Latest / Curiously Guided Podcast / Ep.23 | Trauma 101: What is Trauma? Relational Trauma + How to Become More Trauma-Informed in Your Work with Resilience and Self-Trust Coach, Lindsay ...

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Ep.23 | Trauma 101: What is Trauma? Relational Trauma + How to Become More Trauma-Informed in Your Work with Resilience and Self-Trust Coach, Lindsay ... · Curiously Guided Podcast

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the Curiously Guided Podcast.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: We're your hosts, Mariah and Shay, two intuitive business strategists exploring what it means to be an online business owner that's dedicated to following curiosity, trusting the nudge, and building a life and business that feels good from the inside out.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you're interested in bringing the human back into business, having deep conversations, and exploring the intersection of strategy and energetics, then you're in the right place.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: In today's episode, we are so excited to share this one with you.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember from last season, we had a guest on, her name was Amy Keretsky, and she was a breathwork facilitator.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: And towards the end of that conversation, I asked her a question about trauma and how to have a more trauma-informed practice and whatever we're doing.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought she did a great job answering that question, but she actually followed up with me and said that she thought it warranted an even more in-depth conversation.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And she put us in contact with our guest today, whose name is Lindsay Toucher.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Lindsay is a specialist in trauma-informed practices.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And she really, I mean, you're gonna hear and see like my jaw on the floor, my brain scattered on the wall.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like it was such this conversation is nuts.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: It really blew my mind and it helped me make a lot of really cool connections in my own life.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope that it does the same for you.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it's funny, I was listening to the recording before we hopped on into this intro, and like so many light bulb moments happen.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like this conversation and the way that Lindsay explains being trauma informed, and especially in the coaching world, but just in the world in general, like the way that she explains it, it's just so nourishing.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: And she breaks it down in a way that's both educated and compassionate.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: And and I just really love like the different dots that she connects.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly, all of us get pretty vulnerable in this conversation.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: We we bring up a lot of examples from our own lives, and yeah, it's just it's all around super fucking powerful.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm excited to share the conversation with you.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so Lindsay Toucher, she they is a trauma-informed resilience and self-trust coach based in Washington, DC, the ancestral lands of Anacoston and Piscataway peoples.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: She works with perfectionists, people pleasers, and trauma survivors who notice that the creative ways that they protect themselves in a harsh world are getting in the way of the life and relationships that they actually want.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: Through individual and group coaching, Lindsay helps her clients deepen their understanding of the patterns that have been holding them back with a focus on cultivating increased resilience and self-trust.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Her work supports them to tap into the ease, joy, pleasure, and connection they want and deserve.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: All right, let's get into the episode.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_02: Lindsay, thanks so much for taking the time to have this conversation with us.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: We're super excited to dive into things.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of just wanted to do something a little a little different than we usually do in the beginning of these conversations.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because we when we got introduced to you through Amy, which was a guest that we had on the show last season, we went over to your website and you know, we're just like stalking some shit.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And on your home page, you have these words, and I'm just gonna read them real quick.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: So it says, There's a voice inside your head, demanding, unforgiving, maybe even cruel, that judges your every decision.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_02: You're smart and competent, yet you doubt or second guess yourself more than you'd care to admit.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: And literally reading that for me and Shay was like an immediate hell yes.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like we needed you on the podcast because, like those words we say all the time in like so many different episodes.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_02: And that really is like the foundation of why we're doing this, why we're having these conversations, why why we want to show up and shine the light on some of these things.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, just reading that was just like just in perfect alignment.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so, can you just tell us more about like your approach or where those ideas came from, or like how you got there?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you for asking.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, to be honest, a lot of my inspiration for doing the trauma-informed coaching work that I do now.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, like a lot of it comes from my own experience, right?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm, you know, writing to my audience, I'm often writing to myself.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have been that person with the demanding and unforgiving voice in my head.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, sometimes I'm still that person, right?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm human.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: But I really come to this work from the perspective of having a really great deal of compassion for those impulses within us to judge ourselves, to hold ourselves to unforgiving and exacting standards.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because that really reflects my own history and my own experience and the ways in which I've had to um really take the time and space and do the work to become the compassionate uh, you know, caregiver to myself that I didn't quite receive.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I think a lot of us don't receive what we need uh in a lot of ways, especially when we're young.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm sure we'll talk about that more.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it does lead to, you know, this sense of self that is just really often like so unforgiving.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: And we have to be perfect, we have to get it all right, we have to make everyone happy.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's not a sustainable way to live.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also not a way of being that honors our own connection with ourselves, which is something that I really want to help people to cultivate.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I have a million notes already.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my goodness.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, the idea I would say that like our audience, or at least Mariah and I would identify as like smart women.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, part of the reason that um we started the podcast was because we found a lot of, you know, Mariah and I are both online business owners, so we're very like familiar with like get in there and learn everything you can and get all the strategies and you know, follow the gurus framework.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And like we did all the heady stuff, but where Mariah and I have really found a lot of growth is by getting out of our heads and getting into the body and through embodiment work.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, the everything you're just sharing about, you know, I think we're gonna get into like being compassionate with yourself, giving yourself grace, kind of coming in.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I liked what you just hit on there at the end of like um taking care of yourself in the way that you wish you could have been taken care of.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's really, really powerful.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: I know that gets into like reparenting and those kind of ideas.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, I'm so excited to like your background is so interesting to me.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you wouldn't mind, could you kind of take us?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, you're a resilience and a self-trust coach.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: I would um, we brought you on because you have an expertise and an interest, whatever you want to say there around trauma.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so Mariah and I are actively trying to become more aware about how do we be more trauma aware in our work and in how we talk about embodiment practices.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so we saw you in your background and we were just like, wow.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: So can you kind of, I've never known anybody that is a resilience and a self-trust coach.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Will you take us through the origin story?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how did you get there?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: What were the pieces that you pulled together?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So um it's interesting because I did not start out thinking that I would become a coach.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have a funny trajectory.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: I have a uh a dual bachelor's of arts from Johns Hopkins University in art history and French, and a minor's in museum, a minor in museum studies.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I have a background in uh museums and the art world, and I have a lot of passion for that um area of interest and for how the arts um and how culture shows up and affects people and what it means um to connect uh artistically and culturally and all of that.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um but I kind of quickly realized that I maybe wasn't cut out for uh the grind of um the competition.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like there's a lot of competition in that world, um, you know, trying to get good jobs when you're uh underpaid and overworked and uh overqualified and whatever.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I had actually gone to France um for about nine months to teach English there in French class classrooms in Lyon.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And um I had been really involved in yoga as a just as a practitioner and a student um in DC before I left to move to France uh for an academic year.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: And then I got really, really into my yoga practice while I was there, actually.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: I found a really wonderful mixed anglophone and francophone studio, and my job was mandated to be very part-time.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually a government post, and I just had all this time to do yoga and I got really deep into my yoga practice, and I saw that my home studio in DC was going to be hosting a yoga teacher training, and I just had this like pull, this like really intuitive pull to do this.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: And even though I didn't, I think part of me like really wanted to go into some type of work for myself, but I had no idea what direction that was going to take.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't actually see myself becoming a yoga teacher.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: I just got really deeply interested in the practice of yoga, and um it had had a big impact on my life and helping me to develop empathy and self-compassion as someone who was very, very anxious from a young age and often very depressed from a young age and um super self-critical.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just I had this poll.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: I signed up for this yoga teacher training.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: I also got into reading about energy, um, subtle body energy and energy healing while I was living in France.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: I had a lot of free time on my hands.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, I got back to the US.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: I went straight into this yoga teacher training.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: I shortly thereafter um began uh training in healing touch, um, which is a type of energy healing and has a very robust uh training like program and process that took me years as well.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I just got into it.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: I started um teaching yoga, I started working as an energy healer, and I did this and picked up some additional studies around herbalism and flower essences, which is an energetic way of working with plants.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And I have really deep interest.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a very curious person.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: So I love um learning, and I got super interested in the holistic realm and how we can support and approach people as like whole people in healing work, right?
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Not as just a collection of parts, as is often the approach of the Western medical system, though we are you know blessed to have those technologies.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um and there just came a point in this work where I really wanted to go deeper with people on the emotional and mental and somatic level, right?
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there's this, I love energy healing, but it's a lot of doing to the client.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_01: The client is laying there.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: You are doing things in their field or above their body or on their body um with light touch and reframe.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't think that I've ever actually like thought about it in that way.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm just it's just like little little moments.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: No, I love it too.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Keep it's awesome.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Totally, yeah.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and that's and and yoga can be a bit of the same way.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Like there is totally a deep emotional component.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: There is a component of like guidance and teaching and educating, but it can be very directed and directive, right?
