Latest / The Trauma Therapist / Episode 799: Mastering Resilience with Lorry Leigh Belhumeur

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Episode 799: Mastering Resilience with Lorry Leigh Belhumeur · The Trauma Therapist

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Right. Welcome back to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Gamiferson.
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My mission is to help trauma therapist be their incredible selves, to be human,
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to be real, not just a clinician. I'm a big believer in
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who we are is more important than what we know, and this requires cultivating
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authenticity, genuineness, and vulnerability, and that requires intention. Can learn more
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about my courses and workshops by going to the Trauma Therapist project dot com.
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That's the Trauma Therapist Project dot com. Let's get started, okay ye or
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three two and one. Our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very
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excited to have them. My guest today doctor Lori ley elk Humor. Lori
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welcome, Thank you so great to be here. So Laurie is a renowned
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leader in the field with mental health with over thirty years of experience serving children
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and their families. As a licensed psychologist and leader in the nonprofit sector addressing
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mental health and wellness for kids, youth, and their families. Doctor Lourie
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has been a driving force behind the implementation of various evidence based practices and strategies
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for buffering the impact of trauma and the effects the toxic stress response. As
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well as building resilience. Doctor Lorie was an early adopter of the Adverse Childhood
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Experiences or ACES framework in her local community, which she continues to use as
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a context for understanding and addressing mental health needs. She's been recognized as a
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subject matter expert and has frequently sought out for speaking engagements and training on the
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topics of building resilience, ACES and trauma informed care, as well as finding
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your Purpose. Today, we're going to be talking about her book, Mastering
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Resilience Transforming into Your Purpose. Lauri, welcome again, so great to be
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when, an honor and privilege to be with you again. Appreciate that.
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So for those who aren't familiar, well, before we start off here,
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where are you from originally? And where are you currently? Well, there's
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two, I would say, because I was originally born in the Midwest,
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in Indiana near Indianapolis, and then I grew up in San Diego, California,
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and now I'm in Orange County, California. Okay, so really interesting,
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Bile, let's move right into this. How did you get into this
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field? That is? That's a great question I'm often asked, So what
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I what I know? Is that really early on I was. I kind
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of knew that I wanted to take care of people. I was, you
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know, I was a babysitter like all those things. I just was always
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like a nurturer and people listen to me. And I thought I was going
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to be a nurse or a teacher, which is what women back then the
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choices of. And so, you know, I went away to college thinking
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I was going to be a nurse, bombed in science classes, completely bombed,
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like I went from honorable to like academic probation and you know, in
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an instant. And so I so one of this really well meaning who happened
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to be the head of the psychology department, and the assistant dean of the
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college said, maybe you could consider psychology. You're really good at that.
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So that was really how the academic uh you know, to become a psychologist
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came about. And I knew, as you know, immediately when I changed
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my major to psych it was like I'm getting a PhD. And also the
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other trajectory was really really because you know, we're talking about childhood adversity things
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of that nature, advers childhood experiences aces, and I didn't call them that,
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we didn't call them that back then it was child abuse, and so
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there was a lot of you know, chaos in my family growing up,
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and I I once I went into psychology, I realized I wanted to heal
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myself and also I wanted to help other children who experience similar you know,
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backgrounds when they were younger. First of all, I just want to say
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that I really identify with your background because when I first started my path,
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I wanted to become a physician and I bombed a science I mean, like
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traumatically show. I'm curious just personally, how did that impact you, like
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self esteem wise, like when you you said you use the word bombed,
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I did, I really did? And did that impacts you at all or
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your like screen? No, it completely impacted me, and I didn't really
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get it right away. So I'll tell you again. It was I was
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on the honor roll. I was accustomed to getting very very very good grades
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in high school and then went to college and the first semester, I got
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to tell you, the first pretest I got was a big fat F.
