Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Can We Slow Things Down with Deirdre Fay, MSW
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Trauma Thepist podcast Plus listeners can listen to episodes early
- 0:03Speaker 1: and ad free right now. Become a Plus listener by
- 0:07Speaker 1: going to Apple Podcasts searching for the Trauma Theverist podcast
- 0:11Speaker 1: and signing up today. Welcome to the Trauma Nevers podcast,
- 0:18Speaker 1: a show about the incredible people dedicated to helping those
- 0:21Speaker 1: of experienced trauma. My name is Got macpherson and my
- 0:24Speaker 1: mission is to raise awareness of trauma and to inspire
- 0:27Speaker 1: each of us to help those around us be ready.
- 0:35Speaker 1: I would like to do this, Okay, so here we go.
- 0:38Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one, our folks, welcome
- 0:42Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have us my
- 0:44Speaker 1: guests today. Deirdre Fay, Deirdre Welcome, Welcome back, delighted to
- 0:49Speaker 1: be here, awesome.
- 0:51Speaker 2: So.
- 0:51Speaker 1: Deirdre Fay is a psycho spiritual author, coach and trainer
- 0:54Speaker 1: with forty years of experience exploring the intersection of trauma, attachment,
- 0:59Speaker 1: yoga and meditation, which she calls modern day Buddy SOTS
- 1:03Speaker 1: for training. Healing then is not an accident, but the
- 1:06Speaker 1: sure result of consistent and persistent practice that develops a solid, steady,
- 1:12Speaker 1: secure self. Deirdre uses an intricative approach with Chris, which
- 1:16Speaker 1: Chris Durmer calls a radically positive approach to healing trauma. Deirdre,
- 1:22Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast.
- 1:24Speaker 2: Great to be here, as you know.
- 1:27Speaker 1: So before we can go in here, share with the
- 1:31Speaker 1: listeners where you're from originally and where you are currently.
- 1:35Speaker 2: I did all my work when I heard that forty
- 1:39Speaker 2: years I mean in my real subtle yes, yes, okay,
- 1:44Speaker 2: So when I started, I actually started my training when
- 1:47Speaker 2: I lived in aushrom and that's where I got the
- 1:53Speaker 2: understanding that. But being in a body, I don't think
- 1:56Speaker 2: I knew what it was like to be in her
- 1:57Speaker 2: body be for And it's also as I felt safer
- 2:00Speaker 2: and safer where my own history erupted. I didn't know
- 2:03Speaker 2: I how to trauma history. So when it was time
- 2:07Speaker 2: for me to I had done a certain amount of
- 2:10Speaker 2: healing and I needed to do more, and I also
- 2:13Speaker 2: wanted the understanding of it. This is when trauma was
- 2:17Speaker 2: really just being understood as a field or a contemporary field.
- 2:22Speaker 2: And so I went to school, I got a degree,
- 2:25Speaker 2: and then I was working in one of the big
- 2:27Speaker 2: teaching hospitals in the Boston area and I was doing
- 2:32Speaker 2: my training there and somebody had been in one of
- 2:35Speaker 2: the workshops i'd done, one of the big conferences I'd done,
- 2:39Speaker 2: and wanted to know what it would be like to
- 2:43Speaker 2: teach people in the dissociated unit trauma. You know, what
- 2:47Speaker 2: it was like to have meditation? Could they do it?
- 2:50Speaker 2: What would it be like for them to do yoga?
- 2:53Speaker 2: And I was curious because I thought, can I really
- 2:55Speaker 2: take what I've learned and apply it? And so I
- 3:00Speaker 2: started working there and then Bessel Hesilva heard about the
- 3:03Speaker 2: work that I was doing and I joined his clinic there,
- 3:07Speaker 2: where I got to know all the greats, you know,
- 3:11Speaker 2: and Tanina Fisher and I and Bettavento had an office together,
- 3:16Speaker 2: so we was really right in the thick of it
- 3:19Speaker 2: all well, and Besil asked me to start leading groups
- 3:23Speaker 2: and so that really became what I call the becoming
- 3:26Speaker 2: safely embodied skills. And Janina would send her clients and say,
- 3:32Speaker 2: what are you doing there? People are getting so much
- 3:35Speaker 2: better faster. Yeah, it was pretty awesome, and and I thought,
- 3:41Speaker 2: what is going on? Why is this so different? And
- 3:45Speaker 2: even now years later, I don't want to calculate the
- 3:48Speaker 2: years at this point, what what is it that's different?