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: We're telling students what to do.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_01: Often, you know, the best yoga teachers do that in a way that really meets people where they are, and it supports them in developing their own embodied wisdom.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: And we're just offering the guidance for them to know like what is like biomechanically like more or less safe, um, you know, hopefully encouraging a mentality of non-striving and self-acceptance.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: But if you've been in more than one yoga class, you know there's a million different ways that people teach yoga.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think I got to a point where I didn't want to do two clients anymore.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to walk alongside them as a guide and to support their own self-inquiry and their own wisdom.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that the trauma-informed resilience and self-trust coaching that I do is a way of facilitating that um and really, really honoring people as their own wise, intuitive selves.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just offering some tools and helping to open up um access to emotion and sensation and awareness that may not be immediately available to them without that relational piece.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I got really drawn to doing this relational work because a lot of our um it's not an original quote, um, but it's often said that we are hurt in relationships and we heal in relationships.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the only kind of hurt that we experience, but it's a really big part of our wounding as uh humans on this earth often.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: And that relational piece of the healing, I found that was often missing in the ways that I had been um practicing when I was focused on some of my earlier pursuits.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's part of what really, really drew me to doing this resilience and self-trust coaching work.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: I love the way that you kind of strung that together.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like that perspective of like a lot of the healing work, even in like the medical, the Western medical society and just everything that we have, it's very much like do as you're told, like I'm directing you, I'm telling you.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: And the fact that like you see this perspective as like, no, I'm here with you.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: We're on the same level and we're kind of just walking together and expanding essentially each other's awareness because, like, when we work with clients, it also expands our own perspectives.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like being able to hold up the mirror to ourselves, but also to them, and just like it's just another proof in the pudding that like community and relationships can ultimately be healing if you feel safe enough to go there.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm just really letting that sink in.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because that safety piece is really it's so key.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: Without a sense of internal safety, without trust in the relationship, their the potential for healing is really limited, right?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: So it's like a lot of us know that we would benefit from usually people think therapy um as kind of their their first thought, and which is great.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, sometimes people will start to consider coaching, like what I do.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and they'll kind of go around looking for a certain um like, well, you know, what's the technique that this person practices or what's their training?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: And that stuff matters, absolutely.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: But I think we if anyone who has gone to more than one therapist has had the experience of working, or coach or practitioner, or healer, or whatever, or doctor, medical doctor, even, especially perhaps, has had the experience of like someone who's just a poor fit, where that relationship building piece is not there, that trust is not there.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, maybe it's too much of being told what to do, or maybe it is just uh not receiving a sense of empathy, but the trust and the safety piece are really, really key.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like those are the foundation to a healing relationship, any healing relationship, interpersonal relationships as well as with practitioners.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I really endeavor to serve as like a partner um for my clients in their process of healing and of growing.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: And um especially with relational trauma, which I am more than happy to go into more detail about today, because that's really uh the crux of my work.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: The trauma, when we're talking about relational trauma, comes from a lack of attunement in relationship.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: It comes from either sometimes overt abuse or neglect, but also a lot of us have experiences of emotional neglect that we wouldn't even identify as trauma necessarily, because we know that our parents or our caregivers were generally loving and they did their best and so on.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: But it doesn't mean that they were attuned to our needs.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And if we experience chronic misattunement, especially during our developmental years, that's going to create, um, it's it's going to inhibit our capacity to develop in healthy ways into all of our greatest potential.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we need to come up with all these strategies to adapt just to survive those um uh the experience of like not being fully held, cared for, loved, and met as who we are.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so if we want to be in really heal any of that, we need to be in a healing relationship with someone who is seeing and meeting and caring for us and attuning to us without judgment, with compassion, as the person that we truly are, and not requiring us to be anyone else.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of us have spent a lot of our lives being expected to be people other than who we authentically are, and that really um uh impedes something in in like the soul and also in our self-concept.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, but like this is just hitting me at my core.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: I am recently really exploring the idea of masking, you know, as especially as I'm exploring neurodivergence and and I've been reflecting on how have I been masking, and it's been kind of a lot, and you realize the ways that you've shown up that are out of alignment your whole life, right?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And as you start to dive in there, it can be overwhelming.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I really appreciate that you brought that up because I like this idea of attunement and and the idea of healing by finding a relationship where you can show up as yourself and be loved and shown compassion.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how you heal the old relationship wounds.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that is just poetic and beautiful.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for everything you share.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm writing down, it's like all quotable.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: You're the way you use words is lovely.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd love to kind of dive in right there.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: So what you hit on was something that I learned recently.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: I always had heard the word trauma and just like shut the door.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: Cause I had like a quote unquote okay childhood.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't, there wasn't any major events, like capital.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: I would call what I've learned now is like capital T trauma, like the big crazy stuff that maybe a lot of us would associate with trauma.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as I've started learning more, I've found out it's much more nuanced than that.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: And trauma can mean a lot of stuff.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and honestly, all of us have trauma to a certain extent, you know, nobody is escaping this life without any.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so um, and it's almost like doing a disservice to myself if I don't acknowledge the trauma that I've experienced.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: If I I was kind of just bypassing, like you're fine, push through it.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: You your parents loved you, it's okay.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so allowing myself to open that door and actually hold some space for that, that like maybe there was some misattunment in my childhood, and and what does that look like?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: And how does it show up now?
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that has been very real for me.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, can you talk to us about, let's start with what is trauma?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we hear it a lot.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: How would you define it?
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a really great question.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I feel like it's it's a bit deceptively simple, right?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Because we all have a sense of um what is sometimes called tap capital T trauma, as you referred to.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: I don't necessarily use that paradigm, but I know what is meant by it.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's sort of that framework of like the big single.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: single event traumas that we can all collectively identify as being um harmful and like painful and probably creating a a lasting negative response.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And like we often think of like physical abuse or um sexual assault or you know getting hit by a car.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like all and yes, like all of those things are certainly trauma.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: But I I do think as you say it is much more nuanced.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that you know I'm really passionate about like creating a trauma informed world and doing my part in that.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I have great hope that we will have an increasingly trauma-informed world because that means that we are more able to meet people where they are and to have a nuanced understanding that the way that someone shows up today is not just about like their personality or like their character.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's about like what they've been through and how that's informed their experience and how that actually informs their psychobiology, which is to say their mind and their body.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so trauma really is the lasting emotional response to a distressing event that overwhelms an abil uh an individual's ability to cope.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: Peter Levine, who's the founder of somatic experiencing, specifies that it includes the lack of an empathetic witness, that we when we have an empathetic witness, it is less likely that a, for example, a traumatic event will actually result in lasting trauma.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what's really important to understand as well is that it's not just about those single events.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Trauma can also occur due to a lack of consistent care, attunement and positive regard in our relationships, especially but not only during our development.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: So what we often think of as quote unquote capital T trauma, we're often referring to shock trauma, which is a life-threatening experience that may or may not uh involve relationships.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: And the primary response in shock trauma is fear.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we're talking about PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, we're typically referring to there was a life-threatening event and someone developed a post-traumatic stress response.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_01: But the the realm that I really work in is relational trauma.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_01: And relational trauma is trauma that threatens the sense of self due to a lack of relational safety, including um a lack of uh you know attuned and healthy attachment, which is to say relationship with our caregivers when we're younger.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the primary response in relational trauma is not necessarily fear, though there can also be fear, it's actually shame.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so when we are talking about the result of such trauma we'll often refer to CPTSD or complex post-traumatic stress disorder.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's complex because there's a relational element to it.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just this one thing that happened.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: It's like you were not like seen or tuned to or maybe you did experience abuse as well in an ongoing relationship.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: And that's going to affect the sense of self.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so shame that shame piece is really important because that's how we end up feeling going through the world feeling unworthy feeling like we are not good enough feeling like we have to constantly strive feeling like we need to please others in order to be accepted or we have to be perfect or um highly achieve highly achieving in order to um you know earn our worth and I think it's important to understand that like attachment trauma, that like relationship disruption with our primary caregivers, whether they were parents or grandparents or community members um depending on our situation like that's huge.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_01: But there's also like cultural trauma.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's also like the trauma of being raised in a church that's very condemning there's or an environment where it's not acceptable to be queer or trans or nonbinary or like yeah there is that interimmediate interpersonal relationship but trauma is also informed by what is happening in the world around using like of course living through like war or famine or um in an unsafe community or an unsafe part of the city or whatever that may be.