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Like I'd never gotten an F in my life, and I was like,
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this can't be you know. It was just kind of it was so there
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was so much cognitive dissonance around it. I didn't know that's what it was
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called back then, but it was just like this, this doesn't seem real.
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And then when the grade card came and I knew I was struggling in
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microbiology and organic chemistry and those things that you need to take to become you
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know. But you know, I remember really crying a lot in that person
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getting that letter that said academic probation. I was just like, what am
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I going to do? You know? And so what I did was I
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re enrolled in the science classes. I just like, I'm going to try
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again. And about halfway through was when I realized this, you know,
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I really don't like science. I don't know why I chose this profession.
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It's not you know, what I'm uniquely designed for. I do like the
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sciences, brain science and things like that, but I didn't like microbiology and
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organic chemistry. So but it did. It was it was really uh,
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it was more than humbling. It was devastating. Really well, yeah,
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I can completely relate to that, and we could probably talk about that a
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lot of different but you know, when when the topic of kids comes up,
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I mean my heart just opens and melts it simultaneously. What was it
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about working with kids or what is it about working with kids that resonates with
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you? Well, if I can go into story again really quickly. So
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after my undergrad I went back to San Diego and I worked in a locked
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psychiatric facility for youth. And I remember at that time I was about,
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you know, twenty two years old at the time, and some of these
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youth were seventeen, and I'm like, there's just this amount, you know,
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there's very little age difference here. And I did what they're doing,
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you know, I just either didn't get caught or didn't have parents with means
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or you know whatever. But it was just kind of like, there's no
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difference. You know. Yes, there were a couple at a you know,
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hospitalized at a time that were really had really severe psychiatric conditions, and
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mostly the others were like run away ways and sadness, anxiety, things like
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that. So I think in there it was like I'm not much different than
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that and so and you know, I have a college degree and just like
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looking at the difference, but it was like I want to help. I
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want to help. I've been through some of the same experiences and this is
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what I'm driven to do. So not all, but most of my experience,
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you know, in the process of becoming a psychologist was with youth.
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So how do things unfold for you? Well, okay, so let me
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okay, So how they unfolded was there were like steps along the way.
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So first was this changing the major. Then there was youth psychiatric. I
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came back into graduate school, started working on an in patient psyche unit that
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was adults and medically what is it called, like a dual diagnosis with medical
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I had a I also became a certified nurse's aid in high school, so
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I used that experience and I was on the med psych floor. And so
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again it was I was you know, as as a student, I was
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mainly a listener, you know, I wasn't trained as a counselor my title
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was psych tech. Uh. But there was that just knowing that that people
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were helped, you know, that there was something that the interactions really and
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and I think from like when I think back on it and think about who
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I am now, it's just like total acceptance, just total love, you
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know for people and just wanting to pour out acceptance and just knowing that a
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lot of the time when you know, some of the precursors of pre precipitating
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events that got them where they were was childhood trauma. They were talking about
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those things, and so there was that. And then because I was I
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went into counseling psychology or into even clinical psychology through the School of Education at
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UCLA, and so I became once I got my master's, I became an
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educational consultant. And so even in that role, I was working with kids
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and I taught them. I didn't like I wasn't like teaching them the subjects.
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I was teaching them study skills. I was teaching them, you know,
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how to be confident, how to study better, how to get you
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know, better grades. And it was also in that place that I saw
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these kids just shine and go from d's to a's and just looking at like
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the confidence that was created as a result of that. And also at the
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same time, I was teaching at the same place where I went to undergrad
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and so I was teaching developmental psychology and abnormal psychology and general psychology and communications.
