflection of other people and the things that they've done.
• 1:36:35
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, there is generational trauma, but using that as a strength, a building block to get stronger, to recognize that is that part of what you're trying to do to when you're healing people or when people come and talk about trauma, is like, yeah, this is I agree, this is something very bad, but it doesn't have to be the worst thing in your life.
• 1:36:57
  SPEAKER_02: It can be a building block to something better and stronger.
• 1:37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 1:37:00
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to define you.
• 1:37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's part of that.
• 1:37:03
  SPEAKER_00: I believe you.
• 1:37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me more about it, right?
• 1:37:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because oftentimes people, you know, again, it is it's we we all have different parts of ourselves, and and I think that people can can, you know, whether they, you know, whatever they experienced, they can acknowledge that this happened at this time, but then they're safe again, right?
• 1:37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then they can have agency over their own lives.
• 1:37:23
  SPEAKER_00: They can make choices then that are are uh are not trauma reaction, reactionary, right?
• 1:37:30
  SPEAKER_00: They are not defined, you know, they don't have to live a life that is defined by a traumatic experience or have this identity of of their trauma then shaping the rest of their lives, right?
• 1:37:41
  SPEAKER_00: So a big part of it is is integration, right?
• 1:37:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're teaching people to integrate that traumatic experience into their lives as a whole.
• 1:37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that doesn't, you know, it means that that's part of you, part of you um will always carry those, you know, wounds in in different ways.
• 1:37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and how do we take care of ourselves whenever that part of us needs attention?
• 1:38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's not all of you.
• 1:38:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's your your most alive self is the self that is not living 24 hours in the past or 24 hours in the future.
• 1:38:12
  SPEAKER_00: If we get it, the real reality is, and that might even speak a little bit to why my timeline, and you know, because I I I honestly, you know, practice what I preach here.
• 1:38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if we, you know, the reality is that 24 hours, if we go 24 hours in the past, we are oftentimes doing a depressive review of what we have experienced.
• 1:38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And if we go too far into the future, we're doing an anxious preview of what we think may happen, right?
• 1:38:38
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is a lot can be revealed, and our lives has multiple pathways into our future.
• 1:38:45
  SPEAKER_00: So our most alive state, our healthiest state is in the here and now.
• 1:38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that where ultimately that's a challenge, isn't it?
• 1:38:54
  SPEAKER_02: It is a challenge.
• 1:38:55
  SPEAKER_00: It is a challenge, but that's your that's I mean, that's that's my whole goal, you know, as a therapist is to get people who to feel their most alive self, their most in touch with themselves, trust themselves, trust that internal wisdom, and and then they're gonna be able to tackle the things.
• 1:39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because not everybody is as resourced, right?
• 1:39:13
  SPEAKER_00: We the reality is that not everybody has the same resources, not everybody is the same, you know, has the same amount of nurturing.
• 1:39:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so, so they're you know, what where someone can have an experience and have some trauma and then use that as a as a you know, that that they can use that and become stronger.
• 1:39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not everybody has the the same resources um necessarily.
• 1:39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:39:40
  SPEAKER_02: So how there's a couple questions I'm I want to ask, I gotta remember them.
• 1:39:46
  SPEAKER_02: But first, there's a lot of people out there that don't, like you're saying, don't have the resources to deal with past trauma, to acknowledge past trauma.
• 1:40:00
  SPEAKER_02: To grow from that.
• 1:40:03
  SPEAKER_02: Everything costs a ton of money these days.
• 1:40:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, trying to go whatever government programs or whatever.
• 1:40:08
  SPEAKER_02: And this was something that after the slide, trying to we had worked talked to you guys about this.
• 1:40:14
  SPEAKER_02: What are things that we could do as a community that would be therapeutic for people without feeling like they're going to see a counselor, right?
• 1:40:24
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 1:40:27
  SPEAKER_02: And I think about that quite a bit because the frustrating thing and the really eye-opening thing for me being in that position is the amount of help that came in for the government was huge.
• 1:40:41
  SPEAKER_02: The amount of help that came in for residents that were affected, not so much.
• 1:40:53
  SPEAKER_02: That lost a lot, and what the borough got to re- and the state got to fix their infrastructure that was damaged and the thing.
• 1:41:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so again, it goes back to what you're saying.
• 1:41:04
  SPEAKER_02: Some had the resources, the borough got a lot of resources.
• 1:41:07
  SPEAKER_02: We're still fixing things now.
• 1:41:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um individuals not so much.
• 1:41:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 1:41:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so trying to figure out that was a thing we're trying to figure out constantly is where can we find help for these individuals that are in this situation?
• 1:41:23
  SPEAKER_02: And usually what we would come up with was either there is no help or the help is seven, eight years away.
• 1:41:33
  SPEAKER_02: And there's 30 hurdles that have to be overcome to get to that seven, eight years from now.
• 1:41:43
  SPEAKER_02: We just look at this like who came up with this?
• 1:41:47
  SPEAKER_02: How did somebody come up with this program and think that this was actually going to help anybody?
• 1:41:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was mind-numbing how insane these programs were in order to qualify for them.
• 1:42:02
  SPEAKER_02: And which ones are you uh BRIC was one of them, building resourceful infrastructure.
• 1:42:09
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's there's people who are affected that they you yeah, you know, the state gave, I think it was 16,000, the federal with the diverse.
• 1:42:18
  SPEAKER_02: So you get like you lose your house, you get$32,000.
• 1:42:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, major losses, and that's all all you can get.
• 1:42:26
  SPEAKER_02: And it was it's like, wait a second, this this doesn't seem right at all.
• 1:42:32
  SPEAKER_00: When I first started my career, there were prevention agencies that you could go and work for.
• 1:42:38
  SPEAKER_00: I was probably only, I don't know, I was probably six, eight years into my career when all of those agencies started to vanish because there's no money in it.
• 1:42:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so the reality is that you know, I could get on a big soapbox here.
• 1:42:54
  SPEAKER_00: Get on the soapbox, but we we celebrate, we celebrate the wrong things in this country.
• 1:42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:42:58
  SPEAKER_00: If we, you know, if we cared as much.
• 1:43:00
  SPEAKER_00: And again, here I sit, you know, with the major league baseball player in the family, right?
• 1:43:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm, you know, love celebrating him.
• 1:43:06
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, we celebrate all the wrong things, right?
• 1:43:09
  SPEAKER_00: Sports, you know, celebrities getting bigger butts, whatever.
• 1:43:14
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how the things we celebrate, right?
• 1:43:16
  SPEAKER_00: We celebrate the wrong things.
• 1:43:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, do we have these opportunities for people?
• 1:43:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I think things are changing because you see it in the schools now, you see it, you know, people are talking about mental health, people are understanding that um that you're there, you know, the mind-body connection that there was never, you know, there's there should be no reason why we should even be saying connection, it just is, right?
• 1:43:40
  SPEAKER_00: We see mental health purity that that also um passed within my my career, which means that people's um I'm a standalone provider, right?
• 1:43:51
  SPEAKER_00: So so people's insurance covers mental health the same way it covers their physical health.
• 1:43:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so it wasn't always like that.
• 1:43:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think we are, you know, I think in terms of like um people's insurances and things like that, now mental health is covered where it wasn't before.
• 1:44:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um that makes a difference, but 'cause what was was it in the when the 70s where we started closing a lot of these institutions?
• 1:44:16
  SPEAKER_02: Because I think it was after one flew over the cuckoo's nest, people were like, wait a second, how are we treating these people?
• 1:44:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:44:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I yeah, am I wrong to think that maybe we shifted too far the other way?
• 1:44:25
  SPEAKER_02: That there's we've definitely we've got a lot of people out there that there aren't resources or there isn't follow-up to help these individuals.
• 1:44:32
  SPEAKER_02: I think you see that around the country, the number of people that are self-medicating, that there's on the homeless situation a lot of these larger cities, that uh it definitely for me I think it's it's it's embarrassing as what we consider ourselves a first world country that we have people in need that aren't being taken care of, that the that that it's gone to the depths that it has, and it's and it's frustrating.
• 1:44:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that and that's too that I look around Haynes, that there's it'll be five years and in a month and a half from when we're recording this, that um there's still roads that haven't been fixed from the slide.
• 1:45:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so I look at the bureaucracy around this that there's people on those roads that were deeply affected by this.
• 1:45:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm thinking, because it it reminds me of the slide every time I drive on the roads, and I know other people that's probably the same thing.
