(upbeat music) - Welcome to "The Trauma Teacher", the podcast dedicated to transforming therapists into masterful healers with confidence, creativity, and clarity. I'm Janice Holland, and I'm here to guide you through the journey of becoming the therapist you've always envisioned, helping you step into your full potential and make a profound impact on your client's lives. Each week, we'll explore powerful strategies, share inspiring stories, and dive deep into the tools and mindsets you need to elevate your practice and create lasting change for both you and your clients. Whether you're a seasoned professional or just starting out, the trauma teacher is your go-to resource for overcoming challenges, embracing your unique healing artistry and thriving in your career without sacrificing your wellbeing. So if you're ready to become the confident, creative healer you were meant to be, you're in the right place. Let's get started. - Hello, and welcome back to another episode of "The Trauma Teacher". Today, we are talking about what do we do? If, or what do we do with that fear of our clients presenting a problem that we don't know how to help them with? Like, we all have kind of this underlying fear in the background, some of us may be worse than others. For me, I don't really struggle with it as much anymore, but I know early in my career, I definitely, definitely spent a lot of time worrying and having some anxiety over like, what if my clients present me with a problem that I just don't know how to help them with? Like, I was terrified of that moment when they say something and I freeze and I'm like, what do I do? What do I say? I don't know how to help them. They're paying me a lot of money to sit here in front of me and I'm not sure what to do. So I'm gonna talk about this. It's a common issue that a lot of therapists, coaches, healers face. So I wanna kind of demystify it a little bit, talk about where some of that fear and us comes from, the feelings that we experience, and then also what our clients actually really need and just how to conceptualize this whole thing so that we can break down the fears around it. And I, you know, my goal is for you to feel really comfortable and know that you are enough just as you are, that there isn't something so incredible that a client can present with that you're going to get stuck. And it's all about how you approach the issue at hand. It's how you approach healing in general. It's how you approach connecting with people and helping them that's going to keep you from like getting stuck in that mindset and really moving on and moving beyond it. All right, so there's this pressure that a lot of us feel and it's normal, like we have people who've paid money to sit in front of us. And, you know, if we get stuck in that, if we get stuck in the mindset of, they're here for me to give them answers. They're here for me to fix them. They're here because they want help and I have to be the one with the answers. I have to be the one to really help. But the deal is, is first of all, they're not looking for perfection. They need somebody to be really present with them and what we know about people and their healing journeys and what they actually need is we, it's, you know, that they need to be self-sourced. They need to find those answers within themselves and depending on the life experiences that they've had, they may not know how to trust themselves yet. They may not know how to self-source. They may be looking for the answers outside of them. I need you to fix me. I need you to fix this. I need you to tell me what to do. I need you to fill in the blank, right? So when somebody shows up in session with that energy of I need you to, then if we're not really secure in who we are, if we are struggling with imposter syndrome, if we are struggling with being a rescuer and fixing and taking care of people, then we can feel that energy when somebody comes in and kind of then our anxiety stirs up, right? Or we feel the pressure of, okay, they're expecting this for me. They are paying me for this. So I need to provide what they're expecting. I need to provide what they're wanting for me. But that in the long run is not helpful and I'm gonna break down why that is, but first I just wanna talk about our approach and our mindset that we go into sessions with, what we know is that they are the experts of their own life. What we know is that they, that the most effective powerful thing that we can do is teach them how to trust themselves, trust their intuition, self-source, what is actually going to get them out of the situation they're in, what's actually going to bring them the healing that they can connect with that within themselves. So when they show up, but if they have had a lifetime of people telling them what to do or a lifetime of trauma and broken experiences and they don't trust their intuition, they don't trust the space of ambiguity. They don't trust, it feels very disempowering and centering, re-traumatizing for them to be in this space of uncertainty. Then they're wanting to, then they're like, I'm gonna come to you and you're going to make things certain for me. You're going to fix this for me. You're gonna tell me exactly what to do and I will do it. There are so many people. Me included sometimes where I'm like, just tell me what to do. Just give me the checklist and I will do the checklist. I'm a good doer. I'm a good, I'm good at getting things done. I'm good at accomplishing things. I just don't know what to do. I feel stuck, I'm scared, I'm overwhelmed, all the things. So just tell me what to do. And if we absorb the energy when they're initially coming in, then we get stuck in this trap of rescuing them. They remain in this addictive state within their own life and they're not actually moving forward. Now, it may feel good in the moment initially if we are like, okay, I've got you. I'm gonna tell you exactly what to do. I'm gonna