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And it was also then that really became like like I just absorbed this
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content and like how to you know, how to transform it into something that
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is you know, meaningful and helpful for the people that I'm on the planet
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to serve. Really, and so that's how. And then I took an
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internship at a nonprofit. I was children and youth, you know focused,
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and I would say the rest is history, because really there was a trajectory
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first in community mental health, and I went into private practice how to thriving
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private practice adolescence mostly Ado lescens girls. And then I just you know,
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I said, my heart's in community, and so I went back into community
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mental health, and you know, eventual, you know, entered into a
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leadership position, and in that role working with children and youth, you know,
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the ripple effect and the you know, like as a as a clinician,
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maybe twenty five thirty cases, as a program director maybe four or five,
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six hundred, and you know, in a high leadership, you know,
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it could be thirty five thousand, you know, in a year.
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So so it's it's really it's that it's like wanting to break the cycle.
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That was like I would say, you know, breaking the cycle so that
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you know, one of the things I said in one of my I did
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a little film about my own story, a while back, and I said,
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I don't want that seventeen year old girl to be fifty seven before she
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finally gets it that she is loved. You know, that she is worthy,
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that she is valued, And I just generalized that to you know,
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all children. Now. So first of all, you know, it's it's
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interesting to hear you talk about when you started studying psychology and all those you
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could see how that was making sense in contrast to the other sciences that weren't
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right. And it seems like, you know, you found your home there,
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Laurie. What is it do you feel about you or your experience that's
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allowed you and even inspired you to do this work? About me? What
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I believe is that the adversity that I experienced as a child, and even
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you know, adversity later on in life, that that, for whatever reason,
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by God's grace, whatever reason, I was able to look at it
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and say that can't be in vain. There must be some good purpose that
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can be created out of that travesty. And I think that's what it was
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it, you know that. And even I remember I was telling somebody this
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the other day. I remember, even in high school, I would say,
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if I made a mistake today, I would say, I'm going to
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be a better person tomorrow. I'm striving to always be better or you know,
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if i'm today and I remember something yes or today is going to be
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I'm going to be a better person than I was yesterday. And I really
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have lived by that motto. Of course, there have been seasons where I'm
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not thinking about that. I might be, you know, having my little
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pity party or something, you know, in the path. It's those are
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those are smaller and shorter. But I think that I think the combination of
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those two things. I you know, I I didn't call it abuse back
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then. Other people may have, you know. I another story. I
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was babysitting. I was babysitting four children. I was thirteen, they were
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eleven, nine, seven, and five. You know, so there's five
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of us, young young people. And so I went to the mom and
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I said, what is child abuse? Is this? You know, I'm
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thirteen, fourteen years old those two summers, and she said, well,
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it's really it's not spanking. It's really when somebody picks up something anadomant like
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a noxima jar and just like uncontrollably you know, whales on a child and
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so I was like, oh, then what I'm experiencing must not be child
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abuse. And even though Bruce is really you know, even there was all
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kinds of things going on, I just didn't experience it that way. And
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so I think my defense mechanisms that I, you know, sort of developed
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over time. I was able to compartmentalize them. And now I look at
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it as like I was able to dissociate from those things so that I could
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find meaning in my life, because I think if I'd not been able to
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do that, I most certainly would have gone down a different path. So
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I want to segue into the book, and I want to do that by
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asking you. I mean that you know, you mentioned an example of an
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adolescent girl, and when you I feel there's a lot of misunderstandings culturally we
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have about kids and adolescents in particular and about they're resilience. But in your
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experience in working with kids who've experienced trauma various kinds, first of all,
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when you meet them, how do you meet them and begin to get to
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know them and quote unquote work with them? Great question. So the key
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is to, as we all know as therapist, is sort of to meet
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them where they are, and without knowing the science when I first started as
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a psychologist and working with children, you know, I didn't know about adverse
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childhood experiences and the ACES science and the brain science of all of that.
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I now look at every kind of trauma through that lens of ACES and other
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adversities that you know, there's tons of data around and even you know,
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the most recent pandemic anyway, so you know, and meeting, it's really
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like what we know is that a caring, dependable adult who believes in a
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child is the very thing that can make a difference. So it was really
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it really was that they could come into the office. It was a safe
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place, they could talk about anything. There was obviously developing rapport and it
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was at that time it was really connecting and just really honoring their strengths.
