Episode 185: Trauma Therapist Live: Do Less Be More

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These are delicious organic powders that you can add to water or milk, stir and drink. It literally takes 30 seconds. It is that simple. A couple weeks ago, I was right about to start a green juice fast. I cut off a short mini fast and I kid you not the day, the night before, Organifi reached out to me about sponsoring this podcast. I will tell you that I was thrilled because this is aligned with what I'm doing. I'm familiar with Organifi. I've used them in the past before. I want to be able to bring to you quality products and things that are going to promote a healthy lifestyle. Organifi green juice is the one I use. It's the one I use every morning so that I know right away I'm starting the day on a healthy note. It's loaded with vitamins, loaded with minerals and essential antioxidants. As a listener of the Trauma Thera's podcast, you can get 21% off any item by going to Organifi.com/trauma and use the code Trauma. You know the importance of eating healthy but you don't always have the time or the will power to cook with all the colors of the rainbow. Guys, superfood blends make it easy and enjoyable to add more variety and nutrition to your day. It is that simple. A couple of weeks ago I was right about to start a green juice fast. I cut off a short mini fast and I kid you not the day the night before Organifi reached out to me about sponsoring this podcast. If you're ready to hear inspiring interviews with amazing Trauma therapists, this is it. Right here, right now, with your host, Guy McPherson. If folks today I'm excited to announce the launch of my one-on-one coaching program. If you're a student with therapist of any kind and interested in beginning your Trauma informed journey, you don't know where to start or how to start or perhaps you wish you had more confidence to begin. That was actually me several years ago. This program is designed specifically for you. People reach out to me all the time asking for guidance on which courses they should take, which works out of the station to attend, conferences they should go to, and modalities they should pursue. And I get it. It can be daunting trying to decide because you're investing your time, investing your money and you want to know you've made the right decision. In this one-on-one coaching program, I've taken my experience. My own experience, together with the experiences I've had in interviewing over 180 of the thought leaders and master therapists in the Trauma field, and I've designed a program with the one goal of helping you begin your journey to becoming a Trauma therapist. If this sounds like it's for you, then invite you to head on over to the TraumaTherapeutsProject.com. That's the TraumaTherapeutsProject.com. Click on the work with me tab and let's begin your journey as a Trauma therapist. You guys, welcome back to another episode of TraumaTherapeutsProject today. Another episode of TraumaTherapeuts Live. These are episodes, shorter episodes in which I talk about things that have come up on the podcast, themes that have come up, themes that I'm thinking about and working through. Today, the episode here is titled "Due Less Be More." I'll tell you what happened. I've been talking recently about things that have been going on in my life, some pretty heavy duty things, and how they've impacted me. The first of which is my mother's passing a few months ago, and then more recently, surgery that I had, that really kind of took me for an emotional, psychological spin, if you will. But I'll get more to that, more about that later. What I want to talk about is how these experiences have impacted me on one sense, but how they've impacted myself as a therapist, as a clinician on another level. I want to have that be the theme today, is to, for us to think about, not only the education we're getting through books and workshops and supervisors and mentors and consultations, etc., all of which, of course, is extremely important. But also to really be mindful and cognizant of how our experiences impact and influence ourselves as clinicians. Okay, let me just take a sip of coffee here before we get going. The reason why I want to talk about this today is because I've been in the thick of it. I talked previously on another episode about my mother's passing sudden unexpected passing that just blew me away. I mean, how do you deal with that? How do you handle that? Well, you do, obviously, in different ways and many ways. As I've talked about before, I became numb. I kind of shut down in a sense. I took off some time and I went back to work after about a week and I thought I could go back to work. And I soon found out while I was in session with a client that I couldn't. There was no way, you know, what the hell am I doing here? And what happened was I was getting triggered from things that normally wouldn't trigger me. And then, so I took some more time off and then a couple months later, well, a couple weeks later now, you know, I underwent full hip replacement surgery. And a lot of people are like, "Oh, well, you're not that old." Well, you know, this type of thing doesn't necessarily always affect people who are up to 70 or 80. But what happened is I was diagnosed about 10 months ago, 11 months ago. And when I was diagnosed with this and found out that kind of, you know, physical therapy was kind of too late for that. And then I would have to have surgery. I was just kind of in denial and really scared. I was specifically scared about the anesthesia. and kind of losing feeling and sensation in my lower part of my body. And I had to go through this process, really kind of for myself, you know, intense process of confronting that fear, getting over that fear in a sense, so that I could have this surgery done. I mean, you know, I have a family, I have a wife, I have two kids, I have a job, I have a life to live, you know, and this was really kind of a block for me. And I had to go through this whole process and what happened was I sought out, well someone actually referred me to an EMDR therapist who's been amazing. And this process got me to look at not just this aspect of, you know, overcoming this fear so that I can have therapy, but of course, as usual and as always, you know, we go in for one thing, but we kind of discover these other areas that need attention, if you will. And this process of attending to this fear opened up a lot of areas for me that I really needed to look at and I really needed to kind of illuminate more. And it wasn't easy, it's still not easy, it's something I'm