Light After Trauma

In this solo episode, Alyssa closes out the year 2020 with a heartfelt thank you and a message of encouragement as we head into the new year.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hey everybody. Happy holidays. This is the first holiday season that I've been able to experience as a podcast host and this will be the last episode for the year of 2020. I just wanted to pop on and do a short solo episode today as we gear up for the holiday season, well, we're actually in the home stretch of the holiday season. But I just wanted to come on and do a little recap and say, thank you to all of the listeners out there. So this episode will be somewhat short and sweet.

Alyssa Scolari [01:12]:

2020 has been, I don't know, one of the worst and best years of my life and the lives of many others. And as a disclaimer, I don't profess to know what it's like to have COVID, I thank God have not had COVID yet. I've had close family members that have had COVID, but I haven't had anybody who has been lost to the illness. And I do not for one second, pretend that I know what it's like to be a healthcare worker on the front lines, because I simply don't. I'm technically a healthcare worker, but I'm a trauma therapist. So my safety is not at risk every time I go to work, I luckily have been able to work from home. But it's still been really difficult, it has been traumatic. Whether you have a history of trauma or not, the year 2020 has been extremely traumatic. And I've been doing a lot of reflecting on this year, especially in the last, I'd say six months or so. And I'm doing my best to try to pull the good out of 2020, because there's been sickness and death and riots, and some of the most inhumane acts that you could possibly imagine. And I'm trying very, very hard to find the good in it.

Alyssa Scolari [03:04]:

So in all the reflecting that I have done, and I apologize as a little side note if you hear some voices in the background, it might be my husband, our house was small, we were in the process of trying to move. We actually sold our house, but unfortunately, a couple of pretty unfortunate events happened in our lives and we just decided that the time wasn't quite right for us to move. So we're pushing it off a couple of months. It's a little quiet in my little town home, but if you hear voices, it's probably Dave.

Alyssa Scolari [03:43]:

So anyway, I digress. When the year first started, I can't even really remember what January and February were like, they were pretty dark months for me before the pandemic hit. As I was still going through uncovering repressed memories of trauma. I was in therapy four days a week and the months were just difficult. I didn't look forward to turning 28, my birthday is January 6th. And now here we are a year later on top of the pandemic and quite honestly, I'm really not looking forward turning 29. And that could certainly be the depression talking, which I think we are all experiencing. I have found that in my private practice, in my career more now than ever, the depression and the isolation and the suicidality, it runs deep. It runs deeper than I've ever seen it.

Alyssa Scolari [04:53]:

The other day for the first time I found myself crying for my patients. I have a child who is trying to move through guilt after having a parent who is in a coma. I have another child who is homeless. I have families that have just completely shattered and fallen apart as a result of COVID and the demons that it has brought out in us. And I found myself just sobbing because as much as I want to help and I want to change everything and I want to fix everything, I can't. I can only be there in the ways that I'm allowed to be, but as therapists we're not fixers and we're not miracle workers and at best we help you to find ways transform your own life.

Alyssa Scolari [06:01]:

So I've been feeling a little bit helpless because it just seems like there's so much tragedy in the world and not a whole lot that I can do. And then I thought of this podcast and I realized that this podcast truly has been the light that has come out of all of this chaos in the year of 2020. When I started this podcast, I figured that if five people listened and their lives could be changed somehow for the better that it would all be worth it. And now here we are at the end of 2020, and we have nearly 2000 downloads and the downloads spread across five continents and dozens of countries. And you all are tuning in worldwide to hear my voice and the voice of other trauma survivors. And to hear this message repeatedly, that there is light in the aftermath of trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [07:12]:

So in the spirit of trying to find the light in this awful pandemic, I have realized that this podcast is the light. And I have realized that by relation, I am the light. And starting this huge project that I never thought in a million years would take off as saved me in more ways, which I could possibly count. I have found myself meeting incredible trauma warriors who have fought the good fight and have taken all the pain that they have endured and have created such beauty from it. And I find myself inspired every single day by the work that I do through this podcast and through the blog and by the support that I have from all of the listeners out there. I just want you all to know that as much as I may have helped you, you all have helped me a million times more. Because there have been some very dark days this year, not just COVID related, but I ended a relationship with somebody who was extremely close with me, selling the house fell through and just a million other things that unfortunately at this point in time, I can't even get into have sent me into a really bad place. The depression has run very deep in myself.

Alyssa Scolari [09:04]:

But I am blessed because I get to wake up every day and I get to plan and I get to meet new people and I get to record podcast episodes with folks from all over the world and find out what they did and how they recovered from their trauma. And then I get to go into my office and I get to sit with kids and adults who I have the utmost respect for. I don't know what anybody thinks about the way therapists feel about their clients, but I can tell you this, it is not an emotionless profession, it is the exact opposite. I have a caring and concern and respect and love for my clients that I could never possibly put into words. And I feel honored that I get to hold space for them to be able to walk their journey to healing.

Alyssa Scolari [10:06]:

So this is my light. This is the light that I have found. And it's so ironic because when I named this podcast Light After Trauma, I had no idea what the rest of the world had in store for me. Right after I named this podcast, I was in the hospital. And then from there on out a slew of extremely, the best way I could put it is like just a series of unfortunate events occurred. And I had no clue at the time when I had this idea to name the podcast Light After Trauma, that I would be the one who needed the light. And I know that there are so many other people out there that need the light as well and I am glad, and I am grateful and I am beyond blessed that this podcast has been able to be a light for some people.

Alyssa Scolari [11:09]:

But I also want you all to know that because of you, because of the support and because of the downloads, I was able to find the light in myself as well. So I know that the holidays this year are going to look much different than they normally do. And I don't know what that might mean for you, I don't know if you're spending time with family, if you're not spending time with family. Whatever it may mean and whatever you end up doing for the holidays, please always remember that there is light at the end of the tunnel, and there is light that can be pulled from the darkness. Whatever you do, please just always know that things will get better, keep hanging on, keep hanging in there. There's a new year ahead.

Alyssa Scolari [12:07]:

Listen, I'm not big on new year's resolutions and if anybody right now is listening to this and is considering adopting some sort of like a weight loss style for their new year's resolution, I'm just going to tell you right now, please don't do that, it will fail. Not because of you, but because diets never work. So let me not even get on my diets don't work pedestal because that's not what this episode is about. This episode is really just about thanking you for supporting me and for hearing my voice, because truly nothing has been more healing than to be able to have this podcast and to be able to speak to all of you. So happy, happy holidays. Please try to find whatever joy you can in the days that remain in 2020, I will see you in 2021.

Alyssa Scolari [13:10]:

I already have some great content lined up for all of you. I know my clinical supervisor, Rebecca Christianson, and I are already starting to put our heads together to do a series on grief. So we've got a lot of good stuff coming up and I am excited for where this podcast takes us. Happy new year.

Alyssa Scolari [13:35]:

Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode for more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website at alyssascolari.com. I'm also on Twitter and I'd love to chat with you guys. Be sure to follow me. My Twitter handle is Alyssa Scolari. Thanks again for listening and take good care.

More often than not, the "bad kids" in this world are really just traumatized kids in immense amounts of pain. Tune in to this episode with Michael McKnight, co-author of Eyes Are Never Quiet and Unwritten-The Story of a Living System, to learn about how making a connection with kids who are hurting can often mean the difference between life and death.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:22]:

Good morning, good afternoon and good evening to everybody out there. Hope you are all doing well. And I hope that you had a wonderful Thanksgiving or at least as good as it could have gone. And I hope that you are all hanging in there as we head into the Christmas holiday, Hanukkah holiday. My name is Alyssa Scolari. I am your host of the Light After Trauma podcast. And I have with me today, Mr. Michael McKnight. I am going to turn it over to him, because he would like to give his own introduction. So, hi, Michael, welcome.

Michael McKnight [01:03]:

Hey, thanks for inviting me and I'm excited to be here. Just a little bit about my background. I started out as a classroom teacher for what our system calls emotionally disturbed or emotionally troubled students. I taught adolescents mostly removed from regular schools for behavioral and discipline issues. I did that in three states. I was a classroom teacher for 13 years. And then I became an administrator at Atlantic County Special Services School District. And for 10 years or a little bit over 10 years, actually, I help run the program for emotionally troubled kids ages five to 21 removed from schools, mostly in Atlantic County, but sometimes in counties around Atlantic County. So it is those young people that I give credit for driving my learning. And they continue to drive my learning today.

I currently work for the New Jersey Department of Education in the Cape May County office, where I serve as a middleman between Trenton and all the school districts in Cape May County. Also, another fun thing I've really enjoyed doing is I'm an adjunct at Stockton University, where I get to teach future teachers in the intro to special education course there as well as doing professional development for schools and districts really now all over the country. So that's a pretty much a little bit about me and my background. So we can get started with some questions and go from there.

Alyssa Scolari [02:49]:

Yes. So for the listeners out there, this is my first time meeting, Michael, but my mother was actually the one who said, "You should look more into some of the stuff that Michael's doing, because I've heard him present." I mean, you do lots of presentations, right?

Michael McKnight [03:11]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari [03:12]:

She was like, "I heard him present and I really feel like you would love the stuff that he's talking about," because we're very similar in our line of work in that we are fighting for effective change with a population that a lot of people don't want to be bothered with, which are children. We like to protect children to an extent in the sense that we make sure their physical needs are met, but sometimes when their emotional needs aren't met, we don't really help them out a whole lot with that. And as a therapist, so many people say to me, "Oh God, why do you want to work with kids?" So I have my own response to that, but I think that's the question I'm first going throw at you, which is what was the driving force for you? What was the inspiration where you were like, "This is the field that I need to be in?"

Michael McKnight [04:07]:

That's a really interesting question. Way back when I was in school, I actually had thoughts of becoming an elementary school teacher, but I started in community college and ended up when I transferred going to a state school in Pennsylvania that offered a dual degree. At the same time, I could become elementary certified and also get my special ed degree. I knew nothing about special education. This was back in the late 70s. Special ed had just really begun.

Alyssa Scolari [04:45]:

I was going to say they probably didn't know much about special ed.

Michael McKnight [04:48]:

No. I mean, it was pretty and at the time I didn't even realize it was a new field, but you know how that goes. So really what took me was quite accidental. I did my student teaching and my elementary student teaching was in kindergarten. And I had never really been around real little ones. And it actually, I remember even to this day, driving home, going, "Oh my God, what did I do? I just made the biggest mistake of my life. I can't do this." Little guys were all over the place. I couldn't get them to line up. I had no idea what I was doing.

And this is the second half of my student teaching was with adolescent troubled kids. And I just have always related to adolescence. I love the age group. And I think of adolescence, their gift to the world I see it as a gift of fire. They're just really always just a live in a nice sign and a great sense, sometimes almost too much. But so I always gravitated to that and ended up really picking that as my first attempt at trying to teach them.

I must tell you though, the first two years of trying to teach adolescents labeled emotionally disturbed, I was working in Pennsylvania in intermediate units at the time. And my first two years were just literally a nightmare, very difficult. I had no idea what I was really getting myself into and really no idea what was underneath all the behavior I was looking at. So certainly that difficulty still drives my wanting to share with teachers, because I know how stressful it can be to try to manage a room full of young people that are carrying in so much stress and trauma. That is very difficult. So they've taught me a lot over the years and certainly I give them as well as a few just really lucky to bump into a few really, really great mentors over the years that also really helped me a lot and were not easy to find.

A couple of those people, I'd just like to mention, Dr. Larry Brendtro from the Reclaiming Youth Institute. Larry's probably now in his early 80s, still puts out excellent work in materials about working with really difficult troubled children. Dr. Nicholas Long from the Life Space Crisis Institute. Also, a mentor of mine that really began to help me see underneath the surface behavior of kids that are caring in what we now know is toxic stress and trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [07:51]:

Yes. It makes me so emotional when I hear you say that you learn so much from adolescence, because that is exactly how I feel about my job as well. When I get people that say, "How could you work with adolescents?" My response usually is, "Because they teach me how to be alive." I've learned more from my kids, not my biological kids, but the kids that I work with, I call them my kids. I've learned more from them than I wonder if they could ever learn from me.

Michael McKnight [08:32]:

I hear that.

Alyssa Scolari [08:32]:

So it truly is a gift and an honor to be able to work with children, particularly with adolescents, because they find themselves in this alternate reality of childhood and adulthood that unless you're in it with them, it's very difficult to understand. So with that being said, this idea of toxic stress, what do you mean by that? And what are some of the things? So I know you said that, that's what underlies some of the negative behaviors or the unwanted behaviors, I should say, but can you talk a little bit more about the toxic stress?

Michael McKnight [09:15]:

Well, sure. I didn't even tell you how and when I learned it. So probably around my fourth year of teaching, I decided to join an organization called VisionQuest and become a teacher for them. Back then VisionQuest was literally running wagon trains with adjudicated adolescents out in Arizona. And my future wife and I went out there and got immersed in not only teaching these young people that were coming right out of jail into a program, but actually getting to live with them. They had group homes. After they did their wagon trains, they came to places that VisionQuest had set up with group homes in a school. And that's where I worked.

Myself and one other teacher, taught these young people and they taught me a lot, because I would actually go to the meetings at the homes at night. We worked probably 90 hours a week, but that's where I first started to hear the stories underneath the behaviors of some really troubled kids. There was not a young woman that we worked with that had not been sexually abused multiple times, horrendous stories of runaways. That was the first time I really had heard lots of stories about male sexual abuse. And these kids were literally kids in pain. And that's where I began to really say, "Well, wait a second, these aren't kids that are just waking up trying to make my day miserable, which they're very good at, but these are kids that are really, really, really hurting and hurt people." So it was there that I really started to get a sense of, "Oh my gosh, what's actually going on. So that was my first beginning, look underneath troubled kids and really getting to know them as well as their story.

Alyssa Scolari [11:28]:

And was that ultimately the inspiration for... Well, I guess I should say, both of your books or one of your books, because you have two books out, correct?

Michael McKnight [11:39]:

Yeah, two books out. It's funny how that works. I certainly would have never dreamed that I'd ever write a book, let alone two books. So I met Dr. Lori Desautels probably now 13 years ago. And Lori is a professor at Butler University. What drew me to Lori was not only was she teaching future teachers, but Lori still, even to this day, goes into schools and works with kids. So she's bringing her learning from the university actually into the classroom and trying things in classrooms around neuro science with kids. She's also really an expert in educational neuroscience and that's where I began to join my work with her work and what's going on inside the neuroanatomy of kids also, as we learn about toxic stress. So if I had not met Lori, it was certainly her idea to write both books. And actually it was much more fun than I thought it would be.

Alyssa Scolari [12:48]:

I bet. And I'm such a huge brain nerd. So one of my favorite things to talk about, not just with the kids, my patients, but also with teachers and school districts, educators, other therapists is what is actually happening to a child's brain when they are enduring toxic stress. So is that more Lori's wheelhouse?

Michael McKnight [13:15]:

Well, now, you know what I mean? It's really all both are wheelhouses now, but we certainly continue and we're certainly not expert neuroscientists, but we do know enough about the brain and we know that it downshifts under stress, that the thinking part of our brain, our executive function, we know really doesn't fully develop until 25 years or older. And I always laugh, because I always say females are a little bit before male brains. Hard to believe, right?

Alyssa Scolari [13:49]:

Yeah.

Michael McKnight [13:50]:

And really under stress that cortex, the thinking part of the brain, the language part of the brain, goes offline. And we're down in that amygdala that fight flight a region of the brain and words don't work there. So really the idea of learning about how the brain science fits in with what we're seeing with kids and the idea of the need to regulate these kids, not punish them, we need to regulate them. So we want to shift the whole concept of discipline more toward regulation issues and how do we co-regulate a class full of kids and how do we co-regulate individual students? So that's the big shift where we've been playing with in a nutshell.

I love Stephen Porges's definition of trauma, trauma is a chronic disruption of connectedness. So, in a nutshell, trauma is an embedded experience, it's in the body and it moves us away from connection toward protection. So instead of seeing these kids behaviors as just atrocious, what we're looking at is young people's protective behaviors. And how do we begin to break through that well developed wall? For good reasons, they develop that wall. And how do we begin to reach out and make connections with these young people? And that's a lot of what our work really focuses on.

Alyssa Scolari [15:40]:

And what does that look like in practice? I guess, what is the message that you're sending too? When you teach the courses at Stockton University, what does that look like? How do we take that and put it into practice in the school system?

Michael McKnight [16:01]:

Well, that's a giant question, right?

Alyssa Scolari [16:04]:

I know. How do you fix the world? That's what I want to know.

Michael McKnight [16:09]:

What we really talk about is the critical importance of making connections with kids. So it becomes paramount. So we look at bottom up strategies of working with kids. And when I say that, I talk about and think about, for instance, one of the activities that we do when we're working with grade levels or schools or a department, would be just do a gallery walk with the staff and really check, have a list of all the kids' names that they come in contact with, which kids are we connected with and which kids aren't we really touching too much? We talk about touch points with kids and dosing connections.

So our most troubled kids as they go through schools, have fewer and fewer connections with adults. So what we try to do is intentionally, because teachers will connect with kids. What we want to do is set up those connections intentionally and on purpose and provide time to dose those kids and keep an eye on them. And this isn't hard, it's just a big shift in the way we think about what we're doing. Lori and I don't want to give teachers another program to do, God forbid, something else to teach. We really want to create just a framework of ways that they can think about teaching kids, connecting with kids and building those touch points.

We also want to teach kids about their brain. So as young as kindergarten, at certain levels, we're teaching kids how their brain works, what it does. And it's fun because they like doing it, they love teaching their parents about it. So it's not just teaching the teachers about it, but we really want to teach kids about their neuroanatomy a little bit, so they know what's going on within themselves.

Alyssa Scolari [18:22]:

Yeah. And I really appreciate what you say about how we don't want to give teachers another project, because I think that so many teachers are so overworked, underpaid. I mean, let's be realistic. We could talk for hours about the traumatic experience that can be in teaching, right?

Michael McKnight [18:46]:

Absolutely. I think not only do we talk about resiliency building with kids, we certainly talk about it with teachers too, and the ability for staff and educators to build their own resiliency too, because it becomes critical particularly now, my God, with the stress levels of what this pandemic has created in schools and the uncertainty of what's going on. I mean, the staff really needs a boost and really some self care kinds of things so they can continue to do the stressful work that they're trying to do.

Alyssa Scolari [19:27]:

Yeah. Right. I think it's so important to point out that, when you say part of the importance is in making connections, which I could not agree more with, that is crucial. Those connections don't necessarily have to even take up a ton of time, small little gestures, small moments that tells a kid, "Hey, I see you." And it goes such a long way. I have a girl, I met her when she was in sixth grade and I met her through the Police Department after multiple run ins with the police. The police were pretty much fed up with her. She comes from a family, probably some of the worst abuse and neglect I've ever seen in my life. And she was forced to come see me. And she fought me tooth and nail the whole time. She had to do, I think, six sessions with me and she fought me.

It probably took her six months to do those six sessions, because she kept bailing on me. When I tell you that to this day, she still does not want to do therapy, but to this day, actually over the weekend, she reached out to me and just asked me a question, just said, "Hey, I have a question about X, Y and Z." And I was like, "This girl knows." She's in high school now and this girl knows. So I saw her for maybe six times, but she knows that I care. And it goes a long way with kids.

Michael McKnight [21:14]:

It sure does. So one of the things we teach, because what we're doing is every summer Lori and I both in Indiana, that's where she is, as well as New Jersey, we've been teaching what we call school level resiliency teams. We've been doing trainings and they're turnkey trainings. So these teams, we require an administrator to be part of them, but these teams spend three days with Lori and I. We go through three days of stuff with them, everything from the brain and neuroscience to trauma and toxic stress and how to make connections with kids. We're still introducing. A lot of teachers still aren't aware of adverse childhood experiences, adverse community environments. Although it's out more than it's been, it's still not widely known, it's still not taught in our educational programs to future teachers.

So we lay that out. And then what those teams are tasked to do is go back to their district or their building and spread this around their buildings. So we've trained teams in Cape May County, Atlanta County, and Cumberland County so far. And it's been really at least a way to get even just basic information out there about what's going on with your most troubled kids. You were talking about the importance of connections, there's something that we share with them. It's called the two by 10 strategy, and it's really simple. You just really set it for two minutes a day for 10 days in a row, pick one of your kids that you're having trouble connecting with and have a personal conversation with the kid about something the kid is interested in and then track how that goes. It is about really making and getting to know and listen to those kids.

And the two by 10 strategy, real Google-able, is easy. There's been some research around it and it's about intentionally making those connections. And that's where this work starts. And it really shifts the thinking from what else can we do to punish this kid toward what can we do to help this kid want to cooperate with us? And that's about connection. We cooperate with people we like, basic. So let's make those connections with kids.

Alyssa Scolari [23:58]:

Yes. And we cooperate with people who are safe.

Michael McKnight [23:58]:

Yeah, absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [24:02]:

And if you come at a child with the same rage that, that child's parent has been coming at him or her with, or them, you're not safe, because you're just like every other adult.

Michael McKnight [24:21]:

Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [24:23]:

Now, do you have any recommendations or any thoughts, because one of the things that I'm noticing in my practice is so many of my kids feel so disconnected on these Zoom classes, online schooling. I mean, they cop on, they turn their cameras off, they go back to bed and they're like, "I don't care, my teacher doesn't even know my name."

Michael McKnight [24:50]:

Well, again, I mean absolutely, connection actually I think becomes more critical as we're doing remote schooling. So how do we infuse some connecting activities as we do remote learning? And part of that is finding developmentally fun things to do with kids online to create that same sense that you would if you were in class with them. So to just drone on and do Zoom meetings in school all day long, which our recommendation, and some schools are following it. I think some are just trying to do this like we're just doing remote schooling. This is crisis schooling. This isn't just remote schooling. We're doing crisis schooling and we need to limit some of the time spent on Zoom, but we also need to infuse some things into Zoom that will bring those groups together and allow us to connect.

And those activities are easy enough to do. The idea though is to shift and know that the brain learns best in a state of relaxed alertness. So how do we begin to create a space of relaxed alertness and how do you calm your own self down? The two easiest ways to calm something down is breath and movement. So how do we weave these kind of things in and begin to do that? So, I mean, even at an elementary level, if you're on a Zoom, even, "Hey, run around your house and find something that's shiny and come back and show it to us," or just fun activities, almost like show and tell activities with some movements, some sharing, some getting to know each other, simple questions about, Hey, and noticing kids.

I mean, if kids are turning off their cameras sometimes because schools are not noticing them. I mean, if you can be able to say, "Hey, I noticed you got a haircut, I noticed, Hey, you got a new outfit on, where did you get your new hat?" Those kinds of things go a long way. They take a lot of time.

Alyssa Scolari [27:13]:

Oh, they really do. Yeah.

Michael McKnight [27:15]:

And it's really about, I see you, I recognize that. And even talking a little bit about this pandemic. We're in the midst of a global pandemic. That's not something that's uncharitable. I think we need to share that. I think we need to be able to say, "Hey, that's what causes some people to feel this way, to feel that way. If you're having those feelings completely normal, we all are, here's some things we can do to help." Those kinds of things go a long way and they can be done over Zoom. But the first reality is, Hey, we're doing crisis schooling. This isn't just remote learning. And I still think some schools are having completely grasped that. I know the Department of Ed hasn't. We're still barreling along like it's a regular school year doing monitoring, teacher evaluations. I mean, it's just-

Alyssa Scolari [28:14]:

And that pressure trickles down.

Michael McKnight [28:14]:

Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [28:16]:

And it's so hard, because at the end of the day right now, when we are in a crisis, like you said, it's crisis schooling. And sometimes that math lesson might not get completed.

Michael McKnight [28:28]:

That's right. And it's not going to be the end of the world. And these [crosstalk 00:28:31] going to be behind for the rest of their lives. That kind of busyness is really what I see when adults begin to downshift. When we become stressed, we become ultra busy, we pretend that we can do things that we can't do that make really very little sense. That's adults in their amygdala area, in that stressed area. We get faster and faster rather than slower and slower. And we put out from our end, Lori and I, part of our job is to buffer our children from this stress and the buffer us from stress, so that we can begin to function in that calm manner where the brain learns best.

Alyssa Scolari [29:21]:

Yeah. And so one of my favorite activities, and I really do think that there are some cool activities that you can do to get kids participating and in this state of relaxed alertness, as you said. And one of my favorite activities that I have seen people do on Zoom with classes is the make a face and then throw it at somebody. And then that person has to mimic the face and then make their own face and throw it at somebody else. So it forces people to not only pay attention. So they're alert, because they're like, "Well, I don't know when am I going to get called on? Who's going to throw me the face? So everybody's watching each other and there's an element of silliness and playfulness to it. So it relaxes people, it gets people more comfortable around each other and it makes people want to show up and want to be there.

Michael McKnight [30:17]:

Absolutely. Anything fun is a great stress buster, right?

Alyssa Scolari [30:22]:

Yeah.

Michael McKnight [30:22]:

And when you see the disappearance of fun in children and adults, there's something going on. It's telling you, you really need to stir this up and stop taking ourselves so seriously and have some fun. Young people learn through play. I mean, little kids learn through play. I mean, we are genetically playful animals. If that disappears, that's not a great indication that learning is going on. So actually the exact opposite. So, I mean, I think weaving that in is important.

Other things we really share too is how do you provide win-win strategies with kids, providing them choices in their assignments is just a way to, again, okay, if you've got a page full of 20 math problems, instead of doing them all, have them pick their favorite 12. So as something as simple as that begins to take away some of that strain and giving kids some power of choice, those kinds of things, really, really critical as we do those kinds of things. I think really important to do with kids.

Alyssa Scolari [31:37]:

It's critical always. And especially right now when kids feel especially powerless and we all feel especially powerless, but to give them some autonomy in their work is I think great.

Michael McKnight [31:53]:

Yeah, absolutely. And we can be pretty creative with that. But again, I think a lot of it also, and that's when Lori and I train our resiliency teams, it's one of the reasons that we require a principal to be on that team, because leadership's critical in this and can leadership get an understanding? The third role is really to buffer their teachers from toxic levels of stress to give them some guidance about what's okay to do and take some of this stress away from teachers. Yes, we don't have to finish the whole textbook this year, this is going to be different, but kids don't learn in a straight line anyway, nobody does. We'll be fine. We can catch them up. Let's really first take care of business and make sure everybody's connected, feeling safe.

And now that we're seeing at least a possibility of an end to this pandemic, because we really are all experiencing pandemic stress by now, whether it's labeled that or not, the end with the vaccines is a bit hopeful. Can we hang on and really just see our job as supporting versus getting kids to learn vast amounts of new material under toxic levels of stress?

Alyssa Scolari [33:20]:

Right. The stuff you're talking about is so important. And I love the title of your most recent book, Eyes Are Never Quiet, because it just reminds me of the one thing that my mother always said to me, which was a kid's eyes or anybody's eyes are the window to the soul, which obviously my mother didn't coin that term. But that was something she said to me when I was very, very young. And I've always taken that with me. So I guess what I want to ask you is what is the gist of your newest book?

Michael McKnight [34:04]:

Really the gist of Eyes Are Never Quiet is seeing underneath surface behavior, is really taking a look at what's going on inside these young people and reframing what we're seeing away from discipline toward regulation. All people need to be co-regulated under stress. We will need co-regulation our entire lives, even as adults we co-regulate one another when we're in stress. Just think of the last time you had some stress in your own personal life, I hope you had another adult or a friend you could go to that actually helped with co-regulation. That's so natural. And it's what every mom has tried to do with their babies as they fast, as they're growing. Human beings need one another to regulate.

So part of what we talk about as teachers in classrooms full of kids with all different kinds of regulation systems, one of the things we talk about is how do we become a thermostat in that room instead of a thermometer? How do we set our own temperature regardless of what's going on around us and be able to make really good decisions about what we're seeing with young people? We do a bunch of things with kids. I'll show you one of the things. One, we teach what we call focused attention practices which is really, we see teaching needing to do two things. We're like weathermen. I have to be able to calm a group of kids down so that they're ready to learn or I have to be able to wake them up so that they're ready to learn. And throughout the school day, you can use strategies to do both with groups.

So when we talk about adolescence, so one of the things we use with adolescents to wake them up, we can do on Zoom, I'll show it to you. If you make a peace sign with one hand and an okay sign with another, go ahead, try this. What I'm going to tell you to do is when I say go, you're going to switch these. This will be the okay sign. This becomes the peace sign. And then we're going to go back and forth as fast as we can. So ready, set, go. It's hard, isn't it?

Alyssa Scolari [36:37]:

I can't do it.

Michael McKnight [36:39]:

So we use those activities to wake kids up, they laugh. But the other thing we do is we tell them what's going on in their brain and why it's so hard to do that. You're literally going across your brain regions when you switch hands. But as we practice, we'll get faster and faster. And it literally shows you over time that as you use it, your brain will actually rewire itself. And that's what learning is. It's making those neural connections. So we use activities like this for fun ways to wake kids up, but also to teach them if you want to become good at something, you've got to do it repeatedly and over time. So we have tons of those in the back of Eyes Are Never Quiet as wake ups.

Alyssa Scolari [37:38]:

I love it.

Michael McKnight [37:39]:

Okay. The other thing we do is really talk about lower regions of the brain, breath, movement, sensation, those kinds of things. A lot of stuff that a really good occupational therapist use with kids can be stolen by classroom teachers. And that calms that lower region of the brain that really has no language. So if we want to create safety down there, we can do things like scribbling with both hands at the same time on a big sheet of paper, very calming over time, doodling is calming, having kids soccer piece of candy is calming. It's not like, Oh, let's get rid of the mints, drinking plenty of water, all those things, we can use as teachers as we create the weather in our classroom, right? So how do we infuse these into our daily routines and practices to keep everybody in that regulated areas best we can.

Alyssa Scolari [38:52]:

And I would say that a lot of the stuff that you're talking about is also useful, not just for teachers, but also for mental health professionals and parents.

Michael McKnight [39:03]:

Absolutely. Well, we've been doing a lot of parent trainings on Zoom. Absolutely. Certainly. Yeah. Anybody working with people actually, it's pretty easily transferable and certainly very transferrable to parenting and really getting parents to take a look at what's going on, how to avoid conflict cycles with young people. We've got to get kids in their cortex before we can really problem solve and often. So this isn't about just calming kids down, it's really about getting them in a state so we can fix a problem. If they're off that much, we've got to co-regulate them, we've got to settle them down and then we've got to figure out how do we solve whatever this problem is? So it takes a little bit more time, but it's way more effective.

Alyssa Scolari [40:00]:

Yes. That's one of the primary things I teach with parents of kids is like, when things are heightened, don't go into that, do not go into that fire, we need to regulate, and then we need to come back to it.

Michael McKnight [40:16]:

Yeah, because if you don't, you end up damaging the relationship and you end up breaking the connection. So it's critical for adults to understand that dynamic, because emotions are highly contagious, but we can use those emotions, whether it's our own kids emotions or our students to understand what that kid's feeling. So angry kids will make us feel either angry or afraid. Okay, that's what's going on in that kid. A depressed kid over time is going to have us starting to feel hopeless ourselves. Those kids that put their sweatshirts on and just put their heads down, they're not problem kids per se acting outwardly, but inwardly they're having some difficulty and we need to recognize those kids, the kids that act out, the kids that act in. And then trauma causes kids to be hyper aroused. It feels like attention deficit disorder. These kids don't have ADHD.

Alyssa Scolari [41:23]:

Yes. Thank you.

Michael McKnight [41:25]:

That is all over the place, because they're in a persistent state of alarm. So how do we calm them down? And educators and many, even a lot of people just don't recognize that. We want to get that out there.

Alyssa Scolari [41:45]:

Yeah. I thank you so much for saying that, because that is something that I wholeheartedly believe that we are diagnosing ADHD and I'm not saying ADHD is not a thing, I'm not saying that-

Michael McKnight [41:58]:

No, I'm not either.

Alyssa Scolari [41:59]:

... but when there is unresolved underlying trauma and toxic stress, we can not jump right to, this kid has ADHD. We can't do it. And I have so many people, I even have adults that come in and they're like, "I think I have ADHD." And I'm like, "But you've been traumatized your whole life and you never learned how to deal with it and you grew up in an extremely stressful and dysfunctional toxic household. So why do we think it's ADHD?"

Michael McKnight [42:34]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [42:37]:

Yeah.

Michael McKnight [42:38]:

Again, that's why digging under that surface behavior a little bit is really important, because certainly anybody that is in a persistent state of alarm is going to look and feel like that and yet that isn't the issue, the issue is underneath that. And actually, we have really lots of kids with that. I mean, one of the things we do in our training, in 2019 New Jersey put out their adverse childhood experiences, a study from New Jersey. And what New Jersey even found was over 40% of children in our New Jersey public schools, more than 782,000 kids have at least one ACE, 18% of children are estimated to have experienced multiple ACEs. So we're walking through hallways, going into classrooms with kids that are carrying in levels of stress that we really have to begin to recognize, because it'll not only interfere with their behavior, it interferes with their learning. So we want to really try to get this word out to parents, to communities, to schools, to educators in as many, many ways as possible.

Alyssa Scolari [43:58]:

Yeah. And for the listeners out there, if you're interested in learning more about the ACE study, I did do a full episode on it. I want to say it's either episode one, it's somewhere between episode one through four. So you guys can go back and check that out, because I did do a full episode on it. But I mean, thank you so, so much for coming on this podcast today. So I've actually started reading your book which I just love and I've found it so fascinating. I am going to link Michael and Lori's book, I should say, on the show notes as well as in the private Facebook group so that you guys can have that. If you are interested, you can click on the Amazon link download. And thank you, you're doing amazing work out there. And I really appreciate you coming on here and talking about it.

Michael McKnight [45:03]:

It was fun. It was great way to start our week. And thanks again for asking me, it was a lot of fun.

Alyssa Scolari [45:11]:

Of course. Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website at alyssascolari.com. The really great thing about being a part of this newsletter is that not only do you get weekly updates on new podcast episodes and blog posts, but you also get access to the private Facebook community as well as access to all sorts of insider tips, resources, and info graphs that supplement what we talk about on the show. You also can connect with me and other trauma warriors. I'm super active on the Facebook community and I look forward to talking with you.