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think when we start to expand our thinking and our understanding about what trauma is we can really start to tap into an empathy and a compassion knowing that like no matter where you are on the spectrum of trauma, there's suffering there and there's something to be healed.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't always mean that someone deliberately hurt us as you mentioned like this lack of consistent attunement and kind of noticing that in your own life like yeah like sometimes our caregivers do the absolute best that they can and sometimes they don't do the best they can or it's what they could access but it's really far off from what was um necessary.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of people who are doing their best they don't even necessarily realize that they're not meeting a child's emotional needs.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_01: And that is really huge.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so the vast majority of my clients don't come to me identifying as having had trauma.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they will they'll say like I had the sexual assault experience or you know this maybe I was like you know cornered in a scary situation or whatever.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: But they're not necessarily realizing that that relational piece and that is inform their self-concept when they're coming to me feeling unworthy or like totally burnt out because they're overworking and they just cannot slow down.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like uh they don't realize that there's actually some level of trauma underlying that because they quote unquote may have had a pretty good life.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: And that may be true.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: And their needs may not have always been met when they had needs, especially as a young person.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Wow holy shit um I'm literally having like a room full of light bulbs going off.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um and thank you for bringing up the difference between shock trauma and that like the underlying fear is typically well fear the underlying feeling is typically fear.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then the other kind of trauma where it's shame because like if I can just give an example of my experience it's like I'm I'm having this light bulb right now and it's it's interesting because this thought came in before this call when I was making breakfast and I like got sad making breakfast thinking about the relationship that I had with my dad and the fact that like he was so body shaming and like I learned to hate my body from our relationship together but it's because he subconsciously hated his body he was not like he didn't know how to love himself love his body his self-worth is still to this day very low.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like I took that on and then if I look at the way that I was running my business the the coping mechanisms that I created to be able to move forward was that people pleasing.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay like I'm inherently I don't know like gross, not attractive or like whatever it is.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like in order to please people in order to make them like me, love me, whatever, I have to do everything in my power in order to see that I am worthy.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of my embodiment things that I had to go through was like literally getting comfortable looking at myself without clothes on in the mirror and being like no like what this is and who you are and what you look like like straight up is worthy.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_02: And like that practice then went into like the benefits went into my work of like me being able to show up to have this podcast to be able to speak and to know that like my opinions my voice my perspective me as a human being regardless of my achievements accomplishments or how good I make somebody feel I am worthy and it's just being able to embody that and like the nuances of like childhood it's not often connected like especially in the business world the hustle culture the people pleasing the lack of boundaries the perfectionism it's not like these things since they're so they seem so minuscule they're really not because they all add up and if you think about it's a whole childhood filled with reminders of these experiences of these interactions in a relationship from a man that was supposed to love me indefinitely and fully and like how that trickles into our business 20 25 years later it's just it's very interesting to me how everything is so interconnected in even the smallest of ways.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely yeah thank you thank you for sharing that I think that's a really good example of someone who probably meant well but didn't realize how his own self-hatred was modeling self-hatred in his child.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: And you know I think that then you you take that especially about things like body and appearance and all that and then you pile on top of that a culture that is so hateful and shaming toward diversity and toward the diversity of bodies, the diversity of skin tones, you know, like adding for example like a racialized experience on top of that is even that much more challenging right how we expect black and brown folks to like conform to white beauty standards.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're I mean it's 2022 we're only just starting in the past few years to see a a really in some spaces a much more diverse representation of what is beautiful and what is acceptable and worthy of love, right?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's where that shame piece really comes in right like if a parent or a caregiver or someone who is an immediate attachment figure of ours is shaming themselves for a quality in themselves that they don't like, we're gonna learn the child has no choice but to learn to have hatred toward that quality in themselves as a child, right?
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because children do not have the capacity to differentiate and in in those ways, especially when they're younger, right?
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then especially as um these patterns are perpetuated over time.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um yeah we you know I'm a NARM-informed practitioner I am um trained in uh to a certain level in um the neuroeffective relational model so that is a model for addressing developmental trauma um that is oriented toward therapists, but they open up their uh first level for like coaches and other practitioners as well.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so you know a lot of what I'm talking about is really informed by my work with NARM and um NARM really emphasizes how the shame that we carry that sense of unworthiness that sense of always needing to strive always needing to do things perfectly to be perfect to keep other people safe around us by people pleasing so that we feel safe or whatever the individual's patterns may be like that shame is not really ours.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: We're carrying a shame that we've inherited we are um the mirror of what we've been taught um and so it part of this healing work is really unwinding that shame and learning that what we've been told is like makes us worthy is not um accurate to like who we are or that we are inherently worthy, that we are innately deserving of love and care and attunement.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: But if we didn't always receive that we're going to embed the message internally that like I have to do something to earn my uh love to earn love or to earn care or to you know I have to even make myself work so hard until I'm exhausted before I am even allowed to rest.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: And no one is making me make those choices for myself right like this is something that I am always unwinding for myself.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: I am super perfectionistic I like had a ton expected of me as a young person.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: I had to put on a happy face I better get straight A's I got one B plus in sixth grade and my mom sent me after school to work with the teacher who wasn't very good for months because I got a B plus in sixth grade.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was a straight A student except for that one B plus in sixth grade my entire kindergarten through my senior year of high school and actually really into college as well.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: I did get one B plus in college too.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: So what an amount of pressure for a young person to carry right and that's part of what I'm talking about when I think about like even very well meaning parents um and some not so well meaning parents of course like we it's so normalized right to just like well you want your kid to get good grades right but depending on how that is approached and depending on like what um dynamics are at play, like what what happens when your child gets a B plus is that a problem for you or can you accept that that child did their best and encourage them and support them or whatever or is that something that is now a problem to be solved?
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because children learn through these experiences well if I get a B plus that's bad.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's a problem that needs to be solved.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's something wrong with me if I am not performing according to expectations.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: And this type of thinking is just really endemic in our culture and the pressure that we put on people in the culture as well.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so it might happen at home but then it's often reinforced by the culture around us and that's really hard to escape.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where like really that sort of reparenting piece and that like being in relationship with someone a practitioner, a coach, a therapist or even and often the the people who are in our immediate circles personally can help us relearn our sense of self-worth because when we are seen and regarded positively and unconditionally with love by those around us when we have that near to us it supports us in cultivating that sense of unconditional love within ourselves wow so the secret to being a good coach or good anything, right?
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: Is creating that safe space.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know Lindsay I what you're doing is connecting for me the dots um people pleasing unworthiness burnout can't slow down uh just things that I notice in myself we notice in our clients you connected that to shame and then you connected shame to relationship trauma.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sitting here like unraveling everything.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I have the church trauma where I was in my home life was very very strict.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: So I grew up with this strong sense of um it's impossible to be good enough feeling you know like I'm trying so hard and I'm still not perfect and I'm getting in trouble and I don't know how to be good enough.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I I think I picked up I'm realizing now like as an adult I'm walking around through life like ah that church stuff didn't affect me.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then as I'm learning about this I'm like oh oh oh oh I can see it I like that unwinding or untangling.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: I see how it's all connected and I you know this is just like my current work but um I think there's something really powerful here and I want to share this story.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know I was laughing about this this morning have y'all ever seen that show um glow it's about the roller rink girls you've seen it Lindsay it was it was the like the um performance for performance like wrestling or whatever yeah yeah I I saw I saw part of the first season yeah yeah I don't know why I said roller rink they're performance wrestling anyway Mark Marin has a the main girl on the show is so like driven by she needs everyone to love her and the Mark Marin the like coach doesn't and he's kind of mean to her and it drives her nuts.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in one scene he just looked at her and goes what would happen if you just didn't give a fuck what I thought?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you need me to like you?
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that was like the big that was shocking for me.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: I was like what I don't have to get everybody to like me and and now saying that I'm laughing at it it sounds obvious but literally that was a belief that I I held like as a core belief.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so and now you're piecing these dots of oh that of course this is where that came from so I think it's just the way you're able to articulate this stuff and like string it together is really connecting a lot of pieces of the puzzle for me.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to thank you for that.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah well thank you so much.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I I feel like you know I've had light bulb moments like that myself right and part of what I talk about with my clients is like authentic belonging and like coming home to a belonging that is authentic to us right of course we rely on and we need relationships and that's so important.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_01: I never want to diminish that um but we we need to be at home within ourselves we need to be at home with who we are right because the alternative is seeking approval outwardly all the time and unrelentingly and never really being aware of um or at ease within our own experience right um around you know this sort of like the trauma stuff and the attachment stuff in particular um there's this concept that we work with in NARM um and that often comes up in like other sort of developmental relational trauma models as well which is like when our attachment is threatened meaning like we don't feel safe with our caregivers or our caregivers are demanding something of us, they need us to be a certain way, we need to protect that attachment relationship above all else.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it means that our authenticity takes a backseat.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: If we're not allowed to show up with as who we are and if our parents or our caregivers need us or our community needs us to be a certain type of person, well, a child cannot survive on their own.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: A child is completely dependent on their environment which includes the people in it.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so a child in subconsciously will protect their attachment relationships at all costs.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: And so the their attachment need, their need for attachment and for safety in that way is going to always trump authenticity um Gabor Mate talks about that quite a bit that attachment will trump authenticity every time because who cares if we're not you know being authentic to ourselves if what we need is like the safety of food, water, housing, love and care from those around us, right?
