S4EP21: The Transformative Power of Setting Things Down

Want to join us for TRIPS ™ Conference & Here to Help for the Holidays? Learn more at https://itps.kartra.com/page/TRIPScon

Imagine if you could expand your capacity by simply shifting the way you perceive and approach letting go? This episode dives into the truth of how honoring your capacity often requires setting things aside (even if you enjoy them) in order to do the things that you are called to do.

Leadership isn’t just about leading people, it’s about knowing where your true expertise lies, and having the courage to step into it by trusting those around you to pick up the things they are good at, and allowing them to support and carry you as needed in the service of your vision.

 Join Dr. Lee as she navigates the journey of fine-tuning trauma-informed leadership skills. Combining kindness with truth, curiosity with compassion, and discernment without judgment, she discusses her evolution and announces the Institute's latest supportive venture – a Facebook support group over the holidays that culminates in a 3-day conference on what it looks like to be Trauma-Informed, and Psychologically Safe. If you're yearning for a transformative shift in your life, this is your chance to join us and allow yourself to be supported through this empowering journey.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Hi and welcome to the Becoming Trauma-Informed podcast, where we help you understand how your past painful experiences are affecting your current reality and how you can shift those so you can create your desired future. I'm Dr Lee, and both myself and our team at the Institute for Trauma and Psychological Safety are excited to support you on your journey. We talk about all the things on this podcast. No topic gets left uncovered. So extending a content warning to you before we get started if you notice yourself getting activated while listening, invitation to take care of yourself into pause, skip ahead a bit or just check out another episode. Let's dive in. Hi friends, oh, my goodness. Okay, so if my voice sounds different, it's because, number one, I'm hiding in a bathroom to record this and, number two, I have a gnarly virus right now and so I put it off and put it off, and put it off and had to actually cancel a couple of things that were supposed to go on the podcast this week and I was like you know what Actually sat down with TLC and I was like, do I even do an episode this week? And he was like, well, what were you going to do? And I was like, well, it was going to be our episode. First it was going to be our episode and then it was going to be our episode with Tracy Hall, which will be out next week. It's going to be phenomenal. And I was like, and those are both like an hour long. He was like, well, why don't you just record one that's like 10, 15 minutes? And I was like, okay, that's right, I don't have to just choose between two options. I don't feel like they're going to work for me. I could just stay in integrity by shifting and goodness gracious if that's not a lesson that I feel like I keep getting just placed in front of me over and over and over and over and over and over. So, learning the lesson, learning the lesson.

Speaker 1: 1:56

So this week we just wrapped up our here to help read a live event which was so stinking phenomenal. Janaylin is just a gem and she and I put on the event together. We were both on Zoom and in our Facebook group and like it was just, it was so good. We had so many people join us live. The vibe was amazing, the content that we dropped was just incredible and we just we were literally hearing that from people like, wow, this is mind blowing, like this has made such a big difference. I've never thought about it this way and, in reality, like that is what we love to do. That is what I personally absolutely love to do at the Institute, and it's what team really values as well. What we enjoy doing is elevating y'all's learning experience. There are multiple professors, graduate level professors, teachers on our staff, people who teach in corporate, people who taught in academia, people who taught in healthcare all over. We have the smartest humans and the most incredibly knowledgeable humans on our team, and they're all knowledgeable about different things. Thanks.

Speaker 1: 3:04

All of us are really interested in how we help adults learn, because as adults, especially in today's day and age, like again, life is just going to throw so many things your way. There's going to be so many unexpected instances where you're going to have to pivot and you're going to have to shift and you're going to have things come up, and especially during weeks, like last week, which was a holiday week especially when kids are home, especially during the end of the year If anybody works in areas where Q4 is a thing and prepping for the new year is a thing there's just so much to being an adult and trying to learn while you're an adult, because not only do you have what your current life is throwing at you, but you also have what your past life is throwing at you and or dragging along with you. And one of the exercises we actually did in our business collective a couple of weeks ago we talked about what things we were dragging with us that we needed to set down in order to step into the next iteration of our businesses and what things we needed to pick up. And one of the things that we really looked at just as a team what do we want to set down and what do we want to pick up? All of us personally are setting things down on team and picking things up moving into 2024, and one of the things that I realized that I needed to set down and I've talked a little bit about it on this podcast but one of the things I realized I needed to set down was really just doing a lot of the things that I was personally doing. So I am wrapping up with all of my one-on-one clients currently, so that's a wild thing. Like I have a few people who have one-on-one calls that will be they'll be able to use into 2024 as part of an offer we did in 2023 and like love those humans so excited to support them that way and really moving forward. One-on-ones with me are going to become really rare.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Setting that down felt really, really scary, and I've talked about that on here, like I said, and one of the things that I realized I needed to pick up was talking more, and for me this feels really scary because talking and writing and sharing and speaking more I'm already doing so much of this and doing that event Monday through Wednesday was like ooh, that was incredible. And what I realized is one of the things we were talking about in here to help is your capacity. So we were talking about your capacity and that you always have to look at, because when we look at the definition of help, you have to look at your ability, your capacity to provide support, resources and assistance. So if your capacity is just completely stretched to the max or if you are, you're over capacity, meaning like you're dropping balls because you can't keep them all juggling in the air then what that means is is like you're not actually going to be super helpful, because in order to be helpful, you have to make someone's life easier by providing support, assistance or resources.