• 1:45:29
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I look at what's happening in June with Suicide Basin and the floods every spring.
• 1:45:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I know they're they're moving forward, they've they've got agreements with the Army Corps that they're working on this, but this summer, when the Army Corps said it'd be about 10 years by the time they studied it and came up with a solution to this.
• 1:45:48
  SPEAKER_03: Why does it take us 10 years?
• 1:45:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you've got people that this has been going on for several years, and those people are in trauma every single day.
• 1:45:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, just because the flood isn't happening, they're most of them are thinking about what's going on next year is what's gonna be.
• 1:46:02
  SPEAKER_02: The value of the property is going down.
• 1:46:04
  SPEAKER_02: Precious asset, right?
• 1:46:06
  SPEAKER_00: Their biggest asset.
• 1:46:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's next year the year we're gonna lose part of our house.
• 1:46:08
  SPEAKER_02: How do we trying to plan for the next that just seems totally wrong that you're putting people in that much mental anguish, trauma year after year after year, and that's the best we can come with.
• 1:46:24
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, about 10 years we should be able to have this.
• 1:46:28
  SPEAKER_03: The hell well am I thinking about this wrong?
• 1:46:34
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't think I think the reality is that you know just look at how we look at how when we have someone who has a mental health crisis here, and it's not just us, it's across, you know, it's across the lower 48 too.
• 1:46:44
  SPEAKER_00: We put them, we hold them in jail until we can get them.
• 1:46:48
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we're where mental health and the law come you know right up beside one another is when someone is at their most vulnerable, right?
• 1:46:56
  SPEAKER_00: So here's someone who we're gonna put you in jail till we can get you transported to a facility that can then assess you assess you and hold you.
• 1:47:05
  SPEAKER_00: Someone is their most vulnerable, right?
• 1:47:07
  SPEAKER_00: Having their mental health crisis.
• 1:47:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we hold them in jails, right?
• 1:47:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, other places, like I say, North Carolina did a fabulous job of having crisis stabilization units, right?
• 1:47:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so the company that I worked for, they had, you know, that was part of it.
• 1:47:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they had these crisis stabilization units to where people could be taken care of, um, both with the physical, you know, what they needed for physical health.
• 1:47:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you got somebody who's on benzos and you know, you can't they can't just stop those.
• 1:47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Their mind's like a spring, right?
• 1:47:38
  SPEAKER_00: It'll it'll they'll have seizures they'll and so there's there's a combination that needs to happen, right?
• 1:47:44
  SPEAKER_00: That someone needs to be taken care of by both um mental health and your your your docs.
• 1:47:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I think you know, the very fact that, you know, we almost had one over it, you know.
• 1:47:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think again, you know, as we take care of our uh how do we take care of the most vulnerable right in our communities?
• 1:48:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the question that many of us keep coming to these days.
• 1:48:09
  SPEAKER_00: And um and we need we we need to do a better job of it.
• 1:48:12
  SPEAKER_00: It just comes down to that.
• 1:48:13
  SPEAKER_00: We need to do a better job of it.
• 1:48:15
  SPEAKER_02: And and and the thing is, is I I look at how inefficient government is that people looking to government for the solution are looking in the wrong spot.
• 1:48:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's even harder for for you like native uh Alaskans here, for you, you know, for for your for your folks that are true, you know, again, born and raised Alaskans, right?
• 1:48:37
  SPEAKER_00: Who are very used to um being self-sufficient.
• 1:48:42
  SPEAKER_00: And they're this this is the last frontier for a reason, right?
• 1:48:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think um there's there's it's not this way down in the lower 48.
• 1:48:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there's also we also have to recognize that there's places that have figured this out in their communities, and we need to go and find them, and we need to talk to them, and we need to talk about how they do policing and they do um and and mental health and how they, you know, how the the local governments are taking care of and it matters, right?
• 1:49:08
  SPEAKER_00: That now we're talking about like, you know, you you put together there's fractals, patterns in nature, right?
• 1:49:14
  SPEAKER_00: So so going on a walk, just like you said, we we had many talks about this.
• 1:49:17
  SPEAKER_00: How do you how do you like you know get therapeutice people without even them even knowing it, right?
• 1:49:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of this is movement, and a lot of this is then connection to community, right?
• 1:49:27
  SPEAKER_00: So if we have these areas in our community where people can come together and gather and people can see one another, and just like you know, you said multiple times during the during the slide, right?
• 1:49:36
  SPEAKER_00: We don't we don't have the answers, but what we do know is that we have one another, right?
• 1:49:40
  SPEAKER_00: There is that you do have connection that you matter, that you're seen and you're known, and and that makes all the difference in a community.
• 1:49:49
  SPEAKER_02: The hard thing is I don't think there's anything in the borough charter that allows the borough to address this.
• 1:49:57
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's it's very limited on the role, and that was that was the thing too that we found during the slide is people were like, you need to help with this, you need help with this, and it's like by law we can't.
• 1:50:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so it's it's it's trying to partner with other people.
• 1:50:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, okay, reaching out to um different organizations that can come in and help with that, but it's the the government is limited, and you look at the state and the federal government, they don't have any money, they've all blown all their money, and so that's it gets back to that thing that how do we as residents come together and work on as you were talking about other places being divided?
• 1:50:35
  SPEAKER_02: Haynes can be very divided, but as we saw during the the storm event and numerous other instances, how quickly people come from different different sections of the community and are working side by side when crisis hits?
• 1:50:51
  SPEAKER_02: Are we at a crisis with mental health?
• 1:50:54
  SPEAKER_02: Is how how do we bring this where we get the community more involved and looking at things that help the most vulnerable, knowing that the borough doesn't really have a role other than asking for assistance from outside, trying to find funding, things like that.
• 1:51:10
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have any ideas on because I I think the people that I know in the community that are doing the job that you are, there are a lot of there are some, I shouldn't say a lot, because I I don't think it's more than four or five at the moment.
• 1:51:28
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of them, there's not a lot of you, but the ones that are here I think are are good, are really good.
• 1:51:35
  SPEAKER_02: I think we're I think for the community, and and this is something that it always it always amazes me that with the size of Haynes, the number of people with just some stellar skill sets that are here across a lot of professions.
• 1:51:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I think.
• 1:51:52
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of professions, we've got some extremely talented individuals in the community.
• 1:51:56
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 1:51:57
  SPEAKER_02: Your career is one of those.
• 1:51:58
  SPEAKER_02: We've got some amazing people with some very kind hearts and and loving hearts that want to help people.
• 1:52:07
  SPEAKER_02: How and I'm not talking about government, how does Haynes help support the job you guys are doing?
• 1:52:14
  SPEAKER_02: How do we provide um bac, I don't know, I don't know what you call it, well, backup, what how how do we support you?
• 1:52:19
  SPEAKER_02: How do we how do we help with that?
• 1:52:21
  SPEAKER_02: What are things that we can do that make this easier?
• 1:52:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you see just, you know, I I was just in the post office and I just saw somebody posted a flyer, right?
• 1:52:30
  SPEAKER_00: That that if you have extra food right now, that's you know, we're gonna do some fundraisers, right?
• 1:52:35
  SPEAKER_00: For some folks that are losing their their um their benefits, right?
• 1:52:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of a sudden, right, you see some you see people pop up that care.
• 1:52:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so I I think we want to celebrate them.
• 1:52:48
  SPEAKER_00: I think we want to, you know, in a way that, you know, promote that and get that, you know, anytime we see that we want to make sure that we're we're sharing that across our our different platforms that that our community uses, whether it be Facebook, whether it be, you know, they're at the post office.
• 1:53:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think sometimes, you know, people will say, Well, I didn't know that was happening.
• 1:53:09
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that was available.
• 1:53:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that I think that's an area where we could probably do better here in the community, is just making sure that we have um you know, people again, maybe new to the community, all of these kind of things, have has the same amount of availability to what's um what's happening.
• 1:53:32
  SPEAKER_02: Um that is that is something that people that have moved here have told me that Hanes can be kind of standoffish as well.
• 1:53:42
  SPEAKER_02: There yes, you might be welcome in one group, but it's it's kind of like okay, you moved here.
• 1:53:46
  SPEAKER_02: We don't know if we trust you yet.
• 1:53:48
  SPEAKER_02: We gotta we've got to find out who you are before we really like.
• 1:53:51
  SPEAKER_02: Are you on this side or on this side?
