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I Made A Phone Call with Kerisma Vere · The Trauma Therapist

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapists podcast. My name is Gaming Person.
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Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
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Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
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Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
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Speaker 1: So five four, three, two and one our folks, welcome
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Speaker 1: back to the podcast. I'm very excited to have us
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Speaker 1: my guest today, Chrisma Vier. Chrisma Welcome, Hi guy, thanks
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Speaker 1: for having me appreciate it. Chrisma is a wellness coach,
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Speaker 1: author and creator of The Light Switch Smith, a beginner's
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Speaker 1: a guide to realistic and sustainable change. Her work centers
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Speaker 1: on helping individuals become more tuned to their own needs, emotions,
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Speaker 1: and inner narratives while cultivating self compassion, and realistic pathways
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Speaker 1: for growth. Through a blend of lived experience, trauma informed insight,
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Speaker 1: and practical coaching tools, Christmas supports people in rebuilding self
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Speaker 1: trust and fostering change that honors both their humanity and
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Speaker 1: their healing process. Christma, obviously just a little bit about
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Speaker 1: you before we get going. Share with the listeners where
1:04
Speaker 1: you're from originally and where you are currently. Then we'll
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Speaker 1: dive in.
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Speaker 2: Okay. I am actually born and raised in BC, primarily
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Speaker 2: in the Greater Vancouver area. Came from a mostly lived
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Speaker 2: on top of a little mountain in a place called Anmore.
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Speaker 2: But and today I'm actually coming from you live from Belcarra,
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Speaker 2: which is actually around the corner at my aunt and
1:31
Speaker 2: uncle's house where I've been dog sitting. So but I
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Speaker 2: live in Aldergrove, BC, which is a little bit more
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Speaker 2: in the interior.
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Speaker 1: Awesome, Awesome, all right, So how did all this start
1:44
Speaker 1: for you? This interest, this pursuit.
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Speaker 2: Well, I guess most of it actually probably was born
1:56
Speaker 2: from my own experience, but and then ironically a little
2:00
Speaker 2: bit from being one of those people who kind of
2:03
Speaker 2: always put other people first. So anyway, through my my
2:07
Speaker 2: own healing with with trauma and exploration with with counseling
2:12
Speaker 2: and overcoming and resilience, I've ended up having quite a
2:16
Speaker 2: bit of compassion and insight. And I've always had the
2:20
Speaker 2: desire to help other people. So all of those different
2:25
Speaker 2: things kind of just kind of combined to uh to
2:28
Speaker 2: turn me into a bit of an advocate and a
2:31
Speaker 2: and a coach. And and I've also been a very
2:35
Speaker 2: fond of writing my whole life so just more recently,
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Speaker 2: I finally made that dream come true and published my
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Speaker 2: first book.
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Speaker 1: To the extent that you're feel feel comfortable speaking about
2:46
Speaker 1: your situation, what was your own experience.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll just we'll lightly cover that, but uh, the
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Speaker 2: first twenty years of my life there was extensive trauma
3:02
Speaker 2: and a lot of relationship relational trauma, a lot of
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Speaker 2: developmental trauma, some some violence and some other types of
3:11
Speaker 2: things that were not so great, and some pretty severe bullying.
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Speaker 2: But so, my my experience of the world was was
3:21
Speaker 2: not so great, and that had had a real impact
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Speaker 2: and it resulted in pretty severe dissociation as a way
3:29
Speaker 2: of coping as well as substance use. I kind of
3:32
Speaker 2: got lucky because I picked the the softer options when
3:36
Speaker 2: it comes to substance use. But yeah, the first eighteen
3:41
Speaker 2: years after leaving home, I was using marijuana to self medicate,
3:48
Speaker 2: but I was also doing harm reduction and I was
3:51
Speaker 2: in counseling, so I was trying to bring the material
3:55
Speaker 2: inside of me down to a level where I could
3:57
Speaker 2: cope without those things, and and ely, I got clean
4:02
Speaker 2: and I ended up being president of my local union
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Speaker 2: and got to really use some advocacy skills and step
4:10
Speaker 2: into my own right, and that's where I sort of
4:16
Speaker 2: launched myself as a wellness coach. But unfortunately I had
4:22
Speaker 2: not dealt with the trauma enough and I started to
4:26
Speaker 2: get kind of very unwell after about fourteen years and
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Speaker 2: ended up becoming quite unwell and relapsing. So then had
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Speaker 2: to recover again for probably took me about five years.