Speaker 1: 6:04

So for me, you know, when I really sat down and looked at my capacity, the thing that fills me up, the thing that I do that is in my ZonoGenius, that actually even replenishes me, is speaking. It is just vibing and channeling and saying the things that come to my mind, and also doing that more in a larger group setting and doing that more with an audience, both completely on my own, like I am with this podcast, and with a bigger audience. As much as I love one-on-one work, like I really do it's at the point now where it's like okay, we're hearing from people that when I go places and I speak, when I go places and coach people in front of a bunch of other people, when there is an audience, that is when I deliver the most help, that is when I can be most helpful to the most amount of people. Right now, even saying this out loud just feels so hard because there's a lot of past painful conditioning of my own that I've been dragging with me around, like oh, you like to talk too much. Oh, you do talk too much. Oh, you always want to be center of attention, like there's a lot of stories that I have like be humble, don't be audacious, don't be super confident.

Speaker 1: 7:19

A lot of stuff that's been coming up I have been really thinking about okay, I need to set that down too. I'm setting down the one-on-ones not because I don't love coaching people one-on-one, but because, in order to set down this idea that I need to be humble, which is not even I'm not even defining that word right humility is owning what you're good at. So, in order to actually be humble, in order to actually have courage and have confidence and go out and do what I really feel like I've been called to do, I have to set down one-on-ones, not because I don't love my clients, not because I don't love. Honestly, from an income perspective, it would be easier. I have had a business with 20K plus months simply working with one-on-ones before, so I could have very little team, very little programming, very little ads. I could work 10 hours a week with five to 10 clients a month, making 20K a month, and just call it a day. I could do that and that's not what I feel called to do, and so I've been sitting here really thinking about what is it that I've been feeling really called to do and it's to be quote-unquote rude. So one of our amazing team members, shanon Kill, which she's been on our podcast. I've been on hers.

Speaker 1: 8:37

We had that really cool two-hour bonus episode back at the beginning of the season. You know, when we talk about leadership, she's like you are rude, like you are so rude. And when I say you are rude, I don't mean it in the like you are mean, I mean it in that you say things that other people aren't willing to say. Like you call bullshit in the most loving, kind way, but like you're really good at listening to people talk, you're really good at listening to what's going on in the world and being like I call bullshit, and not from the space of I'm right and you're wrong, not from the space of I'm good and you're bad, but from the space of like I can tell that what we are saying, or what a person is particularly saying, isn't an alignment with who they are or how they want to show up. And so it was funny.

Speaker 1: 9:28

I actually went on Facebook and I asked publicly and I tagged a bunch of my current or former clients. I was like, hey, what's the rudest thing I've ever said to you? And some of the responses were amazing and I'm like, oh my gosh, I forgot. I even said these things and like, if somebody said these things without kindness and without compassion and without like love in their heart for the person hearing them, they would be mean, as you know what like they would be so stinking mean. And the reason that those, those statements are able to land and the reason that my clients remembered them and that they appreciated them because I asked them, I was like the fiercest, most honest, loving truths that I've said. The reason it's so easy for them to just pop them up in their head is because they were like that was a moment that I fundamentally started looking at my life or my world, my reality, differently. It was a moment where you went, hey, do you see how you're looking at this? And and said, with that kindness and with that love, with that caring, and they were able to be curious enough and go oh yeah, okay, I can see that.

Speaker 1: 10:37

And Gary V, who some of y'all might know, really famous entrepreneur and talks a lot about marketing. He talks about this, this quality, and he calls it kind candor. And kind candor is basically where you call people in with what you're saying, not calling them out, so you're not embarrassing them, you're not shaming them. You're not guilting them. You're being honest and open with them and saying, hey, I love you, and because I love you, I'm going to say this to you. I'm going to share with you, with your consent, how I see this, how this is presenting to me, because I'm not in it with you, and so I can have a different view of this, I can be honest with you and I can be kind and I can also, like I can do those things at the same time. I can do those things at the same time.