Tune in for a candid conversation with consent educator and sexual literacy advocate, Rosalia Rivera. Rosalia dedicates her life to supporting sexual trauma survivors on educating their children about pleasure, consent, and boundaries in order to prevent abuse. Whether you're a parent or not, this open discussion about sexual pleasure and the importance of knowing our bodies is useful for all of us. To learn more about Rosalia's work, visit www.consentparenting.com

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hello, hello. Welcome back for another episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari and I am here today with Rosalia Rivera, who is a Consent Educator. So we're going to be talking a little bit today about consent and abuse prevention. I am so excited to have her on. So Rosalia Rivera is also a Sexual Literacy Advocate, a Speaker, a change agent, and a founder of CONSENTparenting and host of the AboutCONSENT Podcast, creatrix of CONSENTwear and a child sexual abuse survivor turned thriver. She has helped sexual abuse survivors who are now parents learn how to educate their children on body safety, boundaries, and consent so that they can empower their children to prevent abuse. Hi Rosalia, how are you?

Rosalia Rivera [01:24]:

I'm doing really well. Thanks for having me.

Alyssa Scolari [01:27]:

I mean, I know I said this before we started recording, but I love everything that you stand for.

Rosalia Rivera [01:34]:

Oh, thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [01:36]:

I love how open you are, I'm truly honored to have you on this podcast because the work that you do, I feel like nobody is doing, and nobody is shedding... or I shouldn't say nobody, but not many people are shedding any light on this area. So could you just talk a little bit more about what you do and how all of this came about for you?

Rosalia Rivera [02:03]:

Yeah. Well, first of all, thank you, I'm honored to be here and to connect with your audience, it's work that has been 20 years in the making that I finally had the courage to start doing almost two years ago publicly. I started doing it with my own family in terms of educating my kids over four years ago now, but I also want to acknowledge all the people who in one way shape or rather inspired me to do this work as a survivor to showcase it from the lens of a survivor, which is really where I think there was like nobody doing it, right?

And although there are amazing educators out there talking about this, there's organizations that are trying to push for awareness on this topic, and I think that they are all doing great work, there really wasn't anyone that was speaking from the survivor lens, that was really connecting with people that were parents who these already traumas themselves and understanding how do you navigate, how triggering this can be as a parent and then to teach your kids, and then to try to empower them and protect them and live with the anxiety and all the things that come with it.

And so I just realized as a survivor myself, coming from a mom who's a survivor and having a sister who's a survivor and knowing so many, I just felt like we have to find the courage. We have to tap it, we're all so powerful and society, and all of these different ways that we are conditioned to believe that when something happens to us, we are no longer either valuable, or valid or that we're broken, and then that brokenness doesn't give us the ability to overcome, and I've been able to do all those things with so much support that I wanted to help others be able to do the same. I wanted to pay it forward and just being able to see the transformations and the feedback that I'm getting on a daily basis from parents has been so deeply rewarding and proof, right? That this is definitely needed and that this is where I need to continue working.

So thank you so much for bringing me on and also for your platform that you're also one of those warriors on this path with me. So it's really not something that I feel like I ever do alone. This is something that more of us can come together and talk about this. The more we can dismantle shame, the more we can dismantle taboos, the more that this conversation comes out in the open, and that's exactly what we need to be able to... It feels like we're in a war against predators, right?

We're in this war against those who find ways to stay in the shadows and continue to hurt others. And so by us speaking openly and tapping into our courage, and speaking about it in ways that we haven't before, that's how we're going to win this war. And so, the fact that we're here together talking about it is one more win, one more battle that we're winning.

Alyssa Scolari [05:23]:

Yup, yup. That's one more battle that we've won in the war against, like you said, the war against predators, the war against even the shame and the guilt that we are led to feel that rape culture makes us feel like, well this is my fault. We are in a war against all of it. So right, even just coming together as two survivors of childhood sexual abuse, to get real about how to break this cycle, because when you are as you know, a survivor of sexual abuse, trauma gets passed down through generations, if we don't actively try to break that cycle, and that's what you're doing on your platform with kiddos, right? One of the most triggering things I think for any sexual abuse survivor is to become a parent.

And I would say... And maybe you could shed a little bit more light on this, so I personally don't have children, I hope one day to be a mom. That's one of my biggest aspirations in life, I can't wait to be a mom, but I wanted to continue to work through my own sexual abuse because I understand how triggering it can been. I would say that it's probably triggering from the moment of conception, not just when that baby's in your arms, it's the whole pregnancy, right? Would you agree with that?

Rosalia Rivera [06:53]:

I think it's different for everyone, but it tends to be for many people, like for many parents, it can be that moment, but for others it's actually, when it hits its peak, is maybe at the same age that your child's becomes the age that you had started to be abused. So for a lot of parents that's the triggering point. For others, it's just even considering, thinking about having a child. For me, for example, I didn't want kids, and it's ironic when I first met my partner, I remember on our maybe first or second date, I was like, "I don't want kids. I don't want to get married." And it was a mutual agreement.

We both were like, "This is great. We both want the same things." And then two to five years in, I harassed him until he finally said yes to having a baby. We both really did want to, and I think it was a matter of determining if we shared the same values in terms of parenting, and that was really what made me realize this is someone who I could parent with, but for me I actually didn't get triggered until my child... And for me, I actually had repressed memories, so I hadn't really come to terms and confronted my own abuse until my child was five. My first child was five.

Alyssa Scolari [08:18]:

Was that when you began uncovering?

Rosalia Rivera [08:20]:

That was when... Yeah I actually went to a hypnotherapist and I was like, "I don't understand why I'm so anxious." I was also starting to be real self sabotaging about things in my life and having major anxiety and panic attacks and came to terms with the fact that it was because I had not realized how scared I was of my own child being abused. I thought like I could just protect them always, right? And that was my mother's default too. She just was really over-protective because of what happened to her. And unfortunately didn't look in the right places, right? And didn't know where the dangers could be.

So that was one of the things that also informed the way that I did it, but I think in terms of being triggered yeah, it can happen from the point of conception. It can happen during the birth itself. It can happen when your child hits that age, or it can happen when you suddenly realize that people may... You may feel unsafe about someone and all of a sudden everything rushes back, right? So there's so many ways that parenting in general, children in general can be a trigger. It can even be, not even your own children. It can be you see someone else's child sitting on someone's lap and it makes you feel uncomfortable because you're not sure if that child is safe and that can be triggering, so it's just a landmine when you haven't stepped into any healing and even in the process of healing, right?

So I mean for me, one of the things that I always advocate with parents that I work with is to prioritize your own healing because that's what's going to help you be able to do this abuse prevention education. Otherwise, what happened with me was that I would pause, I would start educating myself and I would try to implement it and then I would get triggered by it, and I would stop for awhile. I would keep talking about it, and I thought, "Oh we've covered some of the basics, so we're good." But then something else would come up and it would trigger me again, my child would want a little bit more freedom do something, and I realize if I let them do that, then that means that there's a potential for danger.

And I haven't taught them enough yet. And then I would feel guilt and shame and be triggered again and get the anxiety. And I was like, "I have to do something." And so I was like, "I have to figure out how to do this." Because I don't want to repeat what happened to my mom, what happened to me, what happened to my sister, it has to end with me, and so as triggered as I was, I realized I needed help. And so that's what put me on this path. So yeah, I feel for parents who they all of a sudden, it's like this can of worms basically opens up.

Alyssa Scolari [10:58]:

My heart breaks for parents, and I had repressed memories as well. And I feel like could easily do an entire podcast episode on just repression and what that does to you. But I don't know how people manage, it's just tough when you have kids, because I could barely manage myself when I started having all these memories come to the surface, I didn't even know where I was half the time. So just to have kids and then to go through the uncovering process is so difficult, so difficult. And I love what you said about how it stops with me, right? This stops with me because I very much have that attitude as well, which is like, this will end with me and my family.

Rosalia Rivera [11:50]:

Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever see... Well, I'm a huge Game of Thrones fan. I know that the show in and of itself can be triggering for people because there's a lot of sexual violence in it. But one of the things that I really connected with was the main character of Daenerys Stormborn, right? She gets captured at one point by, I can't remember the name of the group, but she gets captured, and she's in this space where they're telling her, you are worthless, you're our slave now, and we basically will get to do what we want with you, and you're lucky if you spend your days serving us, right? And they have no idea who she is, what they're messing with, and she's like, "No, this is where it ends. You guys have no idea what you've stepped into."

And a lot of times when I would get triggered in the past, there was a sense of helplessness. And through this healing, through tapping into my power and reclaiming it, I realized that I made that switch. And I was like, "I don't have this fear anymore because this rage that I used to feel has transformed into this proactive energy that I use everyday to channel how I can empower myself and my kids." And it has really gone from that feeling of like, "Oh my God, how can I possibly protect my kids, to I am doing what I need to do now to protect my kids." And I'm making sure that they know that they have the right and that I always have their back. And all of these things that we do.

And it's so transformational to go from that fear based place to this confident, I'm doing everything in my power and nobody better mess with me or my kids, that's what I want everyone to feel because when you're little and you go from this place of being hurt and helpless, and for many unfortunately either not believed, or blamed or whatever their experience was, that requires healing. It requires you to go back to yourself and tell yourself you're going to be okay, and we're going to get through this together. And that healing process can transform your parenting in such beautiful and positive ways. And I know that for a lot of parents who haven't stepped into their healing journey, that can seem so foreign. And so like, "Oh, I can never do that." Or maybe for someone else, but my trauma was really bad.

My sister for example, has complex trauma because her abuse was over a period of years. So, for anyone who's listening and is like, "My abuse was years and years." I get it. I completely understand my sister is still healing. But it's possible, the beauty is that even witnessing her transformation, it's slower because of so much that she has to overcome, but it is so possible. So I just want anyone who's listening to know that it is absolutely doable and no one can take away your power, it's inside of you and you just have to find the way to tap into it, so...

Alyssa Scolari [15:24]:

Yes, in a way that's... And I 1000% echo that because it is possible and it is perhaps a little bit more challenging in some ways with complex trauma, but there was this transitional moment for me and I have complex trauma as well, and you go from feeling like your emotions have control of you to feeling like you have control over your emotions. And specifically that rage, when you have that unchecked rage, it comes out in a million different self-destructive ways, but that rage doesn't go away. You take it and you use it to say no more. No more, no more, no more. I'm going to be the reason why this stops in my generation, with other people. I mean, it's why we get into this field I believe.

Rosalia Rivera [16:29]:

Right, absolutely, yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [16:32]:

Yeah. So can you just talk a little bit about what it is to be a Sexual Literacy Advocate?

Rosalia Rivera [16:40]:

Yeah. So I'm glad you asked. So one of the things that... I grew up in a very conservative home, I was fully a Catholic, I'm from [crosstalk 00:16:50]. Yeah, so I'm an immigrant. I grew up in New York, but I am originally from El Salvador, so my mom grew up in El Salvador during a really conservative time there, and when we moved to the US it was a major cultural clash for her. And she just really was freaked out about how liberal... It was in the early 80s. So Madonna was singing Like a Virgin and then making videos with corn bras and stuff. And she was just mortified, but she was also raised with a very sex negative perspective, obviously being a survivor herself, also having experienced negative sexual experiences, right? So when I grew up, we didn't talk about sex at home. She couldn't even say the word vagina, there was no conversation other than to warn me to say, "Be careful because all that men is sex." And she wouldn't even say sex, she's like, "All men want is the thing between your legs." That's literally how she explained it to me-

Alyssa Scolari [17:58]:

That's what she would say?

Rosalia Rivera [18:00]:

Yeah. And so she really got it in my head that sex was not really pleasurable for women, that it was a duty that you had to do when you got married, and it was really for procreation. And that's the extent of the education I got at home about it. And then at school, it was like the basics of STIs and abstinence-based information. So when I went off into the world, I really felt like something was wrong with me because I considered myself to have sexual desire. And I thought like, there must be something terribly wrong with me, maybe I was supposed to be born a guy. I really believe that for a while, if I have sexual desire, that means, I should have been a boy.

Alyssa Scolari [18:47]:

I felt the same exact way when I became a teenager. I truly did. I thought I should have been a guy-

Rosalia Rivera [18:55]:

That's so... I've never met anybody else who thought that.

Alyssa Scolari [18:58]:

Nor have I, but I honestly for a time thought, "I think I should have been born a man because of my sex drive."

Rosalia Rivera [19:06]:

Yeah. I was like, "I must have too much testosterone or something." And so there was a lot of shame that came with that, right? It was like, I shouldn't want this. And so I was date raped when I was 17. So I of course then blamed myself saying like, "I must have put the vibe out there. I must've said something or dressed the wrong way. I didn't listen to my mom and put myself in situations." And so I couldn't tell her because I thought she was just going to be mad at me and blame me. And then I just had no idea that consent could be withdrawn all of these things. So sex has been a very integral part. I wanted to actually be a sex therapist because I really wanted to understand sex in general.

And I went to school for it. I didn't end up... In my third year, I decided to leave for various reasons, which I won't get into right now, so that really stuck with me that we don't talk about sex yet it is such a huge part of our lives as humans. And I see so much that is wrong with the way that we talk about sex, the way we deal with sex. It's so taboo yet it's so in your face, all over the place. So it's this weird dichotomy, right? And as I continued to educate myself about sex as someone who was born with a uterus and a vulva versus a penis, just that understanding was so important for me to say, "I want to educate my kids in age appropriate ways of course, but to make sure that they have the information that they need to make the healthy choices about their sexual lives."

Because, one is understanding your body, understanding consent and respect, but there's also this sense of understanding how your body works. That actually has a lot to do with abuse prevention. And so when I talk about parents teaching their kids about consent and abuse prevention, they hope that they don't have to talk about sex ed, right? And they hope that, that's not a necessary part of the conversation, but it actually is a huge part of the conversation. And there's two reasons why. One is that, children who don't understand the way that their bodies work, so for example, the fact that the genitals basically have the highest concentration of nerve endings than any other part of the body and that they feel good. It's natural for the body to do that, right? If they don't understand that, right? A predator could take advantage of that particularly the younger the child is.

They could take advantage of the fact that a child does feel pleasure when they're touched there, and if they don't know that it's unsafe, that can be very normalized for them, right? A predator could very easily normalize that and say, "Well, it feels good." And then actually implicate the child, make them feel guilty, or make them feel like they wanted it, right? And that can be a very confusing experience for a child. So if a parent can't explain the basics of how their bodies work and to let them know that it's okay for them to self explore and then educate them about safety and say, "That's safe for you to do. It's not safe for anybody else to do, right? To you." And educating them about the concept of unsafe touch.

One thing leads to the other, right? And even educating them about the names of their body parts, that's sex ed. Sex ed is educating your child about the fact that they have a vulva and labia and clitoris, all of these little things that I know for me, I couldn't even say that. I couldn't even say that word for a really long time-

Alyssa Scolari [22:58]:

Exactly. Giving your child the language, right? Giving your child the language, and I have to say, I mean I'm 28, and I only just this year began to learn as part of my recovery that it's not a vagina, it's a vulva. I am just... And of course now I have a beautiful artistic portrait, an abstract portrait of a vulva that my best friend sent me. Thank you Urvashi, that's framed and hanging in my bedroom, but there're so many parts that... Right? And part of it is education. This is your vulva, right? This is the labia, this is the clitoris. If we give kids language again, abuse prevention, because then they can speak about what is happening,

Rosalia Rivera [23:51]:

Right. Yeah, and if someone touches them inappropriately, they can say exactly where they were touched. So there's these various reasons, but even beyond that, as the child gets older, them not having shame about their bodies, right? That what their bodies do is normal and making sure that they don't have shame about exploring their bodies, right? We grow up with so much shame. So one of my missions is to dismantle shame. I think we grow up... There's this idea that I don't know if you've ever heard of the Madonna-whore complex, but it's this idea-

Alyssa Scolari [23:51]:

No I haven't.

Rosalia Rivera [24:30]:

Okay, so I have been talking about this, I recently published an article about this for both Latina Magazine, and it was basically to talk about this idea that is known, but it's not very mainstream, and I really want people to get this in the mainstream so we can start to shift culture. And this is where we can dismantle shame, and it has a really big impact on survivors particularly, because the basis of the Madonna-whore construct, which is really this antiquated patriarchal concept, right? That was originally created from when women were sold off basically as property in a marriage contract, which is really what it was, right? Marriage in its very first iteration was women were the currency to exchange wealth between families, right? Through the inheritance of a child.

And so their virginity, their 'purity', right? Was what was the measure of their value. And because of that, you had to be a virgin to make sure that the offspring was from the person that you were marring, so that was the whole reason. Now as that crumbled, that way of the institution of marriage has evolved, this idea of virginity, which is a social construct stuck around, right? Because it's part of this patriarchal oppressive system against women. And essentially what it continued to say was your value is your virginity, but really obviously that's nonsense, we are much more than our virginity. Our value is much more than that.

And so if we start to deconstruct that today and look back at it and say we're still doing that. We slut shame women, if they either have had too many partners, or in some spaces, this is still an issue where if you get married and you're not a virgin, then you're not as valuable. I've seen so many people even use this idea of the apple, if you basically consider yourself an apple and if it gets passed around, everyone takes a bite, then what is the apple look like after? I've heard these horrendous ways of explaining-

Alyssa Scolari [27:04]:

That is sickening.

Rosalia Rivera [27:04]:

Yeah. Well, and essentially that's what it is, right? If you look at someone who let's say is a stripper, people consider her less valuable than someone who got their PhD. And then someone who has a PhD and is a stripper, they don't even know what to do with that. It's like, "What do you do with that?"

Alyssa Scolari [27:22]:

We can't tolerate that in our brain, right? As a society.

Rosalia Rivera [27:26]:

So the reason why I bring all of that up is because what that leads to is this idea that purity comes from virginity. And if someone who was very young was abused, right? And this whole idea which is fed to us by the mainstream, right? Like advertising, music, movies, films, all of that messaging basically is always showcasing that in one way or the other, right? You look at movies like pretty women or movies whatever it is. I mean, that messaging is constantly in our face and it's very subliminal. So if we start looking at what can we do about it because when someone is assaulted, right? And they are blamed, if someone says, "Well, what were you wearing?" Well, that's slut-shaming and saying you asked for it, you deserved being hurt because you were sexual, you were overtly sexual. So dress like a nun and you won't be hurt, right? That's really the messaging that we're saying.

And so if someone is hurt, if they're assaulted either when they are a child, or an adolescent, or even an adult, and the messaging has always been now you're damaged goods or you're not valuable anymore because you're not pure, you're not virginal, whatever it is you did things. And especially if the child is blamed in some way, like you asked for it, you liked it, you enjoyed it, whatever it is. Even with boys for example, not to get totally off topic, but with boys a lot of people think, or they're told like if the child had an erection, right? Which is a normal bodily function against their... Something still happened against their will, but their body physiologically responded, that doesn't mean that they wanted it, right?

So in the same sense with survivors, particularly females, if that happens when they're young and they had any physiological response, they're going to feel guilt and shame, they're going to believe this Madonna-whore construct that they must have somehow wanted it, or they must have somehow invited it. They are somehow to blame. They're somehow now less valuable, right? And this is one of the reasons why there is such little reporting.

It's also one of the reasons why survivors won't report to even tell anyone, they just hold it in because they're afraid of what people are going to think, what people are going to say, if they're going to blame them, if they're going to not believe them, there's all of these things that are because of this Madonna-whore construct that actually compounds, right? Why we have a culture of silence and why we carry so much shame. So one of my missions is to really dismantle that by being open about talking about sex, and that's why I think educating ourselves about sex, even as adults, that didn't get that education when we were young to learn how to normalize those conversations about pleasure, the fact that we have a right to pleasure, I very strongly believe in orgasm equality and having women understand that they do have a right to pleasure, that's a big important part of the conversation when it comes to consent.

Alyssa Scolari [30:49]:

Yeah. It's so important. I mean, and I think just to echo what you said is that I think that's one of the things that abuse survivors struggle with the most is when I speak to people in my practice, it's like, "But it felt good." Or ,"But I had an orgasm, so I must have wanted it." No, it doesn't work like that, right? You can not control your body's physiological response as you mentioned, right? Your genitals, they have the most nerve endings out of any other part of your body. You have no control over that, just because you maybe had an orgasm doesn't mean that you wanted it. And in the same sense, I think that it is so important... I love the phrase orgasm equality, because women have a right to have orgasms.

And in working with adolescents, as they are really starting to explore their sexuality, one of the things, especially when working with female adolescents is like, "Are you getting what you need? Are you getting your needs met as well?" And I still say it, there's so much of a push to please those who identify as men and for females there not be concerned about whether or not they have orgasms.

Rosalia Rivera [32:14]:

Yeah. Yeah. No female pleasure is never centered in media, in pornography, mainstream pornography particularly. And unfortunately, because for so many young people, that's their sex ed, this is why it's so important for us as parents to be that person that they can come to for information, right? And to give them guidance about why their pleasure should be centered. And not to say that male pleasure doesn't have to be centered, but it should really be a mutual centering, right? And so when I say orgasm equality, it's like I didn't know that women could have clitoral orgasms because I didn't know about the clitoris is for the longest time. I think I discovered it when I was like 27 and it was still shocking to me, and I consider myself pretty progressive.

So I mean, I know that for a lot of girls nowadays, or vulva owners I should say, they are seeing a lot of things like Cardi B talking about pleasure. But if you listen to her even most recent WAP song, right? That was so controversial, they're still centering male pleasure in that song, even though it seems like it's very female centered, her talking about what she likes. It's still based on... I don't think once I heard them talk at length at all, like it was always centered around penis pleasure. It was never centered around clitoral pleasure. And it was still always like this showing off of how they can please the guy.

Alyssa Scolari [33:57]:

Yes. Like, look what I have to offer you, right? Look at this WAP that I have to offer you for your pleasure.

Rosalia Rivera [34:05]:

Right, yeah. So I just think sexual literacy education is so important and I'm a true advocate of it because I think it actually does help young people know what are healthy sexual interactions versus it doesn't feel good, but I guess it's okay because he feels like it's good. And there's just a lot of questions that are unanswered and you just don't have fulfilling experiences that are mutually fulfilling. So that's beyond the safety piece, I think long-term, we're giving our kids the ability to have healthier experiences as they go off into adulthood. So definitely important to educate young and as part of abuse prevention education, and consent education, but also for the longterm, I think it's just sending young people off into the world without that I feel like leads them into some potentially dangerous paths.

Alyssa Scolari [35:10]:

Yes, absolutely. You are dismantling shame, dismantling rape culture for generations. So you're preparing... You're basically giving children the armor that they need to continue to fight this war for generations to come. There's nothing more powerful than that. Now with the work that you do, what does that look like specifically? So do you have parents who reach out to you for consultation and coaching, or do you more spread awareness through the media, social media, your podcast, your Instagram. I also saw that you have a children's book coming out. Congratulations.

Rosalia Rivera [35:52]:

Thank you. Yeah, yeah. So, well, I do work one-on-one with parents, I do have consultations that I do. Typically a lot of parents will reach out if something has happened unfortunately, so they're looking for guidance as to like, "What do I do now? How do I deal with this?" But what I do also offer are courses. So I create workshops courses, and I also have a membership so that parents have a community of other survivor parents that are coming together and supporting each other through this and getting access to resources, and we do monthly coaching calls and masterclasses and things like that.

So I created something where people have space to dig into the content because there's so much, right? And it can really easily feel overwhelming, but I encourage you to know that even if you're making small progress, it's progress, just the biggest thing is to be consistent, right? So I do offer all of that, but then yeah, also, I'm always putting out content on Instagram. I do Facebook lives where I do educational content as well. I'm always trying to put as much out there as possible because at the end of the day, the goal is really for you to be able to take some action.

I think gathering information is great, but if you're not doing anything with it, then it's not really going to change anything. So, I'm on social media, I'm putting out whatever content I can, if I can create articles and blogs and things like that, and then also I do have the podcast, which is where I talk more about survivor type of content, not necessarily just parenting. So it's really how can we help you like I said, dismantle shame, that's one of the biggest roadblocks to healing, I think, and help people step into healing journeys.

I am not a therapist or anything, so I don't help with that, but I do like to point people in the direction to say these are resources that I've vetted, that I've discovered and have either helped me, or I know have helped others, and maybe this is something that can help you get closer to that, to stepping into that. And I think a lot of times, my sister for example, I always use her as an example because what she went through was so traumatic that, seeing her journey and how scary it was for her to even consider healing, right? Because when you're thinking about healing, it's like, "Okay, you're asking me to open up a can of worms. I don't know if I have the strength to do, because I've just been surviving enough to keep it together, and now you're saying to unravel?"

That's essentially what people are hearing when I say that, right? And what I came to realize is that not everyone's ready to step into a healing journey just yet. And that's okay too. But what you can be working towards is building your resiliency so that you can step into that healing journey. So what does that look like? That looks like self care, that looks like doing something that's going to help strengthen you. So maybe that's just drinking more water. Maybe that's eating a little bit better. Maybe that's getting more sleep. Maybe that's taking[crosstalk 00:39:14]-

Alyssa Scolari [39:14]:

Out there, you should be very familiar with this. The episode that I launched just this morning is called Resiliency-

Rosalia Rivera [39:21]:

There you go.

Alyssa Scolari [39:23]:

So we'll talk about concrete ways, so for everybody out there, you already should know this.

Rosalia Rivera [39:28]:

I'm going to share that episode on my page, because that's exactly it. We have to build up that resiliency so that when we do step into a healing journey, we can handle it, right? Because healing can get messy and it isn't linear, and we can get stuck in the middle, but what's on the other side of that is just worth it. It's so worth it, it is amazing and for those who feel like they're not able to achieve that dream life of thriving, you can. It may take a little bit longer for some, but that's okay.

It's so worth it once you get to the other end. So part of what I'm also doing is helping parents who have that trauma to know that when you're doing abuse prevention, it has to be in conjunction with a lot of self-care, building up resiliency, and if you already are at that place where you can step into a healing journey to move in that direction, it doesn't have to happen overnight, but moving that direction because ultimately that's what's going to help you to teach all of these things that are inevitably triggering in some ways maybe not so much for some, but maybe a lot more for others, and so, all of those pieces are essentially what I'm always putting out there and trying to help people with, through all the different ways that I put out content.

Alyssa Scolari [40:58]:

I just love what you're doing. I really do. It's so needed, and your content has truly helped me to be a better therapist, and it has helped me to understand my own body more. It's helped me to do better work with the parents of the kids that I see, and even with the adults who don't know their own bodies, because so many of us are never taught how to know our own bodies. So the work that you do is great and you are in Canada, right?

Rosalia Rivera [41:32]:

Yes. Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [41:33]:

Canada. So do you work with people? Are you working with people on a virtual platform right now?

Rosalia Rivera [41:42]:

Yeah, so I do everything online because I work from home and we homeschool our kids part-time so they, they go to school part-time and homeschool part-time ,so I basically do everything virtually because that allows me the flexibility to do that.

Alyssa Scolari [41:57]:

And will you work with people all over the world?

Rosalia Rivera [42:01]:

Yeah, I mean, it's amazing to be able to do everything digitally because there's people in Dubai, and Australia, and the UK, and California and Costa Rica, it's amazing. And I'm also working currently on translating a lot of my content into Spanish so that I can serve the Latin American community.

Alyssa Scolari [42:25]:

That's wonderful.

Rosalia Rivera [42:26]:

Yeah, which is so needed in that community because it's just such an even more taboo topic that we just definitely need to be talking about.

Alyssa Scolari [42:37]:

Yes. Yes. Oh, that's awesome. That's so great. So in the show notes for all the listeners out there, I'm going to link Rosalia's Instagram handle and her website as well as her podcast, so then you guys can all check it out. If people want to reach out to you, if they want to contact you, can they just reach out to you on any of your platforms or is it better to go through the website? What do you prefer?

Rosalia Rivera [43:06]:

Yeah, I'm accessible through all the different platforms, so I'm always online checking out all the stuff. So typically most people will connect with me through Instagram. So if you want to DM me, that's probably the best way.

Alyssa Scolari [43:20]:

Perfect. Okay. So I will link all that stuff for everybody out there. I honestly want to stand up and just give you a huge round of applause because I am just... Thank heavens that somebody is doing this work because it's so needed, and so thank you for coming on the show, and for sharing, and being such an open book, I really appreciate it.

Rosalia Rivera [43:44]:

Oh, thank you so much. And I appreciate the work you're doing and I love hearing that it is helping you with your patients and clients and that just makes my heart happy. So thank you.

Alyssa Scolari [43:58]:

Thanks for listening everyone for more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website @alyssascolari.com. The really great thing about being a part of this newsletter is that not only do you get weekly updates on new podcast episodes and blog posts, but you also get access to the private Facebook community, as well as access to all insider tips, resources, and info graphs that supplement what we talk about on the show. You also can connect with me and other trauma warriors, I'm super active on the Facebook community. And I look forward to talking with you.

If left untreated, trauma can have a detrimental effect on intimate relationships. In this week's episode, couples therapist, Debra Pilzer, discusses her approach to the treatment of couples. Debra also notes the various ways she can assess whether or not untreated trauma may be the root of discord between partners.

To learn more about Debbie, please visit: Meet The Team ~ Center for Intimate Relationships, LLC (myintimaterelationship.com)

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:24]:

Welcome to the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari and we have another awesome episode coming at you today. I have my good friend on with me, Debra Pilzer. Debbie is a couples therapist, and she works for the Center for Intimate Relationships in Haddonfield, New Jersey. And Debbie has a master's degree in mental health counseling from Capella University and is certified in the Gottman method, an evidence-based treatment for treating couples issues. Debbie is also pursuing her Doctor of Marriage and Family therapy degree from North Central university. And one of my favorite things about Debbie is that in her spare time, she is a ballroom dancer, a competitive ballroom dancer at that and kick some serious ass in her competition. So we are going to talk about that. Hello, Debbie, how are you?

Debbie Pilzer [01:30]:

I'm Good, Alyssa. How are you?

Alyssa Scolari [01:32]:

I'm Good. I'm so happy that you were bold enough to come on and talk to me today. There's so much that I want to pick your brain about. You do the thing that I always say I could never do, which is treat couples. And I guess, can you just tell me, like, not why, but like why? Why do you do what you do? Why couples? And this is purely like for the listeners out there. This is my own bias. I think when I was like really fresh in the field, I got thrown into couples work when I had absolutely zero training in it and it really put a bad taste in my mouth for working with couples. Do you want to talk a little bit more about like what you do?

Debbie Pilzer [02:24]:

Yeah. I completely fell into this field by accident. I did some couples therapy when I was interning and I thought to myself, you're a divorced woman. How can you do this? And so I loved it though. I love the interaction between the couple. I had a wonderful internship experience and a wonderful internship supervisor where I was introduced into different types of therapies, kids, couples, adults, addiction, all this stuff. It gave me a really good experience in all different types of therapy. For some reason, loved the couples work. It hit my heart. It hit me in a place where if they would just be able to express what they need and see where it's common, they have connection. I started dabbling in it a little bit and I reached out to Carolyn my supervisor when I was looking for a job after I graduated, but she did not hire LAC's at the time.

And so I went someplace else, worked there for a couple of years, left that job, reached out to her again. And I got my full licensure, my LPC, and she happened to be hiring. And Carolyn is a wonderful supervisor trainer. She took me under her wing. She wanted somebody that didn't have a lot of experience so she could support and help cultivate them. I have weekly supervision to this day with her. She supports my doctoral aspirations. She supports my certification in Gottman. Right now I'm taking a Gestalt couples therapy course as well. So she's very supportive in that and I just feel like as I've grown into this field more, I love it even more.

Alyssa Scolari [04:39]:

Yep. That's the one thing about you that I would say is that, when you talk about the work that you do, much like when I talk about the work that I do, you light up and you could tell that you absolutely love it. Now, Carolyn is the founder of the Center for Intimate Relationships?

Debbie Pilzer [05:00]:

Yeah. Carolyn Aristone is the founder of center for intimate relationships and our practice is growing. We brought on a new clinician in the middle of a pandemic because we had so many cases we are having conversation again about bringing another person on at some point next year, maybe. We're growing and we have a beautiful office in Haddenfield that I can't wait for this whole thing to be over so I can go back in there because I'm working remotely from home as most of us are. She's very knowledgeable in what she does and she's very passionate for the work that we do. I think that overflows into the entire practice and myself as a learning and always learning therapist.

Alyssa Scolari [05:55]:

And you said that you are trained in Gottman?

Debbie Pilzer [05:59]:

I am. I'm level one certified in Gottman.

Alyssa Scolari [06:02]:

Okay. Can you explain to the listeners a little bit about what that is and what that means?

Debbie Pilzer [06:08]:

Yeah. Gottman was founded by John and Julie Gottman. They are a married couple. They're out of Seattle. They have a lab almost big brotherish in Seattle where couples go to their lab as part of their research and they watch couples interact with each other in this apartment. And they do therapy with them while they're at the apartment. I think they're there for like a week or two. And they developed this method as part of years and years and years of research, both as individuals and as a couple. It's almost cognitive behavioral therapyish in that if couples can learn how to communicate and receive each other without fixing, without assuming what the response is going to be based on past pain, if they can just hold each other's emotion, then they can create a better connection. But there's so much pain in relationships that, that takes time. And there's a personal development within each individual in the relationship, as well as relational development. It requires a lot of time, a lot of patients on everybody's part, including my own.

Alyssa Scolari [07:33]:

Yeah. Because you're in it with them. It's a very, very personal job I think to be a couples counselor. I mean, all therapists have a very, very personal job, but being a couples therapist requires I think a different level of diving into people's lives. And so Gottman almost what I'm hearing you say is, it's cognitive behavioral in the sense that it helps people learn how to reframe and separate what's reality versus what's about past pain, past trauma, triggers, what have you.

Debbie Pilzer [08:12]:

Yeah. As part of the assessment for Gottman is very deep. It's a four session assessment where the therapist meets with the couple initially to figure out what the presenting problem is and get to know them. Then the therapist meets with each person individually. And in that individual session, you do a deep dive into their family relationship origin history, how they viewed their parents relationships with each other, how they were treated as children by their parents, how they get along with their siblings. You also do a deep dive into their previous relationships and why they didn't last. What was going on in those previous relationships before they picked the person who is their significant other now. And then the next session is a deep relationship history of the couple from when they met to present day. Getting each of their takes on what attracted them to each other specifically and are those things still pertinent now. Because sometimes what we're attracted to in the beginning is exactly what we're not attracted to now.