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Speaker 2: But the last couple of years I've been in a
4:43
Speaker 2: much better place.
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Speaker 1: You said the first twenty years of your life, all
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Speaker 1: this was going on. You also said you were in therapy.
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Speaker 1: How did you manage to get into therapy at that
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Speaker 1: time at that age?
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Speaker 2: Well, honestly, when I was about twenty one, I was
5:07
Speaker 2: in this program that helped street kids get a job,
5:12
Speaker 2: and I wasn't a street kid, but somehow I ended
5:14
Speaker 2: up and a guy came and he was talking to
5:16
Speaker 2: us and he said, hey, if any of you ever
5:18
Speaker 2: need help, and he left us a phone number, and
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Speaker 2: was I started not doing well and I just called
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Speaker 2: the number and I hooked up with just a fantastic counselor.
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Speaker 2: But she was in a program that she could only
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Speaker 2: help people up to the age of twenty five, so
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Speaker 2: I aged out really quickly, and then I was like,
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Speaker 2: that really sent me into a spiral. So it took
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Speaker 2: a while to get to get another therapist. But I
5:48
Speaker 2: think I just always I've always been somebody who has
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Speaker 2: been inclined to sort of like work on myself. And
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Speaker 2: I've always wanted to overcome the impacts of childhood.
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Speaker 1: Right were you? Were you? How are you understanding what
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Speaker 1: was going on for you at that time? Were you thinking,
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Speaker 1: oh my god, I don't know what's going on. Something's
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Speaker 1: going on, I need help. Were you thinking, holy crap,
6:17
Speaker 1: all this crap happened to me when I was younger.
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Speaker 1: I need to somehow manage to deal with it. What
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Speaker 1: was going on for you? No?
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Speaker 2: Guy, Actually, I was in denial about my mental health
6:32
Speaker 2: most of my life. And I don't know how common
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Speaker 2: that is, but I was.
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Speaker 1: I think it's very common.
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Speaker 2: I saw myself as much higher functioning. Yeah, I saw
6:42
Speaker 2: myself as very much higher functioning. I thought that I,
6:46
Speaker 2: you know, I had some things I wanted to work
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Speaker 2: out on, but I had no idea how much was there.
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Speaker 2: And yeah, I came from an environment where, you know,
6:56
Speaker 2: certainly the things that had happened were not recognized and
7:00
Speaker 2: and mental health was not looked at as a as
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Speaker 2: a real thing. It was seen as a self indulgent
7:08
Speaker 2: kind of thing in my immediate family, not in my
7:10
Speaker 2: larger family. But so I was, Yeah, I just kept
7:16
Speaker 2: plugging along, trying to do my best in the world
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Speaker 2: and had very little idea of why things were really
7:23
Speaker 2: not working out so.
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Speaker 1: Well for me, and just me interrupt here chrismas.
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Speaker 2: The breakdown, and then I was like, okay.
7:31
Speaker 1: Let me interject you for a second. So were you
7:34
Speaker 1: how well old were you? Are we talking right now?
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Speaker 1: Were you working? Were you in school? What was going
7:40
Speaker 1: on for you? How are you living at this point
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Speaker 1: in your life?
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Speaker 2: Well, from one to eighteen, I was living at home.