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And even today that's what it would be. It's like really looking at the
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strengths. You know that we can call them superpowers or you know that those
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those things that make their hearts sing. What do they love? What are
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they good at? What are their you know, beliefs, what are you
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know? And so it's really just to get them to be able to stand
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firm in their uniqueness that is valued and wanted and honored and all of that,
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so that when these other things their firm in their you know who they
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are uniquely, and so if they hear lies regardless of who's telling them,
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they can know their value and be less impacted by that. So even you
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know, in my early years and to this day, that's really the focus
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is like who am I? What's my knowing my intrinsic value? Knowing that
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you know, I'm value just because I exist? And then there's all of
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these other things layered on top of it that are just really amazing and wonderful.
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That makes me me, makes you you. If I'm talking to a
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young person when you first started, did you come from that perspective? I
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think yes. I think it was always strength? You know what what is
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this person's strength? And that what I That's what I would you know,
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speaking with the parents, you know, rather than say that you know so
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and so said this in the session is really these aren't there the strengths that
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are coming out? You know, let's focus on finding the good. Let's
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focus on finding the good. And you know, yet if you can like
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kind of ignore long as long as you're safe you know, ignore some of
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those other things, but really find the things that be very specific, not
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good job, you know, daughter or good jobs. Then it's really I
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really appreciate the way that you took initiative and put the dishes away or you
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know, whatever whatever it is, to just notice the good in them.
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So that was definitely like right from the beginning. So let's kind of segue
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here to the book Mastering Resilience. Why did you write this and who is
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it for? Well? I wrote it because, okay, uh, I
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had started to do some training on average childhood experiences and and so I was
21:07
out training on that and I would train you know, large groups of people
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and sometimes it would be teachers or school administrators, and often it would be
21:17
counselors or counselors in training or psychologists, psychologists, college counselors. And we
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were doing the ACES screening in that venue, and so we would put it
21:30
up on the board people anonymously. We also had people in the room who
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were, you know, available in case someone needed to talk to someone you
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know, based on taking the screening, and it became a parent and we
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kind of knew intuitively, but it became apparent with data that the very people
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who are in our profession, the people who gravitate to youth serving professions,
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are the very ones experienced adversity in childhood. And so I was like,
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here we are, and some have not healed, and that in order to
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break the cycles the youth in our care, the youth that depend on us,
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even if we're a parent, the youth that depend on us are only
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going to get as far as we have on our healing journey. And so
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what I did is, you know, in thinking about just kind of what
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is the content is I reversed engineered this thirty years of experience that I've had
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in the education sector, in you know, counseling, in the nonprofit all
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of that thirty years of experience. And I said to myself, Okay,
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we're talking about building resilience. So we're talking about mastering resilience. We're talking
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about like that's the thing that kind of sets people apart for those who really
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are successful. And you know that term has you know, lots of different
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meanings for different people, but I'm you know, I mean it generally,
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and what's the difference between that group of people and those that aren't. You
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know that maybe have you know, alcohol misused, drug misuse, you know,
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other kinds of things. What's what's the what's the difference and looking at
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resilience and then it's like, okay, what are the key elements of resilience?
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You know that my clients and people that I've interacted, you know,
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counselors that I've trained over the years. So it's written to that person.
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It's actually written to a teacher or you know, a counselor or somebody who
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is in the youth serving you know field. And it's really a recipe.
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It's a recipe based on these sort of research based ingredients that result in mastering
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resilience. So it's a recipe, it's eight specific ingredients, is really easy
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to follow. There's a workbook coming out that goes on with the book very
24:06
soon coming out with the publisher, and so it's a process and it's something
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where it's based on mindset shifts and so it's for us, it's for us
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to break cycles. And the interesting thing I just want to you know,
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throw this out there. The interesting thing it's, you know, it is
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a bestseller, it's award winning, all of those things. In the less
24:27
than three months that it's been out the biggest feedback that I've received, the
24:33
most positive feedback, the most when people are saying that transformed my life.