• 1:53:53
  SPEAKER_02: Where where are your core beliefs before we're really gonna accept you in the community?
• 1:53:58
  SPEAKER_02: And some people they feel like six months they're accepted.
• 1:54:01
  SPEAKER_02: Some people can be here 20 years and they're they're like, one of these days I'm gonna feel like a resident of Haman.
• 1:54:07
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 1:54:08
  SPEAKER_02: And so it does go both ways.
• 1:54:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think there are times when people are welcomed with open arms, but it's it's like, yeah, we love having you here, but we still need to wait and see.
• 1:54:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:54:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I I mean, I mean understandably, I think you're a community that has had, like I say, when we first moved here, um, it is, you know, people uh regularly asked, you know, well, how long do you think that you'll stay?
• 1:54:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what are your intentions?
• 1:54:32
  SPEAKER_00: What are your intentions?
• 1:54:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
• 1:54:35
  SPEAKER_03: And then dad's like, what are your intentions with my daughter this evening with a managing and have her home my daughter?
• 1:54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 1:54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 1:54:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and I like I say I joked.
• 1:54:44
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, well, it depends on how you all act.
• 1:54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because I can you're on it.
• 1:54:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is a two-way street here.
• 1:54:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're both attention to each other, but and maybe that's why we fit here.
• 1:54:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I definitely think that there's, you know, um I would like to see uh a crisis intervention uh team here, um, because it that doesn't have to be um and maybe that's you know triggering a little bit within me.
• 1:55:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I you know have this new grandchild that I now takes up all my my my waking time.
• 1:55:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh but uh yeah, I appreciate taking this much time to talk because um I know you're having Roger withdrawals right now, but you haven't been able to absolutely look at a picture of your grandson.
• 1:55:26
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 1:55:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um I get to see him in ten days.
• 1:55:29
  SPEAKER_00: So um, but I do think that if we were I think uh a great place to start would be to have a crisis intervention team um in place because and to get some actual training that is the So what does a crisis intervention team look like?
• 1:55:43
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if something were to happen, um uh major happen, like let's say something happens at the school, and we have a crisis, let's say there's a shooting or there's something that goes on, and we know that our community members that are at the school need that additional support.
• 1:55:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so um a crisis intervention team, um, it and if and the idea is that you get people from all walks of life trained, okay?
• 1:56:05
  SPEAKER_00: So from people from all different areas of the community get trained.
• 1:56:09
  SPEAKER_00: Ideally, you would have a therapist that could go, but it doesn't have to be a therapist leading because you're really following a very, very structured model of crisis intervention, of stress management.
• 1:56:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a processing group like you you would think of, like a therapy group.
• 1:56:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's really run in these these uh it's called the Mitchell model.
• 1:56:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's it's and even especially for me, uh, you know, who's been a therapist for so long, um I will have it listed right out there, so I'm making sure I'm following, right?
• 1:56:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um but it's a again, it's a it's a program that's set up to manage in those first early, you know, right away, those first early days, those first early moments, how to support people through a crisis.
• 1:56:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so let's say something happens at the school.
• 1:56:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, people who are not uh, you know, weren't involved in in what happened, which is can be challenging in a small place, right?
• 1:57:01
  SPEAKER_00: We're always gonna have just like during the slide, right?
• 1:57:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was managing my own, I was getting some outside support from from colleagues and things like that.
• 1:57:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you know, we were affected as well, and then attempting to support um at the same time.
• 1:57:14
  SPEAKER_00: But um, but ideally, right, you would have people from other parts of the community come in and run these um crisis intervention debriefings to where then people could have an opportunity to talk about what was going on for them, then they'd get resources, um, and then they would get connected to like follow-up if they need to.
• 1:57:34
  SPEAKER_00: So again, you're you're providing that that initial support for people.
• 1:57:38
  SPEAKER_02: Um how many people?
• 1:57:40
  SPEAKER_00: How many people for what?
• 1:57:42
  SPEAKER_02: For your crisis intervention team.
• 1:57:44
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy.
• 1:57:45
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to see people, you know, I would love to see uh, you know, 45, 50 people trained in it.
• 1:57:51
  SPEAKER_00: I would love that.
• 1:57:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you get people from all walks of life again.
• 1:57:54
  SPEAKER_00: We get people get trainings can be three days if we get somebody in.
• 1:58:00
  SPEAKER_00: We can get somebody.
• 1:58:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you know, some of them, some of them will go a week, but um, you know, depends on the different trainers, depends on how long they're gonna be.
• 1:58:09
  SPEAKER_02: Are there grants available for that?
• 1:58:11
  SPEAKER_00: There could be, I don't know.
• 1:58:14
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean just well I hate it.
• 1:58:16
  SPEAKER_02: I hate just looking at things like all this is out there, but you know, yeah, they're they're follow-up's an important thing for me.
• 1:58:22
  SPEAKER_02: It's like if something's out there that there's an opportunity to do we I my my take on everything is we need to do as much locally as we can and before looking to outside.
• 1:58:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think how do we how do we take care of our community with the people that we have here?
• 1:58:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how do we it and you know during the slide we had people from Bartlett come up here?
• 1:58:43
  SPEAKER_02: We had we had a lot of outside support.
• 1:58:45
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that was absolutely wonderful.
• 1:58:46
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not taking anything.
• 1:58:49
  SPEAKER_02: We had a ton of people coming to the community from outside.
• 1:58:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying we don't want that help, but I think the more people, if we can get 45 or 50 people trained in this, that's not only are we ready for an event like that, but I think it gets people looking at things differently.
• 1:59:07
  SPEAKER_02: That maybe how they react to situations, how they react to people, maybe going through that kind of training changes that.
• 1:59:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so I think there's there's benefits beyond just having the training.
• 1:59:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um yeah.
• 1:59:24
  SPEAKER_02: So you're gonna look at grants and you're gonna tasking me with this, right?
• 1:59:28
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that was gonna happen.
• 1:59:30
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I just where is is who would take the lead on that?
• 1:59:34
  SPEAKER_02: Is that something that search would be a good group to take the lead on?
• 1:59:38
  SPEAKER_02: Would that be the borough taking the lead on that?
• 1:59:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I brought it up, but you know, the the public safety board, right?
• 1:59:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's a good place to go back to.
• 1:59:49
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you know, you're talking about it.
• 1:59:51
  SPEAKER_00: Are you still a member of the st I am exchange?
• 1:59:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I still am.
• 1:59:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:59:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I think, yes, I think it's something that I would, you know, I brought it up before.
• 2:00:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's something that I could you could revisit again.
• 2:00:02
  SPEAKER_00: I know, you know, Riley Hall, he and I, you know, quick training.
• 2:00:06
  SPEAKER_00: All he's, you know, during the slide, he and I reviewed it, and you know, he and I ran groups of it together, and I can tell you I know that made a difference.
• 2:00:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so absolutely you guys are the quickness of your guys' response and the and uh the amount of time that you guys put into that.
• 2:00:24
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think a lot of people in the community know how vital that was.
• 2:00:30
  SPEAKER_02: It was an honor.
• 2:00:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:00:33
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of great people showed up.
• 2:00:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so how how do you your specialty trauma, PTSD, grief?
• 2:00:45
  SPEAKER_02: How do you talk to people about that in your life, in your business?
• 2:00:54
  SPEAKER_02: That seems, you know, that's 75% of your practice right there.
• 2:00:57
  SPEAKER_02: At least I don't know how many, could you also do relationships, right?
• 2:01:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but not in turn, how do you let that just kind of go through and not take any of that?
• 2:01:07
  SPEAKER_02: For me, I think that would I would just carry a lot of that with me.
• 2:01:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I I it always amazes me people like you that are doing this work, and I at the end of the day, I would just be broke.
• 2:01:24
  SPEAKER_02: How do you do that?
• 2:01:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I again I think each one of us have different gifts.
• 2:01:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I will say, I will go back to I had amazing mentors early on in my career.
• 2:01:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had amazing, you know, uh a couple amazing professors during grad school, but but more importantly, I I really had some amazing mentors early on in my career who who basically said, if you want to be in this for the long haul, um it's not if you burn out, it's when you burn out.
• 2:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: So here are some things to do.
• 2:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the, you know, a couple of these folks were nearing the end of their career.
• 2:01:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it this information was just invaluable.
• 2:01:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the very tangible things I do is I pay attention to my schedule.
• 2:02:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I practice what I preach, so so I am regularly spending time, you know, doing mindfulness.
