Practice of Being Seen

We all love a good superhero movie. It’s hard not to leave the theater feeling inspired, empowered, and ready to change the world. Therapists are already changing the world, but for many trying to grow a private practice, it can seem difficult to push through the hard parts of growth. It’s easy to lose yourself in your practice, and you might start to feel the kryptonite of discouragement before long.

Faster than a speeding bullet, Dr. Annie Schuessler is here to show you just where your inner power lies. She realized that Therapists really are just like superheroes, complete with their own superpowers! Through coaching, writing, and her podcast, Annie is on a mission to change the way you think about yourself. So what are these superpowers, and how can they help you grow your practice? How can understanding your true power really impact your practice? Check out the whole conversation, to find out how!

Episode Highlights: 

• Where did the Therapist Superpowers come from? 
• Ways to help you access your superpowers. 
• Embrace and learn to use your superpower. 
• Annie shares her own inner power, and how she started coaching. 
• Superpowers within your identity. How struggles produce strength.
• Annie embraces her “label” as a queer woman and shows us how labels can help us craft our identity. 
• It’s hard to grow, but it is also beautiful! 
• Tips and tricks towards building confidence with the work you are doing. 
• Using a journal to track your growth and string together some threads. 
• Understanding how an entrepreneurial spirit can influence your practice. 

Links:

Annie’s Website

Listen to Annie’s Podcast: Therapist Clubhouse

Do you have a theory, a venture, an offering, that the world doesn’t know about yet? It’s time to tune in and create the space that will enable your project and your passion to come to life.

We invite you to take a closer look at (Re)Vision: Explore Your Stories, Shape Your Future | a Practice Of Being Seen Retreat for Therapist-Healers being held at the @menlamountain Retreat in New York’s gorgeous Catskill Mountains this August 13th-16th.

This is A CHANCE TO PAUSE, root into nature, and look within. When you see yourself clearly, you’re able to bring your vision into focus and you’re able to manifest the next big project or next big growth phase for your practice.

(Re)Vision is an investment both in your business and also in yourself. It is a chance to deepen your practice, learn new skills, root into nature and spirit, and make time for some radical self-care.

Your investment includes tuition, accommodations, three meals a day, a one-year membership in the POBS Membership Community for Therapists, pre-retreat consults, a free 60-minute spa treatment at Menla's Great Bliss Spa, and a full swag bag of nuturingness!

And #BIGNEWS: We've managed to reduce the price! Get all the deets and the new pricing here:

Spirituality and sensuality are born of the same energy and you can’t separate them. When we can tap into both of them, you enter the dance of life and you can embrace who you truly are.

Tamara Powell, founder of Arya Therapy Services, Tales of Being a Trapezoid Community and the Undress the Spirit Podcast joins us to talk about sexuality, identity, expression, and authenticity.

In this podcast, we dive deep into:

• how to live life as a sacred dance of giving and accepting invitations
• the connection between shame and trauma, and sensuality and sexuality
• the balance between taking responsibility and experiencing pleasure
• the empowering stories behind archetypes like Lilith and Mary Magdalene
• how to be authentic to your truest self and recognize the guidance you are able to receive at all times

To learn more about Tamara’s Therapy services, please go to: https://www.facebook.com/aryatherapyservices/

To follow Tamara and her community of like-mind Trapezoids, go to: https://www.facebook.com/talesfromatrapezoid/

To listen to her podcast, to go: https://www.facebook.com/undressingthespirit/

Thanks to this week’s sponsor, MetaFi:

MetaFi is a self-awareness app created by therapists that is available FREE on Android and iOS. It is designed to support mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and body awareness. When you tune in and use MetaFi as a tool, you can re-establish and strengthen the emotional connection between your mind and body. MetaFi helps you increase awareness of how you show up from moment to moment so you can improve your relationships, productivity, creativity, emotional intelligence, and thinking.

What got Neil Sattin into his work as a couples coach and host of the popular Relationship Alive podcast? Believe it or not, it was dog training! In working with dogs and their owners, Neil discovered that he loved coaching people in relationship.

We go way beyond puppy love in this episode….