- 3:52Speaker 2: And I really think it's about operationalizing the theory. You know,
- 3:56Speaker 2: there's so much theory, and as therapists, we're out there
- 4:00Speaker 2: and training, training, training, training, and we end up with
- 4:03Speaker 2: so much, but then how do we apply it? And
- 4:06Speaker 2: that's where we get stuck. We're in it and we're stuck,
- 4:09Speaker 2: and frankly, our clients are stuck too. They they want
- 4:15Speaker 2: to be a tune to. In fact, I was just
- 4:17Speaker 2: talking to a consuletee the other day and I said,
- 4:22Speaker 2: what what is so critical and why our clients even
- 4:26Speaker 2: come to us in the beginning is to be attuned to.
- 4:30Speaker 2: But that's almost like a sacred gift.
- 4:33Speaker 3: Now in this world are busy, busy world where we're
- 4:37Speaker 3: driving and pressure, and so people don't pause and just
- 4:41Speaker 3: be with you know, as therapists, we're trained to do
- 4:45Speaker 3: a protocol.
- 4:46Speaker 2: You know how many sessions do we have, alice, and so
- 4:49Speaker 2: we're we try to funnel people into the protocol. But
- 4:55Speaker 2: what everybody needs and one of the reasons why trauma
- 4:59Speaker 2: is it is even a problem is because nobody heard
- 5:04Speaker 2: that they were hurting, that something was wrong inside. And
- 5:09Speaker 2: of course the client wants to be healed lickety split.
- 5:13Speaker 2: We all want that right, but it takes so much time.
- 5:16Speaker 2: But the key piece is if somebody is like, wait
- 5:19Speaker 2: a minute, wait, let me just get it. I just
- 5:21Speaker 2: felt the sense something just happened here, and we pause,
- 5:28Speaker 2: and that slowing down allows us to enter the moment
- 5:33Speaker 2: and be with somebody and we drop our training, which
- 5:39Speaker 2: is hard to do. But if we let it go
- 5:41Speaker 2: and stop worrying about or trying to do it right,
- 5:44Speaker 2: and we just something's happening here, Something's happening. What is happening,
- 5:49Speaker 2: It's like trying to untangle uh, and you know one
- 5:55Speaker 2: of those little clotted balls. You know, it's like, okay,
- 5:58Speaker 2: but this train goes here. And when we do that,
- 6:02Speaker 2: a client starts to fe heard and understood. And so
- 6:07Speaker 2: years ago when I did thirteen years of training with
- 6:10Speaker 2: Dan Brown, who it's such a sad thing that he's
- 6:15Speaker 2: left the world because he's really was brilliant and thoughtful
- 6:21Speaker 2: and he really trained me and attachment theory and its application,
- 6:26Speaker 2: and again it was like, okay, how do I operationalize this?
- 6:30Speaker 2: And one of the things that came out of it
- 6:32Speaker 2: were these fundamental attachment needs and attainment is one of
- 6:36Speaker 2: the key pieces that somebody can.
- 6:38Speaker 1: Just be there with us Deirra, you are speaking my language.
- 6:43Speaker 1: I love it, seriously love it. I want to go back,
- 6:48Speaker 1: if we may, to the point when you started doing
- 6:52Speaker 1: this in that with the dissociative people who are experiencing
- 6:56Speaker 1: the association. What did you do specifically? What were you doing?
- 7:02Speaker 2: Oh my god, I remember trying to do simple yoga
- 7:10Speaker 2: postures and simple this was this was would have been
- 7:13Speaker 2: in the nineties, you know, so there wasn't a lot
- 7:16Speaker 2: at that time. I think there were two academic articles
- 7:19Speaker 2: about trauma.
- 7:22Speaker 1: Did you just feel like this was this might be
- 7:25Speaker 1: something or what?
- 7:26Speaker 2: Well, it's mostly because of my own history, you know.
- 7:29Speaker 2: How come I had been able to meditate for hours
- 7:32Speaker 2: a day, do yoga. I did yoga multiple times a day,
- 7:36Speaker 2: and then when my trauma history erupted, it was like chaos.
- 7:40Speaker 2: I didn't want to get out of bed, you know,
- 7:43Speaker 2: and I was like, what happened? What happened?
- 7:45Speaker 1: You know?
- 7:46Speaker 2: If yoga yoga would say the body is a temple
- 7:50Speaker 2: for the soul, but I did not live in a
- 7:53Speaker 2: temple at that moment. I was disrupted. So that was
- 7:57Speaker 2: my opening quest and and so I would take things.
- 8:03Speaker 2: But all right, So at that point I had years
- 8:06Speaker 2: of experience of doing yoga meditation. So I would take
- 8:10Speaker 2: simple things and try it with these women on the
- 8:14Speaker 2: desotob unit, and they they freaked them out, and so
- 8:18Speaker 2: I thought.