Alyssa Scolari [09:25]:

Yeah. Wow. That's fascinating. And you're going on to pursue your doctorate.

Debbie Pilzer [09:36]:

I am.

Alyssa Scolari [09:37]:

So your soon to be Dr. Pilzer.

Debbie Pilzer [09:42]:

I will be Dr. Debbie before I'm 60 years old. I'm 57 now.

Alyssa Scolari [09:47]:

Oh, congratulations. That is so cool. You're so inspiring. What made you want to pursue your doctorate? Is it just your passion for the couples therapy?

Debbie Pilzer [10:03]:

That's part of it. And you brought up earlier, my passion for dancing. I have this idea and it's going to be part of my final project for my degree. And that is, does the infusion of tango lessons in sex therapy shorten the time that couples are in sex therapy.

Alyssa Scolari [10:25]:

Wow.

Debbie Pilzer [10:25]:

So combining my love for dance with what I do for a living and the dance studio I take dance lessons that is on board to help me do this research. I've looked everywhere. This research has never been done. This is new groundbreaking stuff.

Alyssa Scolari [10:46]:

Can engaging in, why specifically tango?

Debbie Pilzer [10:51]:

I'll be honest with you. You'll laugh. Because with tango your crotches are very close to each other.

Alyssa Scolari [10:57]:

Yes. I knew you were going to say that because there's something about the tango and for the listeners out there, if you have never watched anybody tango, you need to watch people tango, because I mean, I would recommend doing it alone because it gets you all hot and heavy because people are glued at the crotch.

Debbie Pilzer [11:17]:

In sex therapy, many times couples come in with sometimes ED, sometimes different libidos, but sometimes it's that they haven't had sex for years. Years. And then the longer that goes on, because they have put other things above their relationship, the more awkward then it is and they want to have a sexual relationship of some kind with each other. So my theory is that dance will help them get past the awkward in a fun way.

Alyssa Scolari [11:49]:

Yes. While bringing in some type of fun sexual energy, because I feel like that is what the tango is about.

Debbie Pilzer [11:59]:

Yeah. And even from a personal standpoint, I have some body image stuff with myself and I used to weigh a lot more than I do now. It was just all kinds of stuff like that. And the dancing has helped me get a little bit more confidence even though I still have a lot of insecurities when I go out on that floor.

Alyssa Scolari [12:24]:

I love it. I know you also light up when you talk about ballroom dancing. And Debbie, I have had the pleasure of seeing Debbie break it down on the dance floor and she's awesome at it. And you can just tell that's your happy place. That's your self-care.

Debbie Pilzer [12:43]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [12:45]:

How often do you find that histories of trauma can be what's causing a disconnect or problems in a relationship?

Debbie Pilzer [12:59]:

Almost always. If there is a history of trauma that has not been worked through with an individual therapist, it comes into the relationship. Just like any sort of issues that we experience as children or in previous relationships comes into the current relationship at some point. And that's why we do such a deep dive in the beginning because there are times when there is a deep level of unresolved trauma that maybe couples therapy isn't needed right now. Maybe that person needs to work through some deep trauma that they've not worked through yet. And then they can come back to me as a couple after that's worked through a little bit more to have some more stability.

Alyssa Scolari [13:48]:

How do you see that playing out? I know it's a very loaded question to just say, how often does trauma affect couples. But in your practice with what you see, how does that play out in a more concrete and specific way?

Debbie Pilzer [14:07]:

Usually if one partner feels like they're walking in the minefield and they never know how the other partner's going to react and the other partner's reaction is deep or not in alignment with the issue, there's usually something happening. Some sort of trigger that's going on. We have to explore what that trigger is at times and there are times where I get lost in the session too. And that's usually a trigger for me that there's more going on here than is being presented in front of me. I will split the couple up again at times to explore that individually with each of them so that we can make a plan. A plan of action. There are times too, where I will have couples many times be in individual therapy when they're seeing me too. And I consult with therapists with permission, of course, so that we can all help each other, help these people have more sustained relationships and more fulfilled lives.

Alyssa Scolari [15:17]:

Yeah. And it makes me think just the old classic, you can't be happy with somebody else unless you're happy with yourself. I think that, that's basically what you're saying. It's a very simplistic way, but people who haven't worked through trauma have a really hard time functioning in relationships because it can be like walking in a minefield and never knowing how that person's going to react, never knowing when the next explosion is going to be. Or, and this is the other thing that I want to ask you is do you often find that couples come into your office who maybe shouldn't necessarily be together and who found each other and are attracted to each other as a result of trauma?

Debbie Pilzer [16:13]:

I see that very rarely in all honesty. Sometimes once in a while you do have two really good people that aren't good together and it takes a long time for them to kind of figure that out. But I would stay in the years that I've been doing this, which is a little more than three years exclusively for the most part couples work with Carolyn's practice. I've had very few of those types of situations. Most of the time they come to us because they really want the help. They want to stay together.

They want to work through the issues and you can tell pretty early on if one is pulling one in. They don't really want to be there and that sort of thing. But even in those cases, our practice really wants everybody that comes in to leave with something that is positive. Even if maybe it's a trauma situation where we have to put couples therapy on pause, maybe that's the good outcome is recognizing that. And that person goes and gets the help that they need. We really want everybody that we see to get something from a relational development place, as well as our personal development place.

Alyssa Scolari [17:29]:

Yeah. That makes sense. Now, in the work that you do, do you work specifically with one type of issue that couples present with? So is it just that you will see couples who are struggling to have sex or is it just affairs? What specifically do you work with in of couples issues?

Debbie Pilzer [17:51]:

I can more tell you what I specifically don't work with.

Alyssa Scolari [17:54]:

Ah, that would be easier.

Debbie Pilzer [17:57]:

We don't do active addiction. I don't do severe psychosis, severe personality disorder that isn't being monitored by another therapist or managed. I don't do domestic violence is one that we don't do. I'm not trained in domestic violence at all,.but pretty much everything else, sex, affairs, communication, child rearing, empty-nesters that have lost track of their relationship. We even see individuals that are having issues with their own sexual needs or expression. It's not just the couples therapy piece, there's an individual too. And sometimes when the individual comes in, it turns out to be more relational. So I'll ask if their partner would be interested in joining and doing the couples. We do fertility, infertility issues that are impeding on a relationship and those sorts of things. So pretty much anything except for the biggies, I would say.

Alyssa Scolari [19:02]:

And is that a choice of the agency that you work in or is that a personal choice?

Debbie Pilzer [19:09]:

It's a little bit of both. At our practice, our favorite holiday is Valentine's day. We do a lot internally, podcast wise, Facebook live wise on Valentine's day. We're all about love and relationships and the focus being on love in all relationships. Sometimes couples will come in and if it doesn't work out, we do conscious uncoupling with them to help them get through a separation or divorce. But most of our couples come in because they love each other and they really want to work it out. And with Gottman when we do a feedback session where we set goals after the initial assessments, part of the therapist work in that feedback session is not only to give them what we see, that's not working and how we're going to set goals to work on it. But what is working. Part of that session is the positive perspective of what the therapist sees in that relationship that's happening.

Alyssa Scolari [20:10]:

One of the things that you mentioned, can you just explain a little bit about what is conscious uncoupling?

Debbie Pilzer [20:16]:

Sure. That's when you work with a couple who you've been seeing for a little while and they decide that they're going to separate or divorce. We help them work through both individually and relationally how to uncouple without resentment. Get through the anger that may be their feeling about the relationship ending especially if they have kids. Because if they have kids they're stuck together forever. And so they have to be able to communicate they have to be to co-parent and we'll work with couples to help them do that.

Alyssa Scolari [20:53]:

I love this idea that, and I think that a lot of people need to hear this because when people think of couples counseling, I think that they think they're going to go for a few sessions and then everything is going to be all hunky dory. And I don't think that there are many people out there that have a good understanding of what couples therapy is. And that's sometimes, sort of what you were saying earlier, that the positive outcome can sometimes be the ending of the relationship. Not always, but sometimes. Sometimes it looks like going through that conscious uncoupling process. Or sometimes it can look like, one of the things I know about you is you particularly like affair work.

Debbie Pilzer [21:46]:

Yeah, I do.

Alyssa Scolari [21:47]:

So can you talk a little bit about that? What is your draw to that and how do you find hope in that because I also think there's this huge push or idea out there that once a cheater, always a cheater and marriages cannot be repaired after an affair. You're one of the people that's like, nope, don't buy that. It may not work after the affair, but it certainly can. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Debbie Pilzer [22:21]:

Yeah, it certainly can. It may not, but it certainly can. In counseling, they're given a safe space to talk about their feelings about the affair and their feelings about what happened prior to the affair and the triggers. There's a lot of PTSD not just for the betrayed partner, but for the involved partner too. And they have to talk through them and recognize that there's issues on both. Certainly the betrayed partner didn't cause the affair, but relationally we look at where the breakdown was maybe prior to the affair and that they didn't communicate with each other. And that the involved partner didn't communicate to the betrayed partner what was wrong. There's so many layers to a affair work and that takes a lot of patience on everybody's part. A lot of patience.

Alyssa Scolari [23:24]:

Right. Because it's a slow process, it's a trauma.

Debbie Pilzer [23:27]:

It is a trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [23:28]:

An affair is a trauma and it's a very, very slow process. You've seen it work though. And is that part of why you enjoy it because of the hope that can come out of it and like watching people reconnect after having gone through a trauma?

Debbie Pilzer [23:44]:

Yeah. Again, going back to, Carolyn's training with me in the beginning when I joined her practice, I think prior to that, I wasn't even sure if, it was like, how does this work? Seeing it evolve and working through my cases with her help and then doing it on my own, I've had couples recover from affairs. And when they do, it's like the most amazing thing ever. If they don't and they stick with it, they still come out at the end of the day a little bit better than they were when they first came in.

Alyssa Scolari [24:28]:

Yep. Because whether they stick it out in the relationship or not, there's still a recovery and a healing that comes out of it. Do you ever have couples that come in preemptively?

Debbie Pilzer [24:44]:

I love those.

Alyssa Scolari [24:47]:

Okay.

Debbie Pilzer [24:48]:

Yeah. I love those cases.

Alyssa Scolari [24:51]:

Because I always am a fan of like every couple could benefit from couples therapy, whether there are glaring issues in your relationship or whether you are as perfect as friggin Mickey and Minnie mouse, every single couple could benefit from couples therapy.

Debbie Pilzer [25:14]:

Yeah. Couples don't have to be in crisis to come into therapy. My favorite cases are the ones that aren't in crisis that come in because let's face it Alyssa, we're in a pandemic. These couples, many of them are stuck together. Their offices are closed. Their kids are home doing schoolwork and they have so many things going on that might be impeding on them relationally. Now more than ever, preemptive is better with everything that's going on. Especially since we're doing tele-health and they don't have to come into the office, they don't have to get a babysitter. They could put a movie on for their kids for 45 minutes or have their counseling when their kids are in school. There's a little bit more flexibility now with tele-health than there was when they had to get babysitters and that sort of thing.

Alyssa Scolari [26:12]:

Yeah. I can't even imagine being in this pandemic with children. My heart breaks for the couples out there that have little ones. It's just traumatic in itself to have to fulfill a thousand different roles a day and then still have a relationship that is functional at the end of it all.

Debbie Pilzer [26:40]:

Right. Still make time for themselves as individuals and their relationships. How do you prioritize all of this? And that's what we do at our practice. We work with couples to learn how to prioritize, not just their relationship, but themselves as individuals. Like if my cup's not filled, I got nothing to give to anybody else, including my partner.

Alyssa Scolari [27:00]:

Yep. Oh, a thousand percent. That reminds me of what must've been a couple of weeks ago, but David, my husband, with the whole house situation, because we've been looking at houses and something had happened and David was upset. David never gets upset. He is always like just very even keeled. Things roll off his back. He's nice. He's the nice one in the relationship. I'm the absolute lunatic. And he was upset. I remember looking at him, it was just as like now that the second wave of the pandemic is coming, I remember looking at him and being like, holy shit, I can't comfort you. I can't comfort you right now because I have nothing to give. I had worked all day seeing patients who are in a very distraught state. It was the first time that I remember being like, wow, this pandemic, the effect that it has. And we don't have kids. We have dogs and I had nothing to give. God bless Dave, but I was just like, why are you crying? Like I need you to not be crying so that I could cry.

Debbie Pilzer [28:34]:

Yeah. It's tough. It's really, really hard. It's really hard for people in any way. For myself, I'm a single mom, I'm an empty nester. I'm here day in and day out by myself. My only interaction to the outside world is when my sister comes over on Sunday, I see my daughter a couple of times a week and my dance lessons. Thank God for my dance lesson.

Alyssa Scolari [29:03]:

Yes. So now you've been ballroom dancing for how many years?

Debbie Pilzer [29:07]:

Four years.

Alyssa Scolari [29:08]:

How did you discover it?

Debbie Pilzer [29:11]:

That is so funny. My daughter went to college and I didn't know what to do with myself. I was working at a different practice at the time, a lot of hours, getting my hours for my LPC to get my full licensure and just working like crazy. But I had no fun in my life at all. A friend of mine said, you should go on this app called meetup because you can find things to do, like activities. Meet up, it's a social platform with, it's not like for dating, it's just activities. You put what your interests are and different groups pop up and you can decide if you want to go to a meetup, to meet new people. I went to a few for single people, not my cup of tea. And then I got a notification that said that some studio was offering a free ballroom dance class, no partner needed. And I went, all right, I'll give that a try.

I sat in that parking lot shaking for 20 minutes before I actually went into that class because I'm very shy. Believe it or not. I know it doesn't seem that way. But when it comes to meeting new people, I am very introverted. I'm very shy. I don't like big groups of people at all. It takes me a little while to warm up. And I went in and I just had so much fun. Fast forward two years, I went to a different studio because the teacher that I had left where I was and went to a different studio. Then he left there and then I ended up with the teachers I have now. Competing, it's something my sister and I now do together because she's a hair and makeup person. She works at a salon so it's brought us closer. I travel to compete. It's gotten me a little bit out of my shell and I lost 90 pounds. So there you go.

Alyssa Scolari [31:21]:

It's made you healthier and happier in a multitude of ways.

Debbie Pilzer [31:25]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [31:27]:

And your sister's your glam girl. Right?

Debbie Pilzer [31:29]:

She's my glam girl. Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [31:32]:

I love it.

Debbie Pilzer [31:37]:

The pandemic hit us hard because a lot of the competitions got canceled this year. This was supposed to be my big competition year before I entered the end phase of my doctorate and that didn't happen. But we did get to go to one on Halloween that had been rescheduled from March to Halloween in Baltimore. And it was very safe. We had to wear masks. It was social distancing but we had a really good time and it was just nice to just go compete one time this year.

Alyssa Scolari [32:11]:

Yeah. And that's your outlet? I mean, like I said, even looking at those videos of you dancing from that competition, you're so happy. You're so happy. It's so important for everybody, whether it's ballroom dancing or painting or I don't know, power lifting, whatever it is. It's just so important to find what makes you happy and to be open to exploring new things, even if they don't seem like they're in your comfort zone because you just never know.

Debbie Pilzer [32:45]:

Because that was so not in my comfort zone at all. It was just random. It was completely random. And I've made really good friends that I never would have met. I've traveled to places that I probably wouldn't have traveled to. Two summers ago we went to Savannah for a competition and I never been to Savannah before. My sister and I took a week and made it into a vacation.

Alyssa Scolari [33:11]:

That's so cool. You're getting to see the country on top of it.

Debbie Pilzer [33:15]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [33:16]:

That's so fun.

Debbie Pilzer [33:18]:

Yeah. I can't wait to get out there again. But you know now, and my dance teachers Jonathan and Jason, they're so wonderful and so lovely. And the studio owner Jean and the other teacher Crystal, they're just so warm and I can have a really bad day and it's almost like my therapy.

Alyssa Scolari [33:36]:

Yeah. It's how you unwind. I always say the majority of healing doesn't happen just in the therapy session. The majority of healing is what happens outside of therapy for therapists and for non therapists alike, it's doing things that bring us comfort and joy that's healing.

Debbie Pilzer [33:59]:

Yeah. Would you mind if I plugged them real quick so if anybody's listening is interested in getting a lesson?

Alyssa Scolari [34:06]:

Yeah. Plug away because they do some damn good work. They are a fine group of people.

Debbie Pilzer [34:12]:

They are. It's the La Pierre ballroom dance studio in Glassboro, New Jersey. They are offering holiday specials and also we're doing a virtual holiday Christmas card showcase in a couple of weeks. All the teachers there, I danced at a couple of different studios and these teachers are just amazing. Comfort and joy and they don't push you to do anything. You don't have to compete. You could just take lessons for fun. They're just really warm and nice, nice people at that dance studio.

Alyssa Scolari [34:51]:

That's awesome. That's awesome. Glassboro, New Jersey. But are they offering virtual dance lessons right now?

Debbie Pilzer [34:58]:

I don't know. Anybody could look them up on Facebook and call. I know they do have a lot of protocols in place. When I go there, I have to wear a mask. I get my temperature checked. The ballroom itself isn't in an L shape. So if they're teaching two students, they're on two different sides of the L and we're not interacting with each other at all. They're doing what they can within the guidelines that the governor has given to hopefully remain open because they did experience that they were shut down for a few months and it impacts all these small businesses.

Alyssa Scolari [35:35]:

Oh yeah. It's so sad. Okay. And if people want to find you or the agency, the Center for Intimate Relationships, they can just go right to the website, right?

Debbie Pilzer [35:50]:

They can. They can go right to the website and you can actually schedule from the website. You look under services and you can see our services. It's www.myintimaterelationship.com. We do individual, couples and we also have a support group that I run and the information for that support group is also on the website for women. That's a support group for women and you can schedule a 15 minute consult with our client care coordinator, Beth, and ask her any questions. And then she will ask you questions, do a thorough screening, and then get you to the therapist that would be the best for what you have going on.

Alyssa Scolari [36:41]:

Awesome. And I will of course link the website in the show notes for when the episode launches. And then I will also put the website information in the Light After Trauma Facebook group page. If you are a part of that, you can go check it out. Thank you for being here today and for letting me grill you a little bit. I appreciate it.

Debbie Pilzer [37:07]:

Anytime. Anytime You want me back, I'd be happy to do it.

Alyssa Scolari [37:11]:

Thank you. Thanks for listening everyone for more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light after Trauma newsletter, head over to my website at alyssascolari.com. The really great thing about being a part of this newsletter is that not only do you get weekly updates on new podcast episodes and blog posts, but you also get access to the private Facebook community as well as access to all sorts of insider tips, resources, and infographs that supplement what we talk about on the show. You also can connect with me and other trauma warriors. I'm super active on the Facebook community. And I look forward to talking with you.

Rebecca is back for her second episode on the LAT podcast! This time, she and Alyssa shift gears and talk about concrete ways to hone skills that will make us more resilient as we head into the second wave of a pandemic on top of the holiday season.

For more on Rebecca's group practice, visit: rebelliouswellnesscounseling.com

Articles referenced in this episode:

• https://johndabell.com/2018/05/01/the-7-cs-of-resilience/
• https://www.apa.org/topics/resilience
• https://www.everydayhealth.com/wellness/resilience/
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lifespan-perspectives/202003/seven-skills-resilience

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

There we go. Hello, everybody. Welcome to another fantastic episode of the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host, Alyssa Scolari. And we have a familiar face back here today. You guys loved her. You asked for her. She is your strong shot of whiskey and your warm cup of tea. We've got Rebecca Christianson back, LCSW, founder of Rebellious Wellness Counseling. Hello.

Rebecca Christianson [00:58]:

Hello. It's good to be here. It's good to be back.

Alyssa Scolari [01:03]:

I'm so happy you're back. What are we talking about? Well, I guess first I want to ask you, how's the business going?

Rebecca Christianson [01:14]:

It's going really well. It's going really well. I sent the podcast out. I posted it on my website and Instagram and Facebook pages, and everybody ... I got tons of good feedback. I was really excited to be back today. It was really fun. I had never been interviewed for a podcast. It was really fun. I got a lot of good feedback, and business is going really well.

I think that, unfortunately, in light of the times, that people who usually manage their anxiety well or their depressive symptoms well are struggling. It's bittersweet when business is really good because it kind of means that people are suffering, and that's not good, but it does feel good to help them. It definitely feels good to ... Even though I'm sure you are too putting in packed days, it does, at the end of the day, feel good to be able to right the ship a little bit, be able to give people tools and be able to help people manage a little bit better.

Alyssa Scolari [02:17]:

It's so funny that you say that because I haven't really been able to put words to what I feel about it until really right this moment. But, there are so many people that say to me ... Like my landlord says to me ... And I think I've said this before on the show. But, I have the best landlord in the entire world. He is an angel on earth. But, he says to me a lot, "You're always here. Business must be booming. I'm sure you've got people reaching out to you left and right." I'm like, "Yeah." He was like, "Well, you must be so happy." I'm like, "Uh ..." Because yeah, but no because everybody's suffering so much right now. But also yeah because some people are finally coming forward and working with the demons that they've been running from for so long because this pandemic has really forced us to sit with our demons.

It's a mixed bag of emotions when ... It's not just like, "Yeah, business is great." It's like, "Yeah, no. People are really suffering with severe depression and posttraumatic stress." So, business is great, but my heart breaks for the world.

Rebecca Christianson [03:36]:

Yes. It's exactly right. It's like it's really hard to say, "Yeah, I'm really happy. Business is great," because that means so many people are having a hard time. But, it does feel really good to be part of the positivity in that, part of the change in that, part of helping people cope differently or a different perspective or just be a place where you can hold their emotion without judgment.

Alyssa Scolari [03:59]:

Just holding space. Yeah. No, I agree. I agree with you. For the listeners out there, we are recording this on Saturday. Well, God. What is the date? Oh, November 21st. I don't even know. The days blend together. So when the time this comes out, it will be Tuesday the 24th. Rebecca is coming back on. We thought that this would be a really great time for her to come back on. We're going to shift gears a little bit because last time we talked a lot about grief. We're talking about not so much the opposite. Would you call it the opposite?

Rebecca Christianson [04:40]:

No. I think just difference, I think. It's the different, shifting gears to a different avenue.

Alyssa Scolari [04:47]:

Okay. Yeah, it's not so much the opposite. Well, we're talking about resiliency today. It's a great topic for right now in the post-election, mid-second wave pandemic, pre-holiday season chaos that is going on.

Rebecca Christianson [05:15]:

Yep. Right. Someone sent me an article in The Wall Street Journal about hope. It was written by Elizabeth Bernstein. It's not one of the articles that I sent you, but I will send it to you. I loved it because she calls hope the PPE, personal protective emotion. I thought, "Wow. It's really good."

Alyssa Scolari [05:42]:

I love that.

Rebecca Christianson [05:44]:

In the article, it just talked about how crucial hope is to our physical and mental health and how it helps us sleep better. It helps us be better parents. It helps us form stronger relationships. And it made me start to think that hope is such a huge component to resiliency. I think you and I had a conversation about doing a podcast on resiliency.

Since then, I feel like it's like ... You know when you buy a white car and you drive around and everybody has a white car suddenly? It's like ever since I talked about resiliency, I feel like I've seen everywhere. NASA and SpaceX sent their rocket up last week. It was called Resilience.

Alyssa Scolari [06:28]:

Really? I had no idea.

Rebecca Christianson [06:30]:

It was called Resilience. I saw one of the astronauts. I saw a really short interview with one of the astronauts. He said, "We named this rocket Resilience because of the state of the nation." I was like, "Wow. That's our podcast." I was so excited.

The article on hope and just calling it PPE, I thought, "That is so true. Hope is the number one component in being able to be resilient. Then, I just became a little bit obsessed about what resiliency meant and how people defined it, and I think that ... I sent you a bunch of articles. I have a couple more to send you. I think researching it gave me hope, like, "Wow. Look at all these articles and all this information on resiliency. It is possible. It is a thing."

The most important thing, I think, I found about resiliency is that it's not a fixed trait. You don't have it or don't have it. It's something that you can learn, something you can build that gives you hope like, "Okay, I don't have to just have it," or, "I wasn't born with it," or, "I was born with it." I can build it. I can learn resiliency. And that, I think, hopefully will give everyone some hope.

But, my favorite definition was in an article written by John Debell. It was according to the Stockholm Resilience Center. I thought, "It's probably a pretty good description." I'm going to read it. It says, "Resilience is the capacity of a system, be it an individual, a forest, a city, or an economy, to deal with change and continue to develop. It is how humans and nature can use shocks and disturbances like a financial crisis or climate change to spur renewal and innovative thinking." I thought, "I like that definition." There were a lot of definitions, but that one was the one that I liked the best.

Alyssa Scolari [08:36]:

That's amazing. Yeah, that's exactly what it is. I like to break it down and ... When you talk about resiliency, I always call it in terms of the individual being a comeback kid. I've always called myself a comeback kid my whole life. I didn't even know what it meant until recently, but I was always like, "There I am, the comeback kid." I think really what that boils down to is resiliency.

Rebecca Christianson [09:06]:

It does. I think it does. It's funny that you say that because I listened to a few ... There's a few songs on different tracks that I listen to when I run. One of them is Titanium and Girl on Fire. There's a couple of songs I listen to, and it's all the same thing, what you just said, comeback kid. It really boils down to, I think, resiliency, being able to be resilient.

Alyssa Scolari [09:34]:

There is a song called the Comeback Kid. It's by The Band Perry.

Rebecca Christianson [09:42]:

Oh.

Alyssa Scolari [09:42]:

I don't know if you're interested in country music at all or-

Rebecca Christianson [09:44]:

Oh, yeah.

Alyssa Scolari [09:45]:

... any of the listeners out there. If you guys don't know who The Band Perry is, they're the ones who wrote that song that's like, "If I die young, bury me in satin. Lay me down in a bed of roses," or I don't know. I probably am totally botching it.

Rebecca Christianson [10:00]:

I do know what song you're talking about. It was wildly popular.

Alyssa Scolari [10:04]:

Yes. It was so popular years ago. They have a song called the Comeback Kid. It was released years ago, and it was nowhere near as big as the when I die young or if I die young song, whatever. I remember hearing it, and I was like, "Oh, that's me, the comeback kid." And it's just really, it's all about resiliency, which is ...

I think when we talk about resiliency, a lot of people tell us to picture this elasticity almost. I agree with that in a sense, but I also think it gives the false perception that it's a quick process. You kind of get pulled down, and then you shoot right back up like a rubber band.

Rebecca Christianson [10:56]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [11:00]:

And I will for all the listeners out there link all of these articles in the show notes. But in one the articles that you had sent me, they were very clear about the important thing to remember is that it's not like you're jumping on a trampoline where you're down and then you get shot right back up. It's actually a really slow, somewhat difficult process.

Rebecca Christianson [11:26]:

Right. I think it's being able to understand what's happening maybe globally or what's happening outside of you and your immediate environment and then how that impacts you. Then, it's learning these skills or taking these steps to bounce back. So yeah, I know what article you're talking about, but it's not like a trampoline, bounce back. It's not like you go down and you bounce right back up. It's more like taking stock, taking time, and then learning how it impacts you and what skills you need to think differently to be innovative, to learn, which I think they're ...

I remember when the pandemic hit and they showed all these small businesses who were making hand sanitizer instead of their product. Jack Daniels, like the whiskey, they started making hand sanitizer and sending it out. Children even started sewing masks. People at home started sewing masks and sending them out or donating them. I think that's the innovative thinking part. How does this impact me? Kind of get your bearings. Then, how can I help myself and how can I help the greater cause? I think that's part of resiliency that think was one of the messages throughout all of the articles.

Alyssa Scolari [13:09]:

What makes some people have more resiliency than others?

Rebecca Christianson [13:15]:

I think that's a good question.

Alyssa Scolari [13:17]:

I don't know the answer to that.

Rebecca Christianson [13:19]:

I think that it has to do with a couple different things. I definitely think the more people have had to cope with makes them more resilient. So, I think that those skills, those resiliency skills that some of the articles talk about. One of the articles ... Dr. Ginsburg from CHOP actually wrote The Seven C of Resiliency, competence, confidence, connection, character, contribution, coping, and control. I think competence and confidence comes from having to cope with other things in your life. I think what makes some people look like they naturally have resiliency versus other people is probably how much they've had to cope with in their life.

But again, the good news is even if you haven't had to cope with much in your life and you do have something, you can learn it. What I love is the contribution part. I think that that builds confidence and character and competence. As you start to help yourself and help others, you build that confidence that things can change, that hope. Things can change. Things can change for me, and things can change in the greater world. So, those seven Cs.

I did sort of a comparison of all the articles, and I think there's continual message through all of them. Connection's a huge through all of the articles. Community, social support, and making those connections. Not to isolate, right? I think that's what makes people more resilient, the people who tend to isolate are less resilient than the people who are able to share their struggle, accept help, be part of the help. I think connections and community are a big part of all of the articles. They call it different things. One of them calls social support, being part of social support, receiving social support. So, both of it, I think that's really important, like accepting the help and helping. Just that one piece of it leads to resiliency.

Then, the article from Everyday Health talked about realistic planning, which I think was real interesting. It was the only one that talked about realistic planning. I thought that's a really important piece as well. Because just as we talked about, be part of the change, to not be like, "Well, I'm going to leave my family and go volunteer," but to be able to realistically plan. The nation might be shut down again. What does that mean for me? Ability to realistically plan I think was like ... I'm surprised that that wasn't mentioned in more articles because I thought that was a really important piece. I feel like that helps people feel in control, which is, I think, a message through all of the articles and really big, like the feeling like you have some control over how this is going to impact you is a big cornerstone of resiliency.

Alyssa Scolari [16:39]:

Yeah. And I'm surprised to hear that that's not talked about more because I think that the realistic planning is so important, especially right now because our versions of social connection and all the things that we need for resiliency are going to look a little bit different because we are sort of being forced into isolation.

Rebecca Christianson [17:05]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [17:05]:

So, we have to be realistic about how we can help ourselves and help others and not just say, "Well, there is no plan. There is no hope because the whole nation is shutting down. It makes me think a lot." I don't know if I've shared this on the podcast. I studied abroad in Italy in 2012, and I was brutally ... Part of my trauma is that I was brutally assaulted when I was in Italy and essentially was left in an alley. I remember the thing that got me through was the realistic planning. And not just in the moment for, well, how am I going to get home, I'm in this foreign country and I don't speak this language, but also, what am I going to do with this. Because I could just lay here on this alley and die. It was freezing. It was one of the coldest winters that they had had. And I could just lay here and just say, "All right." But, I knew that I needed to help people who had been through this.

There was something inside of me that was like, "Nope. One day you're going to help people who have been assaulted, who have been traumatized. You're going to be a voice for others." That was sort of the long-term goal that helped me stay alive. Then, also, you also need short-term goals. Well, I can't wait to go home and see my family. Or I can't wait to go back to my apartment. Or I think for me one of the things that I thought ... And this is classic for me is that ... Obviously the food in Italy ... Have you ever been to Italy?

Rebecca Christianson [19:25]:

I have not been to Italy. No.

Alyssa Scolari [19:25]:

Phew.

Rebecca Christianson [19:27]:

I have not been.

Alyssa Scolari [19:28]:

Man, the pasta.

Rebecca Christianson [19:30]:

I can only imagine, yes. It's one of the places I'm on my bucket list.

Alyssa Scolari [19:35]:

One of the things that I remember thinking was, oh, hell no. I have more pasta I need to eat. I got to get home. I got to get home. I need to eat more pasta. I have not seen enough of this world. I have not eaten enough of the food, which is just very, very classic me. But, I don't know, it's finding hope in different ways, which I think leads to resiliency. I think I was all over the map when I just said that, but does that make sense?

Rebecca Christianson [20:03]:

Yeah, it does make sense. It's like that realistic planning like, "Okay, what am I going to do next?" And it gives you that sense of control. I think that's what you were saying. In the most desperate, horrible, horrible time, that decision to survive, and then the realistic planning that gave you the control is what led you to hope and the hope of survival knowing you were going to survive this.

Alyssa Scolari [20:30]:

Yep.

Rebecca Christianson [20:32]:

And I think that we all have the ability to do that. Some people question. I definitely have seen people who question their ability to be able to realistically plan, but that's a skill that everybody has. You have to access it. And I think that that sometimes is the problem, being able to access that ability. But, everybody has it, to hone that skill and realize like, "Okay, I can get out of the situation. I need to figure out how." Sometimes that means reaching out to people who support you or services that support you. Or it's just figuring out what that is for you.

Alyssa Scolari [21:11]:

And sometimes it's even as small as ... And this is what I also want people to take away from this is that it doesn't necessarily have to be as deep as what I was saying, which is trying to make it home and pick myself up after being assaulted. Sometimes it's as small as just making the choice to get up out of bed. And I don't think that people realize that there's resiliency in that. The people who are battling depression, who are opening their eyes and going, "Another day. How am I going to make it through this day?" Your decision to even plant your feet on the ground and stand up is an act in itself of resiliency, and there's hope in that.

Rebecca Christianson [22:04]:

Exactly.

Alyssa Scolari [22:05]:

As suicidal as you may be, as hopeless as you may be, there's some part of you that is still very resilient when you make the decision even just to get up or to feed yourself or whatever it may be. Maybe even if it's just brushing your teeth.

Rebecca Christianson [22:21]:

Every step forward is a step in that direction, a step in resiliency. It's exactly right. The decision to plant your feet on the ground and take that first step. Get dressed. Brush your teeth. All of that is a step in the right direction for resiliency. It really is.

It's like that never give up. It's that just. You remember that really famous cartoon with the frog? It says like never give up. I don't know if you-

Alyssa Scolari [22:53]:

Yeah.

Rebecca Christianson [22:54]:

Yeah. That's what it just flashed into my head. One of my best friends and I have this quote that we send each other sometimes. It says, "Get up, dress up, show up, and never give up." Sometimes that is my motto. Sometimes it's like, "That's my motto. Get up, dress up, show up."

