Peace & Prosperity Podcast
In the Peace & Prosperity Podcast, Jason Phillips, licensed therapist and life coach, shares personal experiences that force you to think deeply about your values, beliefs, and behaviors to ensure you achieve peace, happiness, and success in your life.
Peace & Prosperity Podcast
Rewiring Trauma: From Survival to Scholar with Lisa Maaca Bartlette - Episode #82
The Peace & Prosperity Podcast is a bi-weekly conversation with Jason Phillips, LCSW, licensed therapist and confidence expert in Raleigh, NC, discussing all things related to self-love and self-confidence, and how we can improve ourselves personally and professionally.
From teenage mom of five to trauma expert, Lisa Maaca Bartlette shares her powerful journey of resilience, healing, and purpose. She breaks down the science of adolescent brain development and how trauma impacts decision-making, offering practical tools like the “Five C’s” model to help adults better connect with and support young people. At the core of her message? Validation over judgment builds confidence, connection, and emotional growth in the next generation. Plus, remember to join our podcast community—like, share, subscribe, and let us know what topics you want us to cover next. Engage with us, send a DM, or leave a review. Let's continue this journey towards peace and prosperity together.
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All right well, welcome to another episode of the Peace and Prosperity Podcast. I'm joined with one of my colleagues. Actually, we met in the doctoral social work program. Lisa, super glad to have you. Thank you for being here. Do you want to introduce yourself?
Speaker 2:I really appreciate the invitation. This is, I think, the third time. Well, we've met in person once you happen to be out here in LA but we met repeatedly on Zoom calls for the program and during that program got to know each other a little bit. So I'm just really excited to be here, lisa Mayock-Bartlett, coming to you from Southern California, orange County specifically. But I am a Midwestern girl, born and raised Ohio, notably, and Minnesota, and so I call an era of my life that began in adolescence trauma drama. That was me, mama, five children by the age of 26. And that piece of my life has so shaped who I've become and what I've done in my life and my work.
Speaker 2:So social work was not on the trajectory for me. I didn't get around to my master's work until age 42. And when I did, I accepted a full scholarship at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, ohio. It just happened to be in social sciences, so I had like Googled what can you do with that degree? And there was all kinds of possibilities which worked well for me. So, yeah, I then got kind of baptized by fire I call it into child welfare public government agency work in in Ohio. So that was in 2016, when I graduated with my master's and I continued child welfare social work practice in Ohio or in California. I've been in California now for seven and a half years, practiced in two counties here and then, like a lot of people in the world, resigned my position in 2020 to go back to school.
Speaker 2:So, before we met, I began PhD work at Claremont Graduate University here in Los Angeles County, and that was under kind of the program of positive organizational development and I thought that I wanted to conduct research. Turns out, not at all. I love research, like you do. Right, we love studying and reading what the sciences are saying, but I am more of an applied practitioner. I distill the stories that come to us from science and from people right, distilling the stories of shared experiences and translate those to audiences so they can understand what the science is saying, right to people who aren't scientists and aren't neuroscience research nerds like I am.
Speaker 2:In 2021, I started my company, lisa Miyaka Inc. And we exist to transform trauma, first in our own lives and then in the lives of others. Yeah, so I've worked now for myself for several years and built an organization that provides workforce training right now all over California to juvenile probation officers and staff, as well as child welfare, social work practitioners and leadership and agencies. So that's kind of right now the bulk of my work. I do some keynote speeches, workshops and things like that, and a TED Talk in 2024. Yes, thank you for mentioning that the power of putting people first. So really my work, like yours, is all on resolving and healing traumatic experiences. I do most of that now at the mezzo and the macro level, not in direct practice. One-on-one Can you break?
Speaker 1:that down a little bit and then we'll go back to so, because a lot of the practitioners I've had on the podcast have been more one-on-one doing micro work. Can you explain the mezzo and macro, what that looks like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. My master's was in direct practice. That's where the scholarship opportunity was, so I took it, even though my mind works at the macro level. So that's kind of the larger, like organizational level right, looking at big issues from the large perspective. So whether that be agency, state, federal right, or looking at issues that affect an entire population, those are that's like macro. Mezzo is between macro and micro. It's this kind of the group level and that's kind of where I spend most of my time. I train groups, cohorts, new staff or existing staff on kind of the 30 to 50 people in the audience range. I also facilitate group conversations and connection circles with groups. So that's what mezzo is right, kind of this in-between that has so much effect on the direct practice, the one-on-one, but it's directed by the macro policies right, and the leaders that shape our opportunities to do direct practice or mezzo practice.