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Speaker 2: Around seventeen I had a couple of suicide attempts, But
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Speaker 2: eighteen I was kind of kicked out at home, and
7:55
Speaker 2: then pretty much right after that is when like sort
8:00
Speaker 2: of the dissociation, like it was there when I was younger,
8:03
Speaker 2: but it came on really strong, and I just put
8:05
Speaker 2: everything behind me and went out into the world as
8:08
Speaker 2: if so. I I functioned. I had a job, I
8:11
Speaker 2: had relationships, I I went to school. I kind of
8:17
Speaker 2: did everything. And I said, I went to therapy, I
8:19
Speaker 2: worked on getting clean. I eventually got clean. Then I
8:22
Speaker 2: was able to build up a lot more, got married,
8:26
Speaker 2: And yes, it really caught me off guard when all
8:29
Speaker 2: of the trauma came back and I got I got
8:31
Speaker 2: so well and everything every and this was like, this
8:35
Speaker 2: was clean and being healthy and making good choices, and
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Speaker 2: everything fell apart, right, talk.
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Speaker 1: How did how did things fall apart? What did that
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Speaker 1: look like for you? Where were you?
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Speaker 2: That's a little harder to describe, but I think what
8:52
Speaker 2: was happening was that the trauma was coming back and
8:56
Speaker 2: it was flooding me, and I was starting to see
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Speaker 2: the world through the lenses that I had had as
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Speaker 2: a child, and I was starting to interact with people
9:05
Speaker 2: with the same kinds of fear based anxiety based rejection
9:11
Speaker 2: predictions and all of that that people pleasing and my
9:18
Speaker 2: self worth kind of starting to tank and everything like that.
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Speaker 2: So it was and I ended up in a relationship
9:26
Speaker 2: with a basically a narcissist. And I had gotten lucky
9:29
Speaker 2: up to that point, and I like to think of
9:31
Speaker 2: that relationship as sort of my kryptonite. And it took
9:33
Speaker 2: me right down to the bottom, right, And yes, I
9:36
Speaker 2: was I ended up in a place mentally that was
9:39
Speaker 2: much worse, well the same or worse than I was
9:42
Speaker 2: when I was a teenager. But I mean, that is
9:45
Speaker 2: what was happening, is that all of that material, those feelings,
9:50
Speaker 2: those perspectives, those beliefs, that lens from when I was younger,
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Speaker 2: was now back inside me because it had come to
9:57
Speaker 2: the surface.
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Speaker 1: So what do you do at that point? How do
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Speaker 1: you move forward? Did you seek help?
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Speaker 2: I actually went to the hospital and I, you know,
10:11
Speaker 2: I that didn't work out very well. They weren't able
10:14
Speaker 2: to actually treat me for five days, and so things
10:18
Speaker 2: actually got a lot worse, and then they sent me
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Speaker 2: home and I went back in another five days in
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Speaker 2: the in the hallway and emergency room, and by the
10:27
Speaker 2: time I came out of there, honestly like I had
10:29
Speaker 2: severe amnesia. I was. I like to refer to it
10:33
Speaker 2: as catatonic. I don't know if that's the correct term
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Speaker 2: or whatever, but I was in a full blown panic attack.
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Speaker 2: That took about a year and a half to get
10:41
Speaker 2: my nervous system to regulate and and calm down. And yeah,
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Speaker 2: I self medicated. I drank beer and smoked all day long.
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Speaker 2: But I made a phone call. There was some one
10:55
Speaker 2: on one counseling being offered by a local addiction center
10:58
Speaker 2: or community center, and I made a phone call. I
11:00
Speaker 2: had no hopes because I hadn't had good experiences with
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Speaker 2: drug and alcohol counselors. But I met a woman who
11:07
Speaker 2: had just entered into she was just finishing her her
11:11
Speaker 2: master's degree as a trauma therapist, and when I walked in,
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Speaker 2: she immediately started treating me for trauma and not addictions.
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Speaker 1: And she.