• You know we love storytelling on the POBScast, and we also know that “stories” can be tricky, especially when it comes the stories a person can tells about herself, her partner, and her relationship. Neil helps us unpack when stories are helpful and when they perpetuate illusions. If you have conclusions about your partner, there’s a good chance the relationship will conclude, says Neil.
  
  
• We play with the whole “be present” thing. Is it always possible and even desirable to be present in every moment? Conscious timeouts are key to relational harmony.
  
  
• Relationships change over time. We talk about how humor and clear communication about your needs can help couples shape “a story of now” and keep growing together.
  
  
• Neil shares his professional and podcasting journey. We love that he credited meditation and the mystical for helping him find his way. (And we know it took a lot of laser focus and determination too!)  
  
  
• And, we dish a little bit on what it’s like to learn from one of the biggest names in the personal development world. Such rich territory as we talk about expectations, the art of generative questioning, and stepping outside of the story so that it can rewrite itself.

Learn more about Neil and his services: http://www.neilsattin.com/

To listen to his podcast:  http://www.neilsattin.com/relationshipalive/

And, if you’re looking to deepen your connection with your partner, learn how to create thriving intimacy with Neil and his partner, Chloe, go to: http://thenewloveparadigm.com/

If someone told you that authentic relationships can cure just about everything, would you believe him? Listen to nationally recognized family therapist, author, and teacher Terry Real talk about “how to live a relational life” and there’s a great chance you’ll be on board with that idea.

If relationships are so fundamental to who we are, why are so many couples in trouble these days? Marriage wasn’t built for long walks on the beach and sex into your 70s. Marriage was built for companion and stability. So often, the reality doesn’t meet expectations.

Terry defines a “new intimacy” and tells us how this is synonymous with freeing men and women from the bonds and expectations of patriarchy. He invites us to think about relationships “ecologically” and understand how to act out of “enlightened self-interest” because we’re all so connected.

Therapeutic neutrality is a myth, says Terry and he believes you can’t teach people to be relational unless you’re relational with them. He teaches therapists to judiciously self-disclose and loves hearing his own clients say “I trusted you because I knew you’d been through it.”

All of this relational work has a spiritual component. Terry describes the movement from “first consciousness” and the knee-jerk, conditioned emotional reactions into the cultivation of “second consciousness,” which is marked by thoughtful, freedom-based responses. He helps people move from being “adaptive children” to becoming functional adults.

Other important topics covered in this conversation include the importance of:

• taking the right kind of timeout (link below)
• breaking free from ancestral pathologies
• understanding that technology can play in making us tune into ourselves and others
• the 3 key phases of healing a relationship: loving confrontation, trauma and family of origin work, and skill building
• Your feelings haven't left you, you've left them (we talk about tracking your feelings)

We close with a discussion of the “rules” of marriage. Ultimately, it’s about following some universal laws of relationships and moving into freedom, choice, and perspective. The new rules that Terry puts forth are about liberation while staying within bounds of a union. He believes that even deeper than personal empowerment is what he calls relational empowerment.

For more on Terry’s trainings and books, visit https://www.terryreal.com/

Get his 10 Commandments of Time Outs: http://www.terryreal.com/10-commandments-of-time-outs/

See the full text of the DH Lawrence poem, “The Healing” that Terry recites: http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/575443-i-am-not-a-mechanism-an-assembly-of-various-sections

OUR SPONSOR

We’re so excited to highlight MetaFi in this week’s conversation with Terry Real. MetaFi...

Have you been taught to believe that nonstop working is the only way to sustain and guarantee a successful business? When your creative energy starts to dwindle, how can you find your purpose and embody it again?

Licensed marriage and family therapist and ZynnyMe cofounder Kelly Higdon has established a business model that many of us don’t dare to dream of: she went from the kind of overwork that landed her in the hospital to taking up to four months off each year.

In this episode:

• Kelly reveals how focusing on different aspects of her business during different seasons has completely transformed her work-life balance for the better.

• We explore how operating with a minimalist mentality can help “clear out the clutter” and be inspiration for taking the next step toward your greater goals
• We discuss the importance of knowing the difference between “good push and bad push” and how to know when to reevaluate your plan so it serves your higher purpose.
• We dive into how finding the connection between what you dream of and what you are doing today is the key to unleashing your ultimate creativity.