Speaker 1:Very helpful, very helpful Funny story. Once, this was years ago, I was a friend of mine. She said basically I should be doing macro level work and the micro didn't matter.
Speaker 2:Interesting. How did you take that?
Speaker 1:I was offended. Yeah, I mean I was highly offended, especially that was like 15 years ago, so I'm more appreciative of all spaces and what we do. But I want to highlight you and go back a little bit, because you said you had five kids by 26.
Speaker 2:Yes, want to know the story leading up to that.
Speaker 1:Sure go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well, I've been an academic I think, since the day I was born. I came into this world kind of wired for curiosity. I was a very high achiever all through elementary and high school, graduated top of my class. I had almost what do you call it a photographic memory. So part of my brain worked really really well, very fast processing speed and all of that. So I was on the trajectory of Harvard, actually accepted there I was. I had full scholarships to a few other notable universities and two weeks after giving my valedictory speech to a crowded Christian school auditorium, I was pregnant. So to solve the problem that was Lisa. My family planned my wedding and by fall of that year I married a father of that one and then he became the father of all five of my children.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I just had children, had children, had children and got really stuck Right, which is what trauma does it's in fact, I think it's Britt Frank, another clinician does it's, in fact, I think it's Britt Frank, another clinician.
Speaker 2:She calls trauma the science of stuck. So there were parts of my brain that had tremendous capacity, but there were other parts of me right neurobiologically that had some stuckness from sexual abuse in childhood, sexual abuse in childhood and so until going to school with you and my master's work, my life didn't make a lot of sense to a lot of people watching me, observers right and to myself. So this has been this beautiful unfolding of an understanding of who I am, why I made some of the choices I made. It helps me frame those struggles and really give myself a lot of grace and forgiveness for the parenting that I did before I was ready and all of that so interestingly, now fast forward. I, of course, got into the work of child welfare and began to study brain development and the neurobiology of trauma, which has led me to create trainings and have lots of conversations about that.
Speaker 1:So you probably loved our first class where we studied the neurobiology of trauma. That was probably like so fascinating for you.
Speaker 2:So fascinating, and I think that was the. Are you talking about Dr Jennifer Williams course? Oh, that was the. Are you talking about Dr Jennifer Williams course?
Speaker 1:Oh, that was our second class. The first two stand out for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I honed very quickly in on adolescent brain development. Something in that class sparked more curiosity. I also had just accepted a request to write curriculum for juvenile probation here in Southern California and I was like I want to teach about adolescent brain development. The more we understand the amazing capacity of the adolescent brain, but also the struggles right that adolescents have in bouncing between their childhood selves and their adolescent selves just fascinated me and again I had some of my own internal awakening as well as have been able to now help those who help adolescents better navigate how to do that.
Speaker 1:So we're going to get into the work that you do for sure, but I want to ask this question because I think it will help a lot of people how did you get unstuck when you said I mean you've made some big decisions. What was that like? How did you come to get unstuck?
Speaker 2:Well, I think healing is lifelong. So let me just say that some of us we stay stuck or we get a little unstuck, and my stuckness just had me. It had me unable to think outside of the crisis or the moment, or raising these kids. I just lost hope that I would move on in life and accomplish anything else, and so really, it was another kind of tragedy that helped me get unstuck, and so I stayed married for 20 years to the father of my children, but we eventually divorced, and in that divorce I had five teenagers at the time, and so, recognizing the impact and navigating us through that, I realized I've been, I'm stuck at the age that they are, and so I was motivated to just live my life right. To just live my life, which meant going back to school, which felt very, very scary, very, very scary.
Speaker 2:At 37 years of age, I went to college. The same year, my oldest daughter went to college, and I spent weekends in a non-traditional program. I'd go to class Friday night from 6 to 10 pm. I'd get up and do class 8 to 4 on Saturday every other weekend, and those happened to be the weekends I didn't have parenting responsibilities. Post-divorce, those happened to be the weekends I didn't have parenting responsibilities post-divorce. I stayed in a little dorm in a tiny little Northeastern Ohio college.