- 8:18Speaker 1: Okay, we have to break them out in.
- 8:21Speaker 2: This way opened up the doorway too quick and too fast,
- 8:27Speaker 2: and so how do we slow it down? How do
- 8:29Speaker 2: we really take one tiny piece of it? And when
- 8:35Speaker 2: people started doing the becoming safely embodied skills, it was
- 8:38Speaker 2: not about having a grand theory. It's how do we
- 8:41Speaker 2: make it so small and so simple that somebody can
- 8:45Speaker 2: take that next step without it being a big hiccup
- 8:49Speaker 2: or a big problem. It's like the natural next step.
- 8:54Speaker 2: And so I think that's really how we heal is
- 8:59Speaker 2: by taking a part these big theories and binding what's
- 9:03Speaker 2: essential and what's next and what's but it's small, it's
- 9:07Speaker 2: not like, you know, we can't take it too fast.
- 9:11Speaker 2: So anyway, that's what I started doing, and I think
- 9:15Speaker 2: that's one helped people could. Once they could deconstruct their
- 9:20Speaker 2: inner world, they could construct it in a way that
- 9:22Speaker 2: was that worked for them.
- 9:26Speaker 1: What you said reminded me of recently when I decided
- 9:30Speaker 1: that I needed to start seeing a therapist again. I
- 9:34Speaker 1: reached out to the therapist I was seeing. She was
- 9:37Speaker 1: no longer seeing clients, but she recommended three people. I
- 9:40Speaker 1: called each of them, and one after the other, and
- 9:45Speaker 1: I'm sure they were competent, but one after the others
- 9:47Speaker 1: spent the time telling me their modality and what they
- 9:54Speaker 1: were going to do with me. I'm going to sneeze
- 9:56Speaker 1: for a second. Me.
- 9:57Speaker 2: I totally know that problem.
- 10:00Speaker 1: And I thought to myself, I don't care about your modality.
- 10:06Speaker 1: I want a person. I want a person. It's like,
- 10:10Speaker 1: I exactly what you're saying. I needed to be. I
- 10:14Speaker 1: need that, you know. So yeah, I totally appreciate what
- 10:21Speaker 1: you're saying. So okay, I wanted to talk to you.
- 10:27Speaker 1: You're going to be uh presenting through the Wisdom Circle,
- 10:32Speaker 1: the Academy of Therapy Wisdom there. Now, what is your
- 10:36Speaker 1: what are you going to be presenting on? Specifically, what
- 10:38Speaker 1: is your the title of your workshop?
- 10:40Speaker 2: Oh my god, what's going to be on?
- 10:42Speaker 1: No?
- 10:46Speaker 2: I am embodied attachment, Like you know, I'm kind of
- 10:51Speaker 2: gotten away from having a curriculum and more about a tuning. Okay,
- 10:56Speaker 2: so here's what we're gonna do. What happens right now?
- 10:59Speaker 2: How do you know what happens inside you? How do
- 11:02Speaker 2: you know? One of the key things our clients are
- 11:06Speaker 2: missing is trusting that they what they see, what they know,
- 11:10Speaker 2: what they hear, what they smell, that they know something.
- 11:15Speaker 2: We're so our world is so much about the scientific
- 11:18Speaker 2: research and the academic journal, but we forgot like this
- 11:22Speaker 2: person at both me as a therapist, but also the
- 11:26Speaker 2: other person that's there, It's like they know something. And
- 11:30Speaker 2: this is where yoga and meditation is so powerful because
- 11:35Speaker 2: from that perspective, that person knows, they know themselves. They
- 11:40Speaker 2: are in the embodiment their soul, if you want to
- 11:43Speaker 2: call it, that has come into this lifetime and is
- 11:48Speaker 2: directing from inside. If we learned to listen to that voice,
- 11:51Speaker 2: and certainly IFS has done a wonder job at helping
- 11:55Speaker 2: many of us learn how to use that skill of
- 12:00Speaker 2: a being with what inn IFS we call sell And
- 12:05Speaker 2: so how do we return to that and not through
- 12:08Speaker 2: a protocol, but even just listening and the tuning and
- 12:12Speaker 2: being with I'm realizing that people have a native curiosity
- 12:19Speaker 2: and what I've come to trust is that our life
- 12:22Speaker 2: actually is its own blueprint. So we're triggered, which doesn't
- 12:28Speaker 2: get triggered we get triggered, but the trigger is not
- 12:31Speaker 2: where we should spend the most of our life. The
- 12:33Speaker 2: trigger is saying, there's something else, Come on, pay attention,
- 12:38Speaker 2: there's more over there.