I think that what's important right now is that people realize there is hope on the horizon as far as the virus goes. Heading into winter, I see a lot of people, as I'm sure you do, heading into winter, this winter, this holiday season where you're not really allowed to see extended family, where the holiday season's going to look really different. The winter's going to feel really dark. I think it's remembering that hope is on the horizon as far as a vaccine and better testing and that when we look back in a year from now, this will be a point in time on the radar screen of our life. It does not have to define life for us forever. When we look back in a year from now next holiday season, this will be like 2020. And when we're headed into 2022, it will not feel as it does right now.

So, just to kind of remember that idea that this will not always feel like it does right now. How can I take that hope and be resilient through this time when we're headed into this dark winter? What can I do? What steps can I take? I think if we all could just remember that it's allowing the support networks to help us, the people who support us, staying in contact with them and contacting the people that we support or that reaching out, even if it's virtually. Right now, even if it's virtually to allow people to support us, because we all need support through this, and supporting others. I think it's that reciprocity that helps that connection that helps us feel more confident, that helps us feel not alone and not as isolated, that helps our connections. I feel like that is a huge step in the right direction as far as resiliency.

It gives our struggle meeting. It helps validate that we're not alone and that we are struggling along with other people. And as we connect to people as a community, it's easier to get through those times when you feel connected, when you allow those people in, and when you help other people.

Alyssa Scolari [25:43]:

Yeah. And that's not always easy. As I'm listening to you talk, I'm thinking about even last night. I'm, of course, going to drag DBT into this because I just completed that DBT program. I think about this idea of throwing yourself into the moment and actively participating. It is so much easier, I feel like, right now when it's dark at ... I don't know. It feels like it's dark after lunch. I eat lunch, and I look outside and it's dark out.

Thanksgiving is in a few days. David and I have decided not to do anything for Thanksgiving for a number of reasons, but obviously namely the pandemic. I have been not consciously but I think maybe subconsciously not ditching but I haven't been very attentive to one of my best friends.

I have a best friend who is actually getting married, and it's not at all the wedding that she was planning. I mean, a year ago, we were planning ... We should be in India right now getting married. She is having a very small courthouse wedding, and she's getting married on Tuesday when ... Aw, when this podcast launches.

Rebecca Christianson [27:11]:

Aw.

Alyssa Scolari [27:13]:

Urvashi, happy wedding day. But, I have been trying to touch base with her all week, and I just keep sleeping instead. Even last night, she was like, "I'm going to call you at 5:30 tonight." I was like, "Okay." I love her. It's not her, but it took every ounce of my being to even pick up the phone, and I did. Then, afterwards, I felt so much better and so much more connected. I think it's a lot easier said than done, especially right now, because it's so much easier to note hop on that Zoom call or to not pick up the phone.

Rebecca Christianson [28:02]:

Yeah. No, that's definitely true. People, especially people that are working from home and doing Zoom calls, they don't want to do another ZOom call with a friend or a family member. I guess that's what I'm saying is we were talking about decisions, the decision to plant your feet on the floor, the decision to take a step forward. All of those are decisions in the right direction for resiliency. The decision not to not answer her call, the decision to answer her call is a right step in resiliency to feel that connection because you feel so much better when you stay connected.

And it's so hard because we're being told to isolate. That was such a important point that you made earlier. We're being told to isolate. So, that staying connected is even one step further. It's a little bit harder, but it's so worth doing because that is how we find strength and purpose and how we ... It helps us come up with that realistic plan. It helps not only for ourselves but for our friends, our families, our neighbors that ... We can be part of their plan. They can be part of our plan. That connection is huge.

One of the quotes for EFT for couples that I use, it's a YouTube and it says, "Love is the reason that we're here. Love is the reason we're alive." And that connection, so important.

Alyssa Scolari [29:31]:

That's so true.

Rebecca Christianson [29:32]:

Yeah. There were two other things in the articles that I thought were super important, too. One of them was the APA article. It talks about fostering wellness. That's a huge component to resiliency.

Alyssa Scolari [29:47]:

Yeah. Can you talk about what that means exactly? Because that is so important. You're right.

Rebecca Christianson [29:56]:

It talks about especially when we are struggling emotionally, mentally, psychically to not to take care of ourselves physically. The idea of I'm in this and I'm struggling with the social injustice, with the political unrest, with the pandemic and what that means, and going into winter when it's darker, and it's harder to reach out. So, we tend to not take care of ourselves physically, not exercise, not eat healthy, not drink enough water, all those things. It's like trying to stay cognizant and devise a plan, whatever that is, to help ourselves physically stay as strong as we can, remind ourselves to drink more water, remember to make healthy choices, remember to exercise, even if that's wrestling with your kids or dusting off your Wii Fit or whatever that is.

Everything's on demand now. You can do yoga. You can do Zumba. You can do whatever it is, and it doesn't have to be 30 minutes a day. Just stay active fostering wellness.

Then also, emotionally fostering wellness, mindfulness. You were talking about DBT. The first construct is mindfulness. But, learning mindfulness, learning to find time to quiet your mind, cognitive reframing, journaling, seeking help, also paying attention to your emotional health in a way that some people never have had to because they weren't locked down. So, taking care of their physical and emotional health was almost like a part of their routine. And now it's not part of their routine because they're not driving to their office and in community. They don't have the water cooler at work, and they don't whatever.

It's like taking care of your emotional and physical health in a way that you never had to pay attention to it the same way. That was huge. I thought that was a really ... You can't break down emotionally and physically and be resilient. You have to foster that. You have to take care of that, those parts of you to be resilient.

Alyssa Scolari [32:23]:

Yeah. Absolutely. I always like to point this out because ... And this could just be ... I don't know. Maybe this is just me. But, I actually think this is accurate for most folks with a history of trauma, mindfulness. Mindfulness has always been my least favorite word in the realm of psychology, therapy, whatever. Every time someone says mindfulness, I roll my eyes because I picture sitting cross-legged on the floor like kumbaya style, sitting in silence and meditation. I guess I picture meditation.

I think that it's important to point out that mindfulness really just means being all in in whatever you are doing. For me, my nervous system is so overactive because of my history of trauma that meditation right now I'm just not there. I can't sit cross-legged on a floor and close my eyes and think about anything because it's too triggering for me. So, mindfulness for me looks more like doing a puzzle because I have to be all in. I have to be looking at it. I have to be thinking about how the pieces fit together. So I'm active in my mindfulness, and I think that that's an important piece for people to know is that mindfulness doesn't necessarily mean just sitting still. That make sense?

Rebecca Christianson [34:01]:

Yeah. One of the skills I try to teach about mindfulness is that you just stop yourself and name three things in the room and what their colors are. Name three things in the room and what their function is. What do you hear, smell, taste, see? Just even that, just even ... That takes like a few seconds to stop yourself and think. What are my senses experiencing right now? Where am I? What am I doing? Sometimes I tell people like, "When you wash dishes, how hot is the water? What color is the plate."

Alyssa Scolari [34:33]:

Yes.

Rebecca Christianson [34:35]:

That can be mindfulness, just being aware of place and time, stopping yourself and being aware, especially when you feel that constant level of anxiousness and you're unsettled. So, stop yourself and say, "What am I doing right now?" Even that is enough to train your brain to start to be mindfulness.

I say all the time kids grow up so fast. Everybody says that. So, take mental snapshots of don't ever let me forget how little those feet are, whatever, that belly laugh, those things. Take these mental notes so that you ... Write them down.

I'm a huge fan of journaling. I believe that journaling is human's way of naturally problem solving. Sometimes people are like, "I don't know what to journal." I don't think you should journal every day. I don't think that's necessary. But, I definitely think journaling is a way to teach yourself problem solving, a way to come up with a realistic plan.

I tell people write. I don't know what to write. And you'll start writing, or writing about a problem or something you can't ... But, that's mindfulness, I think, just writing down, "Today, this was my day," or, "This is something I don't want to forget," or those things I think are ... That's all part of being mindful. I don't think you have to stop and mediate, but a lot of people ... When they hear mindfulness, I think one of the first things that people go to is mediation. Exactly, sitting cross-legged. And I don't think that that's true at all. I think you can be mindful throughout your day. It's the ability to stop your brain and recognize where you are in place and time and be mindful of your surroundings. That control is calming.

Alyssa Scolari [36:27]:

Yep. Couldn't have said it better.

Rebecca Christianson [36:29]:

Anxiety is very distracting.

Alyssa Scolari [36:33]:

Is it ever? Yeah. Was there one more that you had?

Rebecca Christianson [36:38]:

There's one more. The other one in the Everyday Health article named five principles, which are kind of things to pay attention to. They're not like building, having a realistic plan, reaching out to people. They're not that connection character, contribution, not the ... They're not skills. They're principles. So, they're gratitude, compassion, acceptance, meaning, and forgiveness. I thought that that was also worth mentioning.

I also tell people the easiest way to get out of a tough place in your mind is gratitude, so finding one thing you're grateful for. Sometimes I tell people if they have difficulty sleeping to write three things you're grateful for and put it on your nightstand so it's the last thing you think of and it's the first thing you see when you wake up. Gratefulness is the easiest, quickest reframe. So you can almost always find one thing you're grateful for. Sometimes I tell people when they go to WaWa in the morning for their coffee to hold the door open for someone. Because just that thank you can-

Alyssa Scolari [37:51]:

Yes.

Rebecca Christianson [37:51]:

... change your day.

Alyssa Scolari [37:52]:

Except in New Jersey when some people never even say thank you. Then, I end up in a rage. I know I'm not the only one who will hold the door and then people just walk in and don't say anything. And you're just like, "Oh, you're welcome."

Rebecca Christianson [38:09]:

That's so funny, because the second one is compassion. So, I would say that maybe having some compassion that they're having a bad day.

Alyssa Scolari [38:17]:

I have lots of compassion in the office. But if you catch me at WaWa and I hold the door for you and you don't say a damn thing to me, my compassion is gone.

Rebecca Christianson [38:28]:

Right. I know. I know. I have had that before where people say like, "I did that, and they didn't say thank you." I say, "Well, do it again tomorrow. And if it's the same person, don't hold the door open. Hold it open for somebody else."

Alyssa Scolari [38:41]:

Right, right. And the point is you're not necessarily doing things for the thank you. Sometimes the thank you that you get isn't always the most important thing. It's the act itself.

Rebecca Christianson [38:56]:

The act itself. Right, right. It's doing something for somebody else. It kind of brings you out of yourself. But, having gratitude I think it's the easiest and quickest reframe because you can almost always find one thing no matter how tough the spot is that you're in that you can be grateful for.

Then, I just think the other principles were finding meaning. That was throughout a couple of the articles that I thought was interesting. I think those are things that you just kind of have to pay attention to but not necessarily ... They're not skills that you have. I think they're things that you have to sort of pay attention to. But, I think the skills are more in what we talked about, like the community, a realistic plan that gives you some sense of control, finding purpose, helping others. I feel like we see that every day in this pandemic, and I think that's why we are going to be resilient. I think that's why we are going to look back at this in four years and say, "Wow. That was tough."

My best friend and I were talking about our kids and how our kids are going to some day look back at this time. We were talking about how once there's a vaccine that's readily available, and there's better testing, and schools go back full-time in session how we could see our kids reassimilate. I don't even know if that's a word. But, she said like, "I feel like they're going to reassimilate." I was like, "Oh, that's such a good word. I'm totally going to use that in my podcast."

Alyssa Scolari [40:44]:

If it's not a word, it is now.

Rebecca Christianson [40:46]:

It is now. That's right. I can just see how going back into the classroom, especially for the college kids, they're going to reassimilate to life before. One of the things about that as we were talking about that, when I thought about reassimilating, even if that's not a word, for all of us is that we will all have gratitude for the things that we took for granted before the pandemic.

Alyssa Scolari [41:13]:

Yes.

Rebecca Christianson [41:14]:

I think we're all going to have huge gratitude for being able to walk outside without a mask and talk to our neighbor, just to have gratitude to be able to walk into WaWa and not have to wear a mask. Some day that's going to come back, and we are all going to be grateful for the things that we just took for granted before the pandemic.

I think that having hope that we're going to reassimilate to normalcy and that we're going to be grateful for the things we took for granted is, I think, such ... It leaves me with such peace. It leaves me with such peace that we're on the right road. We just have to get through it together.

Alyssa Scolari [42:00]:

Yeah. There's going to be so much joy, I think. I almost picture it as all of us kind of discovering the inner child in us where everything is new again. Everything is new. All those college kids out there who didn't want to get out of bed for their 8:00 AM class, and I know because I was one of them, are going to be friggin skipping to class at eight o'clock in the morning just because they can. There's hope. There's hope on the other side of it. That's for sure.

Rebecca Christianson [42:38]:

Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [42:40]:

I think with all this being said, to all the listeners out there, this is a lot. What Rebecca and I are talking about ... Or there are lots of skills. It's a lot to think about. And keep in mind that if you struggle with this, you don't necessarily have to do all of this on your own. Well, one of the positives of the pandemic is that it's actually easier than ever to get access to help because you can find a therapist, find a counselor and do telehealth.

So if you need help in any of these areas, none of us are meant to do life alone, so I hope that you are encouraged to reach out and find help if you need help with any of these things. Because even though we talk about them, I still feel, even as a therapist, and I'm sure you can relate to this, that while all of this is very important, it's also very difficult. And I have definitely needed people in my life who are there to help me hone the trade of resiliency.

Rebecca Christianson [44:00]:

Yep. Exactly. And that's kind of where we started was like community, like allowing our supports to support us and to pay that forward to support others. That is, I think, one of the number one constructs and resiliency in general is being able to do that, being able to receive help and to give help.

Alyssa Scolari [44:26]:

Absolutely. Well, thank you for coming on again.

Rebecca Christianson [44:32]:

You're welcome. I was happy to.

Alyssa Scolari [44:35]:

I know. I was so happy to have you back on. People really, really liked the podcast that we did. Oh, and by the way, Ireland, all of my Irish folks reached out to me because we have ... There are people in Ireland who are downloading this podcast, and I want to know who you are. So, find me on Twitter, on Instagram. Email me, [email protected]. Because there are some folks in Ireland who are really liking the podcast. And I would be so interested to connect with you. I don't know. It just amazes me how the reach that the podcast has had and that people are listening. But Ireland in particular, they're really all over this podcast. So, hi, Ireland. Thank you for the love.

So yes, thank you, Rebecca Christianson, LCSW, founder of Rebellious Wellness Counseling. I will post her website again. If you are looking for help, please reach out. They are accepting new clients right now. Rebecca and her team will be happy to help you.

Rebecca Christianson [45:55]:

Awesome. Thank you so much. Yes, thanks. Thanks for having me. I love to chat about these subjects that I feel like are so important to everyone.

Alyssa Scolari [46:05]:

It's the best. I know. You'll be back.

Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode. For more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website at alyssascolari.com. I'm also on Twitter, and I'd love to chat with you guys. Be sure to follow me. My Twitter handle is AlyssaScolari. Thanks again for listening, and take good care.

Retired police Sergeant, Sean Grannan Sr., joins Alyssa to discuss the prevalence of trauma and suicide among law enforcement. He has dedicated much of his career to spreading awareness and combatting the rates of suicide and PTSD among police.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:20]:

Hi, everybody. Good morning, or ... Shit, I just hit my ... Son of a bitch. Dave? Edit this out. I don't function well before 11:00 am. I swear. Anyway, hi everybody. Welcome to another fantastic and well put together episode of The Light After Trauma podcast. I'm your host, Alyssa Scolari. It is a Thursday morning when we are recording this so bear with me. I have not had my coffee yet. Everybody knows I'm not a morning person, so just bear with me today. But, I am both excited and nervous to have our guest on today. This is somebody who I have known for quite a few years at this point. I have with us today Sean Grannan. And, Sean is a retired police sergeant who recently works for the Gloucester Township Police Department.

Sean has been in public safety since 1987. He served as a volunteer fireman with Audubon Park and the Blackwood Fire Departments. He also served as an EMT, both as a volunteer and professionally. He served as a paid fireman/EMT for the United States Navy and served as a dispatcher for the Camden County Department of Public Safety and the Gloucester Township Police Department. After serving in public safety in those capacities, he became a full-time police officer with the Gloucester Township Police Department. Sean was employed at Gloucester Township for 23 years rising to the rank of Sergeant of Police. While with Gloucester Township Police, he served as a patrol office, a school resource officer, crime prevention officer, community relations officer, patrol sergeant, sergeant of communications and he ended his career as the aid to the Chief of Police for the department.

Sergeant Grannan was instrumental in creating several programs involved in community outreach and juvenile programs. Sergeant Grannan also helped transform the communications center into a much more modern community communications center. Sergeant Grannan was also a CPR instructor for the department, and he was an instructor at the Camden County Police Academy for over 20 years ultimately ending his career as the leader of the class teaching police stress and suicide awareness for police officers from the years 2008 to 2019. Currently, Sergeant Grannan is retired and spending time with his wife and three children, while always keeping his eye on policies and procedures involving police wellness.

Hi.

Sean Grannan [03:23]:

How you doing?

Alyssa Scolari [03:25]:

You have had quite the career.

Sean Grannan [03:27]:

Yeah, yeah. Well, when you stick around long enough, you have the opportunity to do a lot of diverse things.

Alyssa Scolari [03:34]:

Yeah, and you really have. And, you've done some awesome things. Just as a little bit of context for the listeners out there, I'm so surprised that you still even want to be my friend after our first two interactions. I don't know if you remember.

Sean Grannan [03:58]:

I do. I remember meeting you when you first came in for your interview.

Alyssa Scolari [04:06]:

As some of you may or may not be aware, Sean, he worked for the Gloucester Township Police Department, which is the police department that I worked for before I launched full-time into private practice. And, I had my interview and this was back in July of 2018? No, this was back in June of 2018 and Sean was the very first person that I met. So, I walked into the building and he's this big, tall guy and he looks down and he smiles and he shakes my hand and he goes, "Hi, nice to meet you. Sergeant Grannan." And, I'm shitting my pants because I have not even interviewed yet. This was before I walked into a room full of a million other men in uniform.

That was that. So, that was my first introduction with Sean, and then lo and behold, I got the job and I started the job and I was going around the department being introduced to everybody and I saw Sean again, and I did not remember him. I had no recollection that I had ever met this man before. So I'm shaking his hand, I'm like, "Hi, it's so nice to meet you." And, he's like, "Uh, yeah. We met before but that's okay. I get that a lot."

Sean Grannan [05:52]:

Yeah, I've been told by a lot of women I'm very forgetful.

Alyssa Scolari [05:54]:

That's what he said to me. That was my first day on the job and I died. I went home and was like, "Well, that was a good run. They officially hate me." The fact that you are on here today means that I must have redeemed myself somehow.

Sean Grannan [06:16]:

Oh, without a doubt. Without a doubt.

Alyssa Scolari [06:18]:

So, is there anything else you want to add to that bio or-

Sean Grannan [06:23]:

No, I think enough's been said about me.

Alyssa Scolari [06:30]:

You retired when? Just to give people some context.

Sean Grannan [06:35]:

End of October. I think it was October 24, 2019.

Alyssa Scolari [06:41]:

Yup, so it has almost been exactly one year because today's the 22nd.

Sean Grannan [06:47]:

Wow, man.

Alyssa Scolari [06:49]:

Isn't that crazy?

Sean Grannan [06:50]:

It is. It doesn't seem like that long.

Alyssa Scolari [06:52]:

It's wild, I know. It went by so fast because I remember when you were retiring and I can't believe it's been a year already.

Sean Grannan [06:59]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [07:01]:

So, I have so many questions that I've wanted to ask you and wanted to pick your brain about because you have done such great work in the police department. I remember when I first started, you were the first person who reached out to me. This was after I insulted you by not remembering you and you were like, "Hey, guess what? You're going to teach at the police academy next week."

Sean Grannan [07:32]:

Yeah, I remember that.

Alyssa Scolari [07:34]:

Cue shitting my pants again.

Sean Grannan [07:39]:

But you did such a great job with it, and you know what I loved about that when you did that was you used some real world and some really recent examples when we talked about it. I guess we need to tell people what you were teaching on. I was teaching the police stress and suicide course at the time, and the way ... Am I going on too long? Or, can I expand here?

Alyssa Scolari [08:13]:

No, you're fine.

Sean Grannan [08:13]:

Okay. The way that we would structure class is I would teach the nuts and bolts stuff of the class, the statistics and all of that, and share with them some of the stressors and things like that that police would go through. I also had a clinician that would come in and she would also talk about the medical aspect and just about suicide itself. We would also have Monsignor [Manuel 00:08:41]would come in and talk about a spiritual component to how people could deal with stress, and then we would generally wrap it up with somebody from Cop2Cop, which is a police support line.

So, I needed you to fill that clinical role because Dr. Baruch who would do it with me all the time, she was unavailable for whatever reason. I can remember. It was back in those days, they would seem to move us around quite a bit in the class. They'd be like, "Oh, this instructor can't make it. Can I move you to this date?" Sometimes that would conflict with the other people I was teaching with. But, you came in and I remember one of the ones ... I think Kate Spade had just completed suicide at the time and you used her in your presentation. You also used ... Oh gosh, who was it? The guy from Stone Temple Pilots. I can't remember.

Alyssa Scolari [09:36]:

Chester Bennington from Linkin Park.

Sean Grannan [09:38]:

Maybe, maybe.

Alyssa Scolari [09:40]:

Robin Williams, I think, was on that slideshow.

Sean Grannan [09:42]:

Yes. Yeah, he was. Right, right. Who was the guy that sang Black Hole Sun? Was that the guy you used? I'm trying to remember? I don't remember.

Alyssa Scolari [09:55]:

I know, I can't remember either.

Sean Grannan [09:56]:

Howard Stern always talks about him.

Alyssa Scolari [09:59]:

I can't remember either. It was so long ago. But yeah, I felt like that was my first test in terms of-

Sean Grannan [10:08]:

You did fantastic, though. Because what sometimes is missing is when we're educating these guys, a lot of people think, "Well, they're cops." But they're still kids to some degree. Some of them are 19, 20. Rarely they're in their 30s so when I can have somebody of your generation also try and relate to them on that level, that really works out a lot better so you did a fantastic job.

Alyssa Scolari [10:39]:

Thank you. It was a lot of fun. It's a really difficult topic to talk about, and I know that that's what we're going to get into today but it's very, very real and one of the questions that I've wanted to ask you is you've been in this helping profession so to speak, in it, for as long as it's been decades. What drives your desire to help people in the way that you do? EMT is hello, trauma is all I think when I think EMT.

Sean Grannan [11:28]:

I got to tell you ... Let me try and conceptualize this so it doesn't sound too lofty or whatever more so than it is, but you get a desire. Everybody wants to have purpose. I think everybody wants to feel like they've accomplished something. Even from a really young age, I wanted to be a fireman or a policeman, watching the show Emergency or watching CHIPS. I'm really dating myself. These shows are from the '70s. You can probably catch them on MeTV or Antenna TV or something like that. But, I was I want to do that. I want people to see me and be out there helping out people because those guys, they were always out there and they were making a difference. So, I just wanted to do that. What I guess probably drove me is my father was in World War II and that generation of folks, they volunteered to go.

It was much like the people today. We have an all volunteer military and all that. But in my family, even going back to his father and his brothers, we always wanted to be of service. My mother worked with the church and they volunteered at the church. That was part of our upbringing was you were of service to the community or of service to the church. That was just my contribution was to do that. And then once you get in it, you get almost addicted to it, if I can use that word, because when you help somebody ... Not so much the lockups and all that, but when you help somebody that needs your help and you realize that their life has gotten just a little bit better, at least for that moment, it's addictive and you want to do it again and again and again.

Alyssa Scolari [13:33]:

Yeah, that's that high that you're chasing is to be able to bring a little bit of peace and comfort to somebody else in this world, even if it's just temporary.

Sean Grannan [13:44]:

Without a doubt, without a doubt.

Alyssa Scolari [13:46]:

Serve and protect.

Sean Grannan [13:47]:

I remember when I was a school resource officer, I was at Timber Creek in Erial for six years from when they opened until 2007. Some of the times, some of these kids, you would think it's an adversarial relationship between the police officers in there and ... It's really not. These kids, you form relationships to them. Sometimes I was the nicest interaction that they had all day because their home life might not have been great. And, I was teaching a class for our Citizen's Police Academy one night and one of the father's was like, "Yeah, my daughter's at Timber Creek," and I was like, "Oh yeah? What's her name?" He told me and I didn't really recognize the name, and he goes, "Yeah, my daughter says you're only nice to the bad kids." Which to me, they're all good kids. They just do bad stuff sometimes.

I said, "It's not that way. Those kids just seem to relate to me and they come up and talk to me." I said, "A lot of the "good" kids will pass me by but for whatever reason, some kids just felt more comfortable coming up and standing with me or talking to me, wanting to know this or that." You know what I mean? That stuff was a lot of fun. Those interactions with the kids were great.

Alyssa Scolari [15:16]:

Yeah, and they can be life changing. No matter how small the interaction, they can be life changing for that kid. I've seen it with my own eyes with the school resource officers and the Gloucester Township Police Department. A connection with those kids goes a long, long way.

Sean Grannan [15:33]:

Oh, definitely.

Alyssa Scolari [15:34]:

Now, at what point in your career did you start to become more aware of PTSD, suicide?

Sean Grannan [15:50]:

Okay, well that's easy and I can tell you because I went to ... They did a Train the Trainer course. If you go back in the history of the state, Corzine becomes governor and he was being lobbied by some of the advocates for police stress and officer wellness like Cherie Castellano, who started New Jersey Cop2Cop, and we'll expand on that in a little bit. They eventually got funding for Cop2Cop and they got funding for training for police officers in in-service training and in the police academy. So all recruits were going to get a course in suicide prevention and stress. So, they sent a handful of us to a Train the Trainer course up in Trenton.

I went with some other folks and we were sitting there, and there was a great trooper who had left being a New Jersey State Trooper and become a PhD. He was teaching on suicide and things like that, and the one statistic that struck me and that really hooked me in was that police were three times more likely to take their own life than they were to die in performance of their duty. That one statistic, and when I would say it in classes, I don't know that people understood it as much as it struck me, but three times more likely ... That stat drove me crazy. I was like, "Well, I've got to get involved in this."

So luckily, there was an opening at the police academy to teach it and that was how I got involved in it, and then I met great people who were doing great work. I met Roy Diaz from Cop2Cop who was a retired lieutenant from Essex County prosecutor's office and I met Marcia Baruch who was a psychologist and she had worked with the NYPD. I met Bill Walsh, who has done a lot of practical work in a master's degree from the Voorhees Police Department. He teaches on it and he was teaching at the IACP. You just get rolling with this and you realize that it's a big problem. It's a dirty little secret in police work. Nobody wants to talk about it.

And before, when someone would complete suicide from the police department, they would get erased from the roll. Nobody would talk about it, and they could have had 25 years of honorable service and then it just got too much and they took their own life and everybody would just ignore the fact that they existed and that just can't-

Alyssa Scolari [15:50]:

Really?

Sean Grannan [15:50]:

Yeah, that just-

Alyssa Scolari [15:50]:

Almost like it negates all the work that they did.

Sean Grannan [18:52]:

Right, and what I used to tell people in the classes were who are you hurting when you do that? You're hurting their best friend who was on the job, who might be your friend. Your hurting their family, who now can't really celebrate their service because they committed this sin of suicide. It shouldn't be that way. Life's hard, and when you're a police officer, I know this can sound oddly self-service especially in these times, but it's harder when you're a police officer because you're dealing with your own junk and your mortgage and your taxes and your relationships or whatever, and then you're dealing with somebody else's too. Everybody else's. You know what I mean? It's difficult and sometimes for folks it gets to be too much.

Alyssa Scolari [19:47]:

Absolutely. I know that I definitely touched on this. I'm not sure if you had listened to the episode on defunding the police versus backing the blue where I did speak about that. Police officers have so much on their plate, and they are traumatized on top of ... It's trauma on top of trauma on top of trauma and not a whole lot of support. I mean, there is Cop2Cop, which is the support line, but it's not enough. And what's even more of a disservice is that they give up their time for their families and then things start to go awry with their families and then they start to have a disconnect in their relationship with their kids and then they're on the job and they're doing things that can potentially be traumatic for them, and then as a result, there's a lack of support. They end up taking their own lives and we don't talk about it.

Sean Grannan [21:02]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [21:04]:

Because of what? The shame? In the law enforcement world, is it seen as an act of weakness?

Sean Grannan [21:12]:

Yeah. It really is, because you're supposed to be this alpha and you're supposed to be in control of everything. A lot of police work is control. So, when someone completes suicide, it's just "Oh, they lost control. They were no longer in control of everything." That is it. The police culture is the one thing that we need to overcome in order to get this message out there that people need to take care of themselves. And one of the things that I would harp on in class is you need to do therapy. Once, twice a year at least when you're a police officer because-

Alyssa Scolari [21:57]:

At least.

Sean Grannan [21:58]:

I don't know if you ever saw that movie with George Clooney where he would do the ... He was a public speaker, or a motivational speaker, and he would bring out a backpack and talk about all the things you load in the backpack. But it's true, you carry this bag of all of this trauma and stuff like that, and every now and then, you got to unload the bag because it gets to be too much. Guys and girls that are in police work, they need to do therapy. And we were lucky at my department, we had an EDP program. We had you and we had Michelle who we could sometimes talk to if we had to, and we had Father Mike, of course, but we had outlets that we could do and I know guys that would never have done it but then went to EDP or went to therapy of some sort and were glad that they did because-

Alyssa Scolari [22:57]:

EDP, just to be clear, EDP is the therapy that is offered-

Sean Grannan [23:07]:

EAP, I'm sorry.

Alyssa Scolari [23:07]:

EAP?

Sean Grannan [23:07]:

Yeah, I'm sorry.

Alyssa Scolari [23:07]:

Okay.

Sean Grannan [23:09]:

EAP was the Employee Assistance Program.

Alyssa Scolari [23:11]:

Okay, and that's the therapy that's offered through the employment?

Sean Grannan [23:15]:

Yeah, mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [23:16]:

It does. It makes such a big difference. I can recall countless times where I have had people come into my office when I was working at the Gloucester Township Police Department and they may have just been stopping in to pick something up and they end up sitting down, and we end up just having a conversation and before you know it, they're talking about the first body that they ever saw. They're talking about the first dead child that they ever saw and what it did to them to have to see a dead child all while knowing that their wife is pregnant at home or whatever the circumstance may be, and it's like, "Man." Not that it's okay, but it's so understandable why cops end up taking their own lives because it's too much. It's just too much.

Sean Grannan [24:14]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative]. Yeah, and unfortunately you look at the culture now ... I love podcasts because you can listen to them on the radio and over the course of a couple of days while you're in and out of your car, you can listen to a podcast and get the whole thing. So I was listening to Joe Rogan who does a podcast, and he had a comedian named Colin Quinn who used to be on Saturday Night Live and he was on some other things. He said, "Could you even make a buddy cop picture?" They were talking about 48 Hours with Eddie Murphy. He said, "Could you even make that now?" He's like, "Because everybody hates the police now."

Isn't that such a shame that you can't even do that sort of thing because I guess it's social media and everybody having a camera now that now it's just become a situation where the heroes, and those guys and girls who that are out there, they are heroes in their own right, what they're doing every day. Now they have to put up with the fact that certain segments of the community and the media are turning against them and making the job that was hard before even that much harder.

Alyssa Scolari [25:35]:

Yes, yes. I even just remember going out to lunch with you and a couple of other people after maybe doing a presentation or what have you, and just the stories that I would hear you all tell me about how you won't even drive up to a Starbucks and get a coffee unless you really know them personally because you have a fear of what are they going to put in my drink? What are they going to write on my cup? And, it's just like, "Okay, here's more trauma." So now your defenses are going up even higher because you feel like the whole world is turning against you.

Sean Grannan [26:26]:

Mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [26:28]:

Did you experience a lot of that on the job?

Sean Grannan [26:31]:

Yeah, it was funny. I would tell people, and I chuckle about it now but I would tell people, "You don't understand what it's like to try and eat a meal at work." You know what I mean? It got to the point where toward the end of my career, more often than not, I would bring my lunch from home and eat it either at my desk or in the one conference room just because going out to a restaurant with a bunch of us, it was almost like you're on display. You felt like you were at the zoo and all the people are at the bars staring at what you ... It's like, "We're just eating, folks."

Alyssa Scolari [27:14]:

Right, we're just humans.

Sean Grannan [27:17]:

We've had situations where people have gotten up and moved away from where we were. Either they didn't want us to hear their conversations or for whatever reason. It wears on people is what I guess I'm trying to say. When people are like, "All the police are bad or all of this, and I don't understand why they act the way they do," you got to understand there's more to just putting on the uniform and going out and writing tickets. The job is so much more than that, and police officers are asked to be so much more than they used to be. I tell people this, and if I'm rambling on, Alyssa, please stop me, but you have people that ... whenever you have an interesting dilemma in society, who are they going to shift that responsibility to? It's always going to be the police because they're the only ones who work 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

You think about it, we were pretty unique in having a social worker like yourself or Michelle on staff. But even so, if we were going to bring you in at night for whatever reason, we would schedule that with you. You weren't "on call" 24/7 to come in, right? You know what I'm saying? When they start to, "Well, we need to defund the police and we need to have more social workers" it's funny. I can just see they'll have one social worker for all of Camden County and you'll have to compete with everybody in Camden County to get that person to show up at night. If they want to address these situations, they've got to take a long hard look at staffing and training. It's going to cost more money because things cost money.

Alyssa Scolari [29:19]:

Things cost money. Right. That's what it is. It's not about defunding. It's actually about placing more money into police officers so that they can protect and serve because they are getting the support that they need because they put their lives on the line every day, and they have so much trauma and they contemplate taking their own lives and they battle addiction and ... It's about we need more money.

Sean Grannan [29:53]:

Right. It's not like they go to the police academy and they take that human gene out of them and turn them into some-

Alyssa Scolari [29:53]:

Right, they're not robots.

Sean Grannan [30:05]:

Yes, some sort of robot. They still have an emotional component. It wears on you. You can't unsee what you see.

Alyssa Scolari [30:14]:

Yeah, you can never unsee it.

Sean Grannan [30:18]:

Right, right.

Alyssa Scolari [30:19]:

And it's always there at the ready to come out, especially when you've been traumatized and you haven't had the chance to process it.