• 2:02:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm regularly spending time with the somatic and energetic work.
• 2:02:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm paying attention to my own energetic state.
• 2:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we do I teach people something called, you know, you clear your energetic state.
• 2:02:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I could start to talk to this and your eyes are gonna gleam, or you're gonna think I go really woo-woo here, but it's not.
• 2:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's a science behind this.
• 2:02:28
  SPEAKER_00: I can also tell you where to go buy, you know,$60,000 crystals, and you don't need to do that.
• 2:02:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we do need to clear our energetic states.
• 2:02:36
  SPEAKER_00: We do need to recognize what belongs to us and what belongs to other people.
• 2:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, at the end of the day, my job is to come alongside someone.
• 2:02:46
  SPEAKER_00: You never um someone doesn't heal when we take their pain from them.
• 2:02:52
  SPEAKER_00: Someone now there's times where we say, I'm gonna lift this with you.
• 2:02:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, absolutely, I'm gonna help you carry this.
• 2:02:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it is it is yours to process, it's yours to heal from, right?
• 2:03:02
  SPEAKER_00: So at the end, you know, what I'm doing all day long is supporting people as they heal, right?
• 2:03:08
  SPEAKER_00: As they're so so that's a beautiful thing.
• 2:03:10
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, always people always think, like, you know, like how do you talk to me all day long or these kind of things?
• 2:03:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, are you kidding?
• 2:03:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's a that's an honor.
• 2:03:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's an honor to, you know, to be with someone during the process of their healing, the process that they are each day, you know, this is getting a little lighter, hopefully, right?
• 2:03:28
  SPEAKER_00: Each day this is they're beginning to know who they are and and lead with their strengths versus with the wounds, right?
• 2:03:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, so it's different for us, right?
• 2:03:39
  SPEAKER_00: Each day that we show up, and like I told that story earlier, you know, I was I realized, you know, early on, some you know, at a time in my life where my mind could have snapped for sure.
• 2:03:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I we didn't get into it, but there was of course uh lots of other stressors.
• 2:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: Anytime there's a trauma, the the things in your life that are already fractured are gonna have an even harder time, right?
• 2:04:03
  SPEAKER_00: So, and all those things are gonna surface.
• 2:04:05
  SPEAKER_00: The things that, you know, all those those what they say is like, you know, what's gonna spill out, right, is what's right there.
• 2:04:10
  SPEAKER_00: So um, so there were a lot of stressors when when Addison was in the NICU.
• 2:04:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and like I say, this this you know, just loving, wonderful, professional person came into my life.
• 2:04:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just had I've had these real life experiences and people who have taught me how to to show up um for myself and for others.
• 2:04:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um so I so something while you were talking about that of you know with helping Carrie.
• 2:04:45
  SPEAKER_02: You can correct me if I get this wrong, but something it's it's stuck with me ever since the slide that you guys had told us that joy shared is joy double, grief shared is grief have.
• 2:04:55
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:04:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's but it's hard sometimes to share the trauma and the grief.
• 2:05:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is.
• 2:05:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's it's huge, right?
• 2:05:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh you want to fix things for people.
• 2:05:06
  SPEAKER_00: You want to take, I mean, we're all conditioned, like tell someone it's okay.
• 2:05:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can, you know, you can have another child, it's okay, you can, you know, you can get another house.
• 2:05:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 2:05:14
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna you have this, but you have this, right?
• 2:05:16
  SPEAKER_00: We want to talk people out of their pain.
• 2:05:18
  SPEAKER_00: And like I shared with you, you know, there's uh amazing Megan Devine, right, who who does all the the the who's just amazing grief researcher and and uh practitioner, you know, um, very much talks about like that uh it is radical to to actually sit with someone else and not try to take their pain away.
• 2:05:40
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what people need.
• 2:05:42
  SPEAKER_00: People need to be acknowledged.
• 2:05:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the that's that's where the the I believe you, tell me more about it.
• 2:05:49
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think you'll do about this?
• 2:05:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:05:52
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not taking away you're sitting there and saying, I see you, I'm not gonna run.
• 2:05:58
  SPEAKER_00: You're your your pain might be making me uncomfortable, but I'm gonna sit right here.
• 2:06:02
  SPEAKER_00: And you teach people, then then people resource.
• 2:06:05
  SPEAKER_00: They find their they find their strengths again.
• 2:06:08
  SPEAKER_00: And people are strong, people have resilience.
• 2:06:11
  SPEAKER_00: If not, we'd all be we'd all come apart years ago, right?
• 2:06:15
  SPEAKER_00: Generations ago.
• 2:06:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, some of us have come apart.
• 2:06:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's true.
• 2:06:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is true.
• 2:06:20
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes take a lot of super glue to put us back together, but you know.
• 2:06:24
  SPEAKER_02: So when you had you talked about faith being renewed with Addison.
• 2:06:32
  SPEAKER_02: Do you think that's a big part of your practice now?
• 2:06:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not that you're oh not that you're prophesizing people and everything.
• 2:06:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't do Christian counseling.
• 2:06:41
  SPEAKER_02: No, yeah, but just I I look at the work you're doing and helping others, and I think there is a a a faith element to that, that you know, you're you're helping that helping and giving of yourself to others.
• 2:06:55
  SPEAKER_02: Do you do you see it that way still?
• 2:06:57
  SPEAKER_00: I do, I do, absolutely.
• 2:06:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, again, I I I think maybe growing up Catholic, there was something, there's something very private about um in some ways, and I'm also, you know, there was some times to where I'm probably more cautious to this idea of like, you know, um forcing your religion on anybody because I'm, you know, I'm I'm far more um, I should say, skeptical or even even um have a strong dislike of organized religion in many ways, right?
• 2:07:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so very respectful about people's spirituality and how people, you know, I don't necessarily, you know, hold to the fact that each person has to, you know, m speak about God in the same exact way, but people talk about a life force, people talk about a knowing of a of a connection, whether it be God, the universe of of this understanding of of a source of of creation.
• 2:07:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you talk to most people, right, they have some understanding of that in their lives.
• 2:07:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so for me, of course, I'm I I do believe that God has me in this role and um and when he no longer thinks that I'm fit for it, I will no longer be doing it.
• 2:08:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um but I you know and so I think that the people who come across, right?
• 2:08:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard I've heard a pastor say one time that you know, you're if you go through life like you have a you have one of those pass keys for like that, you know, like at a hotel, right?
• 2:08:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you're you're it's not gonna open every door, but the doors that it is gonna open, then you walk through, right?
• 2:08:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I very much believe that, you know, whether it be God or the universe or what or however folks find one another, that the people who need me are gonna find me, and the people I need I'm gonna find.
• 2:08:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I I believe that uh that's love.
• 2:08:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I I don't think that we would have gotten um where we are as a species.
• 2:08:53
  SPEAKER_00: We would have died out, I think, a long time ago if we didn't have that, right?
• 2:08:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that answered your question.
• 2:08:58
  SPEAKER_00: Do I?
• 2:08:59
  SPEAKER_02: It did, yeah.
• 2:09:02
  SPEAKER_02: This is something I've I've struggled with for a while, because I've always I've always felt called to Christianity and and God and everything.
• 2:09:13
  SPEAKER_02: But I I my experiences are always so much different than other people.
• 2:09:17
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's it's it's like, okay, am I am I not worthy?
• 2:09:22
  SPEAKER_02: Am I not where where's that land?
• 2:09:24
  SPEAKER_02: And there's been numerous instances lately that I'm like, okay, maybe I'm being called this way, but kind of like you, the the organized religion part is hard.
• 2:09:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:09:36
  SPEAKER_02: Because you look as as a history major, I look back through history and you see the number of, and it's it's still happening today, the number of deaths because somebody believes in a different religion.
• 2:09:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:09:50
  SPEAKER_02: You know, that's it's just ongoing, ongoing.
• 2:09:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it it and it it makes it hard um to trust organized religion or trust churches, and and I don't I don't want to go into it with that yeah, I I'm still looking for a connection, but there's these there's there's these barriers to so I I kind of practice my own kind of thing and learn on my own, but there's something to be said for that fellowship of being being in in uh in a church with fellow believers and and having that sense of unity in a way that's very appealing and very strong.
• 2:10:32
  SPEAKER_05: Um absolutely but yeah, so I'm supporting accountability.
• 2:10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Just trying to yeah.
• 2:10:38
  SPEAKER_02: As old as I am, I'm hoping I figure it out one of these days.