- 12:40Speaker 1: For example, give us an example.
- 12:43Speaker 4: If somebody says something and you get activated into all
- 12:53Speaker 4: the thoughts and history and our history comes up and
- 12:55Speaker 4: it's encapsulated in that.
- 12:58Speaker 2: And we could and as therapist and as clients, we've
- 13:01Speaker 2: spent years sort of delving into what's the problem and
- 13:04Speaker 2: how is it getting embedded into us? But what if
- 13:10Speaker 2: that trigger, that pattern is saying, Okay, you don't have
- 13:14Speaker 2: to live like this, it could be something else. You
- 13:17Speaker 2: don't have to be angry here, you don't have to
- 13:19Speaker 2: be resistant, you don't have to be disorganized and overwhelmed.
- 13:24Speaker 2: What is wanting to happen? Somebody I was working with
- 13:29Speaker 2: the other day moved to a new community and they
- 13:32Speaker 2: can't seem to find the people they want to hang
- 13:35Speaker 2: out with. Simple look, I think that's me.
- 13:40Speaker 1: Oh my god, Okay, what happened? How did they fix it?
- 13:44Speaker 2: What happens for most of us in that situation is
- 13:47Speaker 2: we get like, oh my god, look of what's wrong here?
- 13:49Speaker 2: I'm not getting met I don't belong? Where do I
- 13:52Speaker 2: fit in? And we're caught in that loop? Right, But
- 13:57Speaker 2: what could happen there? Say okay, what do I want?
- 14:00Speaker 2: And what I really believe is that when we're in
- 14:03Speaker 2: that place, I don't belong. It's because we want to belong,
- 14:07Speaker 2: but we have not learned or awakened work. I'm not
- 14:11Speaker 2: sure what the right word is sorted out what it
- 14:15Speaker 2: would be like for us to belong because we never belonged.
- 14:18Speaker 2: Let's say I never had reassurance or soothing and comfort,
- 14:22Speaker 2: so then I do all kinds of other things because
- 14:26Speaker 2: I don't know what it'll be like in my body
- 14:29Speaker 2: to be soothed. To's just like have my viscera let go,
- 14:35Speaker 2: you know, so the trigger like I don't belong. We
- 14:39Speaker 2: could land in that and swirl in that, or we
- 14:42Speaker 2: could say, okay, what would it be like to belong?
- 14:45Speaker 2: How would I know inside myself if I belonged? And
- 14:50Speaker 2: what happens to all of us therapists are clients is
- 14:54Speaker 2: we go back to the know and say, but it's
- 14:56Speaker 2: not that way. In that da da D No. We
- 14:58Speaker 2: hang out in that and said of saying okay, let
- 14:59Speaker 2: me carve out a new path here, I want to
- 15:02Speaker 2: belong what longing look like?
- 15:05Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know.
- 15:07Speaker 2: I had I used this example a lot. I had
- 15:09Speaker 2: a client a long time ago that was African American
- 15:12Speaker 2: that lived grown up in a really, really dissociative family.
- 15:17Speaker 2: The whole family was associated. Now this person who's very
- 15:22Speaker 2: very high functioning, extremely high functioning in the world, but
- 15:28Speaker 2: this person believed they couldn't be in relationship because, to
- 15:34Speaker 2: put it bloodly, men are perpetrators. That was the belief
- 15:38Speaker 2: that was encoded. So anytime the longing inside came to
- 15:43Speaker 2: be a relationship, it is a triggering and accurate and
- 15:47Speaker 2: because no, you can't, because you're just going to get
- 15:48Speaker 2: hurt and words would swirl in her head and memories
- 15:52Speaker 2: and associations. So then we started saying, Okay, you want
- 15:56Speaker 2: to be a relationship. Here's the trigger. Men are a perpetry.
- 16:00Speaker 2: But what you want is relationship. You want to be connected.
- 16:04Speaker 2: So at that time, Barack Obama was the US President,
- 16:08Speaker 2: and we say, she liked Barock. And I said, so
- 16:13Speaker 2: when you look at Barack and you see him with
- 16:15Speaker 2: his girls, what in you do you think he's perpetrating
- 16:21Speaker 2: these girls? No, So we confronted that old pattern and say, so,
- 16:27Speaker 2: what would that be like to be at the the
- 16:29Speaker 2: other end there? To have somebody? What are what? What
- 16:33Speaker 2: will you see? What will you feel? What will you hear? What?