Speaker 2:And I was like the oldest lady in the room. So you were like a different world.
Speaker 1:The TV show.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was shaken in my boots, I felt a lot of imposter syndrome, inadequacy, inferiority and like. What the hell are you thinking, lisa? Like who does this? Who goes back to school at this age? What helped you get?
Speaker 1:through that, because that is a lot I mean to go back to school to start from. So you're saying at 37, that's when you started your bachelor's career, bachelor's degree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it took me five years going to school every other weekend. I had a daughter and a son graduate college while I was in college and I had a daughter that had moved from my home in Cleveland to Denver so I was flying back and forth to see her and then I got this opportunity to do master's work after that. So along the way, there are shining lights, there are glimmers of in the form of people, a couple professors that looked at me and saw my light and my gift and just gave me the support, cheerleading, offering to meet outside of class and connect the assignments to, you know, my real life that I'm just trying to figure out. So again, I think just finding myself back into a childhood dream, right or notion, finding the academic again helped me get, I guess, unstuck and open to more possibilities.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's huge. I didn't know that about you and your college career. I mean, this is awesome because I know so many people. I'm 40. So a lot of my peers are around the age you were when you were just going to get your master's.
Speaker 2:Just starting.
Speaker 1:Just starting too.
Speaker 2:Just starting and that again I was like there was also this. I mean I'm sure you remember you're 19 and 20 and 21 and 22. 21 and 22, like for traditional folks that get to go to college or party and do all those things Like I couldn't and didn't. I had all these children and so I was forced to kind of grow up that way. But there were parts of me that had moved through that time of exploration and so I did that in my early forties, which maybe doesn't look as good on a 40 year old as it did on a 15 year old, but that's how we get unstuck, we move through those phases that we were stuck in before.
Speaker 2:And so again, support of professors, individuals that kept seeing my light and shining a light on it, non-judgmental friends.
Speaker 2:I met several of them in the process of going through school, a few others that were midlife attendees, and I took some risks At Hiram College, which is where I got my bachelor's degree.
Speaker 2:They had an idea competition and since my minor was entrepreneurial studies, I entered this idea competition with a whole bunch of traditional students that had like really great ideas for making money and, you know, putting business things out there in the world. I had an idea to save the orphans in Ukraine, where I had visited in 2006 and 2008. Ukraine, where I had visited in 2006 and 2008. And so I pitched this idea for a nonprofit organization to intervene on behalf of graduating seniors in Ukraine, because there's nothing for them after that. So again, I picked a population right that was the same age as I was when I got stuck and I won the competition and went on and won the next level of the competition and got $5,000 in my pocket and so I started an organization and I just really started believing in myself. I'm like, well, if my message resounds with other people, then so those plans helped.
Speaker 1:They helped you grow your own confidence. So has this led you to study and become really interested in adolescent brain development?
Speaker 2:I think less about brain development until we had that class together at the doctoral level, but more about what interventions can serve this very, very, very vulnerable population. So I think there's two times in childhood that are extremely vulnerable and necessary for certain types of environmental conditions, notably zero to three. And then this adolescent time where society has this age of emancipation at 18, this expectation that you're ready to go into the world. Right, you can. I don't know. What can you do at 18? Smoke, cigarettes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, all those things yeah, tattoo yeah, but are you really ready? Right? I think it's actually a time where you need as much support as possible in a different way and now that I know the neuroscience, I get it because part of our brains are rapidly maturing during adolescence, but don't reach maturity until about age 25 or 26. And what do you?
Speaker 1:think that you know, given today's age, especially with social media being such a big role in our lives, what do you think, how do you think, that impacts with our brain development and maturation level?
Speaker 2:It's such a great question and I want to be clear. I'm not a neuroscientist but I do, of course, read a lot, a lot, and I'll actually. I have one book right here I'll make mention of, because you asked the question this Generation, by Jonathan Haidt, how the great rewiring of childhood is causing an epidemic of mental illness. So he posits that the wiring is what's happened when we have moved away from a play based childhood into a phone based childhood and so this is a bit.