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Speaker 2: It's such a huge difference because she she helped me
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Speaker 2: sort of reframe things and slowly get better. And that
11:27
Speaker 2: community center also offered a lot of groups, and they
11:30
Speaker 2: were approaching addiction from mental health, those two things being
11:36
Speaker 2: very interwoven, so they gave me a lot of strategies
11:39
Speaker 2: that I could use because I had so much the
11:42
Speaker 2: cognitive thinking distortions going on. So I was able to
11:45
Speaker 2: apply the groups and the counseling to my mental health
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Speaker 2: first and then slowly work on the substance use, the
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Speaker 2: and the lifestyle behaviors to a very slow, incremental kind
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Speaker 2: of return to functioning.
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Speaker 1: Wow, what an aspiring story. I mean, through this intense
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Speaker 1: trauma you're you're talking about, there seems to be this
12:16
Speaker 1: thread of strength and awareness in you, you know, and
12:25
Speaker 1: that phone call you made sounds like you were really
12:29
Speaker 1: lucky you made you met you met that person who
12:36
Speaker 1: knew what she was doing.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that that ties in a little bit into my faith.
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Speaker 2: I'm sort of a believer in the universe, right, you know.
12:44
Speaker 2: And I just nothing had gone right for two years,
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Speaker 2: and everything had fallen apart, and I was I was
12:50
Speaker 2: just at at at the end, you know, I I
12:53
Speaker 2: so and it was. And so that's kind of how
12:56
Speaker 2: the way things work sometimes is you you just have
12:59
Speaker 2: that strength to make that one phone call, and then
13:01
Speaker 2: all of a sudden you get the help that you need.
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Speaker 2: You know, when it seems like all hope is gone
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Speaker 2: and all hope is lost and there's just no way forward,
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Speaker 2: then then then a pathway where a window opens up
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Speaker 2: and it's just like okay, here we're going to carry
13:15
Speaker 2: on from here.
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Speaker 1: Let me just remind everyone I'm speaking with the Charisma
13:19
Speaker 1: vir Her book is called The Light Switch Myth, A
13:22
Speaker 1: Beginner's Guide to Realistic and Sustainable Change. So as we
13:28
Speaker 1: start talking about the book here, awesome, thank you for that.
13:36
Speaker 1: How did you how did you get to the point
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Speaker 1: where you said, okay, i'm feeling good. I want to
13:47
Speaker 1: start helping other people. I want to start coaching other people.
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Speaker 1: And obviously then the book came out of that. But
13:56
Speaker 1: walk us through that process. When did you start thinking
13:59
Speaker 1: to yourself, you know what, I want to start helping.
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Speaker 1: Maybe it's like I've got to start helping other people.
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Speaker 1: What was that like?
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Speaker 2: Well, it actually kind of started a little bit when
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Speaker 2: I was being president at the union because the advocacy part,
14:15
Speaker 2: the helping people part, was my favorite part, right and
14:18
Speaker 2: and as much as I believe in unions, I'm not
14:22
Speaker 2: that's not my true passion.
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Speaker 1: You know. It's very just to give us context here,
14:26
Speaker 1: what what union are we talking about?
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Speaker 2: Oh, it was a c c UPW the Royal City.
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Speaker 2: So I was president of the Royal City Royal City
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Speaker 2: Local seven forty And yes, so I had I was
14:48
Speaker 2: president for five years. But I really enjoyed the helping
14:52
Speaker 2: people and the working for myself. Well you're you know,
14:57
Speaker 2: you're responsible to the members and you work with the
15:00
Speaker 2: rest of the union, but you you pretty much get
15:04
Speaker 2: to do things with your own vision and and be
15:08
Speaker 2: your own boss. So I really enjoyed that. And then
15:12
Speaker 2: I was working with a coach and she asked me
15:15
Speaker 2: to be her partner. That that turned out not working out,
15:18
Speaker 2: but it got me. It just got me sort of
15:21
Speaker 2: taking the steps of doing everything I needed to step
15:24
Speaker 2: up to be a coach. And when I first was
15:26
Speaker 2: a coach, it was primarily kind of a round weight loss.