- 16:38Speaker 2: What do you know going on inside you? What do
- 16:40Speaker 2: you know coming from outside? The signal? Yeah, it's about
- 16:46Speaker 2: repatterning those tiny little signals. And when you begin to
- 16:50Speaker 2: do you start orienting to that instead of build. So
- 16:56Speaker 2: if you want to belong what would it be like? Well,
- 16:59Speaker 2: I don't know, I've never belonged. Okay, Well who do
- 17:04Speaker 2: you know that belongs? Well I don't know. And you
- 17:08Speaker 2: just you're going to unpack all that until you begin
- 17:10Speaker 2: to see if I belonged to somebody, would somebody would
- 17:16Speaker 2: welcome me, would want to see me, I would feel
- 17:19Speaker 2: safe inside? What would safety feel like? How would you
- 17:23Speaker 2: know in your body that you feel safe? And you
- 17:26Speaker 2: really rework it at that incredible level. And Lisa Felmanbarrett
- 17:32Speaker 2: is one of the researchers on emotion and she has
- 17:36Speaker 2: done a great work unpacking this scientifically. And when I
- 17:41Speaker 2: read her book, I thought, oh my god, that's just
- 17:43Speaker 2: what yoga meditation is all about, is understanding these mechanisms
- 17:49Speaker 2: of how we put together the world that we live in. Wow,
- 17:55Speaker 2: it's hard.
- 17:56Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really hard because so much of even those
- 18:04Speaker 1: micro movements you're talking about requires us, people who've experienced trauma,
- 18:10Speaker 1: to trust ourselves, trust our feelings, yes, to trust our beliefs,
- 18:17Speaker 1: even to get beyond that.
- 18:20Speaker 2: Yes, yes. And so then it's like, well, how do
- 18:24Speaker 2: you know when you trust yourself? Yeah? I reworked this
- 18:29Speaker 2: with a consuletee recently, and it's like, Okay, how do
- 18:34Speaker 2: you know what you know? Not what the world is
- 18:38Speaker 2: telling you, but what do you know? How do you
- 18:42Speaker 2: be inside yourself and trust that? And that is a
- 18:51Speaker 2: huge thing. We all know that. You know that. I
- 18:54Speaker 2: know that our clients certainly don't think it's possible for them,
- 18:57Speaker 2: but it is. It is. And I think one of
- 19:02Speaker 2: the things that's making me sad now about the therapeutic
- 19:05Speaker 2: trainings that we go into is that it's really it's
- 19:09Speaker 2: about the other person. It's not about you trusting you.
- 19:14Speaker 2: And this is where attachment theory is. What do you
- 19:18Speaker 2: mean well, a child? I think of it as a
- 19:23Speaker 2: developmental task of becoming an adult. As a child, we
- 19:28Speaker 2: needed we built a self by being mirrored and reflective
- 19:32Speaker 2: from the outside. But as an adult, I need to
- 19:38Speaker 2: know who I am so I can be in relationship
- 19:42Speaker 2: with myself so that I can be in relationship with you.
- 19:46Speaker 2: But what happens is most of us are still caught
- 19:51Speaker 2: in that you should be with me in a way
- 19:54Speaker 2: that makes me feel good or that I can heal
- 19:58Speaker 2: you know. It's so that the outside world is supposed
- 20:01Speaker 2: to affect It does affect us, but it's about how
- 20:05Speaker 2: do I know what I know so that I can
- 20:08Speaker 2: be there with you? And this is the cauldron of
- 20:13Speaker 2: every therapy. Every therapy has this moment where we kick
- 20:17Speaker 2: and scream until finally we say, Okay, let me look
- 20:21Speaker 2: at myself, let me stay inside myself. What's here? What
- 20:24Speaker 2: do I know? And that's where things can start changing.
- 20:31Speaker 2: I'm the present, yeah, And so when we start realizing, like, okay,
- 20:40Speaker 2: I didn't get my attachment needs met. That's why I
- 20:43Speaker 2: don't feel secure inside, or I don't feel solid, I
- 20:47Speaker 2: don't feel steady. So how do I do that? How
- 20:50Speaker 2: do I build a self inside instead of asking the
- 20:54Speaker 2: world to deliver that to me. It's like, this is
- 20:58Speaker 2: my task. Okay, what do I need? I need to belong,
- 21:04Speaker 2: I need soothing, I need comfort, I need reassurance that
- 21:07Speaker 2: of course you do. Of course you do, but we
- 21:12Speaker 2: all do. But these are so fundamental that we're ashamed
- 21:15Speaker 2: of them. And when I worked with my own chain,
- 21:19Speaker 2: which was like brutal, I realized that shame is an
- 21:24Speaker 2: attachment wound, and it the reason it's so physiologically horrific
- 21:31Speaker 2: is because it's encoded at these sub cortical levels. We
- 21:37Speaker 2: don't think about it, but if I don't belong, the
- 21:42Speaker 2: felt experience of not belonging is excruciating. You know, if
- 21:48Speaker 2: I feel like I'm going to be shamed all the
- 21:52Speaker 2: time because something's wrong with me, because I'm not wanted,
- 21:56Speaker 2: I'm not nobody sees the best in me, nobody wants
- 21:59Speaker 2: to hear what I have to say. Whatever it is,
- 22:02Speaker 2: it's something is wrong. It's not a thought for it's horrifying.