Speaker 2:So I don't know about you a little bit. So I don't know about you. I'm a little bit older than you, a lot older, but my childhood consisted of being sent outdoors to run amok with the neighborhood place until after dark, right, and come in in time for the dinner table, which meant we sat around and we looked at each other. There were no devices. I was raised without a television even. That's a play-based childhood, right, where play is the foundation for learning and exploring the world, versus device-based or phone-based childhood.
Speaker 2:And we're seeing this a lot for a lot of probably valid reasons, right? Little ones that go into nursery school and schools, you know, elementary school are given iPads and devices to begin their educational journey through stimulating programs and things like that. But at the same time, we're also seeing additional device use in the home, right as a babysitter, when parents are cooking dinner or what have you. And so what we've we've noticed in the clinical world is a lot of like addiction to those devices. It's become harder and harder to extract children and adolescents away from the device right, and put boundaries in place. Jonathan Haidt contends that this very thing has led to the mental health epidemic that we see in adolescents right now. So it's an interesting conversation. I'm still reading his book and looking at that research, but we've got other markers that show again. I'm not saying devices are bad.
Speaker 1:I think there's something to it, though, where it's like you know, having a six month old that when I'm if the TV's on, she's like glued to it. So now we have to turn the TV off a lot more, make sure she's not. You know, we don't give her screen time or anything, especially at six months, but it's so easy and almost natural to say, oh, you want to look at what I'm looking at or you enjoy this. But the research is where my wife and I my wife's an educational psychologist, so she's really into the data as well that we need to make sure that we don't have screen time and we limit our TV watching so our daughter's not addicted or impacted by, you know, all of these things that are so readily available to us and it seems like second nature.
Speaker 2:Your daughter is so lucky to have you both as parents and awareness of that, because, yeah, I think children learn what they see and what they're around there. And but here's the science behind that and I think you know this one because we talked about this in Dr Williams' class. Right, we've got this part of our brain called our mirror neuron system, so a mirror like looking in the mirror neuron. Right, those are the parts of our brain. We're born with 100 billion of them that wire and fire together to help us learn and develop. And so there's this system of mirror neurons that gets stimulated by interaction and live eyeball to eyeball connection. Right, and they begin development at birth.
Speaker 2:So your little one, right when they came into the world and started opening their eyes, could only see about this far right, about 10 inches. And so that mirror neuron system is stimulated early on when the parent holds and coos back at the child and gives them that direct interaction. And then think about what happens as little ones start to toddle and move away. This part of their brain is still rapidly developing. The mirror neuron system is the center for our development of empathy. So when this connection between two humans gets disconnected or interrupted by something like a screen or a device or the moving pixelation. It's a fascinating piece that gives the brain some dopamine hits and we need more and want more and want more to stay stimulated. But it doesn't fire the mirror neuron system. So the interruption of our ability to connect with other humans has us in a struggle later on, notably adolescence, that can affect who we become in adulthood too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and because I'm a little bit younger than you not by much, but I know some of my peers where I've been around them and they may be like glued to their phone and if they're not into that device it's almost like they have a hard time connecting with other people, and even like their family or loved ones too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we know this one well, having studied only on Zoom, and I do a ton of work on Zoom and during the pandemic, I mean, the only way we could see and talk to people was on Zoom, which kept us connected, but it doesn't have the same impact on our brain firing as it does when we're in person. There's something, there's something about sensing right. The other senses that we have, and notably our vagus nerve, which is the 10th cranial nerve, touches every major organ in our body and it is toned and stimulated by and it can feel the energy of others. So it's really vital right to have that human to human connection because we are wired for that when we come into the world and it shapes how we socially connect for the rest of our lives. So the interruption of a device that doesn't isn't boundaried.
Speaker 2:Again, I love what you're thinking about is how much time the little one is looking at a screen or watching you watch a screen, because I'm not saying screens are bad, that's not the conclusion. The American Academy of Pediatrics has some recommendations on this as well. As far as the time limits for screens. As your children age, so in toddlerhood, of course, they're saying screens aren't bad, but be with the child and do whatever they're doing on the screen with them, and limit it to like an hour a day. So there's some recommendations out there that contribute to healthier development.