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Are people outside of the therapy, outside of you serving its attorneys and CEOs
24:45
and med students and you know all of these you know, professions and businesses
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that it wasn't necessarily intended for. But it really is like all of us
24:57
can benefit from a process of becoming super resilient. Okay, define resilience.
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So resilience is really the you know, if we use the APA, the
25:11
American psychological term, it's really the ability to adapt. You know. It's
25:15
not bounce back like a ball. Bruce Perry, doctor Bruce Perry and Oprah
25:22
in there What Happened to You book talks about like it's like a coat hanger,
25:27
you know, so it's like it's never going to be back to its
25:30
original form, but we can. And what I think it is is what
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I add to it is that it's the strength. It's the thing that makes
25:41
it stronger, you know. And like sometimes we say when things get broken
25:47
or even just if I look at it, even the the King's people on
25:51
the front, that's a that's a symbol. It's that in that brokenness.
25:56
We can fill in that brokenness and be longer, be more beautiful, be
26:02
more worthy. And that's how I define the product of resilience, and resilience
26:08
is the ability to adapt to those things and also to in the recipe to
26:15
really reframe them in a way that says, I am who I am because
26:21
of those things. I'm not broken. I'm not you know. And so
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I guess that's my long winded answer of what resilience is. Okay, So
26:30
with understanding that, you know, we're not going to go through the entirety
26:34
of the book here give us some insight into what is required to develop or
26:42
cultivate that type of resilience. Well, the tagline of the book is transforming
26:51
into your purpose. So one of the things really is the person reading the
26:56
book doesn't have to know what their purpose is right off the bat. There
27:00
is an element of really having a direction, a destination, you know,
27:04
like in the future, tomorrow or ten years from now, you know,
27:11
what is it that you want to be? What do you what do you
27:15
want? What do you want for yourself? And who do you get to
27:18
be in order to create that for yourself? So that I call it the
27:22
Big Why you know, other people talk about the why, the vision and
27:26
you know, all of that, but it's really that sense of, you
27:30
know, what's the direction so we can create a roadmap to get there.
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And then it's also about making the commitment to ourselves to actually take action to
27:41
get there, because you know, sometimes we're paralyzed by you know, our
27:45
fears and our thoughts and you know all of that traumas, right, yes,
27:51
exactly, and what we tell ourselves is a result of those traumas,
27:53
you know. And so it's really also identifying those very things. Iifying the
28:00
things that we're telling ourselves about ourselves, really paying attention to those things,
28:04
and then realizing making the connection between what we're telling ourselves and how we're feeling
28:11
and how we're behaving and really you know, shifting the possibility of making mindset
28:17
shifts that Look at again, what's the positive that came out of it.