Learn more about Kelly’s coaching services for entrepreneurs: http://www.kellyhigdon.com/

And, if you’re a private practice therapist or your want to be, check out ZynnyMe and their  Business School Bootcamp, conferences, and retreats: https://www.zynnyme.com/

Thanks to this week’s sponsor: Being Seen

Being Seen is a new therapist directory service that is dedicated to helping new potential clients find your private practice. Yes, there are other directories out there, but Being Seen is different - their skilled marketing team is building a broad network that seekers can find easily, but they’re limiting the number of therapists in the directory. That means the people seeking help don’t get overwhelmed and you’re always near the top of the list.

When you join the Being Seen network you get access to exclusive trainings and discounts on CEUs. And they stand behind their promise to help you grow your practice - If you're not thrilled with their service inside of one year’s time, just send an email and they'll refund your money. Find them at www.beingseen.org

What are the biggest mistakes people make when they tell a story? It’s not “too much detail.” Storytelling Coach Marsha Shandur gives advice about how to be a powerful storyteller - even if you’re a private person or a therapist concerned about disclosing too much.

When you meet Marsha in real life, she makes an impression. You always remember what you feel around her (it’s all about grinning and being fabulously real, we find). That phenomenon totally carries over into the POBScast experience.

There’s a truth that so many coaches share: When you get very clear on why you are doing what you are doing, everything changes. When you’re in alignment, the universe starts throwing what you need in your path. Marsha tells us about her light bulb moment…

For years she thought she was supposed to be using her storytelling coaching skills in order to help nonprofits and other change the world ideas, but then she realized her real mission: she’s going to help us all understand that no one has their SH** together. She lives her message across her online platforms, but particularly in her weekly Facebook thread: “I don’t have it all together Tuesday.” (Follow her personal FB profile to participate - it’s the best!)

The experience of selling your personal brand, especially as a coach, means that you need to put out the best version of yourself. It’s necessary to look like we’re successful because we want people to hire us, but... Marsha calls on Brene Brown’s wisdom: when you meet someone, vulnerability is the first thing you look for in them and the last thing you want to show.

Storytelling is a brilliant, low-stakes way to be vulnerable. You need distance to tell the story well. The magic of time and distance makes it ok to share difficult parts of yourself and talk about your feelings.

Successful storytellers don’t rely on facts and opinions but on feelings. What does it take to feel your feelings? Marsha walks us through an exercise that helps you connect to the sensations in the moment and describe them. We touch on the neuroscience of story and

how to create the “Freaky Friday Body Swap” phenomenon.

Want more of Marsha? Say “yes, yes” and visit the super special secret page she created just for the POBScast community: http://www.yesyesmarsha.com/pobs/

OUR SPONSOR

We’re so excited to welcome the latest sponsor to the POBScast family:  MetaFi is a self-awareness app created by therapists that is available FREE on Android and iOS. It is designed to support mindfulness, emotional intelligence, and body awareness. When you tune in and use MetaFi as tool, you can re-establish and strengthen the emotional connection between your mind and body. MetaFi helps you increase awareness of how you show up from moment to moment so you can improve your relationships, productivity, creativity, emotional intelligence, and thinking.

Get started today with your free download: https://www.metafi.me/#meet-metafi

What does it take to claim your personal truths? What does that process look like when you’re trying to find the intersection between your passion, and the work you’re meant to do in the world, and the work you’re already doing every day?

For the first time in many months, Marisa and Rebecca recorded a “Just Us” episode. In part, it’s a chance to dive deep into the project that’s front of mind at POBS: the (Re)Vision Retreat for Therapist-Healers that’s coming up this August. It’s also a chance to talk about the evolution of an idea and how it moves from being something you dream about into something you can describe and then birth into the world.

How do you understand your personal and professional brand? We use Rebecca’s evolving vision of “Connectfulness” as a model of a theory and a brand that’s been incubating for a long time and that is emerging in a new way. It’s about living the story before you can tell it. It’s also about becoming the embodiment of the vision. As Marisa says, Rebecca has become Connectfulness in so many ways so the brand melted away into the lived reality. 