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: But what happens then is that the child who suppresses their authentic expression becomes the adult who suppresses their authentic expression.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: And even though we don't need our parents to love and approve of us or caregivers to love and approve of us, like biologically we no longer have a need for that as adults emotionally we really can get hung up on it because we've not ever had a consistent experience of being accepted authentically as who we are or maybe we have since our childhood, but it's so deeply ingrained on the subconscious level from childhood that we're going to naturally shut down our authentic selves if we are worried about, for example, losing a relationship or a partner or a job or whatever.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, for those of us with this type of trauma, which is many of us, we're gonna suppress our own authentic selves before we put the relationship at risk because that's what we learned to do.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_01: That was self-protective that's an adaptive survival strategy.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so a big piece of the work that I do is helping people heal so that they do not need to rely on those adaptive survival strategies, not to make those strategies wrong, because there's actually a really deep life-saving intelligence in them.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_01: But when we're adults we don't want our entire existence to be determined by whether we're making other people happy like it's not a sustainable way to live.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: What is sustainable is coming home into relationship with ourselves and then showing up for our relationships with others authentically and being met as who we are and never having to be anyone other than that.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and I think that it's funny That this conversation is happening because I think it was this past weekend or maybe last weekend.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_02: I was listening to the Almost 30 podcast, and they had a guest, Mark Groves, who's like a human connection specialist, and he more so helps in more like romantic relationships.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_02: But the thing I think I'm not sure if this is a quote from him, but I think it was a quote from somebody else that he just mentioned.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: But it was around the question of like how much of our personality is a coping mechanism?
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_02: How much of our like who we identify with and how we show up in the world and interact with ourselves and others is actually something that we've learned in order to move through life.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so me and Shay have kind of been asking this question for a bit because both of us kind of have like perfectionism tendencies in terms of like striving, pushing, doing like we can get shit done.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that was such a big part of our personality, who we were, and even our business model of like how we were supporting clients and how we were trying to do this and that.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_02: And oh, we got to be on a new platform, we got to try this new strategy, which ended up us burning ourselves out.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so it brings up the question that I don't really hear in this phrase so often, but like, is perfectionism a trauma response?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_02: And like sitting with that, and like I was sitting with it a few weeks ago, and I was like, holy shit, like perfectionism, it's thrown around so much, especially in terms of like business or like in the arts, of like, oh, I'm just a perfectionist, I'm just a perfectionist.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_02: And there isn't really a lot of like self-reflection around like why?
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_02: Where did that come from?
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_02: Babies don't come out of the womb just like, yo, everything has to be perfect.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_02: I need to walk perfectly tomorrow.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_02: Like we learn that from somewhere.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I think having that question of like perfectionism being a trauma response, I just think it's really reality shattering in a really healing way.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thanks for sharing that.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: I think that um it gets really complicated, right?
• 46:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because we live in a culture and a society that expects us to perform really well, that rewards our perfectionism, that rewards our people pleasing as well, right?
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're rewarded when others are happy with us.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's no reward for when we're happy with ourselves, apart from our own sense of, you know, self-support and self-connection and our internal sense of achievement.
• 46:43
  SPEAKER_01: But like we are awarded with accolades and um recognition and uh, you know, being the the coach or the business owner or the whoever that everybody wants to go to, right?
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like we're rewarded when we show up in ways that um make other people happy and when we're doing a really, really good job externally, and when that is recognized externally.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_01: And it takes a lot to uncouple from that, right?
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's both interpersonal.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, right.
• 47:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's interpersonal, it's cultural, it's like what we learned when we were kids, and that has become automated for us, right?
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think that what I realized in my own story is like I I grew up in, I grew up in a household that was a bit complicated in a few ways.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I had everything material that I needed around me, but I had one parent who was an alcoholic and the other parent who put an immense amount of pressure on me and who demanded and expected perfection, or at least that's what it seemed to me, because of how I the lessons that I had absorbed um through this parenting style.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so I like was a very overachieving child.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I already talked about like, you know, my my 1B plus and the, you know, I graduated from Hopkins in three and a half years with two majors and a minor, and I had studied abroad and I had spent my summers doing classes there and all of that stuff.
• 48:26
  SPEAKER_01: Like I did not need anyone to push me.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: There came a point where my perfectionism and my striving for success and achievement, I inherited that from how I was parented.
• 48:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that parenting started very early.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so by the time I was like in middle school, I had to get the best grades.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, I was expected to get the best grades, but that's not the only reason I strove.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was because I knew I would not be good enough unless I got the highest grades.
• 49:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I carried that well into adulthood.
• 49:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I still deal with that all the time, right?
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_01: I really want to do a good job.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's very important to me.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_01: I want to deliver quality work.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: I want to be effective in how I show up for my clients.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_01: And some of that's a good thing, right?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like we want to do well, and others and ourselves can benefit when we are doing a good job.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I want to leave my clients better off than when they came to me, not worse, of course, right?
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_01: But it's so sticky because that is also itself.
• 49:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's a that's a survival strategy to not even allow ourselves to make mistakes, to not even permit ourselves to do anything less than our best.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's a gripping there.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: There's a like a lack of ease.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it often feeds into a pattern of really beating ourselves up.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it takes time to unravel that because we need to learn that it's actually safe for us to make mistakes.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_01: I my my father died of alcoholism uh about two and a half years ago, and I had this conversation with my ex at the time.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_01: Some big grief was coming up around that.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember saying that my dad was a very problematic person, but my dad had once said to me when my mom was being harsh toward me for dropping and breaking something by mistake, he said something that helped me realize that like I am allowed to make mistakes.
• 50:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that was, I mean, I was maybe 14 or 15 years old hearing from one parent this one time that it was actually okay that I made a mistake.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then I kind of buried that.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_01: And then a couple of years ago when he died, I realized like, oh, I literally have spent most of my life believing I was not allowed to make mistakes.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: But there was, I was wrong or bad, right?
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_01: That's the shame piece.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_01: I am wrong or bad if I make a mistake, versus I did something that was an accident that maybe wasn't at my best, but that's not unforgivable.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_01: But for someone who's been like experienced this sort of relational and developmental trauma, it feels unforgivable.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_01: And then we become adults who don't forgive ourselves.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_01: We become adults who are not capable of holding ourselves with the compassion that we all deserve.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm I'm just really deeply passionate about like holding that space for the people I work with because I really believe like that's where the healing is.
• 52:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's okay to make mistakes.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's encouraged, you know.
• 52:08
  SPEAKER_00: I honestly don't think I learned that lesson until I was 32 years old.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do you are you familiar with Carol Dweck and like the book Mindset?
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: We bring it up all the time.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_00: The idea of growth and error mindset and fixed mindset.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's honestly like the first time it had occurred to me that like mistakes could be a wonderful thing.
• 52:25
  SPEAKER_00: And we often talk about on the podcast like the science experiment of it all.
• 52:29
  SPEAKER_00: And like there is no such thing as failure, it's just a data point that you can learn from, right?
• 52:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and a lot of the best growth comes from mistakes.
• 52:36
  SPEAKER_00: And here I am trying to control everything and prevent any mistake from ever happening because that's how I feel worthy of love.
• 52:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you are just helping me connect a lot of dots.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is interesting, and I want to kind of steer the conversation a little bit.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I selfishly have had this goal of I want to know what it's like.
• 52:55
  SPEAKER_00: Being a more trauma-informed practitioner is an interest of mine.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not even really sure I fully understand what that means.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm pulling the pieces together on as you're talking is I'm in sales and I help creatives a lot with sales.
• 53:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm this weird creative person that I've always loved sales.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was a joy to me to hear people's dreams and like see if I can help get them fixed up with a solution that'll help them build whatever business they want, right?
• 53:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so I've always had this it's fun to sell creative work.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_00: I love this, it feels of service.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then I am trying to rewrite the story I think a lot of people have of salesmen.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm realizing that where all the trauma comes, there, people are tapping into people's trauma responses, like on a sales call.
• 53:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's encouraged.
• 53:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can think of so many times myself where the people please are in me.
• 53:46
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to say no to that person because I didn't want them to think badly of me.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I know now from the other side that that technique is taught.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like you should try to get an answer on the phone.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you should try to get people, it's almost like forcing people into that shame spiral to get a sale.
• 54:03
  SPEAKER_00: So to me, the idea of identifying this shame feeling and how that's being used to manipulate people is kind of like mind-blowing for me.
• 54:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's helping me connect a lot of dots.
• 54:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I'd love, would you first just start with what does it mean to be trauma informed?
• 54:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think you've kind of covered it of like holding space for someone in a way that allows them to be seen truly as themselves and loved unconditional, unconditionally and like feel worthy.
• 54:28
  SPEAKER_00: But what does it mean to be like, let's start with trauma informed and then like bringing that into your practice?
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: Does that make any sense?
• 54:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, it definitely does.
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so of course, it's it's it's good if we have an understanding of like what trauma is and how it can impact people and how that can show up for people that we encounter, whether they are people we're working with or potential clients or collaborators or friends or family or so on.