Sean Grannan [30:29]:

We had a situation a few years back where they came up to I think it was a one year old or a one and a half year old who was unconscious on the lawn, he wasn't breathing and all that. One of the things I remember talking to one of the guys that was there ... He was a good friend of mine who had worked for me and he said, "That baby had the same pajamas that my son has." When you think about even a little thing like that, had the same pajamas that my son wears. Whenever he sees his son in those pajamas, he's going to be thinking of that.

Alyssa Scolari [31:05]:

Flashbacks, yup.

Sean Grannan [31:06]:

Sure. It's those little things that like I said, you carry around with you that are always there.

Alyssa Scolari [31:14]:

That you don't have any place to really put it because you're expected to be the strong, logical, clear minded individual at all times. And then what happens when ... because I know that there have been people that have been lost to suicide in the department, specifically in the Gloucester Township Police Department.

Sean Grannan [31:38]:

Absolutely, mm-hmm [affirmative].

Alyssa Scolari [31:40]:

How is everybody else supposed to ... that's traumatizing in itself so how is everybody else supposed to pick up and continue to protect and serve around the clock when their brother just completed suicide, their sister just completed suicide?

Sean Grannan [31:56]:

Yeah, it's really a difficult situation especially in a situation like that, and other departments in the county have had that as well. It's that ripple effect, right? You can't drop a stone in the water without it affecting everything else that's on the water. It happens. There's that whole undercurrent of he was best friends with this guy, or he worked on a platoon with this girl and things like that. Everybody gets affected by it in one way or another. Whether you knew the person or not, maybe you really knew his best friend and you got to try and help that person through it.

Alyssa Scolari [32:41]:

Yeah.

Sean Grannan [32:42]:

You're your own little community in the department there, and those things have a community effect.

Alyssa Scolari [32:49]:

Absolutely. Now, one of the things I wanted to ask you is you have used this phrase while speaking, which I think is so important and you have not said committed suicide. You have said completed suicide. Can you please talk a little bit about your choice of language, because I think that it's very important for people to understand?

Sean Grannan [33:14]:

Well, I had a psychologist a few years ago that I was talking to and she corrected me on it because I would say committed suicide. She was like, "No, we say completed suicide now." I'm like, "Why?" They're like, "Because you didn't commit to the action. What you did was you actually fulfilled the action and you did that." That was the way it was explained to me was that you completed suicide, that you actually went through with it and you actually did that, and when you say commit, it takes on a different connotation.

Alyssa Scolari [33:51]:

Yes, yes. Commit just in the same way that you would say somebody committed a crime. It adds to the shame and the stigma around surrounding the suicide. When you say that person committed suicide, no, they didn't commit. They completed suicide.

Sean Grannan [34:09]:

Right, mm-hmm [affirmative]. Yeah, and that's one of the biggest hurdles in this whole officer wellness and police stress course that we need to do is it's tearing down the stigma and it's bringing it to the forefront. And one of the things that I would always say during my classes and my talks would be, "I just need you to bring this to the front of your mind from being buried in the back of your mind because you need to constantly as police officers that we always need to be aware that this could be a problem. Not just for you, but it could be a problem for your partner or the person working across the room for you." One of the videos that I would show was a really well done video that came out of the LA County Sheriff's Department. They actually used I would say an A-List actor, a guy named Hector Elizondo was the person that did the video.

And you could tell the production value and all that, they spent some money on it because it was a real problem out there in LA, and they committed to it. Thank God New Jersey decided to throw some money at it, too, and really tried to push it to the forefront because I hate to say it's only going to get worse, but it's only going to get, I think, more serious just because the stressors aren't going to go away.

Alyssa Scolari [35:47]:

No. Yeah, I agree with you. Now, one of the statistics that I was reading about is that police officers are more likely to complete suicide or attempt suicide after they've retired, and one of the reasons ... As a trauma therapist, one of the ways that I make sense of this is once you're no longer with the police and you've never gotten the help for all that trauma, you have all this free time on your hands. The pressure is off and now all the demons come to the surface.

Sean Grannan [36:31]:

Yeah, that's a real issue. They used to say idle hands, right? If you're not occupying your mind, you think about a police officer so for 25 years, 20 years, whatever, this police officer, his mind has been busy. Or, her mind rather. Their mind has been busy 24/7. Even when you say you don't take the job home, that's wholly untrue.

Alyssa Scolari [37:01]:

Right, who you trying to fool?

Sean Grannan [37:02]:

Yeah. So, when you're no longer working, you need to ... How shall I say? You need to occupy your mind with other things. Hopefully, you've been getting some therapy prior to that but if you haven't, you need to talk through this stuff with somebody because you got to unpack that stuff. I know unpack, I guess it's trendy these days but it's true because it's almost like having that garage that you just keep throwing stuff in and eventually it's got to get cleaned out somehow, right?

Alyssa Scolari [37:43]:

Yeah, I agree. Now, and if this is too personal you can tell me to back off, but is that something that you struggled with going into retirement? Feeling like, "Oh crap, now I have all of these memories and demons that are coming back that I didn't really get the chance to process."

Sean Grannan [38:07]:

Luckily no, and I say luckily because I think I was lucky being introduced into this whole world of officer wellness. I had a headstart at it, so I think when I retired I was fairly as well adjusted as I am. I was fairly prepared for it. So I always have that option, and I do some therapy on a semi-regular. I see somebody quarterly, I guess, maybe.

Alyssa Scolari [38:40]:

Yay, therapy.

Sean Grannan [38:42]:

You know what I mean? There's always stuff, right?

Alyssa Scolari [38:46]:

Always.

Sean Grannan [38:51]:

I have a great relationship with my wife, and she and I spend most of our time together but there's sometimes she doesn't want to talk to me about things and there are things that I may not want to ... because you spend your whole life as a police officer, or as a first responder, fireman, EMT, dispatcher, whatever trying to shield them from the demons of the world. You know what I mean? You don't always want to talk to people about that sort of thing but when you go to a therapist, it's pretty easy, especially if you have somebody cool like yourself or somebody like that that you can just ... This deal or that, or whatever. You just need somebody to listen.

Alyssa Scolari [39:36]:

Yeah.

Sean Grannan [39:37]:

You know what I mean?

Alyssa Scolari [39:37]:

Yeah.

Sean Grannan [39:37]:

And not so much understand but just hear it.

Alyssa Scolari [39:40]:

Right. I think more importantly, not understand, I think it's the opposite. I think it's that you need somebody to understand that they will never understand what it's like to do the job that you do. One of the things that I appreciated, which this is going to sound a little bit twisted, but I really did appreciate it with working in the police department is that I knew that I would never understand and they knew that I would never understand, and we had that mutual respect for each other knowing our differences, and I actually think it made people trust me a lot more because I didn't try to be one of them. I did not try to be a police officer, or act like I even know what it was like.

Sean Grannan [40:31]:

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense and I'll use a different example. That makes a lot of sense if you can just be tolerant of each other. Tolerance is a big deal, right?

Alyssa Scolari [40:45]:

It's huge.

Sean Grannan [40:47]:

I have a friend whose gay. I don't understand what it's like to be gay. Or, I guess that's probably not ... You might have to edit that out, I guess. Can you still gay? I don't know.

Alyssa Scolari [40:57]:

Yeah, you can-

Sean Grannan [40:57]:

Okay.

Alyssa Scolari [40:58]:

You can say gay. Yeah, you don't understand what it's like to be gay but you are accepting.

Sean Grannan [41:08]:

Right. I get that I'll never understand but you're still my friend. I still get it. I still get that you're still my friend. I just may not understand what you're going through. Or somebody who's black. I don't know what it's like to be you, but I can be accepting of how you think.

Alyssa Scolari [41:31]:

Yeah, I don't know what it's like to be you but I can stand next to you.

Sean Grannan [41:33]:

Exactly.

Alyssa Scolari [41:34]:

And, I can support you.

Sean Grannan [41:35]:

Right, right.

Alyssa Scolari [41:36]:

Yeah, absolutely. The other question I wanted to ask you was what-

Sean Grannan [41:43]:

I love when you grin, I can tell you.

Alyssa Scolari [41:48]:

I get so nervous because I've had so many questions I've wanted to fire at you for so long. What made you want to come on this podcast? Because I've wanted to ask you, and I've been terrified because I guess in a way the political climate right now has made me fearful that people may not be supportive of me and what I'm doing because I'm in the "world of the liberals" as people may say, even though that's not how I would identify myself but that's how a lot of people see me.

Sean Grannan [42:32]:

Okay. All right, I understand that. Number one, just to give you a little background on me. At work by some of the people that you know and I know, I would get characterized as this far right-wing nut. Yet, at home by some of the folks in my home, i.e my wife, my son, I would get classified as a liberal.

Alyssa Scolari [43:03]:

[crosstalk 00:43:03] All without context.

Sean Grannan [43:06]:

Right. I listen to everybody, and if you can articulate your points and can ... I'm like, "Okay, well I understand. I understand what you mean." And, I'm not some all knowing being or anything like that. I'm not trying to even imply that but I can understand people's points. There is a middle ground everywhere contrary to what we see in the news. There's a middle ground and that's where problems get solved is in the middle ground. So, what made me want to come on is because I'll listen to stuff on the radio or I'll listen to stuff on television and I'm like, "But, you're missing the point, folks." It's not that police officers are bad and it's not that police officers are holy good or anything like that. There's roughly between 800,000 and a million police officers in the United States. Are you telling me that you can take 800,000 of any group, 800,000 people, and there is not one bad actor in those 800,000 people?

Of any people. Doctors, therapists, priests, lawyers, whatever. You can't have that many ... it's like pieces of wood. You take 800,000 pieces of wood, some of them of are going to be rotten. It's just the way it is. It would drive me crazy how does this happen, and then you would hear things like, "Oh, well you need to have better screening." I've sat in those interviews. Everybody tells you everything that you want to hear. I'm sorry, but do you mind working overnights? All the nights for the next three years? I love it. I can't wait. Do you mind working every holiday? No problem. No problem. Don't mind. I don't like spending time with my family anyway. Blah, blah, blah.

Until the third month on the job, "Oh, this sucks." So again back to the question, what made me want to come on is somebody's got to be speaking for them. Somebody's got to speaking for these guys and girls that are just going out and working on the job and doing it amid COVID, and doing it amid media and political backlash and say, "Hey, listen. You're not seeing the whole picture." We have political candidates who are out there and they're all lobbying for [inaudible 00:45:44] and one of them just says, "The police do not wrong and ..." and the other one is telling you the police are wrong, they should be shooting people in the leg.

Guys. You're missing the point. It's not like that. It's a shame because everybody will tell you to a man, to a woman, that some of the events of this past summer, of course, they were horrible. But, by the same token, that doesn't make every police interaction bad. There are millions of police interactions every day that go without any problems.

Alyssa Scolari [46:25]:

And so many good ones. So many good ones.

Sean Grannan [46:28]:

All the time. So what made me want to come on is I just wanted to give voice to the fact that guys and girls, they need to take care of themselves while they're on the job, number one, but also that this job has so many more layers than what is portrayed on television and unfortunately, the people in the media and the people in politics a lot of times just aren't getting it.

Alyssa Scolari [46:56]:

It's so polarized.

Sean Grannan [46:59]:

Yeah, and there is a middle ground. Everybody needs to have a seat at the table. At the police department when I was there, you knew how we would round table stuff.

Alyssa Scolari [47:12]:

Yes.

Sean Grannan [47:13]:

Everybody would bring ad nauseam sometimes. You'd be in these meetings and you'd be like, "Oh my God, one more opinion." But, it would get hammered out. It wasn't like things were done by fiat. A lot of people had voices at the table.

Alyssa Scolari [47:29]:

No, it's get hammered out. Yes, and I have firsthand experience with that. Everybody sits down and everybody has their own opinions and comes from different backgrounds and different perspectives, and it gets hammered out. Yeah, there's a middle ground and that's what we need to be looking at. It's not the polarization. It's this middle ground.

Sean Grannan [47:53]:

Right, right. So, that's why. You and I have had private interactions where it's just been you and I talking and I can tell you're reasonable, and when I saw you're podcast and I've listened to some of them, and I saw what you were doing, life after trauma, it's just so necessary because I hate to sound cliché but there is life after trauma. You can get through to the other side. And being a police officer, being a fireman, being a dispatcher, whatever, your life is one big trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [48:31]:

Yes, you are subjecting yourself to decades of trauma. Yup.

Sean Grannan [48:32]:

Right. So there are ways to get out the other side, and hopefully through you and I talking and people listening, maybe they'll be like, "What is that EAP he was just talking about. Maybe I'll check that out."

Alyssa Scolari [48:46]:

Check it out. Or, Cop2Cop.

Sean Grannan [48:49]:

Maybe I will go to therapy. Let me talk to this psychologist. Everybody thinks it's laying on the couch looking at Sigmund Freud.

Alyssa Scolari [49:01]:

Yeah, no. It's not like that at all, especially not in my office. You walk into my office and I make you work.

Sean Grannan [49:08]:

Right, but half the time it's people talking like you and I. You walk into your therapist and it's like, "Hey, Alyssa. What's up?" You're like, "What's been going on this week or this month?" Then, you might start talking about something you saw on the news and then you evolve into something that happened to you 10 years ago.

Alyssa Scolari [49:27]:

Exactly.

Sean Grannan [49:29]:

It happens very organically and it's very easy to do but it's very necessary to do. You don't go through life never going to the dentist, and therapy's the same way.

Alyssa Scolari [49:45]:

I agree, and I think that you did a really great job of helping to erase some of the stigma that surrounded the topics of therapy and suicide. Suicide is that one subject that nobody likes to talk about. Brush it under the carpet, nobody likes to talk about it, but it's real and I obviously have no background in law enforcement but I can only imagine how hard it is as somebody who, as a lot of the listeners out there know, has been in recovery from complex PTSD. I have battled suicidal urges my entire life and have gone as far as to make attempts at ending my own life. There's no shame in it. It's very real and the thing that I think that everybody needs to know, especially to the law enforcement out there is that you can get help. Help is available. Not everybody is going to tell you that you're a horrible person for being in the field that you're in.

Sean Grannan [51:00]:

And, if I can put a bit of a point on it, in 2018, 167 police officers, people in law enforcement, committed suicide. 167. In that same year, there were 129 line of duty deaths. You just look at it like, "That's a lot." And, those are the ones that we know of, the ones that were characterized as suicide. No one's ever publicized-

Alyssa Scolari [51:31]:

Right, what about the ones that no one talks about.

Sean Grannan [51:33]:

Right, that were never reported, which happens a lot, for insurance purposes or we're going to take care of this guy so his family doesn't know, which happens very innocently but those numbers need to be out there. People need to realize it. We had a trooper in New Jersey that I think it was about 10 years ago, got into his troop car, was headed to work, for whatever reason pulled over on the side of the road and took his own life. What got him there? You know what I mean? And that happens all the time. I'm not going to say it happens every day, but it happens a lot.

Alyssa Scolari [52:19]:

Way more often than people are talking about.

Sean Grannan [52:21]:

Right, and so people need to be aware of it. Not just civilians and politicians, but police officers need to be aware of it. You need to be looking at the people around you to make sure that they're okay because there are days when people are not okay. And even you putting your hand on your shoulder, "You okay? Is there anything I can do for you today?" That goes a long way.

Alyssa Scolari [52:45]:

Oh, it goes the longest way. It goes the longest way. Yup, I've even had police officers during the job probably do that to me during one or two bad days. And I'm like, "Oh, that makes it all better." Not that it fixes everything but it brings you out of this "I'm so alone. Nobody cares about me. Nobody sees me. The world would be better off without me." It goes a long way.

Sean Grannan [53:17]:

You remember. We would come down to where you would work, and I would come and plop in your office, "Hey, Alyssa. What's up?"

Alyssa Scolari [53:27]:

And, I loved it. I lived for it.

Sean Grannan [53:30]:

Yeah, "You guys go do whatever we're supposed to do down here. I'm going to go talk to Alyssa for a minute."

Alyssa Scolari [53:35]:

Yup. I lived for it. Those knocks on my door, I was like, "Yes. Somebody's coming to talk to me."

Sean Grannan [53:44]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [53:46]:

Well, I'm so appreciative of you coming on here today and being raw and being a voice for your brothers and your sisters in law enforcement because-

Sean Grannan [53:57]:

Well thanks. I appreciate it. I appreciate you giving me the forum. That's great.

Alyssa Scolari [54:02]:

Yeah, of course.

Sean Grannan [54:03]:

Ask me back any time. I'll come back. Talk about anything.

Alyssa Scolari [54:07]:

Yup, you're coming back. Don't you worry, you'll be back.

Thanks for listening, everyone. For more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website at AlyssaScolari.com. The really great thing about being a part of this newsletter is that not only do you get weekly updates on new podcast episodes and blog posts, but you always get access to the private Facebook community as well as access to all sorts of insider tips, resources and infographs that supplement what we talk about on the show. You also can connect with me and other trauma warriors. I'm super active on the Facebook community and I look forward to talking with you.

[singing]

Grief does not escape any of us. Whether you're mourning the death of a loved one, the ending of a relationship, or the loss of a pre-COVID world, this episode will speak to you. Join Alyssa for an emotional conversation with her mentor, Rebecca Christianson, as they discuss the grief process as well as the start-up of Rebecca's brand new group practice - Rebellious Wellness Counseling - accepting new clients now:

https://rebelliouswellnesscounseling.com/

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari (00:23]:

Hey, everybody. What is Up? Welcome to episode. I don't know, 13, 14. I told you a long time ago I was going to stop counting and then I started counting again. Pretty sure this is going to be episode 13. Either way, welcome. So happy to have you guys listening. I have one of my favorite people on the planet with me today. I don't even think she... I don't even think she knows she's one of my favorite people on the planet, but I rave about her. [crosstalk 00:00:56]

Rebecca Christianson (00:55]:

Oh, that's nice to know.

Alyssa Scolari (01:01]:

What did you say?

Rebecca Christianson (01:02]:

I said that's to know.

Alyssa Scolari (01:03]:

I do. I rave. So I have with me today, Rebecca Christianson, who I know personally, she is my clinical supervisor. Right? Well, I guess I have my license. So technically.

Rebecca Christianson (01:18]:

You could still be clinical supervisor when you have your license. So yeah.

Alyssa Scolari (01:22]:

Basically what that means is, Rebecca is my go-to woman. So when I need help managing a client, or honestly, these days, life has been such a shit-show that Rebecca has been helping me navigate the personal waters of my life. So she's my go-to woman when it comes to needing support because one of the things that she said to me is every therapist has a good therapist, right?

And Rebecca is, I kind of translate that to every part of my life, right? Every therapist also has a good mentor, a good role model. And Rebecca I've known for not too long. It's only been about a year and a half, but she is somebody who has quickly turned into a mentor and role model for me in the field. She's an LCSW. So a licensed clinical social worker, and I am happy to have her on today. I'm so excited that she said, yes, she's a very busy woman doing lots of things, taken the world by storm. So I'm going to turn it over. Can you tell the world who you are, what you're doing?

Rebecca Christianson (02:43]:

Well, that's quite an introduction. So I don't even know where to start with that, but thank you. Thank you for all [crosstalk 00:02:50]

Alyssa Scolari (02:49]:

I have overwhelmed you already.

Rebecca Christianson (02:51]:

I feel a little overwhelmed. I feel like, I don't know, I need to straighten my tail or something. I am a licensed clinical social worker. I went to school in Texas for undergrad, Louisiana for grad school. And the military moved us up to New Jersey. I love New Jersey. I think it gets a [inaudible 00:03:14] bad rap. And we've been here since 1994 and I got licensed in 1996.

And I do say that every good therapist has a good therapist and every good therapist has a good mentor. You're exactly right. I say that all the time, because I believe that in my part of hearts, it's not an easy job. So I think support is what makes it all possible.

Alyssa Scolari (03:43]:

Yeah. It's what makes you good at what you do is being able to reach out for support and knowing when you need support. That's all part of the job.

Rebecca Christianson (03:52]:

I have a... I've been in private practice since 97. I started a really small private practice, but I worked primarily at different, a couple of different inpatient hospitals in the area. So that was my primary job. I started a small private practice. And then after I had kids grew my private practice and left the hospital world, I have been lucky enough to work with some amazing people.

I was in a group practice for a while, and then out on my own for many, many years, and recently starting a group practice like grassroots kind of a thing, built sort of on my philosophy of, I think in this world, that profits on our self-doubt taking care of yourself is a rebellious act. That's my belief. I believe that it's important to rebel against what society thinks you should be.

It's important to be who you are and be authentic. And sometimes that's a rebellious act. So kind of started to build a grassroots group practice based on that kind of philosophy. The authentic be who you are, learn who that is, make decisions.

Alyssa Scolari (05:08]:

And that's what led you, that's what inspired the name of your group practice, right?

Rebecca Christianson (05:08]:

Right. Mm-hmm (affirmative]-

Alyssa Scolari (05:08]:

Which is-

Rebecca Christianson (05:14]:

Yeah, It's a Rebellious Wellness Counseling.

Alyssa Scolari (05:19]:

Rebellious wellness counseling. I love it. It's the best name. And I love that philosophy. And I think one of the things that comes to my mind, and this is a little off topic, but I'm going to ask it anyway. So were you born in Texas?

Rebecca Christianson (05:38]:

I was born and raised in Texas. Yes. Mm-hmm (affirmative]-

Alyssa Scolari (05:42]:

It finally. Okay. So your accent finally makes so much sense to me, [crosstalk 00:05:53].

Rebecca Christianson (05:53]:

That's great. So many people say " you don't have an accent." I think I say, thank you. I do have an accent. I talk to my family. Right after I get off the phone, I have an accent, but that's funny. So you think, some people do detect it that yes.

Alyssa Scolari (06:12]:

It's so funny. It has taken me until right now on this podcast to be able to ask you, it's always been in the back of my mind, like she is from the South. And for those of you listening, one of the things that you will pick up from Rebecca right off the bat, when you meet her is just this very Southern hospitality feel. So I'm like, She's got to be from the South. So you were born in Texas?

Rebecca Christianson (06:45]:

Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative]-

Alyssa Scolari (06:46]:

Okay. And you still have family down there?

Rebecca Christianson (06:49]:

Yeah. All of my family is there.

Alyssa Scolari (06:53]:

And what brought you, So then you said that you came to New Jersey, which you said you love New Jersey.

Rebecca Christianson (07:02]:

I do. I do. So I got married before right out of college actually, and went to grad school in Louisiana. My husband was military and we got transferred to New Jersey. When we got transferred, the whole squadron was like, "where? I'm sorry, " where? And we moved to New Jersey and I thought, I love New Jersey. This gets a bad rap. Everybody thinks of every, not everyone, but people from the South think of New Jersey as the Newark airport.

But that's a beautiful, I love South Jersey. I grew up near Galveston. So that was my impression of the beach. And I don't know if you know anything about the Gulf, but the water is really dark. And so people here would go to the shore and I always thought Ew. And then one day I went to the Jersey shore and I thought it was like The Bahamas. I was like, this is fabulous. So I'm like Jersey gets the best.

Alyssa Scolari (08:01]:

I didn't know that the Gulf was really dark. I always pictured the water being like crystal clear and beautiful.

Rebecca Christianson (08:06]:

Depends on what side of the Gulf. The Galveston side of the Gulf has really dark water. It's the sand, is really, really dark it's from the sand. Sand is really dark. So I was like, so I think Jersey gets a bad rap and I love New Jersey. So I think as you know I also have a down syndrome daughter, so I did a lot of research. And New Jersey is one of the very best States. One of the two best States in the United States to live in for special needs kids. They have the most to offer. So that definitely made us stay right here. Could not be happier.

Alyssa Scolari (08:47]:

So your roots are in Texas, but your heart is in Jersey.

Rebecca Christianson (08:47]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari (08:53]:

We actually have a lot of listeners from Texas. A lot of people from Texas are listening to the podcast. So shout out to everybody.

Rebecca Christianson (09:00]:

Yeah. Shout out to everybody from Texas. I love Texas. So just don't get [inaudible 00:09:05] Eila, to leave Texas. I don't want anybody to get offended that I, but I still love Texas, but yes, New Jersey is, I think it gets a bad rap. I think it's a great place to live actually. So,

Alyssa Scolari (09:17]:

Ah, God bless you. You are one of the few.

Rebecca Christianson (09:21]:

I know.

Alyssa Scolari (09:22]:

One of the few.

Rebecca Christianson (09:24]:

Really I'm like, yeah.

Alyssa Scolari (09:26]:

But you know what you are, right. New Jersey really does a phenomenal job at providing services for those with special needs.

Rebecca Christianson (09:35]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari (09:36]:

It really does.

Rebecca Christianson (09:37]:

It's unbelievable. And if anybody out there is a listener who has special needs child, they can feel free to call me because I'm well versed. My child is 22. So I've been through the process and I can't even tell you from birth to through adulthood. It is an amazing state with very progressive thinking. And that alone makes me love New Jersey. [crosstalk 00:10:02].

Alyssa Scolari (10:01]:

New Jersey does it well.

Rebecca Christianson (10:03]:

They do.

Alyssa Scolari (10:03]:

They do it well when it comes to education for sure.

Rebecca Christianson (10:03]:

Mm-hmm (affirmative]-

Alyssa Scolari (10:06]:

So within your practice and within the patients that you've seen, what areas do you specialize in? I know, but if you want to tell everybody?

Rebecca Christianson (10:18]:

My first specialty was bereavement. I was lucky enough as an intern way back, way, way back there to work under a phenomenal pioneer in grief and loss and especially losing a child at Texas children's hospital. And I did an internship there that's actually set me back an entire semester from graduating.

So I had already planned my wedding, so I got married and then I moved back. I went back to school to finish my undergraduate because that's how important this internship was for me. So I had a significant loss in my own family of origin when I was in grad school. And I really do believe that the internship was the introduction to grief and loss for me. But I, through that internship was able to start some siblings support groups, which was an amazing opportunity. So I also did that in Louisiana and-

Alyssa Scolari (11:28]:

Where the Sibling support groups for siblings who have lost?

Rebecca Christianson (11:34]:

yeah.

Alyssa Scolari (11:35]:

Okay.

Rebecca Christianson (11:35]:

Who have lost a sibling. Yeah. Siblings support a sibling who have lost a sibling. And how that changes the dynamic in your family. And so they did bereavement almost solely for grief and loss for a number of years. And when I moved to New Jersey, as I said, I worked inpatient and then was trained in CBT, which is cognitive behavioral therapy for depression and solution focused therapy and rational motive.

Some other modalities that work better sort of inpatient when you're treating depression, anxiety, bipolar. But primarily my specialties lied in depression and anxiety with CBT and solution focused, rational motive those kinds of therapies.

And in 1998, decided that DBT dialectical behavior therapy became sort of made its debut with Marsha Linehan and a friend of mine. And I were lucky enough to be trained by her in DBT, which was an amazing-

Alyssa Scolari (12:37]:

You were trained by the Marsha Linehan?

Rebecca Christianson (12:40]:

I was.

Alyssa Scolari (12:41]:

You're basically famous.

Rebecca Christianson (12:44]:

She's famous. Let's be-

Alyssa Scolari (12:45]:

I mean she's super famous but-

Rebecca Christianson (12:48]:

Yeah, it was, I was actually star struck. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Mm-hmm (affirmative]-

Alyssa Scolari (12:54]:

Holly [inaudible 00:12:55]

Rebecca Christianson (12:54]:

I went to the Cape Cod Symposium and was in, and she actually did the training. And then flew out to Seattle to see her clinic, I was trained by the Marsha Linehan, it was pretty amazing. I started a DBT part of one of the hospitals that I worked in that model didn't really, it was very hard and demanded care to be able to do a DBT model.

But I practiced DBT. Still practice DBT. I don't currently do groups. Somebody that works for me does groups, but I still use a lot of DBT in my everyday work. I think that those are skill sets that everybody can use, learn, be reminded of. And then about six years, seven years ago a friend of mine psychologist in Cherry Hill said, "Hey, come to this training, let's do this EFT for couples."

So for anybody who knows that it's cognitively trained. DBT is very cognitive behavioral as well. EFT is emotionally focused therapy for couples. It's like the other side of the spectrum. Right? And I'm like, I don't do emotions. Just kidding.

Alyssa Scolari (14:14]:

Yeah.

Rebecca Christianson (14:14]:

And she said it's $800 and it's four days. And I said, girl, we can be in The Bahamas for $800 for four days. Like what?

Alyssa Scolari (14:22]:

Yeah.

Rebecca Christianson (14:24]:

But I went and it's amazing. So I am in the certification process with EFT for couples as well. It's an, I actually do think it's probably the only couples therapy that truly works. So I was previously trained in a Imago couples therapy. So I did do a couples therapy, but I have to be honest before EFT for couples. I wasn't that successful, but that was my last training. So DBT, lots of different kind of, you know, I'm really old, so lots of different kinds of therapies [inaudible 00:15:03].

Alyssa Scolari (15:03]:

You are not.

Rebecca Christianson (15:04]:

I am. It sounds like I'm ancient, right? I was like trained by Marsha Linehan? I feel like a dinosaur, but it's what you're seeing in my career. It was interesting to go from this cognitive behavioral. This is like mindset and skill set that really is so effective with anxiety and depression.

To be able to treat, teach people skills and tools to manage their anxiety is so impactful. And then DBT to teach people interpersonal effectiveness and emotion regulation, and so effective. These are skills that some people didn't grow up with. I think it should be taught in schools. That's was one of my, I have too many passions, but one of my passions I wanted to do, I think it should be taught in every middle school. To go from that to-

Alyssa Scolari (15:52]:

Everybody needs it. Everybody needs those skills.

Rebecca Christianson (15:55]:

Everyone needs those skills to be successful. Everybody. So, and middle school is the perfect age I think to teach them because that's when you start to form maladaptive coping skills.

Alyssa Scolari (16:07]:

Oh, yeah.

Rebecca Christianson (16:07]:

That's when you, so to go from that to EFT, was this huge mind shift, but I think it, for me, it was a really fascinating jump and it did help me bring it back down to attachment theory and even in the anxiety, [inaudible 00:16:26] depression that, to be able to obviously grief as a lot of attachment theory stuff. Right?

So, but grief was sort of, bereavement and grief was sort just like, when I learned EFT for couples, I was like, wow, so many of those skills as a therapist I use in grief therapy, but I had sort of section that office like a different kind of its own section, but pretty much it was very cognitive behavioral. So it was really interesting to bring those into more of my other types of therapy and attachment really is present for all of us, always.

Alyssa Scolari (17:00]:

Always. And would you say that a lot of, well, how would you describe what emotion focused therapy is with couples in a nutshell?

Rebecca Christianson (17:11]:

So in a nutshell, this theory is that couples get caught in a cycle and it's like an infinity loop and you pretty much can take any fight that a couple has and you can put it in that infinity loop. So usually there's a pursuer and a withdrawal. There's someone who needs to be heard, they get loud or they pursue the other person. They need to talk it out. And there is somebody who is a withdrawal, right?

So like one of, there's a therapist in New York city who writes blogs about a tiger and a turtle, right? There's a tiger, tigers need to be heard. They get louder and turtles go in and waits for the storm to pass. And that's oftentimes how couples, not all couples, but oftentimes how couples relate to each other.

Sometimes those roles can be interspersed, sometimes that's not usually the case, but sometimes. And if you think about it, two tigers, those relationships are really volatile. They usually don't last very long. And two turtles do often meet and get married, but they don't land in your office because they don't talk about anything.

Alyssa Scolari (18:23]:

No.

Rebecca Christianson (18:25]:

So there's no conflict.

Alyssa Scolari (18:27]:

Yeah.

Rebecca Christianson (18:27]:

So the couples that usually land in your office are the tiger and the turtle and the bigger the tiger gets, the more the turtle retreats, the more the turtle retreats, the bigger the tiger gets and that's kind of the dynamic. And it doesn't matter what tiger usually like, their biggest fear that's matched to their core belief is this fear of abandonment, right?

So obviously the turtle retreating is that abandonment schema, and then the turtles core belief that gets, these are just examples, obviously, but that gets hit as like, it's not, I can never do enough. I can't do it well enough. And that if you can get couples to recognize that they're never going to get their needs met in that infinity loop and that like non-verbal right?

Couples have a down Pat. It's like a look, it starts it, right?

Alyssa Scolari (18:27]:

Yeah.

Rebecca Christianson (19:19]:

It's not even like, they're never going to get their needs met, but that wife isn't the bad person, the husband isn't the bad person or the whatever couple that you're working with. The partners are not the problem. It's this interaction [crosstalk 00:19:34]

Alyssa Scolari (19:34]:

The system.

Rebecca Christianson (19:35]:

It's the system.

Alyssa Scolari (19:36]:

Right? The system is not functioning in a way that's helpful.

Rebecca Christianson (19:40]:

And once people start to realize that it's like this light bulb, as long as I keep doing this, this is going to happen. So you start to naturally communicate differently. So I've taught communication skills till I'm blue in the face with couples. And, but that philosophy was shocking to me.

Alyssa Scolari (20:04]:

It almost applies to almost every couple. You can see that.

Rebecca Christianson (20:12]:

And usually turtles can get really loud too, but that's when they have been withdrawn to the point that it's built up. Right? So there's different, you know, but when you can point that out to couples, this is your pattern, you do this, these are your triggers and they start to communicate different.

It's the system that's broken. We just have to fix the system. And when I can show them that, it doesn't matter what argument, I don't care about the content of the argument. And people believe in the content of their arguments but when you can shift-

Alyssa Scolari (20:51]:

Oh yes.

Rebecca Christianson (20:51]:

Or they want to tell you the whole story, but you start to show them, so let me get this straight. This is how you told, this is how this came about. This is how you started this conversation. And then you show them and this is how it got this big. And it's so powerful. So?

Alyssa Scolari (21:10]:

Now is that something that you enjoy as you are, because Rebellious Wellness is now open, open accepting new clients, or are we still in the process?

Rebecca Christianson (21:23]:

No, it's open accepting new clients. I haven't, the website is done, so I haven't truly launched everything. But I'll be doing that by the end of the month. I'm just waiting on our pictures actually, I had some professional pictures taken.

Alyssa Scolari (21:40]:

Oh, nice.