help you out. I'm gonna relieve the stress that you're experiencing of this ambiguous place of uncertainty by making things certain for you. Of course, they're gonna feel relief in that moment because that's what they're desperate to experience is the relief of this ambiguous uncertain place. And then we feel good because it's like an ego hit for us. It's like, oh, I just saved someone. I just rescued someone. So in that moment, it can be very satisfying for both parties. However, you haven't really solved anything for them long-term. You've just reinforced the idea of I can't fix things on my own, I can't self-source things. I need people outside of me to tell me what to do. So while in that moment, you've relieved some anxiety and some stress. They're going to re-experience the anxiety and stress very soon after because we haven't really talked about the skill set or the tools to be able to navigate this on our own. All right, so we'll check my notes real quick. We sure I'm staying on track. So what we really wanna do is help them build the skill sets and the tools within themselves to be able to solve the problem, to be able to handle and manage, as much as it's as much about handling and managing this ambiguous, uncomfortable, uncertain place as it is about finding the resolution for themselves. Like people, highly resilient people, highly successful people can manage the space between, can manage the, I don't know what to do space. I'm not sure what's happening. I'm not sure where my life is going. I'm not sure, maybe there's just been the death of a loved one or maybe the end of a marriage or coming out of significant childhood trauma and trying to figure out how to create a life for themselves and how to trust themselves and how to trust other people and how to build, like I don't know anybody who isn't managing some form of ambiguity, the uncertainty about what's coming, about what's next. And honestly, anybody who is very certain means that they are living in a false narrative that they have more control than they think they do. That's a whole other episode, we'll get into that later. But what we wanna do is help people navigate being with themselves and finding the ability to manage, you know, the words that are coming to mind is get comfortable and get okay. They don't have to be comfortable in the ambiguity. But what we do want is to help them navigate how to stay present with themselves and find the answers within themselves without us rescuing them or saving them from the anxiety that they're experiencing. All right, so let's talk a little bit about rescuing versus coaching. So many, many, many people who go into the helping professions, I say this in just about every episode. So you've probably definitely heard me say this before, but many of us have experienced really hard things. Many of us have experienced trauma of some sort and some of the significant trauma and that's why we go into this field and that's why we're so good and the work that we do is because we understand pain, we understand suffering, we know how to be present with pain and suffering. We, many of us, you know, within our family systems are the one who was a peacemaker, a problem solver. Many of us were the ones who were able to just hold a lot of the heaviness and relieve the burden from the people that we love so that they can be calmer, be happier, be more functional. Like this is how we maintain connection and attachment within our system, family system, you know, environment and so that we could like, we're mammals and we have to have that connection, right? So we figured out that, okay, if I hold a lot of the weight of the pain and suffering, I can handle it, then it frees other people up to be more relaxed, to have calmer nervous systems and then we can stay connected to them. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, it's an incredible survival skill that many of us developed. However, over time, we tend to then think that that's like normal and that that's our calling and that that's who we are. It's so unconscious for us that we can sit in a session with our clients, hear them talk about their pain and suffering and not just hear it but feel it. We're highly empathic, right? We can feel their sadness, their greed, their pain, their heaviness and it is instinctual for us because we've done it for so long to rescue them from that, to lift the burden of that for them, to make things okay, to make them feel better, to give them solutions, to lighten the load so that they can feel a sense of relief and many of them if they don't know how to, I mean, trauma causes us to disconnect, right? So a lot of the clients that we see are really highly disconnected within themselves. They are very fearful of ambiguous spaces because bad things have happened in the past in ambiguous spaces. Bad things have happened in uncertainty. So if you have a complex trauma survivor who comes in and things feel unsure and uncertain for them, they, that's equates to I'm not safe because in the past when things have happened that we're out of their control or out of, you know, when they felt unsure, then a bad thing happens and they're like, they are just equating with, I'm not safe, something bad's gonna happen because I'm not sure what's happening. And so if we're not really, really careful and conscious of our own patterns, of our own anxiety that we experience when somebody else is in pain, then we can unconsciously go in and relieve their stress which relieves our stress because it stresses us out to see people sad and in pain and overwhelmed. However, it, like I'm saying, it just repeats the cycle for them and for us but we're focusing on our clients of them not feeling like they can take care of themselves, not feeling like they can self-source safety and security within themselves and ultimately that's the biggest gift that we could give them is the ability to come home to themselves and