continuing to work on. But this whole process, you know, didn't just impact and affect me as a person, go who's trying to get to a point where they're really comfortable with, or quasi-comfortable with having surgery and getting to the point where I could actually go through with the surgery, but it impacted me as a therapist. You know, it's made me more reflective and aware of my areas that need more attention, if you will. You know, what happened was as I was working with this therapist, I became much more acquainted with, to use the language of Richard Swartz, who's been a previous guest on this podcast, my different parts, you know, this kind of weak part, if you will, it's kind of the word that I use. And this other courageous part, and how they interact, you know, when one steps in, when the other steps in, when I'm not aware of them stepping in, and this type of work, this type of process allows me, or is allowing me to bring to my work as a therapist a much more, or a much deeper appreciation of what my clients are going through, what my clients are struggling with, and it's giving me a greater patience in the work I'm doing. I've been interviewing a lot of people on the podcast recently, and if you've been listening, you know that these themes are coming up of, you know, the importance of cultivating who we are as people, or to put another way, the importance of cultivating our presence, the importance of authenticity, and through asking my guests about their "clinical errors" or failures, inevitably it comes through that they've almost been hiding behind an intervention, hiding behind an agenda, whereas what they've wanted to, what they've learned is important in a particular instance, and most often, in most instances, is their ability to do less and be more. And I take this idea of doing less from one of my guests recently, who said, you know, it's just a Brian Harris, I believe it was, I said it's just, you know, what he had to learn was just to do less. And as he said this, I thought to myself, well, what is important when we're working with someone, and the ability for us to be who we are in this sense, be more of who we are, and why is that difficult? This question just so intrigues me, I think because it's something that I really struggled with when I began my training, when I was in graduate school, you know, I thought, and I've talked about this previously, that the next workshop was something that I needed to attend. That would be the answer, that would get me going as a trauma therapist. The next book, what was that book that I needed to read? What was that conference that I needed to attend to? You know, I wasn't placing the attention on myself, you know, my own inner work. Yes, I was doing the requisite therapy, but I wasn't giving enough attention to my own processes, my own experiences, my own fears, my own agendas, and how that would color the work that I was doing. So I asked you, you know, how do you bridge that gap or cross that chasm from thinking or believing in a sense that, you know, everything, you know, we need to read this next book, we need to get this book or that book or attend that conference. Yes, those are important. But what about your own experiences? What about your own fears, your own life, your own struggles? How are you allowing those things and the attention that you bring to them, the work that you bring to them, the inner work that you bring to them? And how are you allowing that to impact and influence and enrich your work as a therapist, your work as a human? So, you know, as we talk about this, it's what unfolds here and what's unfolded for me in the process of doing all these interviews is that this work is really about not just simply becoming a better therapist. It's something a better therapist, a more tuned, informed, educated, enlightened, if you will, therapist, but really about becoming a more open human being. And of course, I kind of imagine an image of a circle, if you will, and then being on the same sphere, if you will. This is very much interrelated for me. It's not, whereas it wasn't before, right? It was this, you know, okay, I need to put my therapist hat on, I need to be a therapist, and I keep often come back to what Peter Bernstein of previous guest on the podcast said, you know, we're no different than our clients. And we have to realize that, but that realization takes some strength in us, you know, and it's not too wide that we need to completely identify with our clients, but to realize that we are all walking on this journey. So we're not as therapists or counselors or whatever sitting upon this throne, looking down at our clients with our many years of education and experience and, and, you know, gracing our clients with our knowledge. And I think, I believe, at least for myself, that that takes courage, that takes, that takes a confidence that needs to be cultivated within myself, because it takes a certain amount of assurance. And it takes a certain amount of comfortability and peace with, and trust with my own experience, that my own experience, right, is, quote unquote, good enough, that my own experience is valuable, valuable enough such that it can help guide my clients. And I think that I can share in this process or in this experience with my client. And I think this requires less hiding, if you will, behind interventions, behind this idea that I'm a therapist and, and, you know, I know X, Y, and Z. And it will help you with X, Y, and Z. It requires us to move out of that and to, in a sense, be who we are. And that's not always easy. And I think, you know, from, from interviewing, what is it now, 185 of these seasoned therapists, these master therapists, really these thought leaders in the field, it takes time for most of us. And again, I'll speak for myself. It takes time for me to get to a point where I can honor who I am as a person, who I am as a human being and trust that not only that is valuable enough with my client, but that my client also, trust that my client also has within them the ability to walk alongside me and they have what they need, what is valuable and useful to move through their own traumas, if you will. Okay. So I want to stop there, but that's just something that's been on my mind lately and this aspect of giving ourselves permission to do less, but also demanding of ourselves the courage to be more. So I'm going to leave you with that. Any questions? Head on over to the TraumaTherapistPodcast.com or the TraumaTherapistproject.com, hit on the contact tab and send me an email, love to hear from you. Alright guys, take care. (upbeat music)