• 54:59
  SPEAKER_01: That's all helpful to like have these more like technical understandings of trauma and realizing it's broader than we think it is, it's more common than we think it is, it'll influence the way that people react and respond in different circumstances.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I really think that like in addition to the sort of like compassion piece um and the empathy piece, I believe that taking a trauma-informed approach really hinges on like getting curious, genuinely curious about people's experiences and what is driving um their behaviors, right?
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: And in NARM, we're like deeply interested in the why underneath people's behaviors.
• 55:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so as a coach, like what I'm not trying to do is to make my clients behave differently than they do.
• 55:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they're already putting that pressure on themselves, right?
• 55:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm trying to get underneath of that and understand like what is driving this behavior that you're engaging in, but you maybe don't want, like, what is preventing you from setting boundaries in relationships?
• 56:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're not bad or wrong if you're having trouble setting boundaries.
• 56:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're not bad or wrong if you're having trouble feeling your emotions or expressing your emotions.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you're not bad or wrong if you're having trouble activating to uh like, you know, to take action and to, you know, finish the task that you're or even start the task, right?
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_01: When we're talking about neurodivergence, um, you know, that can be really difficult for a lot of us is to even take action on the things that we say are important to us.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so I believe that being trauma-informed really involves like getting curious without an agenda, right?
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: The experience of relational trauma is often an experience of being judged.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: And curiosity is the antidote, antidote to judgment.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: Curiosity is the antidote to shame, right?
• 56:56
  SPEAKER_01: We cannot have judgment and shame when we're really being curious and open-minded and creating space for people's authentic experience.
• 57:06
  SPEAKER_01: So I believe that as any type of practitioner or business owner or worker or whatever that may be, like really approaching the people around us and ourselves with genuine non-judgmental curiosity is going to create the container of safety for people to really authentically share about like what are what they're struggling with and like maybe even understand why they're struggling with it.
• 57:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then we can talk about meeting people where they are, right?
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of what's difficult in like our working lives is like having a lot of expectations of us, um, whether it's of ourselves if we're working for ourselves or from other people if we're working for other people, and like a lack of understanding around like what those genuine obstacles are that might be in the way of us performing in the ways that we want to or that we are expected to, right?
• 58:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to like hold with some um some kindness and some gentleness, like people want to do well, generally speaking, but there may be things in the way of that.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if we push people too hard, we can be reinforcing their own trauma patterning around I am not worthy unless I do things perfectly, right?
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: So really approaching folks with like kindness and curiosity, um, I think that's super, super key.
• 58:29
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you're not an expert in trauma, like you can hold a curious mindset, you can hold a growth-oriented mindset for yourself and for others.
• 58:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's a much more compassionate and I think effective approach.
• 58:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's it's so interesting because it's like if we look at, and obviously, I'm just using the context of business and and coaching just for like a theme here, but it's kind of like that's kind of the issue with a lot of people's like programs or frameworks that they create.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_02: It's like the lack of curiosity because the whole sense of the program or the framework is to get somebody from their assumed point A to their then assumed point B, when really the healing is hey, where is your point A?
• 59:19
  SPEAKER_02: How did we get to point A?
• 59:21
  SPEAKER_02: How do you want to get to point B?
• 59:23
  SPEAKER_02: And then walking alongside them as they hit the, you know, natural human roadblocks that happens while you're healing, while you're expanding that level of awareness.
• 59:35
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, yeah, I think just being able to see that like that could be a hang up in the way that the business world is moving forward because it's more of a teaching lens under a coaching umbrella, but like it's actually teaching versus coaching.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that like those are completely different and they have different uses.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and just becoming more aware, more aware of like when they're helpful, how they're helpful, and what you're signing up for.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: Like, what do you want?
• 1:00:08
  SPEAKER_02: What kind of help support do you need?
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_02: That kind of thing.
• 1:00:12
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I am interested in because I guess all of our experiences were kind of like we've been at a point A to where we're like, okay, like we're seeing an issue here.
• 1:00:26
  SPEAKER_02: And then our point B, it seems like for all of us is to have like a more mindful or embodied practice or like a way for us to tune into ourselves.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_02: And you you mentioned that like being neurodivergent and having a more trauma-informed approach to those, like Shay loves breath work, I love meditation, but it's like, do those things have roadblocks in themselves for different people that are coming from different point A's?
• 1:00:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I I love this question, and it's one that I give a lot of thought to, especially with my background having taught yoga for like, I don't know, six or seven years, um, coming from like the energy healing space and all of that.
• 1:01:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there is a lot of focus on being embodied, mindful, present in the moment.
• 1:01:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you know, embodiment, I think we all have a good sense of not all of us, of course, but I think many of us have a good sense of this at this point that like mindfulness is like being aware of the moment, and present is like your cognition and your awareness being in this moment.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_01: Embodiment is the practice of attending to your sensations and being aware of what's happening in your body, right?
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so, in a lot of healing traditions, there's a real emphasis on these, you know, these few pieces, the awareness of body, of mind, and of the environment around us.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: And that has a lot of value.
• 1:02:04
  SPEAKER_01: It can also be undermining and sometimes counterproductive for people who have lived through trauma, which is frankly most of us on some level, and also for neurodivergent folks, you know, like people with ADHD or autism, um, folks who um actually kind of have a different uh psychobiology around how they're able to be present.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, with trauma, we're talking about the ability to be mindful, embodied, present.
• 1:02:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, these are innate capacities that get disrupted when we have experienced trauma, right?
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: So as a yoga teacher or um a meditation teacher or mindfulness guide, whatever, um trying to force our clients or our students into mindful presence and into embodiment, it's not gonna work.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_01: We can certainly give them tools to be more equipped to access sensations in their body or to access mindfulness in the present moment.
• 1:03:07
  SPEAKER_01: But there are reasons that people are not able to be mindful or embodied if they are having troubles with that.
• 1:03:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we really need to honor and trust the intelligence of the impulse to come out of one's body or to come out of one's um mindful awareness.
• 1:03:26
  SPEAKER_01: When it is safe for us to be fully embodied and fully mindful, we will be.
• 1:03:33
  SPEAKER_01: But we cannot force those um, you know, capacities.
• 1:03:40
  SPEAKER_01: We can only create the conditions of safety to facilitate those capacities to redevelop for those of us where those capacities have been disrupted.
• 1:03:51
  SPEAKER_01: And so um I really, really believe strongly that like we do need to bring more sensitivity as practitioners, especially if we're talking about breath work and yoga and meditation, and understand that like it's okay for people's minds to wander.
• 1:04:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay for people to not be fully present in their bodies.
• 1:04:14
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of depending on the trauma someone's experienced, as soon as they start focusing on their inner, um like embodied experience somatically, like what the sensations are in their bodies, that can be a huge trigger for some people, not for everyone.
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_01: It depends, right?
• 1:04:29
  SPEAKER_01: For some of us, we just can't keep our minds still.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so, or at least not for very long.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so I don't think that means that mindfulness and uh somatic practices aren't available to neurodivergent or people or people with trauma.
• 1:04:44
  SPEAKER_01: I actually mean, I actually believe that there are some more um sensitive ways that we can approach those practices.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: And for a lot of folks, that means like not expecting stillness to be the avenue toward mindfulness or embodiment.
• 1:05:02
  SPEAKER_01: It might mean moving your body more, not doing a seated meditation.
• 1:05:06
  SPEAKER_01: It might mean like walking around and like noticing the trees, noticing the environment around you, using your senses to come into the present moment in your environment rather than hyperfocusing on sensation in one's body, if that is not safe for the individual.
• 1:05:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that by really expanding our understanding of how mindfulness and embodiment can show up, we can really support people in feeling that they have the tools to um, you know, play around with those states of embodiment and mindfulness.
• 1:05:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but it means not restricting them to a particular tradition or a particular approach because people need different things.
• 1:05:50
  SPEAKER_01: They have different needs.
• 1:05:51
  SPEAKER_01: Some people really need to move.
• 1:05:52
  SPEAKER_01: Some people, it's not safe for them to close their eyes in a meditation.
• 1:05:56
  SPEAKER_01: They actually will have, they'll get too activated.
• 1:05:58
  SPEAKER_01: It'll make them.
• 1:06:00
  SPEAKER_01: Anxious.
• 1:06:01
  SPEAKER_01: They actually feel much more stable and much more mindful and at peace if they're resting their gaze on something in the environment.
• 1:06:08
  SPEAKER_01: So I think about all of these things.
• 1:06:10
  SPEAKER_01: I do sometimes educate around these practices in my work and offer practices like this in my work.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: And so just bringing more options to people will make a really, really big difference so they can be self-directed in how they start to develop those skills for embodiment and mindful presence.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's incredible, Lindsay.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned Lindsay had sent something to us in her ep.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have our guests fill out a form.
• 1:06:41
  SPEAKER_00: And she this sentence really struck me in one word in particular.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_00: She said, Why our fixation on mindfulness and embodiment in the wellness space can actually be counterproductive.