be able to tolerate the anxiety and the fear that is present whenever a situation, whenever our current circumstances feel unstable. So for us to be able to create, you know, to kind of rise above the fear and anxiety that they are experiencing and know, okay, like I have so much empathy and compassion because they're scared and they're worried and they don't trust themselves and they feel like something bad's gonna happen and I can be so present with that reality with my clients and so compassionate with that reality with my clients and validate that that's what they feel and that's how they, what they're experiencing and they just, they're wobbling around and I feel so unstable and so unsafe and be really present with them in that pain and in that instability without taking away that feeling and without connecting to my own anxiety and taking away my own anxiety. So what I do when I have a client who comes in and who's feeling very unstable and really wants me to take care of them and really wants me to rescue them and really wants me to manage that space for them and provide a path forward. I can't provide a path forward for them because I'm not them, right? And they can tell me their story but I don't know all the nuances of what they've been through and I definitely don't know what's best for their future. Only they can figure that out. Only they can, that can illuminate for them because I can't assume anything, right? I've got my own history, my own background and my own goal that I'm working towards, I have no idea if there's a lines with that or not. So for us to stay out of that rescuer role and into a space where we can hold the space for them, we can be present with the pain and suffering with them, we can, like I said, have compassion for that. It's important that we model for them how to be fully present in the moment where there is pain, where there is grief, where there is sadness and anger and loss and destruction and be able to be there without escaping it, without running away from it, without minimizing it, without exaggerating it, but just be in it. How do I feel all of these feelings? How do I just be in the feelings? Because it is in being in the feelings and processing those feelings and being present with those feelings that allows us to then move through them and heal them and then begin to see the light on the other side and the gifts that come to us after having experienced the things that we've experienced, right, the wisdom and the depth of self, all those things come on the other side of pain, but we can't, our clients will not get to experience the gift of, oh, I hesitate to say gift 'cause I don't wanna minimize the depth of the pain and suffering, but there is no pain and suffering without finding parts of ourselves that we didn't know existed and we didn't know it was possible to find, like think of any famous thought leader that they have a story, right? They have a lot that they've been through and they've earned the wisdom that they can then share with the world because they have moved through and grown through the painful things that they've been through and that's the same as true for our clients and the same is true for us. But if we rescue them from having to feel the full weight of their life, the things that have happened to them and the choices that they've made, then we shortchange them, we hijack their ability to gain the wisdom and the insights and the strength that they have earned because of the experience that they've had, right? And that has so much to do with our own anxiety, that has so much to do with us trying to save ourselves and save them from feeling big, deep feelings. But we can't do that. This makes me think of, I was working with some counselors who are in the schools and from the international schools like in Kiev and it's just so heartbreaking the stories of so many families. So many families are living in Poland and have been displaced there and man, talk about pain and suffering. Like these families are an incredible chaos, suffering, pain, frustration, overwhelm. Not when is this gonna end? What's gonna happen? Which of my family members are gonna make it? Like you name it. There is an unimaginable amount of pain and suffering that they're experiencing day to day without a knowledge of when it will end, right? Which makes it that much worse, just not having any kind of certainty for how this is going to end. And it's so, you know, in working with these counselors, they're just so understandably desperately trying to minimize the loss and minimize the pain and not minimize it like as in a discredited, but like, you know, make it not so big, especially for the children. Like the children who've already lost a parent in the war or children whose parents are off fighting in the war and they're living with other family members, or, you know, all kinds of just really, really deep heart, very sad, very real experiences that these children are having. And it's so normal for us to want to relieve the burden of that for the children and not make it so bad. But the reality is, is it is what it is. We can't take away the suffering that they're experiencing. We can't lighten that load for them. What we can do is stand beside them, hug them, encourage them, connect with them, be present with the things that they're experiencing and that they are thinking and that they're feeling and not minimize those, not exaggerate those, but just allow them to really stay connected to what's very real for them. Because this is real. This is their real life. We can't make it not so. It is so. And so the greatest gift we can give these children and the greatest gift that we can give our clients is understanding it is as real as it feels that it is. And like I said, not going off into exaggerating, making it more and definitely not minimizing it, but not trying to take it away either. Like this is however you believe circumstances happen