Rebecca Christianson (21:42]:

[inaudible 00:21:42] pictures. So for me to launch it and send every, buddy the email and send out. I'm waiting for like pictures, that's it.

Alyssa Scolari (21:42]:

Oh cool.

Rebecca Christianson (21:49]:

So I haven't launched the website yet, but I think by the end of this month, for sure. But it's up, it's running, everybody's working.

Alyssa Scolari (21:58]:

In this new, as you transitioned from being in private practice solo now going into group practice. Do you want to work mainly using EFT or are you doing grief or are you trying to do all of it? All of the above?

Rebecca Christianson (22:17]:

I do all of it because I feel that's what people say all the time. I'm sure they ask you this too, but people say all the time, " how do you see multiple people, multiple days?" And I say, because everybody has a different story. So I like to see all of it. That's what I think mixes it up. I don't want to get stuck in one. From the very beginning of my career I did a lot of just bereavement, but I don't think that that's really healthy for any therapist to get stuck in just-

Alyssa Scolari (22:50]:

I was going to ask, how did you manage? Because it sounds like you clearly have a history with loss and how did you manage doing just bereavement? I mean, bereavement alone is actually one of the more difficult things to specialize in. I remember my, the first supervisor I ever had at my very first job out of grad school.

One of the things he said to me at my orientation was I can talk to you about X, Y, and Z. We could talk about CBT, DBT, but if there is grief, don't come anywhere near me. He made it very, very clear. And I have found that to be true with a lot of therapists, that grief is not something people want to work with. How did you focus so much on bereavement without losing your mind?

Rebecca Christianson (23:56]:

I think that it was the internship at Texas children's hospital where I think I learned so much about it and it affects everyone. So even sometimes cases that I feel like, and you, I feel like you and I I've talked about this. Even cases where I feel they may have come to me for some other reason. They lost their job. Their marriage is in trouble, but they didn't come to me for marriage.

They were just like, I feel some were under that is unresolved loss. When it just doesn't make sense where you're just missing something. I'm giving them skills and they're using them, but there's something that doesn't feel like, it's almost always is an unresolved loss. It affects everyone. And sure enough, when you do history on people, and usually there is a loss somewhere that shaped their life in some kind of way.

So I think I learned early on how powerful that is. And I think it's fascinating how people grieve. So, it affects everyone and how people grieve is based on so many different things who their attachments are, who, what support they had, how much they understand about themselves, how old they are, just so many different things. And unresolved grief is a void that people will stuff and try to pretend like it's not there.

Alyssa Scolari (23:56]:

Oh, yeah.

Rebecca Christianson (25:41]:

And it comes out. People act on it all the time. And it's so much anxiety to, I think if I didn't have that grief background, I don't know that I would understand so much anxiety it's because of an unresolved loss.

Alyssa Scolari (25:56]:

Yeah. I agree with you. And I think that when we say a loss and when we talk about grief, what I really want everybody out there who's listening to understand is that, that doesn't just look like the death of somebody. Certainly the death of somebody is very significant and that is what we're talking about, but that's not all inclusive.

Rebecca Christianson (26:23]:

Absolutely not. That's the loss of like there is a divorce and the loss of your parents living together. That's the loss of one of your parents jobs that led to a significant loss of your having to move, your loss of your home, your loss of your friend group. It's all of those that are included in losses that shaped your life, that you might not have realized or grieve those losses.

Alyssa Scolari (26:54]:

Yup. It doesn't necessarily have to be death. And I think that so many of us right now in this pandemic are experiencing some sort of grief.

Rebecca Christianson (27:04]:

Absolutely. So some sort of loss. So for me I was fascinated to learn how different people grieved, how they, and to be able to help them, to be able to help people process and move through. What they needed to move through to be successful and being able to not act out on that unresolved loss, but to process it and understand how it was going to come up in their lives and how to handle it appropriately for them, or that's still is a huge passion of mine.

Alyssa Scolari (27:41]:

Yeah. And that actually brings up another question that I think I've always had about grief. And we talk, you've talked a lot about the concept of unresolved grief and unresolved loss. And this is something that I struggle with. I mean, I know a lot of the listeners on the show do know where I'm at in terms of my recovery from complex trauma.

And I think that's one of the emotions that I struggle with the most is just the magnitude of grief that I feel. And I wonder, and I could just be wondering this because I'm not quite there yet, but what does it mean to have resolved your loss? What does resolved grief look like?

Rebecca Christianson (28:37]:

I always say that, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross who-

Alyssa Scolari (28:43]:

Right. The five stages of grief, it's like-

Rebecca Christianson (28:45]:

Yes.

Alyssa Scolari (28:46]:

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

Rebecca Christianson (28:50]:

And she was brilliant and it was good for you. Wow. I'm so impressed. I was just like you said you needed to ask me, no I'm just kidding. So long time ago, I changed acceptance to accommodation. I don't think that, I think acceptance is, I mean, the way that she meant acceptance is accommodating the feelings that come up, accommodating where you're at in this life, like with that loss. Right?

But when people hear acceptance, especially people who have lost a child, because that's one of the hardest griefs to process or where they've had a tragic loss, acceptance will never make sense to them. So I changed that just for my own practice years ago into accommodation, accommodating those feelings.

So resolving grief really is, if it's a person that you're grieving, but even if it's a situation that you're grieving, it's honoring that person or understanding how to honor, especially if it's a person honoring that person that you have to know whether it's like, if that can be, you know we're very ritual, humans are very ritualistic people.

It's finding something that you do that means something that you honor that person, right? So resolution really means understanding how that loss plays a role in your life, how it will come up, what it will feel like when it comes up and being able to accommodate those feelings, that's resolution. Understanding that you're going to be triggered for the rest of your life.

When you hear a similar situation, when you see someone grieving, when you, whatever your loss is, when it touches you in your life, you will be triggered, it doesn't go away. Understanding how you'll be triggered and how to accommodate those feelings is resolution.

Alyssa Scolari (31:08]:

I both love and hate that. And I think that a lot of people will. I think you'll understand this as I explained more, right? I hate it because it's just shitty, right? There's no undoing it.

Rebecca Christianson (31:08]:

Oh absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari (31:26]:

Like grief, is grief, is grief. A loss is a loss is a loss. And it's just a shitty feeling. With that being said, I love the way you put it because it's not about accepting. It's about, like you said, accommodating, or as I like to call it sometimes the integration, right?

Integrating, yes, this is what happened. And this is how it's going to affect me. How can I move on with my life, knowing what I know and feeling the way I feel and still have meaning to my life.

Rebecca Christianson (31:59]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari (32:00]:

I love that because I actually think it's very relieving for people to hear that because so many people who go through any kind of grief, whether it's the loss of a child, sexual assault, abuse of a parent or the traumatic loss of somebody, somebody passed away. So many people are told " Okay, it's been two years, it's time to accept what happened to you."

Rebecca Christianson (32:25]:

Oh, my gosh it's... yeah.

Alyssa Scolari (32:26]:

And I think it is so relieving to hear that, that's not really what Elizabeth Kubler-Ross meant by accept.

Rebecca Christianson (32:38]:

It's not and it never goes away. And I'd say, that's one of the first things I say, if I could say some one broad statement about bereavement, it takes a lot longer to heal than anybody ever wants to believe it's going to take or wants it to take. And so I, if your friends are saying, it's been a year, it's been two years, they have never experienced a loss that you've experienced, even treat trauma.

And it is a part of like, if you've had a traumatic childhood grieving the loss of the parents that you wish you had had grieving the loss of the childhood that you wish you've had, that's very, very painful. And I think understanding how that's going to come out, so many people are triggered when they have a child. I see a man now who has children.

And he was so triggered when he said about his own abusive father when he said to me, " it's not that hard to be a good father." It's not that hard. You just aren't there. You love your kids. You do what's right for them. You do the next thing for them. It's not that hard.

And he always felt like it was going to be so hard to be a dad because his dad was abusive and unavailable. And he had to grieve. He grieved then the loss of his father, the loss of the father he wished he had. And that's a really difficult process.

I think healing from that means that you understand you will forever be triggered by that as you work through it, you're triggered less and you understand what those triggers are and how to accommodate those feelings when they come up and make better decisions.

Alyssa Scolari (34:32]:

Yup. But it's still there.

Rebecca Christianson (34:34]:

Always there.

Alyssa Scolari (34:36]:

I mean, Honestly, I think we could have an entire episode alone on just what can get triggered in terms of grief when you become a parent. Especially-

Rebecca Christianson (34:36]:

Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari (34:47]:

If you have any kind of childhood abuse or anything like that. Or even if you've had a miscarriage and I don't think many people understand, it's like, but here you have your baby. And it's like it's so not like that. It's-

Rebecca Christianson (35:05]:

I see a pediatrician who had a miscarriage and you would think that she, and she said, "I was so unprepared for what I was going to feel like." And I know it's, that is... we could do a whole episode on that alone, but yes we can absolutely [crosstalk 00:35:25]

Alyssa Scolari (35:24]:

We Absolutely could. And how an unrecognized it goes and, I want to say ungrieved which is not a word, but I'm just making [inaudible 00:35:37] up now. It's like we don't take the time to even acknowledge that loss. In fact, there's so much stigma around it that everybody keeps it to themselves when they suffer a miscarriage. They don't tell anybody. It's so sad.

Rebecca Christianson (35:53]:

Yeah. It's so sad. It is. And not only do you not tell people, but the hormonal impact, there's so much that goes into that loss. It is very unacknowledged. And interestingly enough, I think one of the other and most unacknowledged griefs is the loss of a friend.

There's an author who wrote a book, his name's Harold Ivan Smith. He's a phenomenal author on grief. And I saw him speak after he wrote that book. I lost a friend 10 years ago and I saw him speak on that about three years before she got sick and he's right.

He says, our friends are the people we choose to be closest in our lives. And yet he made people raise their hand in the audience. How many days do you get off show numbers on your finger. How many days do you get off? If your friend passes away, zero, most people.

Alyssa Scolari (36:53]:

Nothing.

Rebecca Christianson (36:54]:

But if your cousin's wife passes away, you probably get two days and you've met her twice. So it's an unacknowledged grief. And I really-

Alyssa Scolari (37:07]:

That's the word yep, unacknowledged.

Rebecca Christianson (37:10]:

And so there are several unacknowledged groups. That's one of them, a miscarriage is certainly right in there. It's really there. And they're such personal losses too. So,

Alyssa Scolari (37:24]:

So in a way, it's almost like as you continue this next stage of your life and your professional development with Rebellious Wellness Counseling, you really will continue to encounter grief, because grief is really there for us and a thousand different ways and shapes and forms. So it's something that you'll always be working with.

Rebecca Christianson (37:47]:

Absolutely. I absolutely think that it is there for everyone. And the difference in, like I said healing, where you learn to accommodate those feelings and understand that you will always be triggered and learn to do self care, like things, when you get triggered and learn to accommodate those feelings and not act out on those feelings, react to them, the way that you need to react to them, react appropriately to those triggers and accommodate those feelings that come up.

When you don't, when you have unresolved grief that can turn into many different problems. So you act out on that grief. So you become anxious because you try to control things that you can't control because you're trying to prevent something bad from happening because there's an unresolved issue, unresolved grief. Right?

That's definitely one way that I've seen anxiety began to spiral out of control OCD disorder sometimes are grief related. It's very, people don't ever think that, but when you start to pair down or pair away the layers, it's oftentimes it comes down to unresolved grief.

Alyssa Scolari (39:10]:

Yeah, absolutely. I agree a thousand percent. Now with your new practice, how many people are there on your team? So you're the founder?

Rebecca Christianson (39:23]:

Mm-hmm (affirmative]-

Alyssa Scolari (39:24]:

How many people are there?

Rebecca Christianson (39:27]:

There's four people altogether. So me and three other therapists.

Alyssa Scolari (39:31]:

And does everybody specialize in something different or is it?

Rebecca Christianson (39:37]:

So I supervise all of them. So Stacy Tarzie is one of the therapists. I supervised her in 1998. Sorry. She got her license in 2000 and then Arnett Clark is, she just recently graduated with her master's degree and she specializes in children and adolescents. So that's not a specialty that I have. I usually see adolescents and adults. So she has a little bit of a different specialty. And Diane Mishler, who's also part of our team does the DBT groups. So she has that specialty. She's also a certified yoga therapist, so she does therapeutic yoga.

Alyssa Scolari (40:25]:

So you've got people with all different backgrounds.

Rebecca Christianson (40:28]:

I do. Yes. I know. I'm very lucky.

Alyssa Scolari (40:31]:

Well, and I love it because I also think it goes with, just to circle back with kind of the theme of what Rebellious Wellness Counseling is. And so I'm actually on the website right now. And for those of you who are listening, it's rebelliouswellnesscounseling.com. I will link it in the show notes and it will be in the newsletter and on the Facebook page.

So no worries about that. If you miss the spelling or anything, just check online, but the quote, right, when you go on the website is the quote that really inspired this group practice, which is in a world that profits from escapism and self-doubt personal development is an act of rebellion. So I love that you have all different people in your practice who have these different kinds of specialties in different areas of expertise that they bring to the table.

Rebecca Christianson (41:29]:

Mm-hmm (affirmative]-

Alyssa Scolari (41:30]:

I just think it's awesome. It's awesome.

Rebecca Christianson (41:34]:

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I do some of, my roommate from college is a crisis counselor in DC. She was not a fan of the name. A couple of other people in my friend group were like, Hmm, I'm not sure about it. And I was passionate about the name because it is how I practice. I feel like I am not, I do feel I'm a warm and welcoming therapist, but I also think people have to work if they want to get better.

Alyssa Scolari (42:13]:

Oh yeah. You are both a cup of tea and a strong shot of whiskey metaphorically speaking. Rebecca will make you feel so supported and so cared about But will also kick in the ass metaphorically if you need to be kicked in the ass. And listen, we all need that in therapy. For the most part, I don't think most people go to therapy just to have tea and crumpets.

I think it's people, well, I shouldn't say some people do want to go to therapy just to talk and not hear that there's anything wrong or that there are any issues that they have to work on, but that's not how you practice.

Rebecca Christianson (42:13]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari (42:53]:

And that's just exactly what the name conveys, which is you are incredible at what you do and you don't pull any punches, but you see the way your delivery, the way you say things, it makes everything easier to hear.

Rebecca Christianson (43:14]:

Thank you very much for saying that. That's so funny. I love that. I can't wait to tell my family that you said I was like a cup of tea and a shot of whiskey. That'll go over huge.

Alyssa Scolari (43:29]:

And I mean that in the best way possible.

Rebecca Christianson (43:30]:

I know. I love that. I love that. I do. I try to live my life that way. I also think it's like I do believe in authenticity and I'm not, I don't just practice that way. I feel like I live my life that way. And I also think, as you said, a lot of your listeners know your journey and I also am pretty open and one of the reasons I'm really passionate about grief, I've had a lot of losses in my life and I think every one of them, I had to understand and grieve and go through therapy and understand that was going to continue to come up.

We had, I had a house fire. I think you knew that. I had a house fire six years ago and my house burnt down in the middle of the night. And I just was watching a show not too long ago. And my sister was visiting and she said, " Is it okay to watch this?" Because the house burnt down. And I was like, " Yeah, I can watch this."

But it's interesting how that comes out and that's such a huge loss. So you're right it doesn't always have to be people. It can be definitely can, traumatic events happen all the time. And it's just understanding and being able to work through them. And so, as a therapist to be able to seek help.

We all went to therapy immediately and have the courage to work through them yourself. So have the courage to walk in that path. And let people know that they're not alone. You've also had to walk in that path sometimes. I feel like that's what I love about you is that you're so honest and open and I feel that that's authenticity.

Alyssa Scolari (45:18]:

Yeah, showing up as yourself, I think it makes you, it requires you to be vulnerable, but it also brings the most benefit in terms of making great connections.

Rebecca Christianson (45:29]:

Mm-hmm (affirmative]- Yeah. I believe that.

Alyssa Scolari (45:32]:

Well, I thank you so much for coming on the show today. rebelliouswellnesscounseling.com. I will again link the website. They are open for business.

Rebecca Christianson (45:43]:

Yeah.

Alyssa Scolari (45:43]:

Taking new clients, doing telehealth reach out. Rebecca is amazing and her team is no doubt amazing as well.

Rebecca Christianson (45:54]:

Well, thank you so much for having me. This was so fun. I was so excited to... that you asked me, so thank you so much for having me.

Alyssa Scolari (46:03]:

Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode for more information about today's episode and to sign up for the light after trauma newsletter, head over to my website @alyssascolari.com. I'm also on Twitter and I'd love to chat with you guys. Be sure to follow me. My Twitter handle is Alyssa Scolari. Thanks again for listening and take good care.

In this solo mini-episode, Alyssa talks about the current political climate in the United States as the Presidential election draws to a close. She offers different coping strategies for ways to manage the stress of the election on top of dealing with a global pandemic.

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:24]:

Election Day, everybody. Well, at least everybody who is living in the United States of America, I should say. It is Tuesday, November 3rd, and I was going to drop an episode with an interview with my clinical supervisor. Her name is Rebecca Christensen, but actually, given the political chaos that we have been in for the last couple of months, I figured that it'd be a little bit more fitting to drop a solo mini episode on some coping strategies for how to help us all get through this election and the coronavirus for that matter because let's be honest, times are so tough right now. And in case you have not been keeping up with the blog posts, even I'm struggling quite a bit. There's been a lot going on in my personal life and the coronavirus... the numbers are spiking, and it's giving me anxiety, and it's just... I don't know.

Alyssa Scolari [01:31]:

It seems like there's no end in sight sometimes, so it can be really difficult to hold on to hope. And on top of it, we are also in the process of house hunting which sounds exciting, or it sounded exciting until we actually started to do the hunting, and then we realized that it's almost impossible to find a house right now. The market is so crazy because people are fleeing the city and moving into the suburbs to escape COVID, so houses pop up on the market and then they are off the market within 24 hours. So, we are hustling, we are busy, and I am tired and sad. And I know I'm not the only one because I've heard people say this in both my professional and my personal life that everything that's been going on with this election is stressing them out.

Alyssa Scolari [02:33]:

And I'm going to be honest. I've never been stressed out about an election. I'm 28 years old, and I am a little bit ashamed to admit that this was my first time voting. So I've had, I guess, two opportunities in the past, right? Is that right, Dave? All right, Dave's giving me the thumbs up. I can't do math. Math was not my subject. So I've had two opportunities to vote in the past, and I did not. And most people would look down upon me in shame. That's something I actually never share with people, but I guess I just didn't care. And this year is the first year that I really have started to care about politics and started to become involved. So those of you who are listening and your jaws are dropping to the floor, don't judge me. This is a no judge zone.

Alyssa Scolari [03:36]:

I had other things going on in my life. I really didn't have space for politics, but I'm here. I'm involved. To be honest, I'm a little bit nervous about coming on and talking about politics today because I know it's such a charged topic, and there's so much hatred. So I am going to try to keep things as neutral as I possibly can. And I would appreciate if you guys could just hold space for the things that I have to say on this episode today.

Alyssa Scolari [04:15]:

So I am not coming on here to tell you who I think should win. I am not coming on here to tell you what policies I think need to be put into place. That's not the reason I'm here. The reason I'm here is because most of us feel very, very strongly one way or the other, whether you're red, whether you're blue, whether you're somewhere in between, and I'm here to encourage courage you to just be able to hold space regardless of the outcome of this election. And we're going to get into a little bit about what that means.

Alyssa Scolari [04:59]:

So one of the things that I think we all do, I know I definitely do this when I get into one of my depressive funks or episodes or whatever you all call it, is I spent a lot of time on social media, and I have spent probably way too much time on social media, not just during the election, but during all of quarantine, so pretty much the whole year of 2020. And there's so much hatred. So I just keep seeing time and time again that if somebody does not hold the same political beliefs and values as you, that it's a war. We are just spewing hatred and saying violent things and making death threats.

Alyssa Scolari [05:56]:

And while I understand the importance of trying to save our democracy and get our country back together, I also feel like it's really important to hold space for all political opinions and beliefs. Even that statement itself is probably going to get me a lot of haters, but I'm not saying this because I have any kind of political agenda. I'm saying this because I believe that holding space is actually healthier for us.

Alyssa Scolari [06:34]:

So what happens if we are... for example, let's just say most people would just assume about me that I am just this really, really hard liberal. And let's say that I encounter somebody who is really, really pro-Trump. What would happen if I started making death threats to that person, if I told them that they were a piece of shit? What if I then took my anger out at that person and then turned to another social media platform? So let's say I went on Facebook, and I started talking about my interaction with this person and how that person sucks. I hope that person dies. And then I have other people with different political views coming at me, or I have people who agree with me going, "That Trump supporter should die." What does that do?

Alyssa Scolari [07:31]:

I mean, it doesn't do anything aside from raise my cortisol levels, so your stress hormone, and make me upset, potentially trigger me, and does nothing to actually change the world. So when I say holding space, I'm not saying that you have to agree or accept whatever happens regardless of the outcome of the election. What I'm saying is that it's so important for your mental health, your physical health for you to try to have some type of respect or hold the space for other people to have different opinions and different beliefs. If you allow space for that, without judging them to the extreme, without making death threats, you are not going to be as triggered, and then you are going to have more time and more space in your day to be able to make effective change in the world as a result of your political beliefs.

Alyssa Scolari [08:48]:

So that's my brief political spiel. With that being said, I just hope that you all know that we're all going through it right now. We are all really stressed out about the future of our nation, about what's going to lie ahead in terms of this pandemic, and we need to try to take care of ourselves and each other.

Alyssa Scolari [09:15]:

So I'm just going to throw out a couple of tips here. Some of them might seem cheesy. Some of them are cheesy, but they might work for you. Some of them work for me, but I think it's really important that we get back to basics in terms of self-care right now because there's so much happening, and we really need to be taking care of each other and ourselves, like I said.

Alyssa Scolari [09:40]:

So one of the recommendations that I'm going to make, or one of the coping skills that I'm going to throw out there to all of you is actually directly from Marsha Linehan, who is the creator of what's called dialectical behavioral therapy, otherwise known as DBT. I am not the biggest DBT fan. No offense, Marsha. I think you're amazing. I think DBT skills are definitely needed, but I think that they work best when paired with other types of therapy. But one of the things that we're going to be talking about today is in Marsha Linehan's distress tolerance module.

Alyssa Scolari [10:26]:

So distress tolerance... it's pretty self-explanatory, right? How do you tolerate or how do you hold space and try to make things a little bit less painful when you are in a lot of distress? As a side note, DBT absolutely loves their acronyms. Marsha Linehan was acronym crazy when she created DBT because every skill, almost, is an acronym. The one that I want to talk about specifically is the acronym... it's called IMPROVE and ways for being able to improve the moment and, as I said, tolerate distress.

Alyssa Scolari [11:10]:

So the I for IMPROVE stands for imagery. Imagery is this concept that we can basically go to other places in our minds when things feel really tough. So imagining really relaxing scenes or maybe going back in your mind to a vacation or a really beautiful place that you used to visit or maybe a place that felt safe to you as a kid.

Alyssa Scolari [11:40]:

Let's see, I know for me, I'm very visual in the moment. So when it comes to imagery, I like to look at artwork, or I like to be doing a puzzle that usually is full of bright colors. I need to be stimulated in the moment. I have a hard time imagining safe places in my head. I guess I'm not that creative that way, but whatever works for you. I know that this is one that most people find extremely relaxing.

Alyssa Scolari [12:12]:

The M in IMPROVE stands for meaning, so finding purpose or meaning in a painful or difficult or distressing situation. This one can be a little bit tougher for people because it feels a little bit invalidating, especially for those of us who have survived any kind of trauma. How are we supposed to make meaning out of those of us who have been sexually assaulted?

Alyssa Scolari [12:43]:

What I will say is this. Finding meaning is not the same as accepting or being okay with the reality of things. Finding meaning is more about what am I going to do with all of the pain that I'm feeling. For example, I became a trauma therapist. So I took the pain that I suffered. I took what I endured, and I use it to move forward to help others. And I touched on this a little bit earlier when it comes to the election, specifically, let's say whoever you're voting for doesn't end up winning. What can you do with that? How can you find meaning in that? You can volunteer yourself to do whatever work you think needs to be done to create the effective change that you think is needed in this country.

Alyssa Scolari [13:42]:

The P in IMPROVE stands for prayer. This is another touchy one because people may or may not be believers. The P also could stand for poetry. So those who are not believers could also just find solace in poetry. I know I find a lot of solace in poetry, if not prayer is another way to be able to tolerate distress.

Alyssa Scolari [14:14]:

The R stands for relaxing actions. I love this one. This one is my favorite. Like I said, I'm a very in the moment, hands-on kind of person. So I have to actually do something if I'm going to be tolerating any kind of distress or uncomfortable situation in my life. I have to be in action, so whether that's taking a hot bath, getting a massage, there's nothing I love more than a good massage, practicing yoga or other kinds of stretching. I find yoga particularly helpful when I'm upset because it's not something that's requiring me to get my heart rate up so high that I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack. It's something that actually reminds me to get back to the basics and focus on my breathing and to move my body with intention.

Alyssa Scolari [15:10]:

The O in IMPROVE stands for one thing in the moment, so I actually was just touching on this a little bit. This may look like fully participating in whatever you are doing. So I'm the biggest fan of multitasking. I shouldn't say fan. I should say I am guilty of trying to multitask in all areas of my life right now. I need to stop. It's something I need to work on. And this one thing in the moment is actually very, very helpful. So for example, if I'm doing a training, an online training, am I actually paying attention to the online training right now? Hell, no. I'm writing my blog posts. I'm thinking about what podcast episode I could do next. I'm thinking about where I'm going to go this weekend. I'm petting my dog. I have such a hard time fully throwing myself into the moment.

Alyssa Scolari [16:11]:

So if this is something you have a hard time with doing as well, it's going to be really helpful to try to be wherever you are during this election time, so to speak, and really, in all times when things feel stressful, but especially right now. So while you're at work, you don't necessarily need to be on your phone, scrolling through political-themed TikToks, on Instagram looking at the news. You just need to be at work. If you're at church, you just need to be at church. If you're at a sporting event, you just need to be at your sporting event. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, try to just be all in. Very similar to mindfulness.

Alyssa Scolari [17:02]:

The V in IMPROVE stands for vacation, my favorite word. This could mean a number of things. So it doesn't necessarily mean getting on a plane and going to Fiji which is something that, dear God, I would give anything to do right now. Giving yourself a vacation could be as simple as turning your phone off for a day. Okay, a day may be pushing it for some of us. How about an hour? How about we turn our phone off for an hour? Why don't we take a one-hour break from working? Why don't we take a blanket to a park and sit in park for the afternoon? Why don't we shut off all the electronics while we eat our meals?

Alyssa Scolari [17:55]:

That's what I mean by vacation. Give yourself a day, give yourself a couple hours to sleep in, give yourself a day to stay in bed. If that day becomes two days, then becomes three days, well now we have a problem. But the vacation should be brief. And it's just a way for you to escape reality. It is really okay for us to escape reality sometimes. We need it. We need to check out, as long as we remember to check back in.

Alyssa Scolari [18:24]:

Last but not least the E in IMPROVE, my least favorite, stands for encouragement and rethinking the situation. I'm going to be honest, not a fan of this one, but it's definitely something that I need to work on and something that I'm sure a lot of you need to work on as well.

Alyssa Scolari [18:46]:

So self-encouragement means being your own cheerleader, telling yourself I am doing the best I can, reminding yourself that the stress and the chaos of this election and the pandemic will not last forever. It feels like it's going to last forever, but it truly won't. Reminding yourself that this is all going to pass and that even though things right now are highly uncomfortable, highly distressing, and highly triggering, we can stand it. We have been standing it for all this time, and we can continue to stand it and endure it and make it to the other side.

Alyssa Scolari [19:32]:

And like I said, just being your own cheerleader, encouraging yourself, patting yourself on the back when you do something good. Man, I'm really terrible at this one. I'm trying to think even as we speak of what I can pat myself on the back for.

Alyssa Scolari [19:51]:

Hey David Scolari, what can I pat myself on the back for? David Scolari's usually my cheerleader. You know what-

David Scolari [19:59]:

Oh my dear lord.

Alyssa Scolari [20:00]:

What?

David Scolari [20:04]:

What do you mean you don't know what you can pat yourself on the back for? All the people you help every day, all the friends and family you give love to each and every single day.

Alyssa Scolari [20:13]:

... well, there you go.

David Scolari [20:16]:

I mean, I could go on.

Alyssa Scolari [20:17]:

He could go on, but he'll be going on for 25 minutes. Dave is my... my husband is my biggest cheerleader. He's also the editor of this podcast, so thanks to Dave for making all of this happen.

Alyssa Scolari [20:33]:

I can pat myself on the back for how hard I work to help people on a daily basis. It really is my biggest passion in life is being in this field and getting to help people to save their own lives. I could pat myself on the back for making the best out of this shitty pandemic and creating a podcast with all the free time that I had which I am also so very passionate about. So I will stop there. That makes me so uncomfortable. But it's important that we do this every once in a while.

Alyssa Scolari [21:12]:

So to sum it up, I mean, that's the IMPROVE acronym, and those are some tips and tools that you all can take with you, not just during the election time, I mean, especially during this time, but you can use these tools... I mean, Marsha Linehan created DBT, and she created this distress tolerance acronym for any stressful times. So you can use these tools. They are public knowledge. You can buy her book on Amazon. I actually really recommend it because there's a lot of great tips in here.

Alyssa Scolari [21:49]:

And I hope that you guys have found this useful. Please know that I am holding space for you regardless of your political beliefs, and we will all make it out at the other side of this. It's all going to be okay. I am going to wrap it down now. It is a Sunday night. So by the time this airs, it'll be Election Day when you all are listening. And I am going to go spend the rest of the evening with David Scolari and the doggies.

Alyssa Scolari [22:26]:

So have a good one. Signing off. Take care.

Alyssa Scolari [22:33]:

Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode. For more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website at alyssascolari.com. I'm also on Twitter, and I'd love to chat with you guys. Be sure to follow me. My Twitter handle is @alyssascolari. Thanks again for listening, and take good care.

Denise Wolf is back at it again! This week on the podcast, Denise teams up with Juliet King to discuss the science and validity behind art therapy as well as the incredible uses of art therapy in healing trauma.

For more information on Denise Wolf, visit: https://mangataservices.com

To check out Juliet King's book, visit:

Art Therapy, Trauma, and Neuroscience: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

Want to get more great content and interact with the show? Check us out on Instagram: @lightaftertrauma

We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:21]:

Hi everybody. Welcome to the Light After Trauma podcast. I am your host Alyssa Scolari, and I have with me today a hysterical duo. The first person I'm going to introduce is not new to us, this is her second appearance on the show she must like me or something like that. I don't know. Either way she is so cool, it is Denise Wolf, who I know you are all familiar with from a couple episodes ago. And then we also have with us today, Juliet King. So I am going to turn it over to the two of them. And whoever wants to start first, you guys can introduce yourself. And just as an aside, we are all on Zoom right now. So even though you guys cannot see us I'm laughing because of the fascinating faces that they're all making at me as I'm starting this episode. So we've got a good group of women here today. So Denise re-introduce yourself say hello to all your fans out there.

Denise Wolf [01:39]:

Well, hello, everybody? Alyssa I'm so glad to be back. As you guys know I'm Denise Wolf I'm an art therapist in private practice working primarily with adolescents and young adults with histories of complex trauma. I'm also adjunct faculty at Drexel and Villanova University. And I'm so excited to be here today to talk about art therapy, trauma, and neuroscience. And I'm here with my esteemed colleague Juliet King.

Juliet King [02:10]:

Thank you, Denise. Thank you, Alyssa, for that fabulous introduction. My name is Juliet King, as was mentioned, and I am currently an associate professor of art therapy at the George Washington University and also an adjunct associate professor of neurology at the Indiana University School of Medicine. I currently am also a PhD student and I'm studying translational health sciences, which essentially means how do we take information that we glean in the lab with the rats, the scientific data, and how do we translate that to working with clinical health populations and informing policy?

Alyssa Scolari [02:55]:

So you two come from very different backgrounds essentially, and how did you two meet? Like Denise I feel like at this point you're famous for just like having these awesome collaborations. You're such a multifaceted human being. I met Juliet through Denise. So you two are quite the duo. So tell me how the two of you met? What is the focus? What work are you guys doing, or have you done in the past I should say?

Denise Wolf [03:28]:

Right. So there's some history, in so many ways Juliet and I are on sort of opposite ends of the spectrum where I'm a behaviorist and [Juul 00:03:37] is more of a sort of Freudian Jungian kind of theoretical perspective. So we joke when we present about like Skinner and Freud. So that's like one way that we're super different. And our story origin goes back to graduate school where Juul was in the class ahead of me, and we met up through a mutual friend at Fergie's remember that? And turns out that Juul was in my high school, but because my high school was so big with over 800 students in each graduating class, we never bumped elbows, and furthermore over drinks, which seems to be a part of our history and ongoing relationship. So edit that out babe.

Juliet KingSo furthermore fun fact Juul's mom was my elementary school art teacher, who I had this pivotal moment with in fifth grade where through the influence of her mom, my art teacher really cemented my identity as an artist. So that's a lot of fun history as far as like how we've met. So we've continued to maintain a friendship as well as work relationship for decades.

Alyssa Scolari [04:51]:

That pretty much sum it up.

Juliet King [04:53]:

Yeah. Although I wouldn't say that Skinner and Freud are at the opposite ends of the continuum. What Denise is referring to is what we like to call the dialectical synthesis, which really is an integration of well pretty much anything that you want to have an integration of can be a dialectical synthesis, but especially in terms of behaviorism and psychodynamic theory, which come from different camps. But I think integrate nicely in terms of treatment applications, and also ways of conceptualizing human behavior. So I do think that from a theoretical orientation, I'm very much adherent to the language of the unconscious and the theory of the unconscious, which back in the day was established originally by Freud and Jung as psycho analytic theory.

Juliet KingAnd although many parts of that theory have been debunked, many parts reign true. And what we see as we're moving forward with the age of the brain and the technology that can teach us about our different physiological and biological systems that Freud was in fact right about many things when it comes to brain function, structure, and the relational exchange being the most important part of the therapeutic process. And so I like to think Denise that we're more similar than we are different, but we do come to the table sometimes with different perspectives, which lends itself to exciting conversation.