28:23
It's not denying that horrible abusive things happen, not at that. It's not
28:30
forgiving and forgetting. It's not that at all. It's both and it's like,
28:34
horrible things happened, maybe the person never like all those things. And
28:41
also I am who I am? What is it about me and the qualities
28:45
of who I've become as a result of those things, and really getting grounded
28:49
on that value. So getting grounded on the value making a commitment to move
28:53
forward, just to finding you know, who you get to be, you
28:57
know in that and then taking those actions out. It's just the you know,
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that's just the first few steps. Well, those are major steps,
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and I think oftentimes those can be giant steps for people who've been numbed and
29:15
debilitated by the trauma. What I can't even begin to think about what my
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purpose is or where I want to go? What do you say to someone
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who maybe responds like that, what do you? Well? Okay, okay,
29:33
so and that's true, like a lot of people don't. But here's
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the first thing is I want to make sure that that the reader or you
29:41
know, the person that's talking to me about it. This is not a
29:45
substitute for trauma and form therapy. It's not at all. In fact,
29:49
if someone hasn't had some sort of therapy, it's probably not you know,
29:56
not the right time to read the book or go through the exercises, because
29:59
there are are you know, different things like E. M, D R
30:03
and you know, things that can be used that are very effective to rewire
30:11
the brain, you know, more rapidly. And of course there's you know,
30:14
cottonitive behavior therapy, t you cheat, you know, all of the
30:18
the trauma and formed therapies. And I would say, if someone hasn't done
30:23
something specifically to if they're still in that very very very nun place and they
30:30
haven't sort of come out of it, then wait, you know, after
30:37
and so and so. For the other one is like what I say to
30:40
the person who says I don't have a purpose, Well, the point is
30:44
you don't need to know your purpose. What we're asking you is if you
30:48
can envision yourself in the future, and money wasn't an option, you know,
30:55
success was the only option, what would that look like? And it
31:00
could be just you know, for some I get my ged, you know,
31:07
it could be you know, I'm gonna enroll in graduate school and I'm
31:11
going to get my master's degree in education, or I'm going to become a
31:15
therapist, or I decided to be a psychologist. So it's it's just something
31:21
more like what would you like whatever, however you define success. If success
31:26
was the only option, what can you what can you identify and then there's
31:32
some you know, exercises around that, and so initially it's like going through
31:37
each of you know, the ingredients, and the purpose comes later. In
31:42
the beginning, it's just the big why, like what's your inspiration? Not
31:47
your purpose, what your inspiration? It sounds very hopeful, it sounds very
31:52
positive. I like what you're saying about, Uh, focusing on the positive
32:00
will, not ignoring what happened, but also focusing on the positive. And
32:05
I think that a lot of times gets lost in the discussion when we're talking
32:09
about trauma. Laurie. I love talking to you. You have such a
32:15
great presence and this book just is amazing, mastering resilience Transforming into your Purpose.
32:23
Where can people get it? It's available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
32:29
I just found out today it's on Walmart dot com, but it's mostly
32:32
on Amazon. Is where I point people, you know to the book?
32:37
Yes, we'll have it linked up here at the shows page. Love to
32:42
have you back and just a delight to speak with. Thank you so much.
32:45
You're welcome. And what's the best way for people to get in contact
32:49
with you? Well, the easiest way is to go to my website.
32:52
Which is the first part of my book, which is Mastering Resilience dot com.
32:57
Okay, and so there's all kinds of information. That's the best way
33:01
to get hold of me, okay. And in addition to the book,
33:07
what are the ways are you working with people and or speaking? What's going
33:12
on? Well, yes, I'm doing speaking and some unpaid and paid you
33:20
know, people are buying the book and giving to the audience. So there's
33:25
there's I have an opportunity to do that. I mean on the website,
33:29
there's an opportunity to sort of inquire about that. And I'm doing book signings.
33:34
The next one is the end of this month in Vancouver, British Columbia,
33:38
and I'll be in Chicago and some other places on behalf of the book.
33:44
Those will be posted on the website also if I'm going to be in
33:47
different cities. And as I said, I'm working on the workbook. It's
33:52
in the publisher right now. And then there's another book that's in the making
33:57
right now. It's the third book for this year, and it is for
34:01
those people that have have demonstrated and incorporated these particular ingredients and whatever order to
34:13
be super resilient. So the working title is becoming super resilient. And so
34:17
it's a series of, you know, twenty four success stories of people in
34:23
every sect. You know, many sectors, many businesses, women, you
34:30
know, diversity and diversified in the in terms of their businesses and what they
34:34
do, and diversified in terms of the population that are becoming super resilient.
34:39
So looking forward to that later on in the year as well. That's so
34:44
inspiring. Great having you on here and welcome. Yes, thank you,
34:50
And I agree with you. You're you know, you're just your presence and
34:53
everything is just so inviting, and I just really appreciate being here and I
34:58
would look forward to coming back someth Why I appreciate you saying that. All
35:01
right, be well, be well, you too,