15:29
Speaker 2: But what I recognized was, I don't know that I
15:31
Speaker 2: really ever helped anybody lose weight, but I helped every
15:34
Speaker 2: single client that I had have a little bit better
15:37
Speaker 2: relationship with themselves, treat themselves a lot better, and start
15:41
Speaker 2: to know themselves better and have a better relationship to
15:44
Speaker 2: goal setting.
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Speaker 3: Right then, Okay, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on,
15:49
Speaker 3: which is huge. How did you do that? And I
15:52
Speaker 3: understand everyone's different, but how were you able to do that?
16:00
Speaker 2: I really think that's because you know, I've had a
16:02
Speaker 2: journey in my lifetime where it's I as a teenager,
16:06
Speaker 2: and probably even younger than that, I there was self loathing.
16:10
Speaker 2: There was self loathing, there was self hatred, and throughout
16:13
Speaker 2: my life I tried all kinds of different things, you know,
16:17
Speaker 2: the little affirmations, sticky things on your on your on
16:22
Speaker 2: your mirror, and and all kinds of things. And I
16:24
Speaker 2: used to think like oh, well, you know, I just
16:26
Speaker 2: if I if I cared, or I made up my
16:28
Speaker 2: mind or I made the decision. And now I understand
16:31
Speaker 2: that that loving yourself and caring about yourself is a
16:34
Speaker 2: lot more nuanced than that. You know, it actually involves
16:39
Speaker 2: developing a relationship of attunement to yourself and bringing in compassion,
16:44
Speaker 2: which is a broader perspective and and true kind of understanding.
16:50
Speaker 2: And it's also tying into my like, my intrinsic self
16:54
Speaker 2: worth as a human being, all kinds of things that
16:56
Speaker 2: I didn't have any kind of clue of when I
16:59
Speaker 2: was younger. But the fact that I've been able to
17:01
Speaker 2: go from this place of not really having any relationship
17:04
Speaker 2: with myself and so much self loathing two place of
17:07
Speaker 2: actual genuine self love and really kind of knowing who
17:11
Speaker 2: I am and being okay with who I am and
17:13
Speaker 2: loving myself in this moment before I make the changes
17:16
Speaker 2: I would like to make, that just gives me an
17:18
Speaker 2: ability because I rarely meet a person who has given
17:25
Speaker 2: that much, has developed that kind of a relationship with herself,
17:29
Speaker 2: because by and large, our society doesn't actually encourage that, right, right, right, right.
17:36
Speaker 1: So let's start talking about the book here. How did
17:40
Speaker 1: you get to the point where you wanted to write
17:44
Speaker 1: this book? Who's it for? And what did you want
17:46
Speaker 1: to say?
17:51
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I with the coaching from before I
17:55
Speaker 2: got on well, and then when I started coaching again,
17:58
Speaker 2: I found that I was saying the same things to people,
18:01
Speaker 2: or that people had very similar types of struggles and everything,
18:04
Speaker 2: and one of them was this unrealistic expectation that change
18:09
Speaker 2: should be really instant. We make up our mind and
18:12
Speaker 2: it's like flipping a switch. And that was how I
18:15
Speaker 2: always would describe it to clients as like, you know,
18:17
Speaker 2: it's we think it's like flipping a switch, but it's
18:20
Speaker 2: not like flipping a switch at all, And it's a
18:24
Speaker 2: constant thing of revisiting and radical acceptance and patience and
18:30
Speaker 2: readapting and all of these other things.
18:32
Speaker 1: So the.