• 2:10:41
  SPEAKER_05: But it's just trying to figure out where where all that adds up at.
• 2:10:45
  SPEAKER_02: And it's uh yeah, a lot of a lot of reading, a lot of conversation with people, and trying to figure it out.
• 2:10:53
  SPEAKER_00: We um I have a colleague and we've discussed many times who's a Christian as well, and just like, well, I don't know why God gave it to the Buddhists.
• 2:10:59
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why that this is but but good, let's use it.
• 2:11:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is not, you know, this isn't, you know, this we can we we can't explain these things and and we know that we're we find love, right?
• 2:11:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's the whole Bible.
• 2:11:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's just love one another, right?
• 2:11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So this idea of like if you're finding love, then how is that, you know, if you're finding that connection and you're finding that bond, um, and you know it when it's real, right?
• 2:11:20
  SPEAKER_00: You know when you're really connecting in in a humanitarian way.
• 2:11:23
  SPEAKER_02: And the and the other part that that stresses me is the judgment aspect that we're my reading is that love our neighbors and the the judgment will be gods.
• 2:11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:11:38
  SPEAKER_02: But we spend a lot, and I'm and I'm not immune.
• 2:11:40
  SPEAKER_02: I I judge people all the time.
• 2:11:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's you know, it's kind of that human nature where we're judging everybody else around us and uh and oftentimes not looking at what we're doing ourselves.
• 2:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I always tell people our brain is hardwired for survival, not happiness.
• 2:11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And because it's hardwired for survival, we confuse good judgment with judgmental.
• 2:12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is important that we have good judgment about lettuce that's gonna give you diarrhea and a person that's gonna beat you.
• 2:12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like these things are like you want to make, you want to make, you want to have good judgment about the character or about the safety of other humans for sure.
• 2:12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes we'll confuse that or we'll tell ourselves, well, don't, don't, you know, don't, you're pulling away from someone you don't know that yet.
• 2:12:31
  SPEAKER_00: You don't know that person yet.
• 2:12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, boy, your heart and your gut has neurons again, you know.
• 2:12:35
  SPEAKER_00: So so you're you there will we have a felt sense of safety.
• 2:12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes we override that, and then all of a sudden, you know, then you're working for a narcissist, or then all of a sudden, you know, then you're you know, you're in a relationship with somebody who is uh who is not actually, you know, there to be loving and supportive.
• 2:12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so um I always tell people like, let's be really cautious here um with those two things.
• 2:13:01
  SPEAKER_00: And because sure, each one of us can get judgmental, and we know that, right?
• 2:13:05
  SPEAKER_00: We know when we're in that space of like, and it's usually fear-based, right?
• 2:13:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're fearing something, we're fearing the loss of something, or we're fearing something that's gonna happen.
• 2:13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um the unknown.
• 2:13:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I think people prey on that too.
• 2:13:19
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean?
• 2:13:20
  SPEAKER_02: That you look at um Andrew Kremada and I were talking about this a few weeks ago, that there's all the organizations out there that all these political political buttons, uh-huh, there's people on both sides that are playing to that fear.
• 2:13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, sure.
• 2:13:38
  SPEAKER_02: To raise money to and so there's yeah, I look at so many issues in Haynes and the state and federal that there's they don't want to solve it.
• 2:13:50
  SPEAKER_02: There's issues that don't people don't want to solve because they can manipulate that fear of the other person or the other position into whatever gains that they're getting.
• 2:14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that that keeps us that ability to use that fear on the judgment aspect of it or whatever, um, is being abused by a lot of people, I think, in a lot of organizations, because we're we're taught to fear somebody that thinks differently rather than sit down and have a conversation with them.
• 2:14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and there are some people that you should be fearful of.
• 2:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 2:14:23
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he's dead now, but Ted Bundy, I would not I would not have a female member of my family go out on a date with Ted Bundy.
• 2:14:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think that I think that's a people that are.
• 2:14:31
  SPEAKER_02: There are some people that you just say no.
• 2:14:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, and there are sociopaths that don't have bloodless that aren't gonna kill you, but they are still gonna wreak havoc in you.
• 2:14:38
  SPEAKER_02: Still gonna wreak havoc in your life.
• 2:14:39
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's still gonna harm you.
• 2:14:41
  SPEAKER_02: But I think just because somebody has a different political opinion doesn't mean that you should stop con conversing with them and having a sit-down conversation.
• 2:14:50
  SPEAKER_02: And and that's I see that a lot in in our country right now.
• 2:14:54
  SPEAKER_02: That I I don't think social media is helping with that at all.
• 2:14:57
  SPEAKER_02: They're kind of siloing everybody.
• 2:14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And again, that puts us back into that survival mode, which is that black and white.
• 2:15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is that we are complexed.
• 2:15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Most things are a lot of shades of gray and and that that multiple truths can exist at once, right?
• 2:15:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can truly say, I respect this person.
• 2:15:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have no our beliefs are absolutely like our our spiritual beliefs are not aligned at all.
• 2:15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I have so much respect for this person.
• 2:15:23
  SPEAKER_00: This person is a kind person, this person, you know, uh multiple things, multiple truths can can exist at the same time.
• 2:15:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's how complex we are, right?
• 2:15:32
  SPEAKER_00: We are so complex that we can have multiple emotions, right?
• 2:15:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, oftentimes sometimes they're congruent, sometimes they're not.
• 2:15:38
  SPEAKER_00: The you know, the the if if the the scientists that really studied this, you know, our emotions last 90 seconds.
• 2:15:45
  SPEAKER_00: 90 seconds, yeah, 90 seconds.
• 2:15:47
  SPEAKER_00: So if you if you let something just pass through you, we are the humans are the only ones that turn around and make meaning and then and then keep going with with uh with an affect state.
• 2:15:59
  SPEAKER_00: We hold on to that.
• 2:16:00
  SPEAKER_00: So if you've had emotions that have lasted longer than 90 seconds, but that's my fault.
• 2:16:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and it's because you're and I wouldn't use the word fault, I would say human, but um you you have to do something to keep it going.
• 2:16:12
  SPEAKER_00: You have to believe, you have to continue to upset yourself or continue to make yourself joyful, right?
• 2:16:17
  SPEAKER_00: So so both can be true, right?
• 2:16:18
  SPEAKER_00: We can keep an F a joyful affect state.
• 2:16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a good app.
• 2:16:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's called uh uh How We Feel, and I I recommend this to all my clients to start using this.
• 2:16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it what it first has you do is just start to pay attention to yourself, uh like your your energy.
• 2:16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Am I am I um high energy pleasant or high energy unpleasant?
• 2:16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Am I low energy pleasant or low energy unpleasant?
• 2:16:46
  SPEAKER_00: And with each of those realms, then you can you can check, you know, you can look and see what affects state.
• 2:16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And many times if people are honest with themselves, yeah, they might be in one of these quadrants, but they're feeling multiple things, right?
• 2:16:57
  SPEAKER_00: I might be, you know, what's the difference between, you know, being uh uh lonely and and and worried, right?
• 2:17:06
  SPEAKER_00: When people are like, I don't wear Lincoln, I know.
• 2:17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Let me let me you know find that out about myself.
• 2:17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I can be both grateful and angry about something at the same time.
• 2:17:15
  SPEAKER_00: When people really start to dial in, that we are rarely just one thing.
• 2:17:20
  SPEAKER_00: The only time we are just one thing, just one affect state or experiencing, right?
• 2:17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Humans aren't, you know, humans experience affect state.
• 2:17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So you're you're a human experiencing anxiety or you're a human experiencing joy.
• 2:17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when people really you know, only in survival are we really just that black and white.
• 2:17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And what's happening now is people's fear is kicking them into survival, right?
• 2:17:44
  SPEAKER_00: That fear of the unknown or the fear that somehow their community member is out to because that they hold a different belief is out to um to harm them.
• 2:17:52
  SPEAKER_00: When in reality, if you saw that same community member, you know, who about to freeze to death or something on the side of the road, you you'd stop, right?
• 2:17:58
  SPEAKER_00: You would not all of a sudden that fear would go away.
• 2:18:00
  SPEAKER_00: So when people really ask themselves, like, what would it take to get that fear down?
• 2:18:04
  SPEAKER_00: What would it take for me to stop fearing the the folks that I see, you know, waving this flag or waving that flag, right?
• 2:18:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um most people say, um, nothing, right?
• 2:18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Those people are just idiots, right?