• 1:06:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that idea of being fixated on it really struck me.
• 1:06:55
  SPEAKER_00: And it just made me reflect on maybe within this podcast, Mariah and I have been quick to recommend practices.
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I have felt pretty fixated on embodiment because that's been my personal journey, I would say, in the last year.
• 1:07:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I really appreciate this kind of like broader perspective.
• 1:07:12
  SPEAKER_00: And in some notes I wrote down for how I could be, I like what you said, be more sensitive.
• 1:07:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in so you mentioned like give alternatives, let people know, hey, not don't force the bikram yoga came to mind for me.
• 1:07:28
  SPEAKER_00: I have this feeling of like in that when I did it, it was like, you can't leave the room.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of shame if you leave the room.
• 1:07:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in my people pleasing, almost would make myself pass out in that hot ass room because I was too ashamed to leave, right?
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so I love this idea of no, what a better way to say, if you need to leave, please go step out, you know.
• 1:07:47
  SPEAKER_00: And if sitting still feels really hard, know that that's normal.
• 1:07:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think normalizing is know that we all struggle with this on certain days, and it may be easier for some than others, and it may be hard now and get easier later, but just kind of giving people a bit more context and giving them alternatives and letting them know that like there's no one right way to feel this and no one right way to do this.
• 1:08:09
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times the skill is really can you check in with yourself and figure out what do you need right now and how can you adopt whatever's going on to like fit, you know, with what's going on with yourself.
• 1:08:20
  SPEAKER_00: So I just think that's really helpful for me.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then again, I'm coming back to the goal is not to send them into a shame spiral.
• 1:08:28
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I've noticed, I love visual meditations, like um visioning, future visioning kind of stuff.
• 1:08:33
  SPEAKER_00: And one time I led one with Mariah and she was like, Well, I was doing it, but then I just like I can't see anything, and like I just really got it's like she couldn't visualize, and then she went on a shame spiral about why can't I visualize and blah blah blah.
• 1:08:48
  SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to get it wrong.
• 1:08:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, you did want to get it wrong.
• 1:08:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to see my future self envisioning as something I don't want, and then I'm gonna manifest the wrong thing, and now I can never visualize my future ever.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_01: And some people literally don't have the capacity to see visuals and their in their um mind's eye.
• 1:09:07
  SPEAKER_01: Like, not everyone can do that, actually.
• 1:09:09
  SPEAKER_01: Most people can, but some can't.
• 1:09:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't know that.
• 1:09:13
  SPEAKER_00: I do now, and so now I know next time to do that of like, and if you can't see anything, try to pay attention to what feelings pop up, or if feelings don't feel safe, you know, like just offer kind of some, not everybody can visualize, don't beat yourself up about it, you know, kind of offering some levity, even, um, making it be a little less serious.
• 1:09:32
  SPEAKER_00: I it just feels very um wonderful, like a great way to approach it.
• 1:09:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that really helped.
• 1:09:38
  SPEAKER_00: You've really helped answer a lot of my questions.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to touch on neurodivergence and trauma.
• 1:09:45
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned I I've heard, I have a lot of story around the two.
• 1:09:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would love to hear.
• 1:09:50
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned you had some thoughts around the two and how they're interrelated.
• 1:09:54
  SPEAKER_00: Would you mind sharing that with us?
• 1:09:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, totally.
• 1:09:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to be really mindful and intentional on this topic.
• 1:10:04
  SPEAKER_01: I my area of um expertise is around trauma.
• 1:10:11
  SPEAKER_01: My area of expertise is not around neurodivergence.
• 1:10:14
  SPEAKER_01: That said, I am a neurodivergent person.
• 1:10:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was, you know, finally diagnosed with ADHD last year.
• 1:10:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and there is commonly a lot of overlap between the two.
• 1:10:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um there are different positions on the matter.
• 1:10:34
  SPEAKER_01: Some people believe that neurodivergence is a manifestation of trauma.
• 1:10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Some people see neurodivergence, such as AHD, autism, and so on, as being innate and more based on genetics.
• 1:10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I hold those distinctions loosely because I'm still learning, especially on the neurodivergence piece.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_01: What I do think can happen is that a lot of people who are actually having trauma responses get misdiagnosed with something like ADHD.
• 1:11:07
  SPEAKER_01: But a lot of people who have, for example, ADHD also have trauma for other reasons, or because if you're growing up with ADHD and you're expected to perform and focus and sit still and um, you know, mask, you know, your discomfort or mask maybe your um natural tendencies to move around or uh to jump between subjects in conversation, or like you're shamed for interrupting people.
• 1:11:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's a big thing of my experience, is like I get excited, I interrupt people, and like it's not socially accepted, right?
• 1:11:41
  SPEAKER_01: In many cases.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so um it could be like, no, like sit down, stay still, like, you know, be quiet, like wait your turn.
• 1:11:50
  SPEAKER_01: We can develop trauma in response to again having our authentic self suppressed.
• 1:11:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I don't take a stance on because I have more to learn.
• 1:12:01
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't take a stance on exactly where the line is between neuro divergence and trauma.
• 1:12:07
  SPEAKER_01: I do know that many people experience both.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_01: I do know that there can be some misdiagnoses, but also that it seems that um things like AHG autism and other neurodivergent um uh ways of being are innate for some people, right?
• 1:12:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that either way, we want to bring curiosity, we want to bring acceptance, and we want to understand and give people the chance to tell us what their needs are and to offer choice, right?
• 1:12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Choice and agency in either of these areas, trauma or neurodivergence, are really key.
• 1:12:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you summarize that really well, Shay, with what you were, you know, just reflecting on.
• 1:12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so so much of what is unhealed in us is are the places where we did not have choice.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_01: We did not have agency, we could not um be in control of our own destiny because things were happening to us or because expectations were made of us and we had to um comply and we were taught to be compliant, right?
• 1:13:08
  SPEAKER_01: So allowing for choice and supporting the agency of the individual while um encouraging like loving and healthy relationships and recognizing that, yeah, we're all interconnected too.
• 1:13:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's not just about us as individuals.
• 1:13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think all of that is really key in like supporting anyone who is dealing with either trauma or um who just has a neurodivergent uh like way of being in the world.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you sharing that because the story I had been told by someone in the past is that neurodivergence is most likely unhealed trauma.
• 1:13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and I like what you're saying is it's gray.
• 1:13:46
  SPEAKER_00: We don't really know, and most likely it's probably both, and we don't really know the full extent of it, right?
• 1:13:52
  SPEAKER_00: But regardless, there's something there that we can be more sensitive around and you know be more aware of and understanding when we're interacting with people.
• 1:14:01
  SPEAKER_00: So that was very helpful for me.
• 1:14:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:14:03
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate even though you don't feel like a pro on the topic, that just your understanding of it again is more nuanced than the stories I've heard was helpful.
• 1:14:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I do have one more question.
• 1:14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, go ahead.
• 1:14:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, no, totally.
• 1:14:15
  SPEAKER_01: I I was just gonna say that like I think it's worthy to, you know, continue studying like both of these areas and to get clearer about them.
• 1:14:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that what's less important than where a certain behavior or um, you know, uh way of thinking or thought pattern comes from, or what's more important than that is meeting people where they are and just creating space for people to be who they are and um creating a non-judgmental uh, you know, relationship and space for people to get their needs met.
• 1:14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And like whatever those needs may be, right?
• 1:14:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like we all have different needs depending on where they're coming from.
• 1:14:58
  SPEAKER_01: We're all gonna have different tendencies, habits, and patterns.
• 1:15:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so just meeting people where they are, I think that just goes a long way.
• 1:15:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we don't necessarily unless we we are like the practitioners who are specifically um, you know, uh it is our role and our responsibility to like fully understand and support people at getting to the bottom of like the neurodivergence piece or the Trom piece, whatever.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_01: All we have to do, unless that is somehow our role, if for those practitioners who really do need to have a really clear distinction between the two um in order to support people in those ways, we just need to listen.
• 1:15:35
  SPEAKER_01: We just need to listen to people and you know um create space for for their needs.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, yeah.
• 1:15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, Mariah, I'm dominating.
• 1:15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Do you mind if I ask one more question?
• 1:15:47
  SPEAKER_02: Go for a girlfriend.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:15:49
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that you hit on, we're kind of going full circle here, Lindsay.
• 1:15:53
  SPEAKER_00: You hit on at the beginning was the idea of a coach versus a therapist.
• 1:15:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something I get asked a lot.
• 1:15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I often wonder.
• 1:16:00
  SPEAKER_00: I myself have both.
• 1:16:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've always really encouraged people, you know, like get a team around you that can really support you, whatever that feels like.
• 1:16:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I would love for you to, I would love to hear your um understanding of what's the difference between the two.
• 1:16:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you were only going to choose one, what who would go to a therapist and who would go to a coach, like a best use situation?