- 22:08Speaker 2: But once we begin to validate. Of course you need
- 22:11Speaker 2: to be heard. Of course you need to be seen.
- 22:16Speaker 2: Who do you want to be seen by? How do
- 22:18Speaker 2: you want that scene to happen, What would that experience
- 22:22Speaker 2: look like out there and what would it feel like inside?
- 22:27Speaker 2: Then it's we really can start changing because we owe
- 22:32Speaker 2: these fundamental things. I feel like, you know, shame. I
- 22:38Speaker 2: feel like now I have healthy shame, but I don't
- 22:41Speaker 2: have that excruciating awfulness because I was like, oh, I'm
- 22:45Speaker 2: feeling a shame and I want something I needed something
- 22:49Speaker 2: that I never I'm not getting in the moment. Okay,
- 22:51Speaker 2: that's an indicator to me. How do I have that?
- 22:55Speaker 2: Or am I Am I looking in the wrong place?
- 22:57Speaker 2: Do I need to turn my gaze out of here
- 22:59Speaker 2: and see what else? In workshops, I did the whole
- 23:03Speaker 2: experience about the attachment mirror, you know, literally drawing out
- 23:10Speaker 2: what if I look in the mirror of life? What
- 23:12Speaker 2: do I see? What do I hear? This is what
- 23:16Speaker 2: the old model? What do I want? And how do
- 23:21Speaker 2: I design that? How do I begin looking in a
- 23:23Speaker 2: different direction? And most of us don't feel like we
- 23:25Speaker 2: have that choice. We feel trapped in our lives. Oh well,
- 23:30Speaker 2: we can begin to see like, okay, just if we
- 23:33Speaker 2: turn and look over there, what is there? What would
- 23:37Speaker 2: that look like? Feel like?
- 23:40Speaker 1: So, what you're saying is a lot of us, when
- 23:45Speaker 1: we're kind of immersed in our own shame, for example,
- 23:50Speaker 1: we're encumbered by it, we're oppressed by it. We don't
- 23:55Speaker 1: know where to move, how to act, what to feel,
- 23:58Speaker 1: and you're suggesting, if I'm hearing you correctly, inviting people
- 24:03Speaker 1: to you're asking a question. First of all, she gets
- 24:07Speaker 1: the mind thinking about something else and looking in a
- 24:09Speaker 1: different direction, and for the first time, you're thinking, what
- 24:13Speaker 1: do I want? How do I want to feel? Is
- 24:16Speaker 1: it even possible? And to some of these questions, a
- 24:19Speaker 1: lot of us might say, I don't know, I no
- 24:24Speaker 1: one's ever.
- 24:26Speaker 2: That's right. We do know, and the reason we know
- 24:29Speaker 2: is because we know we don't want that. We know
- 24:33Speaker 2: we're ashamed of that. We know we're hurting here, but
- 24:37Speaker 2: we just haven't known or had somebody validate or listen
- 24:41Speaker 2: to us, or encourage us to see what's over there?
- 24:46Speaker 2: What does our heart want? I heard something the other
- 24:52Speaker 2: day that Henry Miller, the writer, said when he started painting.
- 24:56Speaker 2: He said that creativity for him was about wiggling outside
- 25:01Speaker 2: of a straight jacket. And I thought, oh my god,
- 25:04Speaker 2: I so know that. You know our beliefs and the
- 25:08Speaker 2: right way to do things is a straight jacket, and
- 25:11Speaker 2: we think that's the only way to live, and that's
- 25:14Speaker 2: all that is possible, and yet there's so much more.
- 25:18Speaker 2: But we're not encouraged in our world to wiggle out
- 25:23Speaker 2: of that. We're encouraged to stay in the line and
- 25:26Speaker 2: do it right. You know, I've heard I have a
- 25:28Speaker 2: lot of energy. I could say, O worries. You know,
- 25:34Speaker 2: I have a lot of energy, and it can be
- 25:36Speaker 2: quite ebulliant at times. And I actually had somebody tell me,
- 25:40Speaker 2: one of my mentors at one point that I'm uncontained.