• 2:18:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna- I wouldn't have anything to do with that idiot, right?
• 2:18:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like, really?
• 2:18:19
  SPEAKER_00: You're a really nice person.
• 2:18:21
  SPEAKER_00: So that idiot that you, that person you just said is an idiot, is a is a, you know, their their you know, wood stove's on fire, right?
• 2:18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Their chimney's on fire, you're not gonna you're gonna step back and be like, oh, you know, no.
• 2:18:32
  SPEAKER_00: The reality is is that you know, a few people would be, sure.
• 2:18:35
  SPEAKER_00: There, you might find some folks, but the reality is is no, people are ultimately, you know, are gonna have that sense of of that person has value, that person has worth, right?
• 2:18:47
  SPEAKER_00: So you're right, social media all of a sudden that can be hid behind and and and things like that.
• 2:18:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't know where we got off on that.
• 2:18:59
  SPEAKER_03: The trail goes all sorts of different directions when you sit down to talk with me, Sester.
• 2:19:03
  SPEAKER_03: I figured you knew that before you showed up here.
• 2:19:05
  SPEAKER_03: This could go I was kind of worried about it though.
• 2:19:07
  SPEAKER_03: I was like, what are we gonna talk about?
• 2:19:08
  SPEAKER_03: A bunch of different directions here.
• 2:19:10
  SPEAKER_00: I guess so.
• 2:19:11
  SPEAKER_02: So what are there anything in your practice that kind of keep you laying awake at night that how are we gonna how are we gonna solve this?
• 2:19:20
  SPEAKER_02: How are we gonna move forward with this?
• 2:19:22
  SPEAKER_02: What are the things that the concern you if if maybe we've already talked about them, but what are what are things you see on the horizon that we should try and get in front of?
• 2:19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think part of my temperament very much is that sense of like and belief.
• 2:19:36
  SPEAKER_00: My belief system is is like the again, we're gonna find one another, whoever, you know, the people that that need us um the most.
• 2:19:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I certainly have um concerns for for communities and people being more and more divided, pulling farther and farther away from one another, and then teaching that as as again that they're gonna just people are gonna continue to operate in that very again, fear based of like I have to fear my neighbor.
• 2:20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um when in reality we have far more in common and and um people are far more alike.
• 2:20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um if we just take that first step to you know just again you don't have to be best friends with somebody or anything like that but I worked at um in my undergrad right when I was getting ready to graduate there in Colorado Springs, I worked for I had to do an in internship and I worked for an organization called Food for Thought Gatherings.
• 2:20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And because Colorado Springs was so divided um what this agency this nonprofit did was they put together people in the community from all walks of life and they they they had us you know back in the day it was before the internet so so they had us you know we were on index cards putting people's names up and they put them together to have dinner together and that's all they did.
• 2:20:53
  SPEAKER_00: That was all this nonprofit did it was called food for thought gatherings and um and again like I say my life experience okay but how I like the idea.
• 2:21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah and I I don't know what the research I don't know how did they pick in people I mean how'd they know these people are so much different they might have might have been Ted and Bill were like best buds once they got to know each other and they didn't they're like sweet somebody bought us dinner I think that they were doing some I think they I mean the the you had to do some interviews right you had to call people up and give them some some specific surveys I can't remember what they were at the time um but that was one of the things you just knew some people um somehow some way they had some some information on people it was pretty known again you have focus on the family in that community and then you have um some nonprofits that are specifically um working um opposite of of focus on the family and so I think that uh the idea was and and like I say I when I worked for them they were just starting out so I would love to go back I guess and see um and I don't know how they ended up um quantifying if it made a difference in the community but how could it not?
• 2:22:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right so here you have just this one nonprofit that is developed just to get people to eat together.
• 2:22:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 2:22:19
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't do anything else other than that get people from different walks of life to sit down and have a meal together and then you know seems like a good way to start seems like a good way to start yeah yeah I wonder if we could do that here.
• 2:22:37
  SPEAKER_02: So the the the interesting thing for me when you're talking about that when there's a fundraiser dinner oh people from all walks of life sometimes are sitting at the same table.
• 2:22:48
  SPEAKER_02: So it kind of happens organically here.
• 2:22:50
  SPEAKER_02: Yes I guess but it's always when there's a a crisis a crisis or something bad that all of a sudden you'll have people come and support in the same family or the same group or what have you and a lot of people with different opinions can sit down at the same but I don't think it ever I think it's more of a for a lot of people that okay well we're stuck they sat at the same table probably have they're not talking about politics they're not talking about they're just not a but I think it's a good start that you're just sitting with somebody that might have different beliefs and sitting across the table and having that conversation.
• 2:23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I and the thing is the same space most most people recognize that people have conversations with people like yeah we're divided but when oh when it hits a fan everybody steps up everybody comes together yeah I think it's something that people are proud of here.
• 2:23:37
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely as a new you know when we that was one of the first things that we heard right and then saw it and you know and so but I don't know why we can't come together and still be nicer to people than the rest of the time.
• 2:23:47
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly exactly because that's that's yeah experiencing a life here and having that the whole time of just uh you can have do your parents know who you're out to dinner with your parents it's like seriously really I'm like 40 years old I love my parents but I think they respect my decision making these days that I don't really need to run my dinner companions past my mom and dad.
• 2:24:17
  SPEAKER_00: And people thinking like what's gonna happen?
• 2:24:19
  SPEAKER_00: What's going to happen if somebody sees me you know who you know am I gonna get you know told off am I now gonna you know not is someone now not going to rent to me is someone at the store and I go home.
• 2:24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I mean so it matters right it matters that we pay attention to whatever that fear is right so what do what do people think is gonna happen?
• 2:24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Will they not get a job?
• 2:24:38
  SPEAKER_00: Will they not get asked to you know to participate in things that are important to them are they no longer going to be able to go and you know um have access to something right and so um so I think that it does matter you know that there's different things you know I hate to say like there's there's you know we do what we don't want being an you know somebody who is like I say we have a history we have a rich history of where we lived before here that we're very proud of right so so again not to take away anything from us that you know are not locals right um but we live here right and we want to care about Hanes just as much as a local does so I think I think there does need to be some language around like how you know folks that come here that care and want to meet you know get invested in their community and maybe doing something right off the bat like a a again a the a welcome packet or something like that.
• 2:25:35
  SPEAKER_00: How do how do we welcome new people in so they have an understanding of like yeah your history is invited to be here you're gonna get access to the same things even if you're not a local that is a challenge that every small community right Eddie and I could go back to our hometown and there are opportunities available to us because we grew up there right that are you know maybe will always be there right because people trust and know each other but how do we get that trust started you know um quicker maybe here that would be that would be sort of nice I think so thinking about that and you had mentioned before we started I don't want to keep you much longer here but you had you had talked about maybe doing a mindfulness exercise.
• 2:26:20
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah what what what did you have in mind here and what what explain a mindfulness exercise.
• 2:26:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there is a there's a somatic awareness right so I I practice a lot of that somatic awareness to get people like in touch again with with your um what you are what you are experiencing um so you can again then meet your needs um so you can know yourself um and then I also have something that is uh is good for like a grounding technique so um we could do one or both of those let's let's try let's try both you want to try both okay let's try both of them okay we'll do first we'll do the the somatic experience and we'll do the the body scan okay and I'm gonna this is okay um so this is this is somatic awareness now what what somatic awareness means is that you are going to be in touch with your affect states you're gonna be in touch with what you're what you're physically experiencing you're gonna be in touch with your emotions and you're gonna be in touch with your thinking so the more you know yourself right the more the more aware of yourself the more embodied you are the more you will stay grounded and you will stay out of that um survival black or white thinking so um so yeah so we could do this it's a self-awareness right so this self-awareness so am I verbally answering questions or is this how do we want to I don't know I'm gonna no you haven't signed any there's no treatment going on here I want to just test purposes I just wanna I just want to say that here that you are not being treated.
• 2:27:59
  SPEAKER_00: I am not being treated and I am in no way responsible for your your health other than as a friend as a friend yeah we're no way responsible for what that goes um and what I can do is um just how many pages you got there it goes kind of quick it goes kind of quick um I can we can I can do an example of you connecting with the the your internal signals so connecting with um I guess it's up to you how much you want to explore yourself right now.
• 2:28:33
  SPEAKER_03: I never want to explore myself but go let's let's just let's do one of them and we'll just see where we go from there how long this is going to be getting a kick out of this.