Denise Wolf [06:34]:

Agreed.

Alyssa Scolari [06:37]:

I need to just like sidebar this for a second, because I almost jumped out of my chair when you said this Juliet, like-

Juliet King [06:44]:

I did see your affect shift.

Alyssa Scolari [06:52]:

That was such a therapist thing to say. I noticed the shift in your affect.

Juliet King [06:57]:

I did notice a shift in your affect and movement as well.

Alyssa Scolari [07:01]:

I know I cannot... Guys, I'm running on like caffeine. I am all jittery today, but I frigging love Freud. I will fight anybody... I mean, I won't actually fight people, but I will argue to my death about how the fact that Freud was not the quack that so many people have made him out to be. I remember being an undergrad and so many of my professors like basically just writing him off, being like, "This guy was a lunatic." But the more work I do as a trauma therapist, the more I'm like, "Damn, this Freud guy, he was onto it, like he knew." And I love what you said about integration. Can you please just say what you just held up?

Juliet King [07:56]:

Yes, it's been a little diorama's of Freud and Jung.

Alyssa Scolari [08:04]:

You all that's beautiful, I need that in my life.

Juliet King [08:08]:

Well, people are misinformed Alyssa, and people also have taken debunked theories and generalized the majority of Freud's work as crap. I think that it pays for us to be skeptical and to question some of the data that he presents to us in that for example, he worked with a certain population, which was mostly middle upper class white women. And so that certainly influences our understanding of things if we want to take a larger cultural perspective. I think some of his opinions about the nature and the reasons for trauma don't necessarily ring true in that, I think a lot of people in some of his writings kind of don't explain well enough how he really conceptualized trauma, and he I think presents is coming across somewhat condescending, whereas what we know about trauma and what we know about the brain is it's always something that happens to you, and it's always the way that we respond is a very healthy response.

Juliet KingBut really Freud was the first one to name the impact of trauma, and how the impact of trauma is oftentimes lifelong. And so he also set the stage for understanding the dynamic unconscious and how we create and develop symptoms when we have a disruption of homeostasis. So his theory is really can be explained physiologically and from a neuro-biological perspective, which is where the field of neuropsychoanalysis is now. And I think with ongoing research, they're finding more justice to the things that he talked about than less.

Alyssa Scolari [09:56]:

Yeah, absolutely. And I love what you said about when you were talking about integration, like integration on sort of like Denise said your more behaviorism versus the more like Freud and Jung. And I actually think that that is a great representation of what we're talking about today, which we are talking about art therapy, art and neuroscience. And I think that the concept of putting art and therapy together is almost like the same as putting together like behaviorism, like B.F. Skinner and Freud and Jung in theories together. And you both really are the perfect I think representatives of what it means to combine the two. And is that something that the two of you will present on?

Denise Wolf [10:53]:

Sure, absolutely. Yes. And I think it's widely and wildly misunderstood. I was just meeting with a new client with their caregiver, identifying myself as a behaviorist and talking a little bit about trauma theory and art therapy trauma theory around behaviorism. And the parent said, "Well, you're not going to shock my daughter, right?" Of course I'm not. And there's misconceptions about that as there is about art therapy. So what Juliet and I really want to talk about today is why art therapy is so well suited to treat trauma, and what we know about neuroscience trauma in the brain, and what we know about art therapy and neuroscience is this beautiful synthesis, where you're taking these seemingly opposing ideas and putting them together. So yes.

Alyssa Scolari [11:51]:

That's a great way of putting it. I was struggling to find words for it earlier. Before you get into that, could you explain the difference between art therapy and using art in therapy? Because I really do think that there is this concept, and let me tell you something, this podcast and truthfully meeting you has been very eye-opening to me, because I really was one of those people who thought that art therapy was like they give you a piece of paper and a crayon and they're like, "Draw how you feel." And I was like, "Not for me." So can you explain to the people out there that think the way I think, or the way that I used to think can you explain a little bit about what the differences are?

Denise Wolf [12:39]:

Sure. The way that I like to explain it is that I have a teenage daughter who might get an injury while she's out in the world doing her thing, and I can put... Oh my God, what do you call this thing that hold together the skin, it's not quite stitches, but that's-

Juliet King [12:52]:

Suture.

Denise Wolf [12:52]:

A sticky suture on her cut. And I'm not a doctor. I can put it on hydrogen peroxide and I can put on a bandage, but I'm not a doctor. So it's about sort of scope of practice. Art therapy is a masters level entry field of credentialed art therapists. And so, yes, can we have the experience of making art and feeling stress reduction? Sure. Can we have experience of making art and feeling effective? Sure. Is it in like Juliet was talking about earlier in the context of a therapeutic relationship? Right. That's what is a therapy. My mentor, Ron Hayes would talk about the IC, and then the E. So there's therapeutic use of arts and then there's art therapy. Juul I'm sure you have some thoughts to add to that.

Juliet King [13:47]:

Yeah. So yes. And I think something also important to highlight is that there is a definition of art therapy on the website for the American Art Therapy Association, however, when you talk with most art therapists we all have our own way of defining the profession. So even though we might adhere to kind of a standard definition, which is a good one and they have a truncated version as well we certainly don't walk around and just kind of spit out verbatim on the definitions of things. And part of the challenge of being an art therapist is that because therapy is a challenge to understand in general, and then when you add the art part to it, things become even harder to define. And art is everywhere. And art therapists don't have a patent on Crayola, which is also something that Ron Hayes, my mentor as well has said.

Juliet KingAnd so over the years, the way that I've best found to be able to define the distinctions between what I call therapeutic arts and art therapy is to explain that both exist on a continuum. So the use of therapeutic arts on one end of the continuum sounds like a cellist playing on a cancer unit, and people that hear the music feel better. They have a physiological response to hearing the music. Walking down the halls of a prison if you have an artist in residence that is creating murals on those walls, people are going to feel different when they see different colors, when they see pictures of things, as opposed to having it just be gray.

Juliet KingSo these are all therapeutic experiences, but then up the continuum is as Denise mentioned the master's level medical and healthcare profession of art therapy that does require a master's degree in art therapy to practice. And what we do is psychotherapy. Now, that psychotherapy looks differently depending on your philosophical orientation, depending upon who it is that you're working with, depending upon what goals you're working on, but the art therapist is trained as a talk therapist that also utilizes the creative process and what's being made within the therapeutic encounter as a way to understand more about the person and push forward the therapeutic goals. So we like to think of it as we do talk therapy and then have an extra toolbox. This is the way, excuse me I like to think about it. We have an extra set of tools.

Juliet KingYou know I'm not going to get too much into this, but the art therapy profession can have some pretty serious and heartfelt disagreements about what art therapy is and what it's not. And we also have grappled with since the beginning of the profession, which was back in the 1940s this concept and reality that people do not understand what we do and a little vignette of a person that I know a friend of mine she lives in Arizona and she asked me for a referral for her son. So I went on Psychology Today and I looked up art therapists on Psychology Today in Arizona, I would say 95% of people that claim that they're doing art therapy don't appear to have an art therapy degree. They are well-intentioned social workers and counselors that likely use art materials in their practice, which is fine, but we also have to recognize that there is a professional integrity and a definition of a profession that needs to be considered ethically and otherwise.

Alyssa Scolari [17:32]:

I love that. That is beautiful. Go ahead I'm sorry.

Denise Wolf [17:37]:

I will add to that and say that you to go back to your original question Alyssa of like the use of art in therapy. Well, like I will sometimes use music in therapy, but I will listen to a song with a client and use music with intention, but that doesn't make me a music therapist, and I'm aware of my scope of practice. At a small sandbox I'm not a sand trained therapist, for art therapists artists are in language.

Alyssa Scolari [18:06]:

So I love that, and I have a lot of clients who are really excited about this episode, because I do have some clients who are looking to go into art therapy. And I really do agree. There's a major difference between a therapist who incorporates art and somebody who is a master's level art therapist. So I appreciate you clearing that up. And I also appreciate that because I think it gives more like validation to the work that you do, because I think that there's potentially some stigma around like art therapists and just this idea that art therapists just draw all day. And I really was one of those people.

Juliet KingI mean this podcast has helped me learn so much. And when it comes to art therapy, and I know I've shared this with the two of you before, but I am not somebody who ever used to consider myself artistic in any way, shape, or form. And when I was in the Renfrew Center for eating disorder recovery back in 2014, we would have art therapy. And I remember being like, "Oh, like I don't draw, like come on dude." And then I actually started to participate. And a lot of my trauma is rooted in earlier childhood. So before I had language, and I realized that the art therapy that I was doing, whether it was listening to music, whether it was writing words, I was able to communicate with myself in a way that I didn't even realize I was capable of. I knew as the art was spilling out of me, it was in that moment that I knew, "Oh, something bad happened to me." I didn't have the words for it, but art helped me to realize that.

Juliet King [20:15]:

Yeah, I think that you're explaining the power of art therapy much better than Denise or I could, because you have the lived experience of being in a space where old material made itself known to you. And there was something about the art making process and what it was that you were making that allowed for the emergence of memory. And I imagine that you felt safe enough in the environment that you were in, and you could trust the space that you were in, which is the key factor to being able to tap into those less conscious memories and parts of ourselves that we otherwise have sealed over as a mechanism of functioning.

Juliet KingAnd so that relationship, the therapeutic relationship, regardless of what kind of therapy you practice is the most healing component, that's what helps us. And in art therapy, you have a relationship not only with your therapist, but also with your artwork and your art making process. And what happens with our traumatic memories in general, regardless of whether they're acute traumas or chronic traumas, or if we remember somethings or nothing at all, or really though in general, and this is pretty universal, although everybody's experience is totally subjective, but what we understand universally with science is that our traumatic memories become like fragmented. They become broken up and almost like you can imagine like displaced and dispersed in different areas of your psyche.

Juliet KingAnd what also happens is when we get flavors of those memories, then our emotional parts of our brain really react to that. And then what happens is our emotional parts of our brains are reacting to bits and pieces of our memories, but when that occurs, we lose the ability to talk about it, because of the connections and the disconnections that take place between the emotional part of the brain and the thinking parts of our brain. So like research has shown when a person is experiencing traumatic memories, because these memories hold such strong emotional content the talking parts of our brain actually shut down. They become less able to explain, to use verbal language. And like you said, "I didn't have the words, but I could feel, and I was seeing, and I was sensing that something was happening."

Juliet KingAnd so if you read any trauma theories that are contemporary Van Der Kolk, Perry, Daniel Stern, so all the primary theories these days point to the value of body-based non-verbal therapy and the importance of the symbolic communication that's afforded that allows us to kind of circumvent or bypass language. And that doesn't mean you don't eventually want to get the language, because we live in a verbal society and it's important eventually to recreate your own trauma narrative and be able to explain where it is that you're coming from, but that doesn't happen quickly, and that takes practice. So I've been blathering on, Denise what do you have to add to that?

Denise Wolf [24:15]:

Yeah. So thank you, Juuls, so much. So what Alyssa talked about was that you said you use this language, you said it came spilling out of me. And so again, to underscore what Juliet said that you were in a safe and structured place, a therapeutic environment, but a traumatic experience can often feel that way. They're about to like bubble up or spill over in this space that Juliet talked about that doesn't have access to like the verbal part of our brain, the thinking part of our brain. And so art therapy is really well suited to connect with that where the art becomes a communication, not just with like the art therapist, but also with yourself, right where these internal memories and experiences that are preconscious or pre-verbal can be identified, externalized, objectified, narrated, sequenced. And that's all language that belongs to trauma theory and trauma therapy. Another metaphor that I like to use, that's been used a lot in the field is that art therapy processes can be like dropping a stone into a deep pond and going all the way to the bottom without making any ripples on the surface.

Alyssa Scolari [25:28]:

Ooh, I like that. I love that. Yeah, it feels... And I know I did mention this before, this was when we weren't recording the last time that we met, it was just that art therapy almost feels like the only language that I had before I had the language. It was a way of communicating before I could communicate. And I think that's why it's so important especially in trauma therapy.

Denise Wolf [26:01]:

And yes. For so many reasons. And one reason I want to talk about is this third space or intersubjective space that the art creates. The art therapists think about individual sessions as having three components, yourself the therapist, the client, and the art. And so that's like a third element where we-

Alyssa Scolari [26:24]:

Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.

Denise Wolf [26:26]:

Join with the client in that space, observe the client in that space, and to some extent our brains don't necessarily know the difference between something that we've dreamt or something that is actually happening. And so art becomes this real, but not real space where experiences can be externalized, lived, relived, modulated, replicated, repaired, in this kind of third space.

Alyssa Scolari [26:58]:

Now, and you may have already said this and I very well could have missed this, but how does that tie into the concept of neuroscience? What exactly is neuroscience? How do the two tie in?

Juliet King [27:13]:

So everything that we're explaining the feeling like art therapy is the language before you had the language, the third space of the real and the not real, the ability to bypass the talk parts of the brain. This is all neuroscience explained. Now the challenge is that we in art therapy have a lot more work to do to show more explicitly how neuroscience explains the processes that take place in art therapy and the mechanisms of change. But what science can tell us with certainty is the fact that Brokazeria shuts down when people are experiencing traumatic memory and flashback, that's a fact. And Brokazeria is the part in your brain that allows for language expressive Wernickes.

Juliet KingSo the Wernickes and Broca's are connected Wernickes is receptive language and Broca's is expressive language. And so you can think of the brain... I mean, certainly there's areas and definitions and functions that are weighted to areas more so than others. But I think a good way to understand the workings of the brain is that really it's a series of functional hubs and networks. And so the language network isn't just Broca's the language network encompasses a lot of different areas of the brain and a lot of different functions in the parietal lobe and the frontal lobe and the temporal lobe, and are informed by the occipital lobe. So you can imagine that ways that we have to understand and to see the brain. So for example, when we talk about the emotional centers of the brain being overactive when we're experiencing a traumatic memory or something upsetting that's in a place called the midbrain in the limbic system, primarily in the amygdala, which is a very small little structure, that's shaped like an almond.

Juliet KingAnd so we can tell from neuro imaging, when persons are experiencing traumatic recall, the amygdala, the limbic system is overactive. There's more blood flow, there's more neuro-transmitter activity. And so the talk part, the Broca's area is less active. There's less blood flow, there's less neuro activity. So those are ways that we can explain more specifically what happens in humans when we experience different things. We can say as art therapists that... I mean, everything is neuroscience-based. I mean, everything we do is moderated by our brain. Now that might become problematic when people consider belief systems. But if you think about it, belief systems are developed by us. And we are the ones that create the belief systems. Our brains are creating the belief systems. Our brains are conceptualizing spirituality whether or not there's ghosts. And so I could go on and on and on, I won't.

Juliet KingBut, so that's just a little taste of how trauma is experienced in the brain. When you're making art, the creative process, there are some really compelling neuro imaging studies that look at creativity and the brain. And when we are making art, the entire brain lights up. So that typically and traditionally has been something that your typical neuroscientist, which is neuroscience is a very mechanistic approach to understanding the functions of the brain. Well, typically neuroscientists run far away from creativity studies because they're really complicated. I mean, you can imagine, like if you're making art-

Alyssa Scolari [31:36]:

Right. Seems like an oxymoron.

Juliet King [31:38]:

Right. Yeah, yeah. It's fascinating really, but that shows you just how much the brain is engaged when a person is making art. If every area of the brain lights up when you're making art, then that really speaks to the capacity that art has to engage many, many, many different areas of those functional hubs and networks in the brain.

Denise Wolf [32:03]:

And part of our original conversation about the dialectical synthesis, or like that sort of that finding that balance, so the whole brain is activated, but in terms of maybe trauma or some other mental illness is about like finding balance and thinking about really specifically and really critically about art therapy media and processes to help sort of balance neural responses. And so our third one, our therapy theory, and it's called the expressive therapies continuum, which really looks at balance in the brain kind of by region like lowbrain, midbrain and hindbrain, or kinesthetic sensory, perceptual affective, and cognitive symbolic, and looking at tendencies to be sort of polarized, in all of those spaces across and bring in that synthesis and that balance, and that also applies to trauma theory treatment.

Juliet KingSo Alyssa you talked earlier about like thinking in your own art therapy experience, "Oh, I'm not an artist. I don't have skill." And it's not necessarily about product where its sometimes, and it's also about process it's about mastery and management of the media and all of those kinesthetic sensory, perceptual effective, cognitive symbolic, inputs and outputs.

Juliet King [33:36]:

Yeah. So depending on like the expressive therapies continuum is based on properties of media, like what Denise is saying, and the restoration of homeostasis that accompanies the creative process. And so we mentioned homeostasis earlier with Freud talking about defense mechanisms, talking about people develop symptoms when their psyche is working too hard to keep certain elements at bay. Okay. So there's a disruption of homeostasis. Well the ETC, the expressive therapies continuum looks at how different media properties can contribute to the restoration of homeostasis, like what Denise is saying. So if you think about it kind of simply like a pencil is going to elicit a really different emotional and cognitive response than watercolors or finger paints. So you can imagine if you're using watercolors and finger paints, traditionally, you're going to be loosening up a little bit more. It's going to tap into more emotional nature than when you have a pencil and a protractor, which is going to utilize a different kind of cognitive thought.

Juliet KingAnd so these sensory based elements are really at the core of who we are as people. It's how we came out of the womb. We experience the world through our senses. We are body egos when we're born. And so those elements of who we are, they never go away. We just get so caught up in our frontal lobes and in our thinking brains that we tend to negate or think that these less conscious kind of non-verbal symbols are not as important when really it's our innate way of communicating with one another.

Denise Wolf [35:22]:

And so art therapists are thinking critically about materials and processes. Alyssa, like earlier you would ask, like, "What's the difference if I'm using art in therapy?" And so non-art therapists are definitely, like Juliet said earlier, we don't own the art, and art therapists have this what Juliet and I think would call them neuroscience lens, thinking about the inherent nature of the media, how the client might act and interact within that, what's the sort of level of reflective distance, are we finger painting, are we using gouache, are we using a short or long handled brush, are we painting on texture paper or cardboard, are we even painting at all? Like there's a deep knowing of the intrinsic qualities of the media in order to specifically prescribe media and processes to meet the needs of the clients.

Alyssa Scolari [36:20]:

That is honestly so enlightening to me. And as I'm hearing both of you speak, I just keep thinking to myself over and over again, how can any therapy exist without art? That's-

Juliet King [36:36]:

We offer it on Google. It makes it easier. It makes it easier to learn about people and it makes it easier to... Maybe easy is not a good word, but I think the accessibility that's afforded through this range of intervention strategies and ways of understanding people is unpronounced.

Alyssa Scolari [37:00]:

Absolutely.

Denise Wolf [37:01]:

To add to that a little bit of a cautionary tale, Judy Rubin that Seminole art therapist in the field, though we are not tarot card readers. Like sometimes people will say [crosstalk 00:37:13].

Alyssa Scolari [37:17]:

That's not what's happening today?

Juliet King [37:19]:

[inaudible 00:37:19], but that has nothing to do with my art therapy degree. That's just part of my global brand.

Alyssa Scolari [37:25]:

Right.

Denise Wolf [37:26]:

So that's different. Juliet might be a tarot card reader and an art therapist, but they're not [inaudible 00:37:30]. So people will say, "Oh, I'm going to do a drawing, and can you tell me about myself?" And so like, "Maybe, but Eva I'm not doing tarot card tricks, I'm a therapist." And so there are like diagnostic assessments, like Rorschach, House-Tree-Person, those exist, those are not part of the art therapy field. We might do an assessment, but I think actually we are always doing assessment in that we're constantly assessing our client's progress and interaction with materials and processes. So again, we're not like looking at your artwork and going like voodoo magic, it'd be like, "Alyssa, Scolari your future is dark." Like that's mad.

Juliet King [38:15]:

Like somebody asked me like, "Can I draw a picture and you can tell me about myself?" I'd be like, "You just told me enough about yourself already."

Alyssa Scolari [38:26]:

That's all I need to know.

Juliet King [38:28]:

Let me tell you when I now know about you.

Alyssa Scolari [38:34]:

No, I love that, and I'm glad that you said that because I do think there's a lot of assumptions out there that that is what an art therapist does that almost every art therapist is some kind of like supernatural powers where you can throw some ink on a paper and suddenly every single thing about them.

Juliet King [38:53]:

No. And I think a really important point, all kidding aside is one of the main distinctions between art therapy and psychological assessment of projective testing like Denise was mentioning the Rorschach or the House-Tree-Person is that so much of our therapy is reliant upon what a person says about what it is that they made and how a person goes about making their art. So it's very much about verbal associations, how they explain what their art means to them. And while art therapists are trained to conduct analysis, of course, I mean, that's part of being an art therapist is being able to understand the multidimensionality of what a person creates. But what a person creates is not answered within a set of definitions in some kind of art therapy master cookbook. It really depends on what the person says. It really depends on the meaning that the art has for them.

Alyssa Scolari [39:55]:

Right. And Juliet, as I understand it, you actually have a book of your own that is out, correct?

Juliet King [40:02]:

I do have a book it's now becoming already dated. It was published in 2016. And it's called Art Therapy, Trauma, and Neuroscience: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives. Yeah. So interestingly, just in a couple of quick years, there's so much more research that can now be included if there were to be a second edition or something like that, but we've just come really far in the last few years with understanding of not only the science of trauma and trauma theory, but then also art therapy applications in research that are serving to push the field forward.

Alyssa Scolari [40:45]:

I really have learned so much from speaking to you to today. Is it all right with you if I post your Amazon book on-

Juliet King [40:54]:

Sure.

Alyssa Scolari [40:56]:

[crosstalk 00:40:56]. What was that?

Juliet King [40:58]:

It's got a beautiful cover. Oh yeah. It's really cool. And then there's a book cover description in it, it's a painting created by an art therapy colleague who created her own artwork in response to a client that she worked with that had some pretty severe trauma. And so I asked her... Oh, there it is. Yeah. Isn't that pretty?

Alyssa Scolari [41:23]:

Oh, that's so cool.

Juliet King [41:24]:

Ain't that cool? So that's the therapist's artwork and then underneath that is the client's artwork.

Alyssa Scolari [41:30]:

Oh, that's beautiful.

Juliet King [41:30]:

Isn't that great?

Alyssa Scolari [41:32]:

All right, everybody, I'm going to post the link to Juliet's book on-

Juliet King [41:38]:

We're all about the visuals as art therapists.

Alyssa Scolari [41:41]:

I love it.

Denise Wolf [41:44]:

Juliet and I also have a recent chapter out in a text by art therapist Nora Swan-Foster, it's on art therapy, motherhood and childbearing issues. And we are the first chapter in that book. I'm talking about art therapy, birth, and trauma.

Alyssa Scolari [42:03]:

Are you able to send that to me? Is it available for the listeners to be able to read?

Juliet King [42:10]:

You could send the link to the book. Sure.

Alyssa Scolari [42:13]:

Okay, perfect. I will post both on the show notes and it will also be up on my website and in the newsletter on the Facebook group. So if you don't catch it through the podcast, don't worry I will have it all posted. And then is there any other contact information that you guys want to give out, or?

Juliet King [42:36]:

If people have any questions or if I can help in some way, then they can email me at my Gmail, I think would be easiest. It's [email protected].

Alyssa Scolari [42:54]:

Awesome. Awesome. How about you, Denise? I know you've given your contact info on here before.

Denise Wolf [43:01]:

Sure you can email me at my Gmail address, which is unreasonably long. So it can just be on your website in the notes for this podcast. You can find it there. Is that useful?

Alyssa Scolari [43:15]:

Yeah, I will put it in the show notes. Yup. The emails, the links to the books, all that jazz, your website it'll all be posted.

Denise Wolf [43:29]:

Alyssa, thank you so much for giving us the opportunity to really highlight and talk about the really useful and important and exciting intersection of art therapy, trauma, and neuro-science.

Juliet King [43:42]:

Yes. Thank you. It's very cool. I really appreciate and respect what you're doing.

Alyssa Scolari [43:48]:

Thank you. I learned a lot. I honestly learned so much and go art therapy. I'm a huge fan now. Thanks for listening everyone. For more information about today's episode and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website @alyssascalira.com. The really great thing about being a part of this newsletter is that not only do you get weekly updates on new podcast episodes and blog posts, but you also get access to the private Facebook community as well as access to all sorts of insider tips, resources, and infographs that supplement what we talk about on the show. You also can connect with me and other trauma warriors I'm super on the Facebook community, and I look forward to talking with you.

Michael DeLeon is the founder of the Steered Straight program, which aims to educate the world's youth on the dangers of vaping and other substance abuse. Following a traumatic childhood and a battle with addiction, Michael emerged from prison with a passion to reform the system and help others. Tune in to be inspired by his unquenchable passion for ending stigma, treating trauma, and saving every single life that he can.

Learn more about Michael DeLeon: https://www.steeredstraight.org/it-cant-happen-to-me/

Check out the Light After Trauma website for transcripts, other episodes, Alyssa's guest appearances, and more at: www.lightaftertrauma.com

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We need your help! We want to continue to make great content that can help countless trauma warriors on their journey to recovery. So, please help us in supporting the podcast by becoming a recurring patron of the show via Patreon. Every bit helps!

Transcript:

Alyssa Scolari [00:23]:

Hello folks, and happy Tuesday. We've got another awesome episode lined up for you today. I was personally just taken aback by this episode. I am recording the bio for our guest speaker after I've already recorded the episode with him, and I really just have to say, you guys are going to love this one. His story is fascinating, and it's inspiring, and it's heartbreaking, and there are so many great nuggets of wisdom in here. So, I am really happy that he was able to come on the show, and I am so excited that he is able to share his word, and that we were able to record together, and hopefully even just get the message out to one person, when it comes to prison reform, and drug addiction, that things desperately need to change.

I will introduce him. Our guest speaker today for episode 11 is Michael DeLeon. He is a successfully acclimated ex-offender who, after nearly eight years of drug addiction, and gang involvement, spent 12 years in state prison, and halfway houses for a gang-related homicide. Michael pled guilty in a very emotional, and complicated case involving the murder of his own mother, by people tasked to kill him.

Since Michael's release from prison, he has earned three associates degrees, a baccalaureate degree in business management with a minor in criminal justice, and a CADC educational certificate. Michael is now in the process of obtaining his tobacco specialist certification from the University of Kentucky School of Nursing, his master's degree in social work at Liberty University School of Social Work, as well as pursuing his LCADC.

Michael DeLeon is on a mission, a mission to educate the youth to stay on the right path when it comes to serious life issues, especially drugs. He has become the number one booked school presenter in the country. Michael has spoken to more than 7 million students, and young adults in more than 6,000 schools and facilities.

As a published author, and international motivational speaker, and educator, Michael has delivered evidence-based student programs in all 50 states, and numerous other countries. Michael lives by the mantra, "I don't want to help one kid, I want to help them all." Hey, Mike. Thanks for being here with us. How are you today?

Michael DeLeon [00:23]:

Good. How you doing today?

Alyssa Scolari [03:13]:

Good. Would you be able to just start us off by telling us a little bit more about... I mean, you are the founder of Steered Straight, but how did you come up with the idea? What is the work that you guys do? Give me all the details.

Michael DeLeon [03:29]:

Sure. Well, I started in 2007. I founded Steered Straight after spending 12 years in prison. Basically, at this point in my life, I have 45 years of personal experience, life, and lived experience with addiction, suicide, alcoholism. So, getting addicted at the age of 11, and now I'm unfortunately 56 years of age, so 45 years of personal experience with addiction, being addicted, suffering from incarceration, 12 years in prison, being in recovery, and now working with addicts, and people in recovery 365 days a year.

It's a mission. So, in 2007, I got out of prison, and I founded Steered Straight. While I was incarcerated, I was involved in the Scared Straight program, and everybody remembers Scared Straight. It's still in existence today to an extent.

Alyssa Scolari [04:31]:

Oh, I didn't know it still existed. I thought that they stopped that.

Michael DeLeon [04:35]:

Yeah. In probably 40 prisons around the country, they have a Scared Straight-type program. They call it all sorts of different names. But, many people's theory is that it works, that you can bring kids who are at risk, or on the wrong path, into a jail, or prison and scare them. We're going to scare kids straight. Well, I can prove to you it-

Alyssa Scolari [04:59]:

It doesn't work.

Michael DeLeon [05:00]:

It doesn't work. I can prove to you negative reinforcement doesn't work. But just on the Scared Straight phenomenon, the theory that Scared Straight will scare a kid. They studied Scared Straight for 25 years, and 86% of the kids who came into Scared Straight were incarcerated as an adult. 86%. So, that shows you it doesn't work, right? The kids who were supposed to have been scared straight so they don't end up in prison, ended up in prison.

And so, I got involved in the Scared Straight program, and I didn't like it. I did it, but I didn't like it. I didn't like the negative reinforcement. I didn't like scaring the kids, and threatening them, and cursing at them, and spitting in their face. I didn't like it.

But at the end of the Scared Straight session, you got one-on-one with a kid. You got about 30 minutes to talk with a kid one-on-one, and I literally lived for that half an hour, because then I could talk to a kid, and pour my heart out, and tell them how I ended up in prison, what happened in my life that I didn't have a chance to share with him, and I could share the hope with him, and I could not scare him, but just steer him.

It came to me sitting in a cafeteria in the prison one day. I told a kid, "Man, I'm not going to scare you. I'm trying to steer you." And then it just stuck, Steered Straight. So, when I got out of prison, I said, "That's exactly what I want to do." I want to steer kids towards a positive, healthy lifestyle. I want to steer kids towards making positive, healthy choices, and decisions, and I started learning about rational emotive behavioral therapy, and consequential thinking.

I started reading all about CBT, and REBT, and I became an Ellis Institute degreed person. I came out of prison, I got seven college degrees, wrote books, I became a documentary filmmaker. I have four award-winning films. I have two more films that are in post production right now, all in some way, shape, and form having to do with addiction and recovery.

So, it's my life mission. I work seven days a week at it. We're dealing with people... My biggest mission is prevention. I listen to people often say that the war on drugs didn't work, and it makes me laugh now. I say, "What do you mean the war on drugs?" And they say, "You know, the war on drugs." We never had a war on drugs. We never ever had a war on drugs. The war on drugs was a war on drug addicts. That's what the war was, right?

Alyssa Scolari [07:31]:

Yup.

Michael DeLeon [07:31]:

We went to war with addiction, but we didn't. We went to war with addicts, and we went to war with minorities, and we went to war with the poor. That's what we went to war with. We built a prison industrial complex on the backs of minorities, the poor, and the addicted. That's what we did. So, we didn't have a war on drugs. We had a war on drug addicts, and we built a prison industrial complex on the backs of those families and communities. That's what we did.

So, I want a new war. I want a war on addiction. That's what the war needs to be on, addiction. And we need to come together, stop working in silos. We need to sit down, and figure out what all our shared goals are, and we need to speak up against the people who are misinformed, and uninformed about safe injection sites, for instance. There's people that want safe places. They're trying to put one in Philly, but I know of in New York, there's people believe that we can take heroin addicts, and save their lives if we just give them safe places to shoot their heroin. It's asinine.

But, I don't just disagree, or render an opinion. I do it with life experience, lived experience, and proof. There are certain parts of harm reduction that make sense that we need to do. Clean needles, safe, and [inaudible 00:09:02] very, very rigid. Suboxone and [inaudible 00:09:05] for doctors making tons of money on it. We don't need to have people on these chemicals, and these prescription drugs for seven to ten years. That's not recovery, you know?

Alyssa Scolari [09:16]:

Yup.

Michael DeLeon [09:17]:

We need to help people deal with their underlying issues. If you go from heroin to Vivitrol, heroin to suboxone, heroin to methadone, fine. But if you're not dealing with your trauma, your childhood sexual abuse, your physical abuse, your adverse childhood experiences, your depression and anxiety, then all you're doing is switching one drug for another.

They're on chemicals, medication-assisted treatment in those early stages of recovery, yeah, that's recovery, absolutely. But if you're on methadone for seven years, and you've never found yoga, and music, and different things to balance your life, you're not in recovery. Recovery is a part of life. It's not life, right?

So, we've got to be honest about these things. We've got to speak out, not just when it's politically correct, but we've got to speak out when it's not politically correct. We've got to tell the truth, because, I never forget this past year, in 2019, how overdose numbers were down. We're on the right path. We've got a 5% reduction in overdose death. And I looked around at people and I'm like, "Seriously, you're cheering about a 5% reduction in overdose death?" And they're like, "Well, at least it hasn't gone up."

And I was like, "No, you're wrong. It has gone up. The numbers are wrong. But let's say I'm wrong, and you're right, and we did have a 5% reduction in overdose death. This is a blip on a radar. The only reason... The only reason we had a decrease in the reported overdose death in this country is because China interrupted the supply of fentanyl into our country."

President Trump got President Xi of China to stop the fentanyl flow into our country. What the Chinese cartels, the South American cartels, the Central American cartels did, was it took them six to eight months to reroute those fentanyl flows, and they did that, and now we've got a surge in fentanyl overdose death in our country.

So, 2019 is going to be drastically increased. 2020, we will have over 100,000 overdoses, because of COVID, because of the lockdowns, because of unemployment, because of fear, anxiety, depression, because we let alcohol become an essential business, because we emptied the county jails, and people who were close to release of state prisons, we blanket released people because of COVID, and we didn't prepare people. So, domestic violence is up, child abuse is up, sexual abuse is up, human trafficking is up, suicide is up, overdose is up, crude death is up, despair death is up. It's a big, big problem.

But we're not addressing what's going on. And then we're in the middle of this divisive election, so nobody wants to talk about anything else except this stupid, stupid political bull crap. And we've got people [inaudible 00:12:20] not to rant and rave, but this is my life 24 seven. I hate to sleep. I wish I didn't have to sleep. It would be 24 seven action. But I'm tired of losing kids, I'm tired of losing people, I'm tired of burying people, I'm tired of seeing parents bury their kids, kids bury their siblings. I'm tired of seeing kids burying their parents. I'm tired of it. Right? I'm tired of it. We've got to fight harder.

Alyssa Scolari [12:53]:

Yeah. I mean, God, there's so much gold in everything that just came out of your mouth. I mean, even this idea, right? I've never heard it put this way before, but I got chills when you said it, which is, "We never had a war on drugs. We had a war on drug addicts." And I don't think anything could be more true. I mean, that statement right there in itself is just mind blowing, and I agree with you. I think we need to kick the stigma to the curb, and we need to stop talking about everything but drugs.