18:34
Speaker 2: Title the light switch myth is something that I had
18:38
Speaker 2: used to explain to clients throughout my career as a coach,
18:43
Speaker 2: and then I just I just expanded on it. And
18:46
Speaker 2: after a coaching session one day, my head just started
18:50
Speaker 2: thinking about putting in a book. And I literally started
18:54
Speaker 2: waking up at three am for a couple of months,
18:57
Speaker 2: and the book was just writing itself, in my head,
19:00
Speaker 2: and you know, I got the first nine chapters out
19:04
Speaker 2: what they were going to look like, and then I
19:05
Speaker 2: would wake up every night for the next month like
19:08
Speaker 2: have to have this, Oh, this, Oh, it really needs
19:11
Speaker 2: to have that. So it's like, you know, what this
19:12
Speaker 2: is my I like to sort of think of it
19:15
Speaker 2: as the cols or the what you know, you know,
19:17
Speaker 2: those books for dummies. It's like this, it's not for dummies,
19:19
Speaker 2: but it's like, Okay, so I've been in therapy for like,
19:22
Speaker 2: you know, forty years now and learned an awful lot
19:25
Speaker 2: of things. So I'm going to take all of those
19:27
Speaker 2: therapeutic approaches and I'm going to take everything that I
19:29
Speaker 2: learned from from the trenches kind of experience, and I
19:33
Speaker 2: put it together the way that I see it, the
19:35
Speaker 2: way that I have made sense of it, and I'm
19:38
Speaker 2: going to share it with other people because that works
19:40
Speaker 2: in the one on one coaching I was doing, and
19:42
Speaker 2: I thought, so many people don't allow themselves to access
19:47
Speaker 2: counseling or coaching or anything. So I thought, well, we'll
19:51
Speaker 2: just put it in a book and maybe then they
19:54
Speaker 2: could pick up the book because many of us are like,
19:56
Speaker 2: you know, independent to a fall.
20:02
Speaker 1: I agree. There's this idea out there and it's perpetuated
20:07
Speaker 1: that you change can happen in an instant, And I'm
20:12
Speaker 1: curious how this played out for you and your experience
20:16
Speaker 1: and what you saw. But when change doesn't happen for
20:20
Speaker 1: us in an instant, even when we want it to,
20:24
Speaker 1: I think it can create that kind of vicious cycle. Right,
20:27
Speaker 1: we can start to feel shame. What's wrong with me?
20:30
Speaker 1: How come it's not changing for me? What am I
20:32
Speaker 1: doing wrong? Talk to us a little bit about that charisma?
20:36
Speaker 1: What did you see specifically?
20:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that was certainly my experience. And you know,
20:42
Speaker 2: one of the things I learned through mental health and coaching,
20:45
Speaker 2: and it's just that, you know, we experience feelings, and
20:49
Speaker 2: those are feelings are difficult enough, but then many of
20:52
Speaker 2: us have this tendency to add a lot more layers
20:55
Speaker 2: to those feelings that actually make it so much more difficult.
20:58
Speaker 2: We're doing that from a place of protection, you know,
21:02
Speaker 2: and thinking that we're helping ourselves in some way, but
21:05
Speaker 2: we're actually not. We're making it. We're adding rocks to
21:08
Speaker 2: our backpack as we try to climb up the mountain. So,
21:12
Speaker 2: you know, for me personally, having tried to do these
21:16
Speaker 2: things the very difficult way that didn't really work. It
21:19
Speaker 2: did lead to that cycle of failure and feeling bad
21:24
Speaker 2: and and just getting stuck in the mud over and
21:26
Speaker 2: over and over again. And yet, you know, through counseling
21:29
Speaker 2: and courses and all things, I started to actually practice
21:34
Speaker 2: some of these other other strategies, and wow, they worked,
21:38
Speaker 2: and I found myself getting stuck for less longer. That's
21:41
Speaker 2: not propa grammar, but not as long. And I found
21:46
Speaker 2: myself actually enjoying the things that I was doing a
21:50
Speaker 2: little bit more, you know, And I started having a
21:54
Speaker 2: much healthier relationship to things like patients and setbacks, and
22:00
Speaker 2: I started being able to really dismantle my own perfectionism
22:04
Speaker 2: and this, you know, it's it's brilliant that I set
22:07
Speaker 2: the bar so high my whole life, you know, because
22:10
Speaker 2: I wanted so much, and that's great, but it wasn't
22:13
Speaker 2: actually doing me very many favors the way I thought
22:16
Speaker 2: that it was. So now I can lower the bar,
22:20
Speaker 2: I can achieve much more success in the things that
22:24
Speaker 2: I'm doing, And it actually makes like any kind of
22:27
Speaker 2: effort to make any kind of change or growth in
22:31
Speaker 2: my life that much kind of easier because it's not
22:34
Speaker 2: coming with all that pressure, it's not coming from all
22:37
Speaker 2: that it's not tied into my self worth, and I'm
22:44
Speaker 2: allowed to be real with myself, meet myself where I'm at.