Is there a vision or a project that has been living in your heart, your mind, and your body? We talk about brands as the intersection of the personal, the professional, and what your soul is supposed to do in this life.

And we also walk between that dual consciousness that tells you that your idea is brilliant and original and necessary and also leaves room for the fears that the idea is obvious and unnecessary. We dive into the triad of universal wisdom, personal experience, and asking yourself who else needs these insights just as you are ready to present them.

Enduring wisdom is embodied wisdom. You’re called to envision the inspirational space that is Menla Mountain Retreat - the mountains and the compassionate energy of the valley and the deep peace that runs through the land. This place is a living invitation to root into spirit and self and manifest something that will shift the world. 

Learn more about  (Re)Vision: Explore Your Stories, Shape Your Future, the Practice of Being Retreat for therapist-healers that’s happening August 13 -16. The early bird rate is available through May 31.

Oh, and if you’re curious about your own Myers-Briggs definition of hell, check this out:

http://thoughtcatalog.com/heidi-priebe/2015/05/the-definition-of-hell-for-each-myers-briggs-personality-type/

What happens when you pair courage and humility? How can “coming from a heart of service” transform your business and your life? And how do you ride the continuum between honoring what the heart wants and needing to take care of all the practical things?

In our conversation with Melvin Varghese, the clinician behind the phenomenally successful Selling the Couch podcast, we dive deep into the internal struggles and insecurities that come up for any entrepreneur, especially  psychotherapists in private practice. We talk about the magic that happens when you stand at your growth edge and take a leap despite your fears.

Through his podcast and thriving Facebook community, many people know who Melvin is and they recognize his personal brand. It’s about authenticity and curiosity and compassion.  We’re honored that Melvin was willing to dive deep with us and share some stories he’s never told before including the story of  his family’s emigration and what really inspires him to do this work and take professional risks.

More about our guest: Melvin Varghese, PhD is a licensed psychologist in private practice in Philadelphia, PA where he helps entrepreneurs and basketball players achieve peak mental performance. He’s also the founder of the top ranked Selling The Couch podcast, which helps aspiring and current private practitioners build successful practices, create multiple income streams, and build a business focused on family and self care. In 2015, he founded The Healthcasters, a community for health, wellness, and fitness podcasters.

Learn more about Melvin’s classes, community, and consulting at sellingthecouch.com and find his private practice at http://melvinvarghese.com/

And please note that registration is open for the Practice of Being Seen Retreat for Therapist-Healers that is coming up August 13 - 16, 2017.

(Re)Vision: Explore Your Stories, Shape Your Future will be held at the Menla Mountain Retreat  New York’s gorgeous Catskill Mountains.

Nam Rindani joins us to talk about storytelling, listening, the therapist-client relationship, politics, restorative justice, and so much more. Much of the conversation focuses on the therapist’s relationship with herself, with her own stories, and with her clients, but everyone interested in understanding the human experience will see themselves in this episode.

Nam gives us her own definition of the Practice of Being Seen - and we adore it. It’s the confident, solid practice of trusting that whoever you are and whatever part of you shows up. It’s the simple act of existing without apology. 

Throughout the conversation, we celebrate the dance between stories and relationships, especially in the therapy space. According to Nam, therapists are human beings first and they play the part of therapists in certain settings. How many therapists have bought into the myth that they’re neutral, that they’re emotional robots? This conversation is rich with alternative ways of showing up for yourself, as an individual and as a professional.

Rebecca delves into her own experience holding consultation group sessions for therapists: how can we get our clients to talk about their fear of feelings when we’re sometimes afraid of our own? How can therapists show up in their humanity? We talk about the act of self-censoring and how it’s something all of us do - especially as parents.

And we explore the concept of “normal” and how there really are 7 billion definitions of that term. Why isn’t the first question we ask a client “what is ‘normal’ to you”? That question establishes consent, and prevents pathologizing. It gives people permission to open up about who they really are.

We discuss distraction and filtering in our personal lives, and that opens the topic of politics. What does it mean that so many of us have turned down the news now that we’re several months into the “new normal” in the US? We may be numbing out the parts that hurt way too much to stay present. 