in people's life. Again, that's another episode. It doesn't matter. This is the circumstances with which they find themselves. And so allowing them to, or providing the resources and the space and the encouragement for them to self-source, the courage and the strength and the tenacity that they can walk through what they're having to walk through with eyes wide open. They can self-source the strength to manage the circumstances with which they find themselves. I'm in the middle of reading Man Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl and hearing him describe being in the concentration camps and the torture and the depravity that they were experiencing there and the way he was able to frame things in his mind and accept what it is, but also think I'm not going to go into the book, but just talking about the mindset and the ability to manage and handle this is my life. This is what I'm walking through right now. This is the suffering that I'm experiencing or that I have experienced. I can be present with this. I can hold this. I can handle this. I can walk through this, allowing our clients, whether they're children or adults, whether it's something that happened in the past or it's happening in the present, what an incredibly powerful gift we can give to them if we can teach them just how to be very present with the reality of the emotion that they're experiencing as a result of their life experiences. But we're only able to do that if we've been able to do it for ourself. So if you have had moments in time where you, if you've had a less than ideal childhood or you've had things that have caused pain and suffering for you, if you have tried to escape that, those feelings or minimize them or exaggerate them or try to fix other people so that you can resolve that conflict within yourself. Like if you have avoided really being present with those feelings within yourself, then you're going to encourage other people to avoid them as well unconsciously, right? You just are. So this is why it's so important to first be very self-aware of the anxiety that we're experiencing but the desire that we have to take away the pain and suffering from other people. Like if we haven't resolved the pain and suffering that we ourselves have experienced or the people that we love have experienced, then we are going to unconsciously not be able to really be present with the people that we're serving. So, like I said, this session, this podcast is all about knowing what to do when somebody presents a big problem. It isn't even about knowing what to do. It's, can you be present with the problems that somebody comes forward with? When they have the expectation of fix me, can you take a deep breath and understand they want me to fix them, but I know what they actually need is for me to help them and teach them and guide them on how to be present within the experience that they're in, that the emotions that they have and self-source the energy and the vision for how what the solution to this problem is or what the solution or the resolution that comes with walking through the experiences that they've had. Like I know that this is what they need. So what makes me, you know, another thing that makes, so let's say I've decided I'm going to get super fit, you know, I'm going to go to the gym and I've been doing all this research and I know like I need to eat more protein and I'm supposed to do this for this amount of time. So I go to the trainer or the nutritionist and I'm like, okay, I've done all the research. Like I know what I need to do. I just need you to help me stay on track. So I know that I need to work out this many times with this amount of weights and I need to eat this much protein. Like I know this is what I need to do. I just need you to hold me accountable and make sure that's what I need to do, right? Like so some of our clients kind of come in with the mental health version of that and what the nutritionist would be like, okay, like I hear what you're saying. It's cool that you've done some research but I'm like the professional who actually understands how bodies work and the nutrition that you need and we need to look at your numbers and where they're at now and then we need to create a plan that's really gonna be work. That's gonna be effective for you and work with you. Like so some of our clients come in like that. Like I know what I need you to do for me. So do it. And if we're feeling insecure and if we're feeling like, oh, I need, they're paying me a lot of money and I need to make them happy. I need to give them what they're saying they want or what they say they need, then what if I can't do that? What if I can't provide the answers for them? What if I can't hold them accountable, you know? So, you know, or let's say I've just had it with working out and trying to eat healthy and everything I've tried doesn't work. Nothing works for me. And so I go to this nutritionist or I go to this fitness expert and I'm like, you know what, just tell me what to do. Just tell me what to do. I don't know what to do. You fix it. You take care of it, right? And then I just tell them to do all the work. You manage this for me. You, and then if I expect them to do all the work, which some of them probably would, some of them would go overboard and try to provide all the things and all the work. But then do I really learn how to take care of my body? Do I really learn how what workouts they're supposed to feel like and look like? Do I really learn how to manage my nutrition if they do all the work for me? No, I need what we need as a nutritionist or a fitness expert who knows how to teach me to understand my body, to understand my body cues, to understand the signals that's sending me on the, and when I'm hungry and what kinds of things that I actually desire and need to eat and all those things, like somebody who's really going to create effective long-term change is somebody who's