22:49
Speaker 2: It's it's like, oh, okay, well, yeah, i'd be really
22:52
Speaker 2: great to go for a walk today, but I'm really
22:53
Speaker 2: not up to it. So can we curl up and
22:56
Speaker 2: watch a movie today? And if I do that, then
22:58
Speaker 2: tomorrow I'm much more likely to get back up and
23:01
Speaker 2: go for that walk, right Whereas if I guilt, shame, blame,
23:06
Speaker 2: all the rest of those kinds of old strategies, and
23:09
Speaker 2: it just makes it even less likely, I'm much more
23:12
Speaker 2: likely to get into a deeper hole with the behavior,
23:14
Speaker 2: and it's going to take me way longer to achieve
23:17
Speaker 2: those things that I want to achieve.
23:20
Speaker 1: So with the book, let's talk specifics here. Who's it
23:25
Speaker 1: for again? And what did you want to say in
23:34
Speaker 1: the book?
23:42
Speaker 2: Okay, so kind of what I want to say is
23:45
Speaker 2: you're not alone. You know, I think in our society,
23:50
Speaker 2: people they want to sell us quick, fast, easy things.
23:55
Speaker 2: They want to tell us everything's all glossy and smooth,
23:58
Speaker 2: and so many people that struggle, whether it's with self worth,
24:03
Speaker 2: whether it's with self love, whether it's with creating any
24:06
Speaker 2: kind of changes in their life, whether it's with addiction
24:08
Speaker 2: or mental health. We can often end up feeling very
24:11
Speaker 2: isolated and very alone because we don't understand that our
24:15
Speaker 2: struggles are actually so similar to everybody else's, and because
24:18
Speaker 2: the techniques and stuff that we are being shown out
24:21
Speaker 2: there make it seem like it should be easy and
24:23
Speaker 2: make it seem like it's one size fit all, and
24:26
Speaker 2: that's not been my experience. So I wanted to write
24:28
Speaker 2: a book for people to say, like, hey, I see you,
24:31
Speaker 2: I get it. That's not how it worked for me.
24:34
Speaker 2: Here's what did help me, and here like, you know,
24:38
Speaker 2: let's help you develop a relationship with yourself so that
24:40
Speaker 2: you can figure out what's going to work for you.
24:44
Speaker 2: And really that anti quick fix. I you know, it
24:49
Speaker 2: really upsets me that so much of marketing, even in
24:54
Speaker 2: coaching and the mental health industries, is focused on really
24:58
Speaker 2: taking advantage of people both vulnerabilities, Like, you know, if
25:02
Speaker 2: we've been struggling with something our whole life and somebody
25:04
Speaker 2: comes along and says, I can help you fix that
25:07
Speaker 2: in five easy steps for four hundred and ninety nine dollars.
25:11
Speaker 2: It's like, it's so tempting because because we want that, right,
25:15
Speaker 2: we really really want that, So we've become vulnerable to
25:19
Speaker 2: these people that are making exaggerated claims, and a lot
25:21
Speaker 2: of people are using an emotional manipulation to try to
25:25
Speaker 2: make their sales nowadays. And I just wanted to have
25:28
Speaker 2: something out there that was like not doing that, that
25:32
Speaker 2: would just lay up the truth I say in the book, like,
25:34
Speaker 2: you know what, this is not always easy, and it
25:38
Speaker 2: quite often can be messy, and I don't have all
25:41
Speaker 2: the answers, but here's some ideas that might get you going,
25:44
Speaker 2: that could help you, you know. And as far as
25:46
Speaker 2: the book right now, anyway, we're coming up on January,
25:51
Speaker 2: and if I could get into the pocket of everybody
25:54
Speaker 2: who is about to go and try to change their
25:56
Speaker 2: life over night from January first to January thirtieth, I
26:00
Speaker 2: would just love to I would just love to say, hey,
26:04
Speaker 2: just stop, because it's great, you have energy, it's great
26:07
Speaker 2: you want to change things, but let's just have a
26:09
Speaker 2: discussion about how you're gonna go about doing that, so
26:12
Speaker 2: that maybe in February you're still working on those things
26:17
Speaker 2: instead of having like it all fizzled up out and
26:21
Speaker 2: you being back on the couch going ah.
