Practice of Being Seen

Mercedes Samudio LCSW is a parent coach who is changing the world with the End Parent Shaming movement. She is on a mission to inspire Shame Proof Parents and counter the way that feedback from other parents, extended family, schools, and organizations so often diminishes a parent’s own inner knowing about their kids.

When someone says “I’m failing my children,” it’s almost always because an external party is telling them they’re doing something wrong. The End Parent Shaming philosophy asks us to become aware of how we look at parents, understand that each parent has their own story, and step away from the deeply ingrained human propensity to judge others.

Mercedes introduces us to the idea a “parenting identity” and we talk about how it’s formed. “Shame” is a recurring word in this conversation. Mercedes credits Brene Brown for helping her frame how shame influences parents. There’s the external pressure to fit into boxes in order to look good in the moment rather than to understand one’s own parenting identity. We talk about how family therapist Terry Real’s work reveals that shame and grandiosity share the same energy. Both are reflections of contempt.

We dive into our relationship with technology as parents and as individuals. We talk about the “digital pacifier” and what is it like to parent in the digital age when we don’t have a village to support us. Mercedes challenges us to consider our kneejerk reaction to “technology bad.” Ultimately, it’s about looking at what we’re modeling and how we’re pacifying ourselves.

Mercedes bring us into her own origin story of why she’s passionate about ending parent shaming. She helps us see parents through a different lens so we’re able to understand where they’re coming from. Mercedes doesn’t have children and does not plan to. She does this work because she wants to speak for the children and fully understand their perspective. Drawing on Brene Brown’s use of Teddy Roosevelt speech about the arena. She is in the arena with her parents, but she is wearing a different armor and shield. She stands beside them, dedicated to understanding the perspective of the kids.

We close the conversation by examining what our role is out in the world when we’re bystanders. Helping parents build enough reserves to recover from being shamed. She doesn’t necessarily believe we can be shame-free, but we can be resilient if and when others do judge our parenting.

Mercedes’s brand new book, Shame Proof Parenting that was just launched this week! Get your copy and learn more about her coaching services: https://shameproofparenting.com/

This episode is brought to you by our sponsor Brighter Vision Web Solutions, the worldwide leader in custom therapist website design. For only $59/month, you get a website that’s as unique as your practice, unlimited tech support so you never have to deal with those headaches, and complimentary SEO, so your website can be found by your ideal client through a Google search. POBScast listeners can get one month free. Visit https://www.brightervision.com/try/seen/ and enter the special coupon code: SEEN

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...

Allison Puryear is an “LCSW with a nearly diagnosable obsession with business development.”

We discuss the origin story of Alison’s company, Abundance Practice Building, and what it’s like to create a business that’s one of the loves of your life. Ultimately, it’s about building a business that is structured around the way you want to live.

Have you heard of the “spider web effect”? Allison describes how it plays out for her: she helps someone start or build a practice they love and that gives them the time, energy, and finances to take better care of themselves. In turn, they can do their best clinical work which helps clients and then ripples to all the people in their clients’ lives.

This conversation is about dualities and balance and permission to explore and live out many aspects of your identity. Transformation relies on riding the flow between two poles and allowing yourself to be both when it’s appropriate.

We talk growth edges and the moments when you panic because you’re not growing. Allison hosts a popular Facebook community for therapists and we discuss what it means to hold space for a diverse community when you have people at different stages of entrepreneurial evolution. Comparison and the desire to follow others’ exact path to growth are always a challenge. We also get into Allison’s experience when a troll who infiltrated her community and how it was ultimately an opportunity to build trust and experience growth.

Allison takes us to her current growth edge: allowing more fun. What might happen if you actually gave yourself permission to ask yourself what’s fun based on who you are now and what you need now? Allison describes how she made list of everything she ever found fun in her adult life and another list of what she has found restorative. She also talks about Brene Brown’s “easy buttons” - like having a beer at the end of the day in order to release tension. What’s the difference between fun and restorative and just “easy”?

You can download a free private practice checklist to make sure you have your ducks in a row, get weekly private practice tips, and join the Abundance Practice-Building Group to gain the confidence and tools you need to succeed: https://abundancepracticebuilding.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: https://www.practiceofbeingseen.com/revision-2017-retreat

Keri Nola joins us to shed some light on what it means to love the shadow and helps us dive deep into the energies of Mercury Retrograde.