going to teach me how to know myself. Physically teach me how to know myself nutritionally and the same is true for us as therapists. When we teach our clients how to know themselves, how do you experience sadness? What is actually effective for you in processing sadness? How do you experience anger? What is actually effective for you in processing anger? But we can only do that if we can sit and be really present with them when they want us to take it away, when they want us to fix it, when they want us to have all the answers, right? When they present a problem and they're like, "You do it from here. You take care of it. "I don't want to hold this anymore. You hold it for me." It's really tempting to want to relieve them of that because again, like I said, it's satisfying for them in the moment, it relieves their anxiety. It's satisfying for us, it's an ego hit for us because we have just made somebody feel amazing for a few minutes, but the next time some little something trips them up, they don't have any skillsets or tools to be able to self-source, getting themselves through it. They're always going to need you as a survival skill, as a sort of somebody to help them or if it's not you as somebody else. And we're not actually really teaching them anything or providing the growth that we know that they need long-term to really be able to source through and grow and heal and change. All right, so I'm gonna talk a little bit about taking my notes really quick, be sure I'm on track. So before I go into like some specific steps, I do want to talk a little bit more about what coaching, like, and when I say coaching, therapists can be coaches too, like because we are. It's like the antidote to rescuing would be coaching, would be staying on the sidelines, would be encouraging, providing tools, providing resources, holding space for whatever is is, modeling that within our own self modeling, being able to just be present and silent and in discomfort to model being able to not let anxiety hijack my decisions and the way I talk and the choices that I make, but just sit with it anxiety for a while until I work through it and think clearly about, okay, what's next? What do we need to do here? What's happening? How can I support you in creating what you want and what you need? Tell me what that feels like. So I'm gonna get into the logistics of like specific things you can do in just a moment, but staying, you know, if you think about any team, you know, we just watch the Olympics when you're watching the Olympics, the coaches are on the sidelines, the coaches are yelling at times, they're encouraging, they are supporting, they are emotionally invested, they're involved, they're leaning forward, they are, so it's not like they're taking a really passive stance. No, they're very much present and involved, but they're not on the court playing the game. The players on the court playing the game, our clients are in it. They're in the middle of whatever they're in the middle of and sometimes it's really, really intense and sometimes it has been intense and now they're trying to figure out how to recover or maybe it's, you know, things are going great, how do I not self sabotage, whatever it is, the coaches are staying on the sidelines, they're present, they're involved, they're offering tools, resources, skills, encouragement, challenges, like they are in it, but they are not playing the game. The clients, the players are playing the game, right? They are the ones managing their life, making the ultimate decision, experiencing the rides and fall of whatever those decisions are. And it's about allowing them to take full responsibility of the life that they're living, the choices that they're making and us being there to really support them and encourage them along the way. So let's talk about now some really practical ways to embrace uncertainty and therapy, some really practical ways to allow for this, allow for our clients to take ownership of themselves when they're ready to or even when they're not ready to, right? So first is get comfortable with silence and this is something that we learn in school. Like I remember talking a lot about, you know, even teachers learn this a lot and working with children, like allow for the silence, allow for the think time, allow the space for the processing, right? But in this space, we have to really pay attention to our own anxiety. If you are feeling a little unsure about who you are as a coach or a therapist, if you are feeling unsure of your ability to really help people, if you are, and this could be just a pervasive general sense of self or it could be, you know, maybe something big has just happened in your life and it's caused you to kind of question everything. Maybe your personal life is turned upside down right now and so it's caused you to feel a little unstable in your work or maybe you've just been turned into your board by another client for whatever reason and you've gotten caught in the crossfires of all of that and so it's caused you to question everything and feel really unsure like this happens to all of us. It happens, some of us have a more general sense of, I don't really know that I have what it takes and some of us are feeling a little more secure but then life happens and it just creates the instability so paying attention to your own anxiety and especially if you have a client who comes in who is wanting you to take over, like here's my problems, fix it, what are you gonna do? How are you gonna help me, you know, and kind of have that attitude of like, I'm paying you to take care of this, so take care of it and for us, you know, some of us can feel anxious about that and like, I don't wanna disappoint them or what if they get mad at me or what if they write a bad review about me or what if they do so? So as for us to be able to take a deep breath, not absorb that energy but pay attention to our anxiety about that energy