26:24
Speaker 1: So would you say then that this book is for
26:28
Speaker 1: people who want to improve themselves or what?
26:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's actually got a very wide range. So it
26:40
Speaker 2: can be people that have struggled with mental health or addiction,
26:45
Speaker 2: or weight or exercise or nutrition. All of these things
26:52
Speaker 2: can be applied to all those those major kinds of
26:54
Speaker 2: lifestyle things most of us tend to work on. But
26:59
Speaker 2: I think the secret underlying thing is my passion is
27:05
Speaker 2: that the foundation to any kind of quality of life
27:08
Speaker 2: or positive change, growth, healing is the relationship to ourselves.
27:13
Speaker 2: And so I think my main audience that I'm trying
27:17
Speaker 2: to reach is anybody who struggles a little bit with perfectionism,
27:21
Speaker 2: or struggles a little bit with being kind of hard
27:23
Speaker 2: on themselves, or is never really taking the time to
27:27
Speaker 2: develop the same kind of relationship with themselves that they
27:30
Speaker 2: seek in other people. Because if we can learn to
27:34
Speaker 2: be compassionate and supportive and even nurturing with ourselves like
27:39
Speaker 2: we are who we spend our most amount of times with,
27:43
Speaker 2: and so in some sense, this is actually the most
27:46
Speaker 2: important relationship we can have in our lives. And yet
27:50
Speaker 2: I think our society by and large kind of misses
27:55
Speaker 2: giving us permission and the tools to learn how to
27:59
Speaker 2: really improve that quality of relationship with self, you know,
28:03
Speaker 2: so that we can get to know who we are
28:05
Speaker 2: and we can treat ourselves in a way that would
28:07
Speaker 2: make kind of like every day, whether it's a success
28:11
Speaker 2: or a struggle, a little bit easier because we have
28:14
Speaker 2: ourselves well said.
28:17
Speaker 1: The book again is called The Light Switch Myth, A
28:19
Speaker 1: Beginner's Guide to Realistic and Sustainable Change Charisma. How do
28:23
Speaker 1: people learn more about you? What's the best way?
28:29
Speaker 2: Okay, well, we just have to live. Update guy. As
28:32
Speaker 2: of yesterday, it's now called The Light Switch Myth Creating
28:37
Speaker 2: no Contemporary Approaches to creating lasting change because the word
28:42
Speaker 2: sustainable is now seems to be primarily associated with climate
28:47
Speaker 2: change and environment change. So it's now contemporary approaches to
28:53
Speaker 2: creating lasting change. But you can get a hold Charismavir
28:57
Speaker 2: is on Google. You can find me, can find It'll
29:01
Speaker 2: take you to my Instagram, my Facebook, my websites, my
29:06
Speaker 2: main If you'd like to know about everything, it's all
29:09
Speaker 2: pretty much included in the Towards Wellness dot CA. Okay website.
29:14
Speaker 2: I have little bits about everything on there.
29:18
Speaker 1: Okay, we'll have that linked up here at the show
29:21
Speaker 1: notes page at the Trauma Therapist podcast dot com. Chrisma
29:25
Speaker 1: appreciate you being here with me today, sharing your story
29:30
Speaker 1: to inspiration. We'll be in touch. Thank you so much.
29:35
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you very much.
29:37
Speaker 3: Guys.
29:37
Speaker 1: All right,