Speaker 1: 11:24

So my ability to kind of listen to people and perceive when what they are saying doesn't match with what I think they're feeling, my ability to then reflect that back again with consent and say like hey, I just heard you say this. Or hey, you're telling me this is what you want and and not but, and like this is how I see you showing up, this is how I see you acting, this is how I see you doing some things that aren't in alignment with what you're saying. Or somebody will say this is what I'm doing and I don't get why it's not working, and I'll say, okay, I hear you saying that that's what you're doing and you want this thing and also, do you also see how you don't want this thing? Right? So you're saying you want this thing, but there's also this part of you that doesn't so like can we look at that? And that ability to lead people into curiosity around really, really tough topics is something that I don't think I've really felt ready to do.

Speaker 1: 12:14

And, interestingly enough, if you go back to season one of our podcast, the name of the podcast was I'm not for everyone and, by the way, if you haven't listened to those episodes, invitation to go back, because some of them are like really juicy and fun and and they're a little out there, right, they're a little edgy. And what I realize now is that was me practicing, building up my skill to be able to be open and honest. And then the last two seasons season two and season three were really my ability to be kind and learn how to be compassionate and learn how to be curious, more curious, and see things from other people's perspectives and their point of view. And then this last year, the season four has been the season of leadership and and really, looking at this, what I'm recognizing is what I needed to learn as a leader was how to combine those two together. It was how to combine the kindness and the truth, the fierceness and the love together, and also practice my discernment skills and work on my own judgment, work on my own ability to not judge myself when I'm saying these things, because it's really hard to say these things to somebody you love. It's really hard to reflect back to people the truth at some times and or to show them a different version of the truth than what they're currently like just gripping onto.

Speaker 1: 13:35

And so I share all of this because, you know, as we move forward as an institute, you know Janae and I are actually doing something super fun right now. We have a two part offer that we have at the Institute and the rest of the team is participating as well and Janae and I are just kind of leading. It is we have here to help for the holidays and it's a Facebook support group where you can come in and actually like ask for help, ask for support, ask for aid, ask for resources. And then we are actually doing a three day trips conference and you know, behind the scenes we've been referring to it as the trips to DIP. So our Trauma and Form Psychologically Safe program, that's a nine month certificate program that runs from January to October. We're going to be putting that on in 2024.

Speaker 1: 14:24

And what we realized is that we wanted people to have an a chance to experience what that is like. Right, because plopping yourself down into a space where people are going to approach it with kind candor, where they're going to teach you all about your body and understanding how your nervous system works and your emotions and your sensations and your thoughts and your feeling, like everything, how they all connect with one another, how your relationships are affected by this, how your past experiences are affected or affect these things. Like I cannot say enough about trips, I really can't. We've had, I want to say, over 80 people go through it. Now, I could be wrong on the number, it might be a little lower, but we'll say 70.

Speaker 1: 15:03

We've had 70 people go through it now in the last two years and, like, the difference in these humans is phenomenal and their level of curiosity, their ability to practice kind candor is so much higher, their ability to really reflect and look at themselves and ask themselves the question of like. Do I need to look at this from a different perspective? Am I seeing this clearly? Am I being judgmental? And also to own when they are speaking their truth and to not let other people like really knock them or destabilize them from their truth without their consent. You know, it's been phenomenal to watch that and to see just the profound changes in these dozens of people who've gone through this program.

Speaker 1: 15:45

And what I'm realizing is that we at the Institute are realizing we really want to make sure that the content is structured, we want to make sure that everybody who goes through trips learns the same thing every single year. And in order to continue to do that, I can't be the one teaching it, and so Janae is taking that over because it is her zone of excellence. She is going to teach us so incredibly and when I think of the Trips conference and this toe dip in that three day, I'm really excited because this is the transition point. This is going to be the first event where Janae is spitting facts and I am the one who's kind of channeling and vibing and like being the color commentary, so to speak, because those are the roles that she and I are both moving into After that event and I am so like I just really hope that, if you've listened to the podcast for a while, if you're interested in becoming more trauma informed. If you're like, wow, I've really watched your evolution, lee. I've watched today's evolution, I've watched people's evolution on Team ITPS, I'm like, I'm like a bit of that. I really hope that you decide to join us for that.