Even if you’re not a student of astrology, you probably know that people groan when they hear Mercury is going retrograde. This conversation helps you understand the power and potential of what is a nurturing, quiet time.

This is time when miscommunication is more likely, when technology is prone to glitches, and travel is more difficult. but it is also a time when we’re invited to slow down and look within. Often, we’re afraid what we might find in those quiet, slow spaces but you’re invited to see these periods as a chance to see what parts of body, mind, and spirit most need our attention.

Keri leads us on an exploration of her “favorite shadows.” As an Intuitive Psychotherapist, Energetic Visionary, and the Founder of the Sacred Soul Circle for Healing Entrepreneurs, Keri is on a mission to help us to remember how to shine a light on the shadows ready for healing within.

We talk about the pursuit of perfection and the nature of power. It’s particularly important to dive into how healers tend to minimize their own power and silence themselves. Weaving through this episode is the theme of permission. We have permission to ebb and flow, to be imperfect, to dance in the light and the shadow.

We wrap up the episode with a special Messages from Shadow reading specifically for this Mercury Retrograde period. For more about Keri’s oracle deck, the new app, her programs and retreats for Light Workers, visit www.kerinola.com.

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Mercury Retrograde is a time of “re”…Words like return, revisit, remember, re-energize are key during this period. This energy guides the Practice of Being Seen Retreat for Therapist-Healers that is coming up during the next Mercury Retrograde period, August 13 - 16, 2017.

(Re)Vision: Explore Your Stories, Shape Your Future has been designed to hold you through this period of reflection and preparation for the next phase of growth. Learn more and plan to join us in New York’s gorgeous Catskill Mountains: https://www.practiceofbeingseen.com/revision-2017-retreat

Soness Stevens asks “Why does the world need to hear your message?” A TED speaker and TEDx Head Speaker Coach, Soness unlocks what it means to connect with an audience. She offers valuable tools and speaking tips as well as personal stories and together we dive into “speaking is healing.”

Simon Sinek is famous for asking “What’s your ‘why’?” Soness helps us see that you have to go beyond that in order to create and deliver a successful TED talk. You need to drill down to the universal truth. Soness shares how the “Wisdom of the Five Whys” is a great place to start.

“Speaking is healing because you’re listening,” says Soness. We explore reciprocity and the powerful interplay between speaker and audience. A presentation is about being present in that moment. The best TED speakers have rehearsed over 200 times so they can be truly present and truly connect in a mindful, compassionate way that becomes an example of love in action.

Successful communication and meaningful connection rely on understanding that people will listen once they feel they have been heard. We also explore how communication begins within and how it’s the internalized voices of our caregivers that influence that inner monologue.

Soness shares how growing up with a mother who suffered from mental illness crafted who she was as a speaker and as a listener. And we go deeper… Soness helps us understand how presenting her own TED talk created a beautiful opening with her own mom and how it created ripples of communication and connection well after she left the stage.

“Speaking is healing” helps open up this conversation for everyone - even those who are not focused on applying to TEDx right now.

Learn more about Soness’s Step on the Red Dot program at http://www.yourspeakingjourney.com/. She invites you to email her about your interest in this intensive speaker’s training program: [email protected]

Have you ever felt heard? https://youtu.be/m_JbDMrP4UY and that talk about the rice cooker: https://youtu.be/xkEIeCKh3X8

Amy Tatsumi conjures up sacred rebellion, sacred leadership, and sacred unions. This conversation creates a container that enables us to explore our responses to current political events, connect to embodied wisdom, and play with the dance of the masculine and feminine.

Amy gathers women together for their sacred work. She is a portal for them to remember who they are and who they have always been. Her own path of awakening includes Qoya and Tantra, both of which she describes in depth during the episode.

There’s so much to explore in the interplay between the sacred masculine and divine feminine. Amy sheds some light on the “diminished masculine” and describes it as walking through the shadow of shame and hustling for worthiness the swampland of the soul. (Yeah. Wow.)

And then there’s the vision of the wolf. Amy shares with us the messenger who and gave her an understanding of the divine masculine that helped her understand she herself had been in the living through the diminished masculine. Once she experienced this opening, she understood how to access the divine feminine within.

Moving out of fear and into sacred rebellion relies on embodied practices including Qoya, a movement practice that combines free movement, sensual movement, and dancing your yoga as prayer. “Through movement,” says Amy, “we women remember we are wise, wild, and free.”