- 25:44Speaker 2: And for years I thought, what doesn't mean? I really like,
- 25:47Speaker 2: oh my god, I'm uncontained. But the reality is one
- 25:51Speaker 2: of the great things that I have is that and
- 25:55Speaker 2: when I'm leading a group of people, because I have
- 25:58Speaker 2: so much energy, I'm staying inside myself and I'm feeling
- 26:02Speaker 2: the room and I can pick up what's I don't
- 26:06Speaker 2: know how it happens, but I know what's going on,
- 26:09Speaker 2: and so I know what makes a difference. But that
- 26:12Speaker 2: idea that I'm contained was that, like you know, especially
- 26:18Speaker 2: from my mentor you know.
- 26:20Speaker 1: For those who are listening to this, like myself, who
- 26:24Speaker 1: are just really connecting with what you're saying. I mean,
- 26:31Speaker 1: but but maybe don't feel that we can wiggle out
- 26:37Speaker 1: of that straight jacket, you know, maybe you can just
- 26:44Speaker 1: maybe just wiggle, begin to wiggle, and that obviously that's
- 26:49Speaker 1: going to mean different things for different people.
- 26:55Speaker 2: Just try something different, and does for.
- 27:02Speaker 1: What you're saying, does this require an action.
- 27:07Speaker 2: Or that's a great question, I don't know.
- 27:11Speaker 1: Or does it require maybe just beginning to feel right,
- 27:15Speaker 1: beginning to say say, what am I feeling right now? Well?
- 27:18Speaker 1: I don't know.
- 27:21Speaker 2: Well, but you do know? And that's what I would
- 27:24Speaker 2: say to myself. That's what I would say to you
- 27:26Speaker 2: or to anyone. If you do a little what do
- 27:28Speaker 2: you know? And that's so primary because when we say
- 27:33Speaker 2: I don't know, I don't know, I don't think. Carol
- 27:36Speaker 2: Gilligan said this way years ago about women's feminism. It's
- 27:40Speaker 2: like women are taught not girls are taught not to
- 27:43Speaker 2: know what we do know? What do you know? I
- 27:46Speaker 2: know I don't like this. I know that I'm scared.
- 27:49Speaker 2: I know that I want to feel alive, but nobody
- 27:52Speaker 2: said it was possible. I know that I want to
- 27:56Speaker 2: be seen. I know that I want to be quiet.
- 28:01Speaker 2: How do we validate that? And saying okay, you ready,
- 28:04Speaker 2: that's one tiny step your soul, your inner guidance is
- 28:08Speaker 2: saying ah, something, and then what's the next step? And
- 28:13Speaker 2: always life is always showing us the next step. We
- 28:15Speaker 2: can't not have a next steps.
- 28:19Speaker 1: As we kind of wind down here, What does this
- 28:25Speaker 1: work that you're talking about, this, this uh therapy, this approach.
- 28:31Speaker 1: What does this require of the therapist?
- 28:36Speaker 2: Wow, I don't know sure, I know what the question.
- 28:41Speaker 1: Well, in other words, what I'm hearing is a lot
- 28:46Speaker 1: of self awareness, right, I mean, you had years of
- 28:50Speaker 1: experience in yoga and meditation that you're bringing to this,
- 28:55Speaker 1: and I'm, uh, you know, I I'm guessing that this
- 28:59Speaker 1: requires a knowing of oneself an ability not to I agree,
- 29:07Speaker 1: but I think a lot of times a lot of
- 29:11Speaker 1: therapists cling to this modality, you know, and and wear
- 29:15Speaker 1: it as it kind of a crown and let that lead.
- 29:20Speaker 1: And obviously there's a lot of benefit to knowledge and modalities.
- 29:25Speaker 1: I'm not saying that at all, But what I'm hearing
- 29:28Speaker 1: you say there's there's an organicity to it, a humanness
- 29:33Speaker 1: to it, willingness to really an invitation to really slow down.
- 29:40Speaker 1: But that requires something of the therapist as well. Well.
- 29:47Speaker 2: You know, I'm interested in this because I just talked
- 29:52Speaker 2: to somebody the other day and they were like, well,
- 29:54Speaker 2: what do I do when my client says something about
- 29:56Speaker 2: going in the body And I freak out and I
- 29:58Speaker 2: get scared and I freeze up. And Okay, so right
- 30:00Speaker 2: in that moment, what do you know I'm freezing up?