Speaker 1: 16:54

It's January 5th through 7th. It's going to be online virtual. You can have your kids, you can do it in bed, you can take breaks. We're going to have lots of like. It's not meant to be one of these I'm on here for 16 hours exhausting myself conferences. It's meant to be something where, again that elevated adult learning experience where we want to make sure you walk away learning as much as you wanted to and also having it drop in, and it's more practical for you to actually be able to implement once you are done with the three days, versus just learning a bunch of stuff that you're going to take back and be like, okay, well, that was helpful. Or like, oh, cool, I understand that more, but like I'm going to go back to my job or back to my family or back to my relationship and like not really make any changes.

Speaker 1: 17:36

So our goal with the TRIPS conference is for you to walk away and actually be able to implement changes immediately to be able to really shift your life so that you can act in a more trauma-informed way. You can be more aware of how your and other people's past painful experiences affect them in the present. You can be more sensitive and know how to respond when either yourself or someone else really gets triggered or activated and starts having some emotional moment or accident unexpected way, like you actually being like okay, I know at least the first step or second step of what to do here. You know you're not going to walk away from the TRIPS conference completely trauma-informed and anyone who tries to tell you that you can take a three day conference and be trauma-informed at the end of it yeah, that's all I'm going to say about that Like, yeah, I don't know, I guess it's possible, and I have yet to see that in a way that people are walking in without knowledge about trauma-informed practices and walking away like fully trauma-informed because you have to practice. It is a practice. Being trauma-informed is a state of being, not just a thing that you do. So we want to help you learn about that state of being and that approach, that practice, to life.

Speaker 1: 18:58

So the cool part is is that if you buy your ticket to TRIPSCon before December 2nd. You also get a free self-study course, including the 2024 live offering of our trauma-informed parent course, which is going to be freaking phenomenal. And you get the here to Help Facebook support group too. You can join simply because you want the here to Help support group and you want the free course, and you need not to show up for TRIPSCon. Or you can join just because you want TRIPSCon and you don't care about the course, you don't care about the support group, you just want the conference, like. You can join for any one of these three reasons and it's still going to be a really, really good deal. So if you're interested in that, please head down to the show notes.

Speaker 1: 19:40

And you know, I think I want to end by saying something kind of rude. Right and this is again said with kind candor If you have been listening to this for a long time and you still haven't taken a toe dip into any of our paid containers, why? What's going on If you are getting everything you need to get from the podcast? Awesome. And my question to you would be do you feel like it's safe to come into one of our programs or does that feel scary? Do you feel like you're allowed to pay to learn this more. Does that feel selfish or wrong or like you're going to have to explain it to other people? And is it possible for you to come into our space and like really be supported, to be connected? And if that feels scary or like it's not allowed or unsafe, I see you in that. I get it. I get it more than I mean. You've listened to me for over 110 episodes. I hope you know by this point that I get it and that's why you join.

Speaker 1: 20:39

And you join because you're scared. You join because it doesn't feel super, super safe. You join because it does feel like maybe it's not possible for you to get these results. You join because your current reality is doubting the reality that I'm showing you right now. Because you're allowed to question your reality. You're allowed to wonder and be curious if things could feel different, if things could look different.

Speaker 1: 21:06

And I sit before you, you know, metaphorically, as a woman whose life has fundamentally changed by questioning her reality and asking herself is it true, is it true that I'm not allowed to be loved? Is it true that I'm always going to be a disappointment? Is it true that I am not allowed to own my zone of genius. Is it true that I always have to put other people first? Is it true that I'm really selfish? Is it true that I'm a problem? You know, those are all statements that I have questioned over the last several years that have really shifted, and now the answers to those questions are very different than what they were just a short while ago.

Speaker 1: 21:48

And I want that for you. If you want that for you, if you want that for you, I want that for you. So, invitation to join us, invitation to invite a friend, invitation to really come in and allow yourself to be supported in that way. And if you're still kind of on the fence and you're not sure you've got some questions again, you can take a look at the FAQ section in the sales page below or send us an email. Let us know what you're wondering Like.

Speaker 1: 22:16

Ask us the questions, let us support you, let us be of assistance, because I promise you we will ensure that we have the capacity when we respond to you. We will ensure that you feel supported when we respond to you. So I love you all. I'm going to go rest my voice because I think that's about all I've got before it gives out on me and I hope to see you at the conference or in the Facebook support group, or both. Bye y'all. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Invitation to head to their show notes to check out the offers and connections we mentioned. Or you can just head straight over to InstituteforTraumacom and hop in our email list so that you never miss any of the cool things that we're doing over at the Institute. Invitation to be well and to take care of yourself this week and we'll see you next time.