Michael DeLeon [13:31]:

Right.

Alyssa Scolari [13:34]:

I just know somebody recently who died of a fentanyl that they thought that they were just getting regular weed. It was laced with fentanyl, and he just graduated high school, and now he's dead. And it's just... I mean, overdoses kill. It's one of the top the top killers, right, in the US?

Michael DeLeon [13:57]:

Yeah, well, under 50 it's the number one cause. So, drugs, drug overdose, and alcohol poisoning is the number four cause of death for 15 to 24. So, it depends on who you're talking about. But, overall, it's really, really monstrous. I mean, your number one cause of death in America is heart disease, right? Number one, number two is cancer, and number three is respiratory disease. And those three causes of death are 80% caused by cigarettes. 80%.

So, obesity is a monstrous thing, preventable death. I call it crude death, but crude death from drugs and alcohol. Every suicide is a drug and alcohol cause, every homicide is a drug and alcohol cause. I was in Florida with the drugs czar, Jim Carroll, the US drug czar, the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. I was just in Florida with him this week on a big panel, and a gentleman asked him, "What percentage of people are in a prison for drugs?"

And he's a phenomenal man. He really is. I think he's the best drugs czar we've had in the last five drug czars, since Bill Bennett, he's the best drug czar we've had since Bill Bennett. But, his response was 25% of prisoners and inmates in prison are there for drugs.

And so, it came around the table to me, and they asked me a question, and I addressed it, and I said, "The gentleman who asked what percentage of people who are in prison are there for drugs? The drugs czar said 25%, And that's untrue. It's 90%, and I'll tell you the difference. what he's talking about are people who are in jail and in prison for a drug charge. So, possession of drugs, high on drugs, and they got caught with drugs, dealing drugs, they're there for drug, that's 25%. That's true. But 90% of people who are in prison in jail are there because of the drug problem. They committed a robbery to get money for drugs, they committed a shooting because they robbed the drug dealer. They crashed their car and killed three people because they were drunk. They went into a house, and robbed someone, and raped someone because they were high on drugs. They stabbed someone because they were in a meth delusion. 90% of everyone in prison, and jail are there because of addiction, because of drugs."

That's the reality. And we're not addressing it. We're not addressing 90% of our prison population's drug problem, we're not addressing it, right? We're just locking them up. There's three reasons why you lock people up. Number one, punishment, right? And that's a given, we're punishing people. That's what's happening. We've built this prison industrial complex to punish people.

Number two, as a deterrent to other people. And that's no longer at all in play whatsoever, because no one thinks about, "Well, I could go to prison for this." Because they're on drugs, and they're struggling with addiction. Deterrent is irrelevant. And then a deterrent to the person, to not do it again, right? going to jail is not a deterrent to most people.

Culturally, it's become a way of life. Culturally, for people of color, it's just become part of doing business. The drug dealer gets arrested, he goes to jail for a year, he gets out, goes back to drug dealing the day he gets out of prison, right? Was it a deterrent? No, we didn't help him. And I'm not trying to be some bleeding heart liberal, I'm not a bleeding heart liberal. But it's a folly if you think we're keeping society safe by locking people up, and not changing them, and rehabilitating them, and giving them incentive to change their life.

We've got to change the prison system. And I'll tell you, because I've been in jails and prisons in 17 different countries, filming, documentary filmmaking, since I got out of prison, we have the best prison system in the world. We've got the best criminal justice system in the world, and there's massive problems with it, that we could fix, and make it better. So, we've got to make it better.

Not just for the men and women who are incarcerated, because think about something, 90% of percent of every woman in prison, and 80% of every man in prison, [inaudible 00:18:27] affected by that incarceration? The kids, right? So, we can lock these people up, we can throw away the key, and we can feel better about ourselves, but we're not helping society, we're not helping children, and we're not helping that person stay out of prison.

The door revolves like this, we've got to stop the revolving door. So, we have to change the war on drugs, which wasn't a war on drugs, we've got to change our prison system, and we've got to change the way we deal with addiction in our country. I love what you said, about stigma. Think about this, when you think about stigma, because stigma, we're swinging the pendulum to the other side, and we can't do that.

We have to address stigma, but people will tell you that stigma prevents addicts from going to get help. And I don't know too many people that has put more people into treatment than me and my wife, 7,000 we stopped counting. I've never run into a person ever, who didn't go get help because of stigma. Stigma doesn't prevent people from getting help. Stigma might continue to support your irrational belief that you want to go escape your pain, okay? You're not going to ask for help because you're ashamed of yourself. That's not stigma, okay? That's shame.

We've got to deal with the shame by swinging the stigma pendulum so far the other way, we're making it okay to be an addict. We're making it okay to shoot drugs on the side of the street. We're making it okay. We want to make addicts feel good about themselves. These guys are living on the street, in gutters. That's not okay. We've got to stop allowing that to be okay.

We can't say the stigma of addiction has to be addressed, and not address the stigma of being an addict. Okay, the stigma of living life that way. It's not okay for girls to perform oral sex on the streets for $5 a pop, so they can go get their heroin to make them feel good about themselves. To me, that's immoral, and we're doing that girl a real disservice. And what we're really doing is postponing her overdose. We've got to be realistic, and we've got to stop being politically correct about addiction.

The disease of addiction is real, it's okay. I'm okay calling it a disease. But we cannot tell addicts it's a disease without a cure. Okay? Because as long as we do that, as the addict in me, you told me there's no cure for this thing, so okay, then I'm okay, just living in my disease of addiction. And then every time I relapse, and I've heard it 10,000 times, "Well, I have a disease." No, that's an excuse. We got to stop giving addicts excuses to continue to go use, because we're doing them a disservice, and really, we're endangering them, and we're enabling them to kill themselves.

We would not let a suicidal person walk around with a gun, and just take the ammunition away from them. Because they're going to go find the ammunition, and they're going to put that gun to their head. Okay? We just can't do it. We wouldn't do it for suicide, suicidal ideation, and so we can't do it for addiction, because it's the same thing.

Alyssa Scolari [21:50]:

Yeah, I mean, I think that that's an amazing point. And I guess, as I'm hearing you speak, one of the things that I'm thinking is, how did you get to this point? How did you go from the throes of addiction, to knowing what you know now? And one of the things you also touched on earlier is that we have to address the trauma that's behind addiction, and as a trauma therapist, and as somebody who is a trauma survivor of sexual abuse, I agree wholeheartedly that that's what we need to be treating, but how did you get there for yourself?

Michael DeLeon [22:28]:

70% of males in prison were sexually abused as a child, seven out of 10. And you can sit down, and interview 1,000 inmates, you'll get maybe half of them to tell you the story. Half still will not address it. They won't deal with it. I didn't deal with it for a very long time. I didn't deal with my sexual abuse until I was 45 years of age, and I was sexually abused by a pedophile priest out of the Newark Diocese in Northern New Jersey, in Sparta, New Jersey, affluent, beautiful Lake Mohawk, New Jersey, Our Lady of the Lake Catholic Church, where the Monsignor coddled, and enabled those pedophile priests in that parish for years, and years, and years.

I was one of seven boys in my group that were molested, and sodomized by this pedophile priest, and I speak openly about it now. But, 10, 11, and 12 years of age, and I never uttered those words until I was 45 years of age. 70% of male inmates were sexually abused as a kid, and 90% of female inmates were sexually abused as a kid. And we're not dealing with sexual trauma. Why? It boggles my mind. It absolutely boggles my mind.

Do you know how many retired therapists, like you, are retired sitting around, we could give them a supporting supplement stipend to their social security, or to their pensions, to go into prisons all across the country, we will cut our prison population by a quarter if we did that. Okay?

Alyssa Scolari [24:02]:

Oh, yeah. You're damn right.

Michael DeLeon [24:04]:

It would cost us this much money. We would save the money tenfold by lowering our prison population.

Alyssa Scolari [24:10]:

Absolutely.

Michael DeLeon [24:11]:

[crosstalk 00:24:11] But that's not a popular thing for Republicans to do. That's not a popular thing for Democrats to do. We're not going to do it. I'm telling you, you want to cut our prison population, that's what we do. So, I deal with my sexual abuse. I deal with my physical abuse. I was hung by two uncles, I was beat, my right eye socket was smashed by my uncle when I was 14 years of age. I never dealt with that physical abuse, and that trauma as a kid. All it did was toughen me up. "I'm not going to talk about it. I'm a man. If I talk about it, it makes me less of a man."

I wanted [inaudible 00:24:48] at 17 years of age. My mother didn't know about it. My adults in my life didn't know about it. Three marriages, I went through before, I found the one I'm married to now, three marriages. This is my fourth marriage. And listen, I'm the worst husband in the world. The worst husband in the world. My wife is a saint. She doesn't deserve the misery I give her as a husband.

Now, I'm almost okay. She says she's almost done raising me, right? But, been married 28 years. So, how did I get to this point? I found my purpose. I believe the answer to addiction, to alcoholism, to suicidal ideation, to anxiety, to depression, is purpose. Purpose, purpose, purpose, it's the most important thing in anyone's life. And if you find passion for that purpose, now there is life.

Purpose is the reason that we journey, and passion is the fire that lights the way. And if you find your purpose, great. If you find passion for your purpose, you found the meaning of life right there, and you'll never ever, ever seek a solution in a drug, or in alcohol. I tell people all the time, drugs are chemical, alcohol is a chemical, and there's no such thing as a chemical solution to a spiritual problem.

You've got to deal with that spiritual problem. That's what you have to deal with. How you do that? Music, yoga, meditation, laughter, comedy. I just had a friend of mine commit suicide last week. He was 27 years of age. Had been dealing with his depression, his anxiety for years. He just killed himself last week. He hung himself. His wife found him in his garage.

And me and him talked about Robin Williams. Ever since Robin Williams died, right? And Robin Williams was on 24 different psychological drugs, antidepressants, anti anxiety drugs, prescription stimulants. Robin Williams was on 24 prescription medications, off and on. I don't know any person in the world more loved than that man, I mean outside of Jesus Christ, right?

Alyssa Scolari [24:11]:

Yep.

Michael DeLeon [27:02]:

But if you think about it, I don't care what actor, what singer, what comedian, I don't know anybody. I never met anybody in my life that didn't like Robin Williams. You know what I mean?

Alyssa Scolari [27:13]:

No, no, you're right.

Michael DeLeon [27:15]:

You might not have liked Aladdin, you might not have liked Mrs. Doubtfire. You might have thought Mork and Mindy was a stupid show. Whatever. Right? But you loved that man.

Alyssa Scolari [27:22]:

Oh, yeah.

Michael DeLeon [27:22]:

Robin Williams was the most loved, to me, my opinion, the most loved man on the planet. But he didn't love himself. He didn't love himself. He had such self loathing, and self hatred, right? Instead of dealing with that self loathing, and self hatred, they shoveled psychotropics down his throat, and he hung himself, right?

So my friend and I, Terrence is my friend's name. We talked about him all the time. Chester Bennington, right? How do these kids die? How do these kids take their life? The lead singer of Linkin Park, one of the most beloved musicians on the planet, the lead singer of Soundgarden, Chris Cornell. Kurt Cobain. How do these people do this? You're so loved. You're so loved. How do you... Michael Jackson, Tom Petty, Amy Winehouse, and then we sit here for a week, and we're like, "Oh, it's such a tragedy. Let's celebrate them. Let's play their music for a week. Let's take all their memorabilia and stick it on eBay for a jacked up price."

We're not learning our lesson. And I'm telling you, 2020 is the year we're going to look back on, and see the problem jump fivefold. This problem is going to jump fivefold. This COVID thing is a joke, man. It's a joke. I'm not saying it's not real. I'm not saying coronavirus isn't real, COVID-19's not real. It's real. It's real. But what's coming [crosstalk 00:28:51].

Alyssa Scolari [28:50]:

But the real problem...

Michael DeLeon [28:52]:

Is going to be the lateral damage, five to 10 fold. And no one's even paying attention. So, I found my purpose, to get back to your question, I found my purpose, and I found passion for my purpose. And that's what I try to share, and show to people, is I have passion for this.

Alyssa Scolari [29:11]:

Oh, yeah, I can feel it.

Michael DeLeon [29:11]:

My wife says, "You never want to invite Michael to your Christmas party ever." Don't invite me over, because I'll bring the whole mood of the party down. I'll be talking about drugs, and addiction, and suicide, and overdose, and after five minutes talking to me you're like, "Oh my god, man, that guy. I don't even want to talk to him anymore."

Alyssa Scolari [29:30]:

Yeah, but you're talking about the shit that needs to be talked about. This is the stuff that nobody wants to talk about, and I just... I mean, you're so right. And I know I was saying this to you before we started recording, but the clients that I'm seeing right now, and the patients that I have, their use of substances went from, over the last six months, went from, "I could hit the dab pen every once in a while." To, "Oh my God, I can't stop."

Michael DeLeon [30:02]:

Yup.

Alyssa Scolari [30:02]:

You know, I had a 14-year-old sitting in my office yesterday, going, "I can't stop." She's flunking out of school. She's sleeping until three in the afternoon, and she's like, "I don't know how I got here." And that is the ripple effect of this frigging pandemic.

Michael DeLeon [30:21]:

Yep.

Alyssa Scolari [30:21]:

And right, we're not even paying attention to it.

Michael DeLeon [30:24]:

Right, you're right. CDC just released a report, right? And they have found 13% of respondents, okay, so anytime CDC puts out a report, you can always double it. Always double it. Whenever the CDC says self reporting, automatically double it.

Alyssa Scolari [30:24]:

Of course.

Michael DeLeon [30:44]:

But let me just give them the benefit of the doubt and say that they're right. They just said 13% of Americans either started, or increased their substance abuse, to cope with pandemic related stress, emotions, and isolation. Do you know what 13% of America is? That's 43 million people. 43 million people have increased, or started getting high, to deal with COVID. Hello? No one's talking about it.

Alyssa Scolari [30:44]:

Nope.

Michael DeLeon [31:20]:

We want to talk about Biden's... It's nuts. It's nuts. When I watch CNN, or MSNBC, or Fox News, I want to kill myself [inaudible 00:31:30] no. I want to take a bath afterwards. But anyway, you look on the side of the screen, right? The side of the screen, how many COVID deaths we had, how many COVID cases do we have? If on the left side of the screen, we put suicides and overdoses, I wonder if people would wake up? Right? I wonder if people would wake up?

Alyssa Scolari [31:20]:

Yeah.

Michael DeLeon [31:20]:

I don't know.

Alyssa Scolari [31:20]:

Yeah.

Michael DeLeon [31:54]:

I don't know if they'd wake up or not. I want to believe they would, but I don't know.

Alyssa Scolari [31:59]:

But it just seems like there's intentionally such a blind eye turned to it. And I guess one of the questions I have for you is, how do you talk to the people, because now, as you've said, at least 43 million, 13%, that's only what's reported, and you always double it, because what about all the all the numbers out there that aren't being reported?

So, all right, we'll just say on on best case scenario, 43 million people have an increase in substance use, substance abuse since the onset of the pandemic. I know I've personally seen an increase in about 90% of the people in my practice. What do you say to people? And I know this is part of what you do through Steered Straight, is you go to schools, and you speak. What do you say to the kids? And I'm finding it's not just the kids right now, but it's also the adults who sit there and go, "But it's just vaping. None of this stuff is harming me. Look, it's the flavor of Long Island Iced Tea. It tastes really good." What do you say to that?

Michael DeLeon [33:11]:

Well, I mean, if I'm in a school, and I'm doing a 90 minute session, I have an hour and a half to share my story, but to talk about vaping, because my first drug was nicotine, cigarettes. First drug I... And it's the number one killer in the world. Cigarettes is the number one killer in the world, right? Cigarettes aren't addictive. Nicotine is addictive. Nicotine is in cigarettes, that's what makes cigarettes addictive. Nicotine [inaudible 00:33:37].

My first drug was nicotine. 90% of every addict in this world used nicotine before the age of 18. And I can tell you 90% of every relapse in America is a smoker, or a vaper. 90%. 90%. So, some kid the other day said, "Well, I bet you 90% of every relapse drinks milk, too." And I said, "Oh, okay, yeah, that dairy to drug gateway. That's really..." Sometimes people will just argue, and confirmation bias is a real sickness, where no information and evidence presented will change your irrational belief, right?

Alyssa Scolari [34:19]:

Yeah.

Michael DeLeon [34:19]:

So, nicotine is the most addictive drug on earth, and the chemicals in these vaping, and these Long Island Iced Tea flavors, changes structure when it enters your body, and these kids, they have no idea what they're doing to their developing respiratory system. Respiratory disease is the third biggest killer in America. Okay? Over 300,000 Americans die from respiratory disease every single year. That's the number six killer for kids 15 to 24.

So how do these kids get COPD, chronic lower respiratory disease? How are 24-year-old kids dying from emphysema, and they never smoked? I can tell you, it's vaping. We're going to see the truth about vaping. It's going to take seven to 10 years for all the data to really come out. But, vaping is going to kill this entire generation. I believe respiratory disease will become the number one cause of death in America, because our 10 to 24-year-old kids are ingesting nicotine, and THC, number one way to get high on marijuana is vaping. THC.

Alyssa Scolari [34:19]:

Yep.

Michael DeLeon [35:18]:

Yep. So, a lot of these kids say, "Oh, no, I don't vape for THC."

Alyssa Scolari [35:20]:

Because it's so heavily concentrated.

Michael DeLeon [35:22]:

Concentrates, right.

Alyssa Scolari [35:23]:

Yep.

Michael DeLeon [35:25]:

The kids say, "Oh, no, I'm not vaping THC. I'm just vaping nicotine." I'm like, "Yeah, really? Where are you getting your pods?" "Oh, I order them online." "Oh, okay, okay. I'm sure there's no THC in there." They have no idea.

So, if I'm in a school, I have a longer session. If I'm with parents, I have a longer session. If schools or parents, or groups of therapists, or counselors want a lesson, I have a one hour video that I've done, I can send it to anybody. We have information on our website. I helped the Partnership for Drug Free New Jersey write a 16 page vaping guide. It's on my website called The No Vape Zone. So, I try to give people information. But information is just information. What do you do with that information? If you don't take it to heart, then it's not going to help you. And if you don't believe it, and have an open mind, it's not going to help you either.

Alyssa Scolari [36:20]:

Right. And honestly, one of the biggest battles that I struggle with, with kids, is that they have this idea that they are invincible, and infallible, so they have this, "Well, that's not going to be me. All I do is vape. All it is is THC and nicotine. I'm not going to get there. It's not a gateway drug."

Michael DeLeon [36:40]:

Yeah. Listen, there's so many studies to show you what THC does to the male anatomy over time. So, I say to kids, hey, it might not develop a erectile dysfunction in your 20s and 30s, but when you meet that girl, and you fall in love, she wants to get married, and you get married, and you want to start a family, and it's just not working out. And you and boo go off to the infertility clinic, right? And the doctor sends you for a little test.

Let me tell you about that test. First of all, it's pretty interesting how you take that test, because modern science has never found a different way to develop this test, to find out if you're sterile or not, right? So you go in your little room with your VCR, and your VHS tapes, and then you come out with your little sample.

Well, the doctor is going to send that little sample off to the lab, and then you and your new wife are going to sit there at his desk, and he's going to explain the bad news to you, and you're going to look over at your wife, and what is she going to say? Now she realizes the man she fell in love with, the man she married can't have children, because you're sterile at 27, because you vaped THC all through your teen years thinking it's got to be no big deal. Hey, nobody told you what was going to happen to your sperm over time.

THC is a toxin on the male anatomy, and the female anatomy too. But, I always try to get a little bit further with males. I don't know if you want to be chewing Levitra and Cialis in your 30s, but it's a possibility, so why take the chance? Why take the chance?

Alyssa Scolari [38:11]:

Yup.

Michael DeLeon [38:11]:

It's really, really, really a problem, and it's not smoking... The thing about it is, my generation has convinced these kids that marijuana is no big deal. "I smoked when I was a kid. I was at Woodstock for crying out loud." Okay, I grew up with Cheech and Chong.

Alyssa Scolari [38:11]:

Oh my God, but it's so different.

Michael DeLeon [38:24]:

It's not the same stuff. You know that.

Alyssa Scolari [38:28]:

It's not the same. Yeah, it's so much more heavily concentrated. It is absolutely not the same. And there's so much other shit in there. It's just... Yeah, it's not the same. It is not the same.

Michael DeLeon [38:41]:

I was watching the news the other day. A lot of Americans know what's going on with Monsanto, right? And Roundup. Roundup, caused non Hodgkins lymphoma, right? Roundup is a toxin, is a poison, there's chemicals in Roundup that has absolutely killed people, right? There's all these lawsuits going on. There's commercials on TV, "If you got non Hodgkins lymphoma, or a loved one got non Hodgkins lymphoma from Roundup, call this number, because he might be entitled to financial compensation."

So, I'm watching the news the other day, and I saw that commercial. The very next commercial is a Roundup commercial, talking about how you can buy Roundup and use it in your garden. And I'm like, "Wait a minute, one commercial is telling you how to call this number if you ever used it, and the next commercial on the same network on the same TV show is promoting the product." I'm thinking, "Wow, America is really dumb, man. Americans are really dumb."

I don't get it. The media is lying to us. Monsanto is lying to us. It's crazy. "We just hope that you don't get non Hodgkins lymphoma, and sue us." Look at the opioid lawsuits, look at Zantac lawsuits, look at the hair color for men. They found that [inaudible 00:39:58] poison in it. And so, if you used the... I can't remember what it's called, but it's a hair color for men, and they found that it's a poison.

And then they came in and said, "Oh, no, no, no, it's not, it's okay. It's just a black hair color. The blonde, and the brown hair color is okay." What? I didn't read that in the report. It said all of your products contain this stuff. And I go to the Walmart, and I look at the back of the box, and that chemical is in the brown, and in the blonde, and they're still selling the black. It's crazy. Crazy.

Alyssa Scolari [40:31]:

Yup.

Michael DeLeon [40:32]:

Drugs and alcohol is a huge problem, suicide is a huge problem. But it's just the symptom of the problem. It's not the problem itself. We've got to get to this trauma, we've got to get to these underlying issues, and we've got to help people deal with this in a healthy, positive, and holistic way.

Alyssa Scolari [40:53]:

You said it, you said it. I can't... I mean, that is the whole goal of this podcast. That is the one thing that I have learned about my life. I, thank God, have never picked up a cigarette. But, my addiction was in food, and it's not until I addressed that trauma beneath that I was able to really be in recovery.

Michael DeLeon [41:18]:

Right. Because there's process addictions, there's sex addictions, there's things that we fall into.

Alyssa Scolari [41:25]:

Yeah.

Michael DeLeon [41:26]:

Tony Robbins, Anthony Robbins, everybody's familiar with Tony Robbins. He's a motivational speaker. He's an incredible person. He had a TV show about seven years ago, where he was helping people deal with their addictions, and the addiction community, the therapists, and a psychotherapist, and the treatment centers really attacked him because he was saying addiction is not a disease. That's ridiculous. Addiction is not a disease, right?

He got attacked. But anyway, he was so nauseated by the attacks, and the backlash, and he said, "Forget this, I don't need to do this crap. I'm going to just keep making my millions of dollars doing what I'm doing." He could have revolutionized addiction, but people who were making the money on the addiction, treating the addiction, they didn't want any part of that.

"Oh, we can't tell people addiction is not a disease, that there's choices involved. We've got to tell them it's something that they can't help." That's absolute bull crap. Right? But anyway, he said something that really, really changed my life. It was about seven years ago. So, yeah, it was right after 2010. I was filming my first film, my first documentary on addiction.

I was interviewing all these kids, and I was watching his interview on Larry King, and he had one of his success stories there on the show with him. And Tony Robbins said, "If you want to deal with an addiction, okay, the only way you deal with an addiction is if you replace it with another addiction. If you take drugs out of the person's life, if you don't replace the drugs with something else, you have a void there, that the person, the addict doesn't know how to fill."

I don't want to fill it with another negative thing. You don't take heroin away and replace it with weed. You don't take heroin away, and replace it with Suboxone and methadone. What's that void? Okay, spiritual principles, music, healthy relationships, meetings, walking, exercise. We've got to deal with the remnants of the drugs because no matter what, there's remnants of those drugs in our fat cells, in our bodies, that we're going to deal with.

I just lost a kid about three weeks ago, this kid, he just had a one year anniversary. He was clean one year. But he went back into the gym, you should have seen this kid. He was a monster, shoulders bigger than my head. He went back into the gym, back into working out, he replaced his drug addiction with working out.

But there was so many... He told me all the time, he would have these cravings that were so powerful. He didn't know what to do. He called me a couple of times, over the last few months, in the middle of the night telling me he had such incredible cravings, and I tried to tell, him every single time he had these incredible cravings was when he left the gym, and I said, "That's because your fat cells are releasing these remnants of drugs that are embedded in your fat cells. You're working out, you're sweating, you're ripping your muscles, your muscles, your fat cells, you're dropping weight. The little soluble particles, and molecules of drugs, of amphetamines, of heroin are in your body still, you detox in five days, you don't detox your body. There's ways you have to detox your body. It takes years sometimes."

Alyssa Scolari [41:26]:

Yeah.

Michael DeLeon [44:46]:

"You're having these cravings because literally drugs are in your body, and you feel these cravings." I said, "You only feel them when you're leaving the gym." He says, and ironically, "Yeah, man. That's when they're strongest." "That's right. That's what you have to do. You have to replace things. You've got to go..." I told him that all these things to go on, holistic things, turmeric, ginger, zinc. All these amino acids, right? "You've got to get this stuff into your body. Sodium, you've got to put sodium in your body."

And so anyway, he just gave in to a craving, and went and got heroin, one bag of heroin, he went, he's going to take the edge off, he sniffed one bag of heroin, it was straight fentanyl, and he died like three weeks ago. We've got to address these underlying issues. We've got to address these underlying issues. And like I said earlier, there's no such thing as a chemical solution to a spiritual problem.

We can only handle spiritual problems, with spiritual solutions. And I'm not talking about religion, and I'm talking about church, or the Bible. Those are all great things, but they're a part of a new life. And I tell people all the time, "Do I feel like getting high? Sometimes. Do I feel like just quitting, and getting..." A couple of days ago, I did not want to get out of bed. My alarm went off. It wasn't being tired. I had two overdoses, and a suicide that night, that evening, before I went to bed, and I got up just as nauseous as I went to sleep.

I didn't want to get out of bed. I wanted to hit snooze. I wanted to put the covers over my head. I wanted to say, "You know what? Forget it. I'm just going to stay in bed all day." Okay, what's that going to accomplish? What's that going to accomplish? It's going to give me the same misery that drugs gave me, because at the end of the day, I stayed in bed all day, I accomplished nothing. All the problems that were going to develop during the day are still going to be there. I still have to deal with them.

So, I got my lazy pitiful butt out of bed. I ended my feeling sorry for myself. I went, and brushed my teeth, got in the shower, and out of shower, got dressed, and off I went. So, I did hit snooze for five minutes, so I had a pity party for five minutes. It's okay. Treat your problems in life like your snooze, give it five minutes. Go make up rest, go for a walk.

Alyssa Scolari [47:04]:

Yeah.

Michael DeLeon [47:05]:

Make a phone call. Call somebody you haven't talked to. I had something happen a couple of days ago. I was driving. I was just, I was so upset, I called my father. My father was like, "Oh, I'm so glad you called. I wanted to talk to you about something." So not only did I handle my little five minutes of stress, I called my father at a moment he wanted to talk to me about something. So, I helped him, which now I'm helped two times. You know what I mean?

Alyssa Scolari [47:05]:

Right.

Michael DeLeon [47:32]:

I dealt with my anxiety, and I feel good about helping the most important man in my world, my father. So many of us are inundated with all this Fakebook stuff. That's what I call Facebook, Fakebook, right? And Twitter, and Instagram, and we sit there for... I know a girl, sits there for hours watching TikTok videos. Like, "Okay, I've got 4,000 Fakebook friends." No, you don't. Okay? You've four fake people a social media platform that couldn't give a rat's ass about you if they were in the same room with you.

Develop your core group of people. Maybe it's three people. Maybe it's 10 people. Find someone... I saw a girl on Facebook the other day, she was talking about how miserable she was, and how no one appreciates her. So, I just messaged her, "I feel like you do sometimes. And you know what? I'm adding you to my prayer list." Which I did, "I'm thinking about you and sending positive vibes your way. And all that out to you right now might mean nothing, but I care about you. You have a purpose in your life. You're noticed, I noticed, and guess what? Someone does care about you. It's me. And if you've ever liked to write about it, I'd love you to help me with my website, because I got these blogs, and I'm looking for people to write positive things, so other people can share them."

So, she did, she shared a thing, we put it on the... She messaged me back. "I feel so much better about writing that, thank you so much." And she's on a list that I have, which is about 160 people long, she's on a list that I'm going to text as much as I can, every couple of weeks, or every other week, I'm going to text, "Hey, how you doing?"

Sometimes I sit, when I'm waiting on a plane, right? And I encourage people to do this. I'm nobody special. Trust me when I tell you, I didn't even come up with this. A good, smart woman, because women are smarter than men, a good smart woman told me to do this. I go down, I don't ever erase my Facebook messages. Look, there's like 60,000 of them. Right? So, I just go down.

Alyssa Scolari [49:42]:

Yup.

Michael DeLeon [49:42]:

I go like this, and I find a Facebook message from, here's one, July 26th. I haven't messaged that lady since July 26thq. So, I go back and see what we were talking about, and then I go like this, "Thinking about you today. Hope you're doing well." Do you know what that might do that person?

Listen, this is how the Holy Spirit works, I might do that at a moment that that person is sitting in their car crying over something that's going on in their life, and that simple text, I was going to call it a stupid text, it's not, that simple text might be the difference of that person driving into a brick wall, or just feeling a little bit more hopeless.

It's not me, I'm nothing special. Look at this face. I'm nothing special. But I'm going to care about that person for a second. I'm waiting on a plane, and instead of watching a stupid TikTok video, or a YouTube video, instead of doing something meaningless, I'm going to do something meaningful. Do you know that's how I get through my days? By reaching out to people who aren't thinking about me, with a simple, two second, three second text, "Thinking about you. Hope you're doing well."

Alyssa Scolari [50:58]:

Yup.

Michael DeLeon [50:58]:

That's it. So anyway, that's how I get through my day.

Alyssa Scolari [51:03]:

I have to say, as you're saying that, it's making me recall, I think, quite a few moments where, I know people in my life who adopt that same motto as you, which is like, "You know what, just reach out. All you need to do is say, "Thinking of you."

There have been many times when I've definitely battled suicidal ideations, and suicidal thoughts, pretty much my whole life, and there have been many times when I've been sitting in my car, sobbing, thinking about just ending my life, and then I get that message that comes through. I have a friend, Liz, if you're listening, hey, Liz, but my friend Liz will always text me at the time when I need it. When I'm sitting in my car going, "I'm going to end my life." I get that text, and she's like, "Hi, honey, praying for you. Thinking of you." And I'm like, "Aww."

Michael DeLeon [52:03]:

Yup.

Alyssa Scolari [52:04]:

It is, it's incredible, what one simple text can do, instead of what a TikTok video.

Michael DeLeon [52:12]:

Listen, I don't know Alyssa Scolari, but now I do. You're a new friend in my life, and we're going to keep connecting, and one day I'm going to help you do something, one day you're going to help me do something. You have a purpose in your life. You have a purpose, and you obviously have passion for your purpose, okay? You were created with value and purpose.

Alyssa Scolari [52:12]:

Oh yeah.

Michael DeLeon [52:33]:

Okay? You're a woman. So you're much better off, because you're a girl, because you're smarter than guys, and you have a purpose in your life. People need you, okay? So you're not going to end your life. You're not going to end your life ever. You have too much to live for, and people need you in their life. And so, you're going to keep going, and we're going to help people, and we're going to get through this, and we've got to change. I wish we could all... If everyone in America would just turn off Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, just turn them off. Don't ever watch them again.

Alyssa Scolari [53:03]:

Never.

Michael DeLeon [53:04]:

You've got to watch the local news, to see what's going on in your community, but if you can DVR it, and then and then fast forward through the garbage, right? Watch the weather, and whatever.

Alyssa Scolari [53:04]:

Yeah, bypass the crap. Yeah.

Michael DeLeon [53:16]:

I just wish we would all realize there's no... We are not a racist, systemically racist country. Okay? If we were such a bad country, we wouldn't that people risking their lives to come here. We're the greatest country in the world. We need to be better. We need to be better.

But I'm not going to try to solve all those problems. All I'm trying to solve is addiction, and suicide. It's weaved together. That's all I'm trying to solve, addiction, and suicide. I've got to solve it with prevention. That's what I'm trying to do. So, SteeredStraight.org is our website. There's a great seven page guide on anxiety, and stress on there that we wrote.

Alyssa Scolari [53:54]:

Awesome.

Michael DeLeon [53:54]:

It's incredible. It's how to develop your own personal stress management program. It's a 10 step guide, with four sections. It's incredible, seven pages, it's free. I have a great guide on vaping. I have a book for parents, I have a success curriculum for kids. All I'm trying to do is help. So, please go to SteeredStraight.org, and share it with your friends.

Alyssa Scolari [54:17]:

That's perfect. And for everyone listening out there, I will link that on the Facebook page, and it will be in the newsletter, and the show notes, so you will have access to it, so you can go check all those good things out. So, I thank you so so much for coming on.

Michael DeLeon [54:17]:

All right. Absolutely.

Alyssa Scolari [54:33]:

And for your passion.

Michael DeLeon [54:34]:

Bye, Alyssa Scolari. Get out of Jersey, man. Get out of that godforsaken state of New Jersey.

Alyssa Scolari [54:39]:

Yeah, I know.

Michael DeLeon [54:41]:

Move to Tennessee.

Alyssa Scolari [54:46]:

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. For more information on today's discussion, and to sign up for the Light After Trauma newsletter, head over to my website, at AlyssaScolari.com. Also be sure sure to check out my Instagram for additional tips and resources, at Alyssa_Scolari_LPC. Thanks again for listening, and take good care.