Speaker 1:And I know even for myself. On this topic of screens, I remember when online class was a thing, like when it was first being introduced, and I would always go for in-person, because I just felt like I learned better, I would pay attention more. It was just better for me. And even our class even though it is, you know, on Zoom I made sure I wanted some type of component where I could see the professor and my peers, because at least now I get a chance to meet you when you're taking it on. If we didn't have this in-person component or virtual component, I wouldn't even know you would have this same relationship. Yeah, so we wouldn't meet in LA, you know.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right, right. And again, this is connection. It's just not as stimulating a connection as in-person because of how we are neurobiologically wired for connection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's move how we are neurobiologically wired for connection. Yeah, so let's move you. A lot of topics that I cover include self-esteem, self-confidence. How would you say that our brain development, or the adolescent's brain development, is impacted, or how does that impact their confidence level?
Speaker 2:Gosh, this is such a great question because the adolescent brain has remarkable capacity. I mean, think about all that you learned during your adolescence. And let me define adolescence. So World Health Organization defines adolescence as ages 10 to 19. However, that may expand now that neuroscience is informing prefrontal cortex isn't fully mature until about age 25 or 26. Neuroscience is informing prefrontal cortex isn't fully mature until about age 25 or 26.
Speaker 2:So when I say adolescence, I'm talking about about age 10 or 12, about the time puberty occurs, till 25 or 26. So a larger time period. So, if you think about all of the things you learn during that time period, right, this is when we move into middle school and high school. We start specializing, taking electives, we are picking up sports, we're learning languages, we're gravitating towards peer groups that have a much larger impact on who we become than our family of origin. Right, because we're expanding into the world and then we go on to specialize at college, unless you're me and you get stuck, right. So it's this incredible opportunity.
Speaker 2:And the brain, meanwhile, is in its prefrontal cortex, is maturing all through that time. Why is that important to know? This is the part of brain responsible for risk taking, vision making, problem solving. And so because the part of the brain that's responsible for emotional reaction, the limbic system, has reached maturity by about age 10. That part of the brain, mature and conditioned by whatever environmental cues came its way in early childhood, this part of the brain, prefrontal cortex, responsible for all those higher order decision-making, emotional regulation, that's still in maturity, right, it's still maturing. It hasn't finished its job. So this is why we see such a dance, if you will, an adolescence, between maybe acting out and behaving Right. Think about like they're driving cars but they're still coming home and slamming doors and throwing temper tantrums and those sort of-.
Speaker 1:So this is a sidebar, I mean, because you you're talking about the original question, but it's the long way there, no no, no, no, that's. This is all great information, and it's good to put into context too, because when you think about somebody who's 18 or even 21, and they're making certain decisions, sometimes you're like you're an adult. Why would you do that? But when you think about the brain development, this makes sense for a lot of things, a lot of reasons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the paper I wrote in that class was based on some research that happened in the 2008, 2009 range. If you want it for your show notes, I can get it to you later, but it really speaks of this neurobiological model. So adolescents have a mature limbic system but a not yet mature prefrontal cortex system. So when they are in emotionally charged or salient situations, their brain is biased, defaults to the emotional center of the brain. So this is why youth may know better In fact, you might have seen them do better 10 minutes before but because of the salience, the emotional charge of the situation, their brain is just by default biased to an emotional reaction.
Speaker 2:We ought to expect that, because that's how we're wired. You who have had trauma in early childhood will have an even harder time regulating and reaching their higher ordered brain because their limbic system that biases them in those situations is actually enlarged. The amygdala inside the limbic system is bigger than it's supposed to be and it stays bigger for their life. We see this in neuroimaging now and better understand that not every youth is going to be able to get it together like the adults around them want them to.