This is where Nam lets off the fireworks: “Therapy is a deeply political experience… It’s a constant negotiation between two people trying to figure out how to use, deny, recognize the power in this room, of authority and expertise. In therapy, someone is struggling and someone seems to have their shit together.” Therapy must focus on the personal, but also includes vaster experiences of oppression and marginalization.”When we deny talking about politics as therapists, we are sedating our clients and we are choosing to be sedated ourselves.” Trauma and childhood experiences are deeply important, but it’s important to realize that those experiences are a result of the way those around you have been influenced by their society and politics.

This is what therapy through the restorative justice perspective looks… Couples therapy is understood as a negotiation of power through a lens of oppression and marginalization. You have to understand yourself as someone who has inflicted pain and injustice in order to heal.

Nam Rindani is a licensed marriage/couples and family therapist with an in-person and virtual therapy practice in San Diego. With 14 years of experience as a therapist in India and United States creating leaders out of those who struggle, her work spans working with kids in poverty stricken neighborhoods of India to adults on welfare in the United States. She currently practices in Central San Diego primarily specializing in working with Men as well as Activists and Leaders.. 

Keep the Nam goodness coming - subscribe to her twice-monthly newsletter, Shrinkable:

https://www.soulnarratives.com/newsletter/

Special thanks to this week’s sponsor: Plum Deluxe. When we read the ingredients in this week’s variety, Reading Nook

Kim John Payne of Simplicity Parenting and writer of the international #1 bestseller of the same name joins us to talk about how “we can be at our best when our kids are at their worst.”

We talk about how kids “ping” us. They use their trusted parents, their safest place to figure out where they are emotionally. It’s important to try to understand when our kids have lost their bearings because, as Kim says, “I’ve never met a disobedient kid, but I have met a lot of disorientated ones.” Kim encourages us to be inquisitive rather than accusative: “I wonder why you’re so lost” moves us out of the “fight or flight” brain, the amygdala, into wondering and into the “let’s play” and “let’s cooperate” part of the brain.

We talk about what it’s like to watch ourselves at our best and at our worst and acknowledge how hard it can be to see ourselves so clearly. And we dive into a huge stress for for parents: feeling unseen. Eventually, feeling unseen and unappreciated builds up a toxic charge. The antidote: stop trying to make every day “the best.” Instead of the super sized family life where every kid is scheduled to capacity and parents become unpaid Uber drivers, there’s an alternative: hit the pause button.

Kids in the Western world are suffering the same levels of stress as children in war torn areas of the developing world. We live in an undeclared war on childhood and family life. The pace of modern life has outstripped the human body and brain’s ability to keep up. We can’t opt out - we’re opted in by being born at this time. What we can do is be the gatekeepers and make choices that offer alternatives to the new normal.

How many activities, toys, books, and most importantly, screens are in your kids’ lives? Why did Steve Jobs limit his kids’ screen time? Because he and his wife wanted their kids to be innovative and creative, and that’s not possible when you’re immersed in someone else’s innovation and creativity.

The connections they need: nature, friends, family, to the self. All of these things take time, and screens are time bandits. Average 12 year old have 9.25 hours of screens a day. The only place we can control screen time is at home. Some people respond with screens are the “real world” and that keeping kids from screens will set them up for a future addiction and set them too far behind their peers. The message Kim gave his daughters, now teens, was “a screen is a tool.” We talk about the dopamine hits that come from screens and how to “reset the brain” to help kids find pleasure and connection in the offscreen world.

Kim is here to help us avoid burying our children’s soul under a toxic landfill of pop culture. He wants to protect and “cool” family life much like we want to protect our earth and end global warming.

For more about Kim and the Simplicity Parenting Community, please visit http://www.simplicityparenting.com/

Thanks to this week’s sponsor: Plum Deluxe.

Love trying new teas?  Treat yourself to a Plum Deluxe tea of the month subscription for only $10/month. You'll receive a hand blended, all-organic, loose leaf tea thoughtfully chosen for the season.  Tea club members also enjoy special benefits like gift swaps, free shipping on all purchases, and access to a very loving tea community.  A tea subscription also makes a fantastic gift for clients, colleagues, and those you love. Our...