• 1:16:22
  SPEAKER_02: This is one of Shay's favorite questions on the face of the planet.
• 1:16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I ask everybody this all the time because I think there's a lack of understanding here in this space, and I would like it to shine some light.
• 1:16:34
  SPEAKER_02: I'm just, it's it's so fun.
• 1:16:36
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know you guys listening can't see like what's happening on the screen, but Shay is scribbling more notes than I've ever seen in any podcast episode.
• 1:16:46
  SPEAKER_02: And like her face is lighting up so much with these conversations.
• 1:16:51
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, Lindsay, if you could just like take us through that, I think getting more people's perspectives on that is really helpful for the people in the space, but also the people looking for support in the space.
• 1:17:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like, yeah, there definitely needs to be more conversations and different perspectives around it.
• 1:17:12
  SPEAKER_01: So let me first say that therapy is a licensed profession, and therapists are trained in particular ways that I think, especially for people who are in active crisis, they're going to need a therapist.
• 1:17:35
  SPEAKER_01: There's good reasons for that.
• 1:17:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, a therapist has uh built-in supervision.
• 1:17:41
  SPEAKER_01: There is um a sort of like accountability um system around therapy as a profession because it is a licensed profession.
• 1:17:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um and people who, you know, therapists are also mandated reporters if someone is really at risk.
• 1:17:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so I think that, you know, but by comparison, like coaching is not a licensed profession.
• 1:18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Coaches have a variety of different types of training, and it may not be um may not involve uh some of the training that therapists receive, um, which you know, therapists have all had master's level education and um they have specific, you know, procedures that they must follow legally, right?
• 1:18:30
  SPEAKER_01: And coaches don't.
• 1:18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um some people will say that therapists help you heal, whereas coaches like support you to succeed.
• 1:18:40
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that that is a super clear or innate distinction.
• 1:18:46
  SPEAKER_01: I do think the intention of therapy is to be healing, but not every therapist has a healing presence for every given client.
• 1:18:53
  SPEAKER_01: And coaching can be more forward-looking and oriented towards success, but um, it doesn't have to be.
• 1:19:00
  SPEAKER_01: I actually believe that good coaching, like good therapy, is client-driven.
• 1:19:06
  SPEAKER_01: And that means that uh the approach that I take as a coach is not really one of striving or expecting or pushing my clients um to a particular place because I have the trauma education to know that that actually can reinforce um trauma patterns for some people.
• 1:19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Like not everyone responds well to having pressure put on them, or some people respond great to it, but then they're dependent on you to put pressure on them because they're not developing that innate capacity and self-trust.
• 1:19:42
  SPEAKER_01: This is where the resilience and self-trust piece of my work, I think, is really important.
• 1:19:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so I do think it's important to know the difference between coaching and therapy generally, but I will say like there are as many types of coaches out there as there are many types of therapists.
• 1:19:57
  SPEAKER_01: There are some therapists who are trained in ways that I do not think are therapeutic in terms of what they actually bring to the client, but many of them have a really skillful and wonderful presence.
• 1:20:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you end up with like any number of people can coach, right?
• 1:20:12
  SPEAKER_01: Because coach is coaching isn't licensed or anything like that.
• 1:20:14
  SPEAKER_01: And some of them are going to do a bad job, and some of them are going to do a great job, and some of them are going to be out of their depth.
• 1:20:21
  SPEAKER_01: It I think it so much depends on the individual.
• 1:20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you can have a good therapist, bad coach, you can have a good coach and a bad therapist, right?
• 1:20:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I think that what is really important in either case is that the practitioner, whoever they are, their work is about supporting and facilitating the client's own desires for themselves.
• 1:20:47
  SPEAKER_01: It is not to fulfill the goals of the therapist or the coach on behalf of the client.
• 1:20:55
  SPEAKER_01: My goals, of course, I have goals as a coach, which are like to show up well, to be compassionate, to be empathetic, to meet people where they are, to listen well.
• 1:21:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like I have those expectations and goals for myself, but my goal as a coach and a trauma-informed coach in particular is not to push my clients in any particular direction, it's to help facilitate what it is they say they want for themselves and to do that with patience and compassion and kindness.
• 1:21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Not every coach takes that approach.
• 1:21:26
  SPEAKER_01: I actually think I occupy a very unusual intersection between coaching and like trauma-informed practice, in part because I've been trained in a model that is about trauma.
• 1:21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that that's where a lot of my skills and my uh frameworks come from.
• 1:21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so yeah, there are important differences to consider.
• 1:21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh definitely a Google search will get you all different kinds of results about that.
• 1:21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um I say, I would say that if you're looking for either a coach or a therapist, consider how that person presents themselves, like have a do a free consult with them.
• 1:22:03
  SPEAKER_01: I always offer free consults to my individual coaching clients.
• 1:22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I have group coaching programs as well.
• 1:22:08
  SPEAKER_01: And those are gonna look really different than the individual work because the group coaching is gonna involve more teaching and more um interaction amongst the different uh participants involved.
• 1:22:19
  SPEAKER_01: The individual coaching is gonna be really focused on what does this individual want for themselves and how can I facilitate that um in a in a kind uh way.
• 1:22:29
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean that I'm not going to speak up if I see some inconsistencies and how the client is expressing what they want for themselves and then what they're actually doing.
• 1:22:38
  SPEAKER_01: It actually is my role to name those things, but it's not my role to push them to any particular outcome.
• 1:22:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's I want to support my client's agency.
• 1:22:47
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that most therapists want that as well.
• 1:22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and not every coach does.
• 1:22:53
  SPEAKER_01: It depends, right?
• 1:22:54
  SPEAKER_01: But get to know the individual, you know, and know that if you're in crisis, go for someone who is trained to address crisis situations.
• 1:23:06
  SPEAKER_01: I am not working with, I'm a trauma-informed resilience and self-trust coach.
• 1:23:11
  SPEAKER_01: I work with people in expanding their resiliency and their self-trust, helping them um navigate relationships and, you know, connect with their own needs and set boundaries and all that stuff.
• 1:23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I am not working with people who are in emergency situations.
• 1:23:27
  SPEAKER_01: That would be outside of my scope of practice.
• 1:23:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm working with people who are looking to um, you know, feel more at home with themselves or advocate for themselves in relationships and be more authentic and true to themselves and maybe heal some past stuff as well.
• 1:23:44
  SPEAKER_01: But um, I'm not a crisis supporter.
• 1:23:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a really probably the most important um differentiation.
• 1:23:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I also cannot and I'm not in the position to diagnose.
• 1:23:55
  SPEAKER_01: Coaches don't do that.
• 1:23:56
  SPEAKER_01: So if that's something that a person is seeking, they need to see a psychotherapist instead.
• 1:24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Shay, I'm glad you asked that question.
• 1:24:03
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for following the nudge.
• 1:24:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to continue to ask it, baby.
• 1:24:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um that was one of the best answers, though.
• 1:24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love what you're saying.
• 1:24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's good and bad therapists, there's good and bad coaches.
• 1:24:16
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it comes back to find the individual that feels in attunement with what your needs are, right?
• 1:24:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and I love what you're saying about just as a practitioner, having the integrity to, if someone is on a consult with you, if they're not a good fit, not taking them on, you know, sending them in the right direction.
• 1:24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I love that you've identified someone in crisis is not in my umbrella.
• 1:24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure you send them, you know, lovingly in the right direction, you know.
• 1:24:43
  SPEAKER_00: But I love as practitioners having that awareness, especially as coaches, um, it's really important.
• 1:24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I I there's just this is a really gray area.
• 1:24:52
  SPEAKER_00: Again, it's nuanced, which is lovely.
• 1:24:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that you kind of built that out for me in a way that I hadn't had before because a lot of these stories have come from old therapists I didn't love, right?
• 1:25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in a different chapters in my life, different types of support have felt healing.
• 1:25:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that can change for you and give it the flexibility to change, you know, and then just allow, you know, what works now may not work later, and the type of support you need now is different than later, you know, and just let it flux and change, um, but check in with yourself, I think is the message there.
• 1:25:25
  SPEAKER_00: That was just a really well-rounded answer, and I appreciate it.
• 1:25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 1:25:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I it's you know, it's speaking to those relational skills again, right?
• 1:25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And the presence of the individual.
• 1:25:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that anyone can bring relational skills.
• 1:25:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but if uh and so that's why I think coaching can be really suitable for a lot of people, is what they need actually is the relational presence and those skills.
• 1:25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And they need um the support of someone who is able to hold uh a perspective, whether it comes from a therapeutic background, whether it comes from a coaching background that is able to help them toward um, you know, what they are wanting for themselves.
• 1:26:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, there are absolutely times where like someone is the terminology is like how psychologically organized or disorganized they are, and someone who is more psychologically organized, like they're able to make sense of their experience, they're self-aware.
• 1:26:26
  SPEAKER_01: I work really well with those people.