Speaker 1:You know that makes me think about the people that we see on TV, the athletes, the entertainers, the celebrities, and when they make certain decisions. So I'm a basketball fan and right now what's happening in the NBA? Certain players are being looked at closer because of their decisions with certain women and having children and they're like well, why would you do this? Why would you have all these kids at 21 and you don't want to be a father, but you're still having unprotected sex. But this kind of it doesn't excuse the behavior, but it does explain things, especially when they've come from really challenging upbringings and had just traumatic things happen to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, jason, what a great example right of how, first of all how judgy we are.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, when we're watching these situations, I was judgy of my own life, but everyone around, too, was like how could she accomplish so much here but make such bad decisions here? And that's what you're speaking of, right. They're professional athletes, they're incredibly gifted, they know they're being seen by the world and those are the choices they're making.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So, yes, those are the choices they're making. Those are the choices that, for whatever reasons but part of the reason is where they're at in their neurobiological development. Really kind of reflecting on the question should we treat juvenile offenders under adult terms when they commit some of those harsh crimes, knowing what we know about brain development? Her research shows that the majority of youth who offend in adolescence don't offend once their brains are mature. So there's natural progression that gives us greater capacity for making better decisions. Our prefrontal cortex right has a lot more power to be in charge of those decisions as we age, because it's maturing.
Speaker 1:That's good to know as well. So I want to ask this, as we're talking about trauma and confidence how, in your own experience, personal and professional, how would you say that the trauma someone endures impacts their long-term confidence?
Speaker 2:Yes, so trauma is an individualized thing, first of all it's so I think we're limited if we just kind of generalize it.
Speaker 2:So trauma is, of course, is the stuckness that happens in our nervous system because of things that come our way, or the lack of things that we need, that we don't get right, and so that absolutely limits a person's capacity to move into the world and to do so with an open heart and open mind.
Speaker 2:Because trauma keeps us stuck in rigidity, it keeps us constricted, it keeps us hiding and not opening, it literally limits our brain's capacity for learning, it literally limits our brain's capacity for learning. And so if we are moving into spaces where we're being asked and demanded of to do what our peers are doing, to measure up, to accomplish, to achieve, then that trauma is going to keep us from having not only the confidence but the capability, keep us from having not only the confidence but the capability. And then, if there's shame added to that right, when an adolescent chooses not to perform or enter the ring or whatever it is, or they make the decisions that some of the basketball players are making and that I made right, then you face the harsh judgment, the finger pointing, the stigmatizing that further keeps us stuck. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So now, because there's parents and teachers, educators who are listening, they're working with adolescents. What are some tips or strategies you would give them to manage or not well, not manage, but to help the adolescent, Like if they have a teenager or a young adult who's struggling with decisions. What would you say to them?
Speaker 2:First of all, better understanding that there's always a reason for the behavior. So all the behaviors that frustrate us, that we see as adults in the youth that we're raising or serving, right Back away from what's wrong with you, question and start asking I wonder what happened or is happening inside of you right now that that's what you're showing up with.
Speaker 1:So that's my first just I love that build your own self-awareness a lot of times we look to like judge them or say well, you know better, I raised you better, or I didn't do this, so why are you, why are you doing that? And I think that type of language can really be hurtful and further push them away absolutely.
Speaker 2:In fact, that's what we call invalidation. So, and children and youth who grow up in invalidating environments by, particularly by the people that are there to love them, nurture them and care for them and a lot of us, as parents, say those things well-intentioned, but what we're doing is we are absolutely invalidating our youth. But what we're doing is we are absolutely invalidating our youth. So what we're saying is that their feelings and thoughts are not okay and what they internalize is shame. I'm not okay.
Speaker 2:And so if I carry that inside of me, jason, and try to move into the world, but I believe now that I'm not okay, right, I'm not going to have confidence to try anything or move into another sphere of people. I'm not going to stand up and give a speech, right? So parents have so much power here in re parents and other, support people in reshaping your language with your youth so that you are validating. So validation is not approval of behaviors, it's not what it is. Validation is approval of feelings and thoughts, right? So it's saying gosh, given what happened at school today, it makes sense right now that you are upset and you're throwing. You know you're throwing the slamming the door shut, but what I didn't say is it's okay that you slam the door?
Speaker 1:Right, right, there's a difference.
Speaker 2:The big difference, because what a child hears or youth hears, then is it's okay to feel what I'm feeling, because that nervous system is going to feel what it's feeling, whether you let them feel it or not. If a parent does not allow and create the space for that, those feelings are going to get repressed and everything we repress eventually comes out ugly and then that ugliness will spew forth and then the parent, or the person that's the adult, is going to further shame and blame them for the behavior that they inspired through an invalidating environment.