- 30:05Speaker 2: Is that inside you? Is that in the other person?
- 30:08Speaker 2: Is that happening between you? What if you even make
- 30:10Speaker 2: that like, gosh, you know, I know as we're talking
- 30:14Speaker 2: about this, I'm freezing up a little, I wonder what
- 30:16Speaker 2: that's about. Like what if we didn't have to know?
- 30:20Speaker 1: Oh?
- 30:20Speaker 2: I almost felt tearious saying that, Like, what if we
- 30:23Speaker 2: the pressure to be perfect and right instead of being
- 30:28Speaker 2: with it? And we know from the research that this
- 30:30Speaker 2: is what kids are missing so much, especially in this
- 30:33Speaker 2: day of social media where parents are on the phone
- 30:36Speaker 2: all the time and not at tuning right to the
- 30:39Speaker 2: kid or just being with a kid, that that moment
- 30:43Speaker 2: of any bit of present doesn't have to be all
- 30:45Speaker 2: the time does to be It's just like, oh, there
- 30:48Speaker 2: you are that that that communicates something more than almost anything.
- 30:58Speaker 1: You doblie, You are speaking the truth. I mean, seriously,
- 31:06Speaker 1: love it. This is this is what you do and
- 31:11Speaker 1: you've been doing it. How did just before we got
- 31:16Speaker 1: somebody questions, how did you get to a point where
- 31:19Speaker 1: you were like, you know what I want to become
- 31:21Speaker 1: a therapist. What did you just would this start from
- 31:23Speaker 1: this very early age? Were you that person who everyone went.
- 31:26Speaker 2: To and no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no no.
- 31:30Speaker 2: I think it was at the Austro and it was
- 31:35Speaker 2: it was you know, that's a process of awakening. And
- 31:38Speaker 2: then my own trauma came up. I was like, what
- 31:40Speaker 2: the heck is happening to me? And I started seeing
- 31:43Speaker 2: that so many people that came, we had, you know,
- 31:49Speaker 2: thousands of people a year come through, and many of
- 31:51Speaker 2: them had issues and they didn't want to open up
- 31:54Speaker 2: too much, or they'd open up and then they'd chuck
- 31:57Speaker 2: down real quick. It's like, what's going on? What? What
- 32:02Speaker 2: is this? So yoga and meditation says something is possible
- 32:06Speaker 2: and we're not living that possibility. What's going on? And
- 32:10Speaker 2: so going to school and doing that it was really
- 32:12Speaker 2: a quest from my own healing. And then it was like, Okay,
- 32:15Speaker 2: so I don't know, I don't know what it is,
- 32:22Speaker 2: but I think people I think more people have it
- 32:25Speaker 2: than not. Right, we just don't give each other the
- 32:28Speaker 2: chance to drop in.
- 32:33Speaker 1: Usual. What's the best way for people to reach out
- 32:36Speaker 1: get in touch with you.
- 32:39Speaker 5: They can use the books they're amazing when people buy them.
- 32:46Speaker 5: The first year it was out, it was I think
- 32:49Speaker 5: we sold thirty thirty five thousand that year. There's also
- 32:55Speaker 5: I have an attachment book from Norton.
- 32:59Speaker 2: It's here. That's for therapist. It's a little bit more
- 33:03Speaker 2: heady and more full of research. My website is dfa
- 33:09Speaker 2: dot com. Very simple, dfay dot com.
- 33:12Speaker 1: Okay, and I'll have all those linked up here at
- 33:14Speaker 1: the show notes page at the Trauma Thepist podcast dot com,
- 33:18Speaker 1: as well as a link for Academy of Therapy Wisdom
- 33:21Speaker 1: for the Trauma Circle where you'll be offering a workshop there. Awesome, man,
- 33:29Speaker 1: I'm just so glad you're perre. Love to have you back.
- 33:32Speaker 1: And we need this. Our world needs what you're talking
- 33:38Speaker 1: about now. And it's it's it's this slowing down. It's
- 33:42Speaker 1: this being willing and able and inviting each other to
- 33:46Speaker 1: look and listen and see and thank you for being here.
- 33:50Speaker 2: I want to say one thing, though I don't show
- 33:54Speaker 2: up except because you're showing up. It's not me, it's us.
- 34:02Speaker 2: You and I are entering a sacred space where that
- 34:06Speaker 2: is allowed to flourish. And that's what's possible in our
- 34:10Speaker 2: world and that's what's possible in our offices.
- 34:16Speaker 1: So appreciate that. All right, Dearsha, take care job.