and be okay with the silence and just taking a beat, taking a moment to let the energy fall where it's gonna fall, right? And then get curious in that space, how is my client gonna navigate? I'm not, I'm not acting on my anxiety and I'm also not picking up their anxiety. I'm gonna let it fall in the middle of the room. How are they reacting to that? Like get curious about that and just wonder, instead of assuming you're doing something bad or doing something wrong, lean forward, get curious, how are they gonna manage me not picking up and rescuing them from their anxiety right now? All right, so that's the first step. Step number two is just ask open-ended questions. If a client presents a problem or an issue and you're not sure which direction to take it, take that silent pause, acknowledge your anxiety, put it to the side, take the deep breath and just ask them open-ended questions. Trust that you will find with your client, you guys will find what's next, you'll find the light, you'll find the path. You can't see it right now but that doesn't mean you have to fix it, that doesn't mean you have to know it and that doesn't mean you're a bad coach or a bad therapist. You just need to ask them open-ended questions until it reveals itself. So what do you think is happening here? How does this feel? Where in your body are you feeling that? Have you ever experienced something like this before? Or when have you experienced something like this before? I just ask some open-ended questions and allow the path to illuminate itself. Allow them to find what needs to happen, allow the space for them to pick back up some ownership of what they need and where they're at and where they're going and how they feel. Allow them to reconnect with how they feel and hold those feelings for themselves. Where in your body are you feeling that? When have you felt like that before? What is it like when you experience that? Allow them to come back to holding their feelings for themselves and you do that just through being very patient. It's okay for there to be silence, that wait time, that think time and asking open-ended questions allows them to hold it again and model the vulnerability. It's okay to say, I'm not sure yet where we're going with this. Let's explore it a little bit more. Let's explore it together. So what your modeling is, I can be okay in ambiguity. I am comfortable and feel safe with myself in the unknown. You're modeling that by saying, no, I'm not sure, I'm not getting anxious about it. It's not stressing me out. I'm not worried about whether or not I make a therapist because I don't know where to take this session yet. I'm not sure what's gonna happen. I don't, so, but I am calm, regulated and safe in the unknown. I'm modeling that, right? I don't even have to say it out loud, I'm doing it. I'm modeling it. I'm showing my client. Let's take a beat, let's take a deep breath and see what's gonna happen here. Let's explore this together. Not only am I modeling it, but I'm letting them know you're not alone. We're in this together. I'm gonna walk beside you until we see it, until you find it, until you can hold it for yourself, right? So I'm not just modeling it. I'm holding the space for them. I'm showing them how to be present with it. So letting them know, you know, I'm not sure yet, but we're gonna find this together is such an incredibly powerful model for them to begin to use and learn how to regulate their own nervous systems and ambiguity in the spaces of the unknown, right? And letting go of outcomes. I understand that my client's ability to stay present with themselves, to keep a regulated nervous system, to think curiously in these unknown spaces is one of the greatest, if not the greatest tool, that they can gain through the process of therapy. It is not about the outcomes. Of course, I want them to have the wins. Of course, they wanna have the wins. Of course, it's a be-in-law thing when we get to be with clients who are able to be in the light, release the pain and suffering, see themselves in a new way, have the incredible relationship after the painful relationship, get the job after years of not having a job. Like, whatever those wins are, whatever those moments are, when we get to witness those and be present with those, what a gift, what a gift for us to get to experience those. But I'm not looking for those with my clients. I celebrate them and I am so full of joy and gratitude when I get to experience them with them. But what I know is that helping them navigate themselves and navigate their emotions, not just navigate, but process and feel and experience and be present with emotion in the journey is the greatest gift that I can give them is what's healing for them, is what brings them home to themselves, is what restructures somebody who is so shattered from the life experiences that they've had because the truth is, life is never over until we're dead. And so they are always going to be in a process of some sort of waiting, of some things coming next, of uncertainty. There's never a moment which many trauma survivors are living and waiting and trying to curate that more life feels perfect and safe. I have a relationship, I have my family, I have a job, I have plenty of money in the bank, I have some fun things happening, like they wanna make everything curated and safe and holdable and predictable. And it's so understandable why trauma survivors want that, right? And if you're a trauma survivor, you can relate to wanting that, to wanting that really comfortable, confident, predictable safety, but any adult living in the world knows, that is not a realistic reality to look forward to create, that is not something, so it might be more unconscious for some than others, but many people are like, I'm gonna do therapy, I'm gonna do this so that I can get it over with, I can do hard things. So I'm gonna do the hard stuff, I'm gonna heal from all the things, I'm