• 2:28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right how about for the purposes of this because it could you know you could have a very um again intimate or vulnerable um experience that you you could always talk to me about later right so um but how about for this purposes I won't ask you to answer out loud I'll just have you you'll just answer in you'll just follow my direction I'll just follow your direction I'll answer in my mind.
• 2:29:06
  SPEAKER_00: You'll answer in your mind yeah okay okay okay because this is something that anybody can do and it what we what I do is I have people like the people start this practice of like trying to break um people walk around mindless right and so not everybody um no one walks around fully regulated all the time but the idea is to know whenever you are dysregulated right so the more you know yourself the more you're gonna know wait a minute I'm outside of my window of tolerance um I'm either you know too low or I'm too you know I'm um have too much energy right and so then people can upshift or downshift.
• 2:29:43
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 2:29:44
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea is the more often that we are mind being mindful right then we're gonna have access to our most present self our most embodied self that knows what our current needs are.
• 2:29:57
  unknown: Okay.
• 2:29:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay that's in and and the reason I'm I'm hesitant on this is okay for me being for me being present in the moment is really difficult.
• 2:30:06
  SPEAKER_02: Because I've I I want to have to do I want to be doing no I want to we're gonna do it.
• 2:30:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's just I'm just explaining to do this I'm just explaining it's just normally I'm just it's like okay I need to be doing something that to just to be thinking about myself and sitting there is it's an uncomfortable situation.
• 2:30:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that's just can you visualize can you like if I say um think of a sunset can you visualize a sunset in your mind?
• 2:30:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 2:30:30
  SPEAKER_03: Okay good all right I just want to know okay I can do that all right on that level let's go through that level so let's go.
• 2:30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:30:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna be funny because we're friends here but you if you you've been to my office you know how comforting it is so comforting I invite you to close your eyes scan your body notice what physical sensations are present notice what areas are comfortable and what areas are other than comfortable nope you're gonna keep all this and all you have to do I promise you I'm gonna keep us going here so you don't have to just all you have to do is just listen to me.
• 2:31:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you when we're done too turn your awareness to the areas that are other than comfortable notice what sensations tell you this is other than comfort too hot too cold is there too much pressure or tightness or is there pain and if there is pain notice the quality of the pain sharp dull constant or does it come and going you don't have to do anything about this.
• 2:31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just notice what's there and now turning your awareness to the areas that are comfortable or at least neutral notice what sensations tell you that this is comfort or neutrality noticing the temperature how light or dense each area might be how loose or firm your muscles are how relaxed each area is just taking a moment enjoy your more comfortable sensations and now I invite you to turn your awareness to your emotions noticing what emotions are present noticing if you're experiencing more than one emotion and if you experience more than one emotion notice if they are similar or congruent or if they are opposite or other than congruent again knowing you don't have to do anything about them just notice what you're experiencing now turning your awareness to your thinking you can notice what you're thinking and more importantly notice the quality of your thoughts are they fast or slow or evenly paced?
• 2:34:07
  SPEAKER_00: Do they dart around or are they still again noticing if they're about your past or future or your thoughts right here in present time.
• 2:34:27
  SPEAKER_00: Again knowing you don't have to do anything about them just notice what you're experiencing when you feel ready you can bring your awareness back into the room and open your eyes feel embodied you feel like you can can you identify your core like can you identify the core sometimes people recognize their core around their heart or along their spine but the idea is you just kind of drop down and are present with yourself.
• 2:35:08
  SPEAKER_02: I felt very present with myself during there and when you're talking about was my mind going forward or back it seemed like it was very present the whole time and that's unusual.
• 2:35:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah that if I'm not talking or doing that's yeah that's weird that I was able to do that.
• 2:35:26
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's awesome this is a practice it takes time like and I always tell people like you can you you do this automatically because like it you know most people know what it's like to walk into a a library or a church right and you're you know you you can meet you know a friend outside or you can be rushed or whatever and as soon as you hit that library door you downshift a few right because you're like okay I have a goal my goal is to come into this quiet space so I'm gonna then downshift so then I you know my physical presence match my mind is prepared I match my goal and so that's I mean at the end of the day that's that's what self-awareness is all about is that you can then you can recognize your you know where you're at you can recognize your needs and you can also then upshift or downshift to match whatever goal you're about to go into right because if I was to sit and I was to do this you know big old relaxation and then come in here and talk to you guys right and be all probably forget a bunch of things right so that wouldn't really necessarily meet the goal right so you go you also want to know like again here I'm gonna know myself well enough to then know like oh I'm kind of my energetic state is just hovering here I need to upshift it because my next goal is that I'm gonna give a presentation or I'm gonna do this or I'm gonna go and and and get this done or boy I'm really I have a lot of energy so I need to do an over energy correction to to come down.
• 2:36:45
  SPEAKER_00: But mo what the this is this again self-awareness is is about mindfulness.
• 2:36:51
  SPEAKER_00: So you're looking at the qualities not not making meaning not the stories we tell ourselves because as humans we're and we're the only ones right that that you know you look at animals who have just been chased by something right they shake it off and then they go back to grazing right and then they're gonna do it all over again if they need to right we're the only ones that would be like is that going to come back is that going to get me to any offense I watch Frank.
• 2:37:16
  SPEAKER_00: I watch you know he will run off a bear and he will then you know he'll bite a stuffy a few times a hard you know hard and then he'll fall asleep.
• 2:37:25
  SPEAKER_03: Frank's testor is not for everybody that's wondering who Frank is a family member that bites the stuff that pushes runs on bears and that bites a stuffy it's not great.
• 2:37:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's totally frank um but no so again humans are the only ones that sit there and make meaning right this is that whole you know our emotions only last 90 seconds and then we have we make we make meaning out of things we tell ourselves these stories and so we want to be careful and we want to know what the you know wow you know I really I'm really continuing again with with all these conditioning here to keep this affect state going or keep you know keep myself at this in this affect state so um so the more we drop into this the more embodied we are so what you want to do is you just want to notice the other reason why this is really good too is it can teach you it we we use this for pain management for people in a lot of trauma on people who have untreated trauma have a lot of pain.
• 2:38:24
  SPEAKER_00: So they are used to like their bodies will hurt right whether you know again they'll have headaches, they'll have back aches they'll have uh stomach issues um we know autoimmune right we know autoimmunes are tied um with with trauma so so one of the things about this is that we're we're also whenever you're pendulating between what's comfortable uh or what's uncomfortable and with what's comfortable or neutral you're also teaching your pathways then to find both that there can be those areas at the same time right and so it's it it knocks down pain when you go back and when you pendulate between areas of discomfort and areas of of comfort or neutrality.
• 2:39:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 2:39:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:39:07
  SPEAKER_02: So is this something that since this is you can pretty much do this on your own.
• 2:39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:39:12
  SPEAKER_02: Right yes and so there's some this throughout the day or whenever if you're feeling stress or feeling kind of just settled.
• 2:39:18
  SPEAKER_02: You should do it throughout the day just whatever is happening a couple times a day just kind of just do a quick check-in and when people first come in we're having them do it three or four times.
• 2:39:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:39:30
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of this is this is some stuff that comes out so EMDR which is your your eye movement right the trauma reprocessing it's eight stages and people always think that this is the only part of EMDR but the the first part of EMDR is the the somatic experiencing and that's that you know you got to be able to to be embodied you got to be able to experience yourself and so that's why we want to look at the qualities not what it means that your thoughts are racing just that your thoughts are racing right or that your thoughts are Still, not what it means because your thoughts are still.
• 2:40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um, and then again, I'm experiencing you know joy and nervousness, right?
• 2:40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not why am I experiencing it, but that I that you just are.
• 2:40:10
  SPEAKER_00: So again, you're looking at the qualities, and we really mean it when we say you don't have to do anything about it.
• 2:40:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's the key, right there, is to get into those moments of like, I don't have to do anything about this, because the reality is I'm complex and I'm gonna be going through a lot of different emotions, a lot of different times, a lot of different reasons.
• 2:40:27
  SPEAKER_00: You want to do one more?
• 2:40:28
  SPEAKER_00: That's a that's a support one.
• 2:40:29
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, we sure was this or was there yeah, let's do another one.
• 2:40:33
  SPEAKER_02: Let's do another one.
• 2:40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
• 2:40:35
  SPEAKER_00: This one right here is just one that I'll like Did I close my eyes again?