There’s also Tantra, which Amy describes not as a sexual practice, but a way to “become your own source for Source.” It’s her hope that women wake up through Qoya, and use tantric practices to become unblocked so they can become sacred rebels. These practices create sacred union, combining sacred feminine and masculine.

More about Amy:

Amy Tatsumi is a healer, teacher, and guide and has worked with over 10,000 clients during the past 15 years. She blends her experience as an art psychotherapist, The Daring Way Consultant, Qoya teacher, tantric coach, and retreat guide to support women in knowing, trusting and growing their gifts in their life, work, and relationships. In 2017, Amy is gathering women in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Mount Shasta, California, and Aso, Japan for sacred retreats.

Learn more about her retreats at http://www.amytatsumi.com/retreats/ and her Washington DC based private practice: http://yoursoultherapy.com/

Fiachra “Figs” O’Sullivan, an Irish born San Francisco-based dad, husband, and psychotherapist, gets real with us about the fears of showing up, being vulnerable, talking politics, and having fun - even when you have no idea how people will receive you.

“Being real” with clients in a healing environment is one thing, but what does it mean to bring  who you really are to the greater, public online space? Figs helps us understand that this isn’t a modern, online phenomenon: we all take these risks in our relationships when we ask others to really see who we are.

Couples therapy helps individuals see and understand that they both play a role in the relationship story. Together, they can begin to create a new narrative of love and belonging.

All relationships are on a continuum and we move between moments of connection and disconnection and we spend much of our time in the messy middle. Through experiences of disconnecting and reconnecting, you start to see that you fight because you mean so much to each other. The magic is in the repair, not in making sure you never fight.

This is especially important for parents… What would it mean for your children to see you go from fighting to being sad to comforting each other to reconnecting each other? What an amazing way to prepare your children to have a healthy emotional life.

Figs shares insights he’s gained through marriage and parenting, through poetry (you must hear him recite David Whyte’s poem “Self Portrait”), and by tuning into what really ticks him off… like people who chose “neutrality” over authenticity. We need stillness, not silence. We need people to trust to hold their stories. We build that trust when we’re able to honestly reveal what we stand for.

Much of the conversation is focused on the marriage and the family, but then we look to the wider stage… How are the disconnects at the larger political level starting to influence couples? How can the work we do on our own relationships affect the wider world?

We explore three main archetypes that are emerging in response to the current political climate:  

• Bridge builders who help people with different perspectives connect so they understand that both perspectives make sense
• Fierce warriors ready to name injustice from whatever their perspective on what they think is right
• Helpers are those who will be there to care for those who are suffering

Learn more about Figs' counseling and coaching practice at www.therapywithfigs.com and read his personal writing at https://medium.com/@figlet

Figs is creating a new resource called Empathi.com - an online process that introduces individuals and couples to the wisdom of attachment. It’s possible to change the world by helping individuals have empathy for themselves,the people they love, and everyone they meet.

New York City based music therapist and psychotherapist Maya Benattar helps us explore the “new normal” that has emerged in our post-election world. Maya is a member of our Practice of Being Seen Community for Therapists and accepted our invitation to publish a piece on the contributor’s blog on practiceofbeingseen.com.

To begin, Maya reads Finding the New Normal in Our Post-Election World which she wrote in mid-November and published on our site on inauguration day. Our conversation focuses the process of writing, editing, publishing, and watching a personal story create ripples far beyond your own memories and lived experience.

The writing process is meant to give back to you. To write into an election response or to any event your find confusing or traumatic would be cathartic, but to move into publishing a piece and then sharing it with family, friends, and a wider audience?  That is where you step from “just writing” into being a storyteller who engages an audience and sparks new conversations.

Telling these personal stories is hard for everyone, but especially for psychotherapists who are concerned about sharing details of their own lives with their clients. “It’s simpler if I don’t show this part of me” is a common refrain for clinicians. It’s often an attempt to make things simple, safe, and easier to control. We don’t live in that kind of world right now. The new normal is that there is no normal, which highlights that the nature of life is change and transformation.

So much of this conversation with Maya focuses on the embodiment of wisdom: how do we experience trauma and the beauty of flow and creativity in our bodies? Because Maya is a music therapist, we also tune into how music therapy helps people understand themselves and their stories in the way they experience and create sound.

This is an invitation to tune into the ideas, feelings, and parts of the body that are asking you to notice them. When you see yourself, you’re able to see our changing society and make connections that will continue to value our shared humanity.