gonna do all the things so that I can achieve this end result of me not having to worry about it anymore, of me not having to manage stress and chaos and pain and suffering anymore. I'm looking for, you know, this also makes me think of like fitness journeys, like I'm just going to do the hard work now and eat the healthy things and workouts that I can achieve. And once I get to the body I want, then I don't have to think about it anymore. But no, no, I'm like, getting the body you want is a continual, something that you invest in every day for the rest of your life. And the same is true for our mental health, for our sense of safety, for our connection to self or the processing of emotion. This is something that we have to do a skill set that we gain and do for the rest of our life, right? So it is the process of teaching our clients how to be present in the process that actually is the most empowering and healing and life giving thing that we can help them understand and see and gain those skills and tool sets to be present with their own life and process emotions in their own life. So even more so, like there's not now, you know, when I have clients come in, I still feel, I can feel my anxiety come up just a little bit if I have a client who comes in who is like, I who has the energy of take care of me, fix me, deal with this. I don't want to deal with it, give me the answers, give me the solutions. I feel the ping of the like, oh, I don't want to disappoint them. I don't want to, of course, I feel that. I don't act on it, but especially for somebody that I respect or somebody that holds a very powerful position or somebody who I know makes a shit ton of money. You know, like if somebody, if it's somebody who is a powerful person who's coming in, who's like wanting me to be a consultant more than a therapist, then of course I can feel my like, oh, I don't want to disappoint them. I don't want them to write a bad review. I don't want to, you know, this is going to be a consistent client for me. And of course that's, I'm human, I feel it, but I know I'm not in service, in highest service to them if I act on that. I know what they actually need. I know that it's in the processing of them being comfortable and the uncomfortable of them, learning how to manage and navigate the day-to-day and learning how to experience emotion and continue to move forward with their life and process what's happening in the space between, right? It's the unknown. If I can teach them how to really be present with themselves through that space, then I know that they can create, first of all, they can handle anything that comes their way in the future and that they can continue to create the life that they want and that they desire because they know how to manage all the things that are coming their way because they've processed all the feelings from the past. I haven't rescued them from those feelings. I haven't rescued from them from those experiences. So whatever is very real for them, they're able to stay very conscious and present with. All right? So the four steps, again, is getting comfortable with silence, allowing the space, paying attention to your own anxiety in that space. The second one is just ask open-ended questions. Allow yourself to stay present. Don't escape your anxiety. Stay present, lean in. Ask open-ended questions until the next, until what needs to happen in that session is illuminated. Model vulnerability. Saying, you know, I'm not sure. We're gonna figure this out together, staying present with them, staying present in the ambiguity and being vulnerable in that space, not needing to close off, not needing to self-protect in any way, but knowing, I mean, that just exudes confidence and self-trust, right? And that's what you wanna model for them so that they can begin to develop the self-confidence and self-trust to be present and know that they're safe and they're okay, even in the ambiguity, even in the unknown, all right? And letting go of outcomes, letting go of the need to see them achieve or accomplish or heal, because it's glorious when we get to experience those outcomes, but we are just one piece and their whole trajectory of life. And maybe for this time period, at the time that we get to be with them, we are just teaching them the process and being present with them in the process and helping them find their own process and being present with themselves. But it is in the process that the real healing happens, it is in the process that their true sense of self is developed. And I know that, so I'm not, again, I celebrate the outcomes when I get to see the outcomes, but I'm not looking for the outcomes, I'm not driving to the outcomes and I'm definitely not hijacking their process so that I can achieve what I want to see them accomplish. It's so selfish, so selfish. And that's about me, that's about me needing the ego hit, that's about me needing to see somebody heal from something or get something or achieve some things that I can feel good about who I am as a therapist. Like, that's about my ego and my anxiety and my fear that's getting soothed. That's not in the highest service with the people that I'm helping and that I'm serving. All right, so letting go of those outcomes and understanding that it's about the process and about the journey and about who they are, the skill sets that they're developing within themselves in that journey and in that process. All right, so it has been a pleasure and a joy to chat with you today. I hope this has been helpful for you as you are navigating, working with and healing people. If you are interested in getting certified in the trauma model that is the bedrock of all of the work that I do, then I would absolutely love to help you get certified. The link to understand more about that as in the show notes, follow me on Instagram, all the things and I will see you next time. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