• 2:40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, you're gonna close your eyes with this one.
• 2:40:40
  SPEAKER_00: And this one is one of these things, and this is again why.
• 2:40:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think I brought it with me.
• 2:40:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hold on, let's see.
• 2:40:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um we won't the other thing too is I guess the reason let me explain this for the mindfulness too, is that we need to know when we jump out of our um, whenever we're stressed or whenever we're anxious, we jump out of our core self, right?
• 2:41:05
  SPEAKER_00: And and all of a sudden we'll be across the room.
• 2:41:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's why people will always say, like, I got introduced to somebody and I have no idea what their name is.
• 2:41:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, because you weren't grounded, right?
• 2:41:13
  SPEAKER_00: You weren't in your core.
• 2:41:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the more often you're practicing this mindfulness, the less likely it is that you're gonna jump out, your energetic state is gonna jump out across the room.
• 2:41:21
  SPEAKER_00: And people disassociate, right, on all levels.
• 2:41:24
  SPEAKER_02: And people would say that I can't remember people's names, is the fact that I'm you get nervous at the yeah, you're not embodied.
• 2:41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:41:30
  SPEAKER_02: Get out of here.
• 2:41:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's so true.
• 2:41:33
  SPEAKER_02: What yeah, so true.
• 2:41:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that my mind is I I have a terrible memory.
• 2:41:37
  SPEAKER_00: No, okay.
• 2:41:39
  SPEAKER_00: No, this is called support in the chair.
• 2:41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, no.
• 2:41:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and so there's this is another book I was gonna recommend to you.
• 2:41:45
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 2:41:46
  SPEAKER_00: Ellen Langer.
• 2:41:47
  SPEAKER_00: She writes, um, oh gosh.
• 2:41:50
  SPEAKER_00: She's 50 years of experience at Harvard.
• 2:41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um she's she does all the research on like the placebo effect and how we need to believe that there's a reason why, you know, that we get better um with the way we think, basically.
• 2:42:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so she's she's a pioneer in the mindful, um, uh, the mindfulness movement and things like that.
• 2:42:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but that's another book that's Okay, what's the name of the book?
• 2:42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, The Mindful Body?
• 2:42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 2:42:15
  SPEAKER_00: Ellen Langer is her name.
• 2:42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:42:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:42:18
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:42:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:42:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this is one that you can do too, whenever you're feeling stressed.
• 2:42:23
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:42:24
  SPEAKER_00: I invite you to close your eyes, checking the bottoms of your feet.
• 2:42:30
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how they're connected to the floor.
• 2:42:34
  SPEAKER_00: Feel the floor supporting your feet.
• 2:42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Holding them in place.
• 2:42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how no effort on your part is required to be supported by the floor.
• 2:42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now turning your awareness to your legs and sit bones.
• 2:42:53
  SPEAKER_00: Notice how they connect to the surface beneath you.
• 2:42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Feel how this surface holds you in place.
• 2:43:00
  SPEAKER_00: Feeling the support of this surface.
• 2:43:04
  SPEAKER_00: Knowing you are not required to do anything to receive this support.
• 2:43:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is just there for you.
• 2:43:14
  SPEAKER_00: And turning your awareness to your back.
• 2:43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Noticing how the surface behind you connects to your back.
• 2:43:23
  SPEAKER_00: How it holds you in place.
• 2:43:27
  SPEAKER_00: Just enjoying your support.
• 2:43:32
  SPEAKER_00: And feeling your arms being held in place by the surface beneath them.
• 2:43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Noticing the support.
• 2:43:41
  SPEAKER_00: How it takes no effort on your part to receive the support.
• 2:43:49
  SPEAKER_00: And noticing overall how your feet are held in place by the floor beneath them.
• 2:43:55
  SPEAKER_00: How your legs and your sit bones are supported by the surface beneath them.
• 2:44:02
  SPEAKER_00: How your back is supported by the surface behind you.
• 2:44:07
  SPEAKER_00: Again, noticing how you don't have to do anything to receive this support.
• 2:44:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's just there for you.
• 2:44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Taking a moment to enjoy.
• 2:44:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when you feel ready, you can bring your awareness back into the room and open your eyes.
• 2:44:32
  SPEAKER_00: How would you notice?
• 2:44:35
  SPEAKER_02: I just the calming effect towards the longer it goes on, just kind of I just feel calmer.
• 2:44:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 2:44:46
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that I I don't feel like I was I didn't feel like I was super energized beforehand.
• 2:44:52
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I was fairly calm, but just listening to that and just ex accepting the different things, it just kind of felt my heart beat kind of slowing a little bit and just kind of relaxing.
• 2:45:04
  SPEAKER_00: Nice.
• 2:45:04
  SPEAKER_00: So regulate that nervous system.
• 2:45:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:45:07
  SPEAKER_00: That's what that is.
• 2:45:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of those, and that's an easy one, you know.
• 2:45:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's something in the middle of our day.
• 2:45:12
  SPEAKER_00: We can just to stop and take a moment and recognize the support beneath us.
• 2:45:17
  SPEAKER_00: That we don't we don't do anything to deserve it.
• 2:45:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's the other really big part, is that you know, just recognize so much of our society is just bent on like our worth is tied to what we've done or what we're doing or what we can produce, right?
• 2:45:31
  SPEAKER_00: What we have, what we have, yes.
• 2:45:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so oftentimes recognizing that there is something there for us just because just because we're us, just for us.
• 2:45:41
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 2:45:43
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you for sharing those.
• 2:45:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're welcome.
• 2:45:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're welcome.
• 2:45:45
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was a good place to end.
• 2:45:46
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:45:48
  SPEAKER_02: That is a good place to end.
• 2:45:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so too.
• 2:45:51
  SPEAKER_02: Well, thank you, Cesare, for joining us.
• 2:45:53
  SPEAKER_02: I know you were you're nervous about doing this.
• 2:45:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so nervous about doing this.
• 2:45:56
  SPEAKER_02: But you've I think you've done great.
• 2:45:59
  SPEAKER_02: It's been awesome having this conversation.
• 2:46:01
  SPEAKER_02: I've I've learned a lot about you and about what you do and the trauma.
• 2:46:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm still learning about trauma.
• 2:46:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh me too.
• 2:46:09
  SPEAKER_02: Me too.
• 2:46:10
  SPEAKER_02: How our mind works and and ways that we can move forward with that.
• 2:46:13
  SPEAKER_02: I I've always appreciated yours and Eddie's friendship since I first met you guys when you got to town.
• 2:46:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so thank thank you for joining me and trusting me to have this conversation and record it and share it with other people.
• 2:46:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for having me.
• 2:46:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you know that whatever you do going forward, you've got a big supporter in me and happy to help you with whatever you do.
• 2:46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:46:35
  SPEAKER_00: You've you've re-energized me.
• 2:46:37
  SPEAKER_00: I do think that I could do more for the community.
• 2:46:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I do.
• 2:46:41
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't I didn't mean to do that.
• 2:46:42
  SPEAKER_02: I just do a lot already.
• 2:46:45
  SPEAKER_00: I should say I should say you've re-energized a passion that I already have.
• 2:46:48
  SPEAKER_00: There's something that I already want to be doing.
• 2:46:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's uh I think having a you know um a crisis intervention team and having some more, you know, mobile crisis kind of response is something that is important to me, and I think that that would be you know important to our community.
• 2:47:03
  SPEAKER_02: So as you move forward with that, let me know how I can assist.
• 2:47:06
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 2:47:07
  SPEAKER_02: I would I would be honored if I could be one of the members of that.
• 2:47:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think you'd be great.
• 2:47:11
  SPEAKER_02: I would love to be a part of that.
• 2:47:13
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I think you'd be great.
• 2:47:15
  SPEAKER_02: All right.
• 2:47:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, say hi to Roger in 10 days.
• 2:47:18
  SPEAKER_05: I can't wait.
• 2:47:19
  SPEAKER_05: I can't wait.
• 2:47:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, thank you, Century.
• 2:47:23
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for watching this episode of Doug Had's Questions.
• 2:47:26
  SPEAKER_02: Just a reminder: if you've enjoyed the conversation today, please like, subscribe, and we're available on YouTube if you want to watch us, if you just want to listen.
• 2:47:35
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
• 2:47:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you have new uh episodes being launched every Thursday.
• 2:47:43
  SPEAKER_02: So thanks again for watching or listening and following us.
• 2:47:47
  SPEAKER_02: We appreciate your support.