Read Maya’s post: https://www.practiceofbeingseen.com/blog/finding-the-new-normal-in-our-post-election-world

To access the guided relaxation recording that Maya offers her community, please visit:http://mayabenattar.com/guided-relaxation

Therapists: You want to explore your unique vision, connect with clients and with yourself, and hone your message. Our unique virtual community is what you’ve been looking for. Learn more and apply to join:

https://www.practiceofbeingseen.com/community-for-therapists/

The parts of the story that we leave out, the parts of ourselves that we’re too ashamed to share - what happens when you shape these into art? Our guest Eva Tenuto, co-founder of the Hudson Valley-based TMI project describes her life’s work: helping people uncover, shape, and share their stories. Through workshops that lead up to public performances, deep personal experiences are crafted to create community, healing, and help performers and audience members see that they aren’t alone.

In our conversation with Eva, we talk about the writing and editing process and how it’s deepened by sharing it with a group. The TMI process invites people to explore and tell versions of vulnerable stories and to get the support from facilitators to make it a powerful, captivating story that will speak to the audience’s collective heart.  We explore how TMI creates a special container that’s unique and and that telling such revealing stories isn’t for everyone in all venues.

“Relationships shape stories and stories shape relationships” is part of the POBScast’s guiding vision. That becomes crystal clear as Eva helps us see how participants relationships are often transformed when these shared stories are told. And, Eva describes how writing and sharing her own monologues changed her own relationships, specifically with her own mother. The roots of the TMI program clearly come from Eva’s own life and she talks about how traumatic experiences as an adolescent, her struggle with addiction, her recovery process, and her passion for theater all combine to create this tremendous organization.

Activism is key to the TMI platform and that means shining a spotlight on the stories that rarely get told and heard. The Black Stories Matter program will culminate in at least one performance on March 25th 2017 in Kingston, NY. Eva talks about how our inherently segregated communities often keeps us from hearing each other and how carefully considered projects like this one aim to help us listen to understand (not just respond).

Truth telling can be contagious. When someone has the courage to tell a story long kept secret, others feel they have permission to share their own stories.

Watch performances and learn about TMI’s events and programs, including their new adventures in podcasting: http://www.tmiproject.org/

Eva talked about the difficult  process of publishing a personal story. Read it here: https://longreads.com/2017/01/31/feeling-unsafe-at-every-size/

The noise of the media and the noise in our own minds - how do we stay sane when there is no “off” button? Mindfulness teacher, Kabbalistic healer, and author Sharon Rosen helps us think about essential goodness, discernment, and integration in this age of distraction.

What if distractions are the opportunity to strengthen the muscles of our attention? Painful moments can become moments of awakening that remind us to tune into our humanity.

We talk about the reality of our online lives and how to nurture and build relationships in real life and in digital spaces. Often, it’s about coming back to “the basics” - which is hard because humans are natural “complexifiers.”

Sharon shares her own stories of how her tribal and familial legacy might have set her up for a lifetime of anxiety. Instead, she chose the path of healing and self growth that led her to become a wellness practitioner, spiritual healer, and mindfulness teacher.

The Mystery plays a keys part in Sharon’s life and approach to healing. The greatest power comes from the “don’t know” mind.  Integrating many wisdom traditions in her work, Sharon also shares with us a Zen teaching story and a lovingkindness meditation.

In this wide-ranging conversation that pulls in the wisdom of Victor Frankl, St. Augustine. and the Facebook feed, we have a chance to connect like old friends reminding one another “don’t forget to remember that you know what you know.”

Learn more about Sharon’s Hudson Valley based healing practice and how you can experience her Non-Dual Kabbalistic Healing work via phone. You can also find her book  Crazy World, Peaceful Heart at http://www.heartofselfcare.com/

Did you see the signs from the Women’s Marches featuring Princess Leia and “A woman’s place is in the Resistance?” Carrie Fisher’s character was part of childhood for so many us and now, she’s part of our politics and our identity.

Leia wasn’t just a princess. She was also a hero. Her multifaceted identity speaks right to our desire to save others and even as we want to be saved. We have permission to be both and we have permission to be walking contradictions. We have permission to be both loving mothers and “nasty women.”

This conversation between Marisa and Rebecca dives into human development and how this parallels recent developments in the US. We call on everyone from Ani Difranco to Ruth Bader Ginsburg to Martin Luther King to John Lewis to help us understand our desire to resist and be part of the impassioned, nonviolent resistance.