Speaker 1:After they create the space, after they validate. Is there anything else you would suggest recommend?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love this, what we call the five C's model. This comes from our work in behavior management in both child welfare and juvenile probation. So in the five C's model we've got five words that start with C Competence as the ability and skill to deal with challenges, confidence, which you're talking about, and focus on this positive belief in one's own worth and efficacy. Thirdly, connection, so the power of one positive relationship can last a lifetime. I mean, I think if you think back, I think back to our teenage years we can probably close our eyes and think of at least one person that helped shape who we are today in a positive way. So the power of mentoring and connection and having at least one validating adult is really powerful and necessary.
Speaker 2:The fourth C is character right. So these standards of behavior that promote social functioning in societies we can example, role model, good character right and therefore pass those possibilities on to our youth. So let's not tell them, do as I say, not as I do. Let's show them how we want them to grow in this world. And then fifthly is caring, or compassion, because adolescents have a huge capacity for this and I think this generation particularly is desperate and desires to feel in a way that previous generations maybe didn't because it wasn't in our vernacular like it is now. Going to therapy is more normalized. Asking for help and struggling and having a diagnosis is a little bit more normative now, or allowable now. So when we look at these five C's, ask yourself how can I help a youth with one of those? Because that's what's being shaped during adolescence. Can you recap?
Speaker 1:the five Okay, confidence.
Speaker 2:Confidence, competence, right. So how can you move youth into something that they're passionate about or good at, create more spaces for? I don't know, if they like to beat a drum, how about a drum lesson, instead of stymieing them or limiting them? Connection, so the power of personal connection, not social media. Connection, character and compassion, I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. Lisa, this was an amazing interview, one of the best, I think. Yeah, is there anything that I did not ask you, that you think that people should know, either about yourself or about the work that you do?
Speaker 2:because I just think it matters so much. Our words are powerful and the words we use to describe youth, no matter their age, can again push people away or create inviting spaces. So I talked about the person-first language, using a person-first language in describing, and so many of our youth are getting diagnosed, younger and younger, with things like ADHD or bipolar disorder, oppositional, whatever right we have all these names. They're labels, they're just. They're just pathways to help. But when we call people by their diagnosis or we call them the problem they're struggling with, we're really setting them up for more struggle and we are actually moving away from them and pushing them away from us. So instead of calling somebody a bipolar, this is a person who's been diagnosed and is struggling with bipolar disorder.
Speaker 2:Feels like it's not a big difference. It's a huge difference.
Speaker 1:And I think that's where we connect. That's a big trauma-informed approach for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So our youth that have offended. We don't want to call them offenders or juveniles, foster youth. No, this is a human being who's happened to move through the foster care system. Because youth internalize these labels profoundly. Adolescence is a time of really identifying who I am. Who do I want to be in the world, and when other people tell us who we are, Other people tell us who we are. That limits us and keeps us stuck.
Speaker 1:I love it. Lisa, where can one thank you again for just sharing so much of your wisdom, so much of your personal experiences? Where can people find you book, you connect with you, all of that?
Speaker 2:Thank you for asking, so my website is my first and middle name, lisa L-A-S-A, mayaka M-A-A-C-Acom, and that's the source of all things the work that we're doing, as well as how you could book me for a keynote or a workshop or a podcast conversation like this.
Speaker 1:Awesome, and I'll put that all in the show notes as well. Lisa, thank you so much, and thank you all for listening to another episode of the Peace and Prosperity Podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Jason.
Speaker 1:Thank you all for listening to another episode of the Peace and Prosperity Podcast. Again, if you are feeling like, hey, I'm experiencing high functioning anxiety, are feeling like, hey, I'm experiencing high functioning anxiety, don't beat yourself up about it. It is okay. We all experience anxiety from time to time and I gave you a couple of things that you can do on your own, but don't hesitate to reach out to a professional to better manage what you're going through. Okay, and lastly, make sure, if you have not like share, subscribe to the podcast and send this out to a friend. And if you want to hear certain episodes or have certain conversations, let me know. You can shoot me a DM or just leave a review and I will definitely follow up. All right, y'all. Be blessed, peace.