• 1:26:28
  SPEAKER_01: I have had some consults um with folks who are more psychologically disorganized, and that is going to require the expertise of a psychotherapist and someone who has a more extensive training in working with, like, for example, like personality disorders are typically not a good fit for a coach, unless that coach also has a bunch of training in the therapeutic realm as well, because there's more complex dynamics at play internally, and that person is going to have a higher level of need that may be outside of the coach's skill set.
• 1:27:02
  SPEAKER_01: So people who are already doing pretty well in life, but are looking for a little bit more support and more self-awareness and um are working through some of these patterns that we've discussed: perfectionism, people pleasing, overstriving, working toward burnout, um, whatever that may be, they are often met really well by a skillful coach with the right sort of like trauma-informed uh background.
• 1:27:29
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it really does take like, don't, you know, really don't expect to find like the perfect practitioner for you the first time you try.
• 1:27:38
  SPEAKER_01: It can take practice.
• 1:27:40
  SPEAKER_01: I've had gone through bad therapists before I found good therapists.
• 1:27:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've gone through bad manipulative coaches before I found supportive, encouraging, nonjudgmental coaches.
• 1:27:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it takes all kinds.
• 1:27:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 1:27:57
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 1:27:58
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of what we do on the podcast is.
• 1:28:00
  SPEAKER_00: untangling like old coach stories.
• 1:28:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's like oh shit.
• 1:28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Oh gosh.
• 1:28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So I've got to give that a listen.
• 1:28:05
  SPEAKER_02: More episodes, please.
• 1:28:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:28:08
  SPEAKER_02: And I like, I like the differentiation of like the coach legally has some form of accountability.
• 1:28:16
  SPEAKER_02: I think that that is therapist.
• 1:28:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 1:28:20
  SPEAKER_02: The therapist has some form of accountability like state boards or whatever in order to be licensed.
• 1:28:28
  SPEAKER_02: And yeah, just taking that into consideration, I think that is really important.
• 1:28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Shay, do you have any other questions for Lindsay?
• 1:28:36
  SPEAKER_02: I know I think we're ready for the wrap up.
• 1:28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, cool.
• 1:28:39
  SPEAKER_02: So Lindsay, do you want to just let our listeners know what you got going on and like where they can find out more about you and how they can connect with you.
• 1:28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely yes.
• 1:28:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I can certainly be found at my website which is workwithlinsay.com.
• 1:28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Obviously the spelling will be in the show notes, but Lindsay with an I and an A, not a Y or an E.
• 1:29:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm also on Instagram at work with Lindsay.
• 1:29:20
  SPEAKER_01: I have a really, really wonderful workbook that I've recently developed called Claiming Your Resources, which is a free workbook.
• 1:29:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's like 35 to 40 pages or something that is all about setting you up with the support and the resourcing that you need in order to navigate what life is bringing your way, all the ups and downs, the stress, the trauma and all of that.
• 1:29:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so you know we didn't actually get to talk about resources too much in this conversation, but briefly like resources are anything that helps us to cope with what we're experiencing, whether physically, emotionally, mentally, et cetera.
• 1:30:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I make a distinction between survival resources.
• 1:30:06
  SPEAKER_01: We actually have in other languages been talking about survival resources for much of this conversation, which are, you know, resources or strategies or coping mechanisms that have helped us survive to this point, those adaptive survival strategies we discussed, but they might not be generative or healing and they might leave us feeling stuck over time.
• 1:30:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so then I also talk about generative resources like what are the resources we can bring in the skills and practices that help us feel nourished and alive and cared for and that give us a sense of meaning and fulfillment and support our integration and our wholeness, right?
• 1:30:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's what healing is is coming back to our wholeness and actually becoming more integrated amongst all of our experiences and our self sense of self, our self-concept.
• 1:30:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so these resources can be cultivated and they're a big part of how we can help ourselves feel supported individually when we're not necessarily in active relationship with a coach or a therapist or in addition to that.
• 1:31:06
  SPEAKER_01: So this claiming your resources workbook is all about helping you to discern what survival resources have you been using up till now?
• 1:31:15
  SPEAKER_01: What um generative resources can you bring in like how can you feel more supported as you move through life's ups and downs.
• 1:31:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the link for that will be in the show notes.
• 1:31:27
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really, really excited to share it with everyone.
• 1:31:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's completely free.
• 1:31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Just sign up and download it from my website.
• 1:31:34
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah, other than that, I'm available for one-on-one coaching.
• 1:31:40
  SPEAKER_01: You can find that out through my website.
• 1:31:42
  SPEAKER_01: I do some group coaching as well and we'll hopefully be relaunching my signature group coaching program in the not distant future called Embodied Resilience.
• 1:31:52
  SPEAKER_01: We go much deeper on a lot of the topics that we've been discussing today.
• 1:31:57
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, other than that I just love talking and sharing about my work.
• 1:32:00
  SPEAKER_01: So feel free to ask me.
• 1:32:03
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh really been a joy to connect with you both and to have this conversation.
• 1:32:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's been super rich.
• 1:32:10
  SPEAKER_01: So and I just I just love kind of spreading the word about how we can make a more trauma informed world and have more compassion for ourselves and each other.
• 1:32:18
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much.
• 1:32:20
  SPEAKER_02: Dude fuck yeah in like the best way ever like hell yeah.
• 1:32:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm yeah I I'm gonna go over and download that resource literally as soon as it's available because I think everybody should have a copy of it.
• 1:32:31
  SPEAKER_02: And then I we swear that this is literally the last question that we will ask you.
• 1:32:36
  SPEAKER_02: We like I I promise.
• 1:32:38
  SPEAKER_02: So we ask every human on the podcast what has been sparking your curiosity lately oh wow yeah that is such a great question.
• 1:32:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I have been learning pottery.
• 1:32:54
  SPEAKER_01: I've been learning to make pottery for almost six months now and uh I didn't get to speak about this, but I actually have a background as an artist that predates you know my college degree and I haven't gotten to explore um my artistic side a whole lot in adulthood.
• 1:33:13
  SPEAKER_01: And so I've always loved the tangible quality of um pottery.
• 1:33:18
  SPEAKER_01: I love decorative art uh in general pottery and weaving is another interest I want to go deeper with soon.
• 1:33:25
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah like that's been sparking my interest is like getting better and better at throwing on the wheel and um making uh you know these unique pieces that come from my own hands and from the earth.
• 1:33:37
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of respect for the clay that we um harvest from the earth and we use to make these really unique works uh that occupy a space in our day-to-day lives.
• 1:33:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I love that and I'm always learning there.
• 1:33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh got a long way to go but I'm getting a little bit better every time I sit down at the wheel.
• 1:33:56
  SPEAKER_01: So that's been a great source of curiosity and growth for me lately.
• 1:34:00
  SPEAKER_02: I love that so much.
• 1:34:02
  SPEAKER_02: Literally on my to-do list is to go and pick up the pottery that I created like three months ago from like this one there's like this one art place that offers like open studio for throwing pottery and like before the holidays I was like that's it this is my new hobby.
• 1:34:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think I told Shay I'm like I am now becoming a ceramics professional and like this is what I do now.
• 1:34:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then the holidays it and I literally haven't thought about it and I'm like I need to go and pick up my mugs before they throw them out.
• 1:34:29
  SPEAKER_02: So yes thank you for the reminder because I have to do that.
• 1:34:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah my my studio has a like last chance to pick up your pottery or it's going it either if it's if it hasn't been glaze fired yet it gets trashed.
• 1:34:48
  SPEAKER_01: If it has been glaze fired it goes into the giveaway bin.
• 1:34:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so yeah you gotta stay on top of that.
• 1:34:54
  SPEAKER_01: The process of making pottery is a lengthy one and uh it's easy to lose track of when your pot's actually finished because there's so many steps involved.
• 1:35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Well I love that and Lindsay I have a feeling we could have a whole separate conversation about the power of creating space for creative expression as an adult.
• 1:35:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's also something I'm really passionate about.
• 1:35:15
  SPEAKER_00: But we'll save that for next time.
• 1:35:17
  SPEAKER_00: I know we've taken, we've asked a lot of you and you've been so generous with your time.
• 1:35:20
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:35:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I think with that we're going to close this episode down.
• 1:35:24
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed it feel free to share with someone you think would love it.
• 1:35:27
  SPEAKER_00: And please tag us on social media.
• 1:35:30
  SPEAKER_00: All the shares and all your love and all your messages it really means the world to us and it helps us get clearer on what you find supportive and how we can show how we can love and connect with you more.
• 1:35:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah and if you guys haven't yet please consider subscribing to the podcast or leaving us even just like a little a little quick review we would totally love that because that definitely allows us to grow with you.
• 1:35:55
  SPEAKER_02: And until next time remember that you have to you have the power to create whatever the fuck you want.
• 1:36:01
  SPEAKER_02: Follow the nudge ask questions and let curiosity guide the way we'll see you in the next episode