Your Therapist Needs Therapy 92 - Doing Trauma Work in a Traumatizing Society with Emily Lapolice

Jeremy is joined this week by returning guest Emily Lapolice from Integrative Wellness Therapies. Jeremy and Emily dive into the importance of unlearning harmful narratives around productivity, especially how capitalism and white supremacy have shaped our internalized beliefs about rest and self-worth. They reflect on the challenge of showing up authentically in both personal and professional roles while embracing nuance and imperfection. The conversation emphasizes giving ourselves and others grace, staying grounded in community, laughter, and a commitment to collective healing.

Emily is involved in a ton of great work, you can find her on Instagram, and check out her work with the Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga where she has an upcoming training. She is a faculty member at the Center for Trauma and Embodiment in Boston, and also the Director of Training at Move to Heal South Dakota, a Sioux Falls based non-profit that empowers youth in overcoming experiences of trauma through movement and culture-based healing arts, as well a Clinical Research Advisor at the Mind Body Trauma Care Lab out of the University of Minnesota Duluth, studying community-lead research and trauma-sensitive yoga applications with Indigenous and First Nations communities. Emily serves as a member of the Board of Directors for 2 Indigenous-led non-profits: Project Venture, a program of the National Indian Youth Leadership Project (NIYLP) supporting positive youth development through culturally responsive experiential education; and the Upijata Arts Center, nurturing creativity and artistic expression for the youth of the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.  

Jeremy has all his practice info at Wellness with Jer, and you can find him on Instagram and YouTube. To show your love for the show you can pick up some merch! We appreciate support from likes, follows, and shares as well!

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Podcasts about therapy do not replace actual therapy, and listening to a podcast about therapy does not signify a therapeutic relationship.

If you or someone you know is in crisis please call or text the nationwide crisis line at 988, or text HELLO to 741741. The Trevor Project has a crisis line for LGBTQ+ young people that can be reached by texting 678678.

Transcript

Your Therapist Needs Therapy - Emily Lapolice 2.0 - 2025/04/01 09:49 CDT - Transcript

Attendees

Emily Lapolice, Jeremy Schumacher

Transcript

Jeremy Schumacher: second. There we go.

Emily Lapolice: I know.

Emily Lapolice: Me, too.

Jeremy Schumacher: We good.

Emily Lapolice: Yeah, we're good.

Jeremy Schumacher: Hello and welcome to another edition of Your Therapist Needs Therapist Therapy. Man, it's been a minute. start.

Emily Lapolice: You know what? You actually did that on our episode.

Jeremy Schumacher: We're going to leave it in to show what a human I am. I told everyone…

Emily Lapolice: Yeah, I love that.

Jeremy Schumacher: who tunes in and listens that I would get guests back. And I have a guest again this week, a returning guest, someone I'm very excited for. I'm joined once again by Emily sent me a bio, so I'm going to read that real quick because Emily is great and took the time to write it. if you want to hear how Emily got into the mental health field, you can listen to episode 37 of Your Therapist Needs Therapy, where she and I chatted the first time around.

Jeremy Schumacher: Emily is a licensed independent clinical social worker, trauma sensitive yoga facilitator, author, and educator. She's a faculty member at the center for trauma and embodiment in Boston, Massachusetts, and has been a psychotherapist for 20 years specializing in complex and intergenerational trauma, perinatal mental health, and evidence-based embodiment practices.  Emily is also the director of training at Move to Heal South Dakota, a Sou Falls-based nonprofit that empowers youth in overcoming experiences of trauma through movement and culture-based healing arts, as well as a clinical research adviser at the MindBody Trauma Care Lab out of the University of Minnesota, studying community-led research and sensitive yoga applications with indigenous and first nations communities.

Jeremy Schumacher: Emily serves as a member of the board of directors for two indigenous le nonprofits, project venture, a program of the National Indian Youth Leadership Project, supporting positive youth development through culturally responsive experiential education and the Upagata Arts Center,…

Jeremy Schumacher: nurturing creativity and artistic expression for the youth of the Pineriidge Reservation in South Dakota. Some of that is new since you and I talked last, Emily. I try and…

Emily Lapolice: Some of that is new.

Emily Lapolice: Well done, Jeremy. That was a mouthful. And I did not mean to interrupt you before. I assumed you might edit that out, but it's cool. It's natural. yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: leave the ums and the pauses because, we're real people as therapists.

Emily Lapolice: No, I like that about you and I like that about what you're doing. Before we jump in, I will just acknowledge the lands that I am on currently residing in the lands of the Massachusett people and specifically the Pucket tribe. and just acknowledging all that has come before us including my own ancestors of the Mcmack Hiron and Seol tribes and asking for their guidance to lead us in a good way during this conversation and…

Emily Lapolice: really happy to be here.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. …

Jeremy Schumacher: we did the intro and we did how you got into mental health the first episode and I we've chitchated and…

Emily Lapolice: Yep. What?

Jeremy Schumacher: connected several times since you were on last. I did some of the initial training for the trauma sensitive yoga which was lovely and I recommend very highly for folks to check out if they're interested in it. but just we were brainstorming together and how are we supposed to do what we do in a fascist state and how do we work with people and…

Jeremy Schumacher: trauma when people are being traumatized faster than they can heal.

Emily Lapolice: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: Faster than they can heal. Yes, I do remember that Instagram back and forth of What do you want to talk about?

Emily Lapolice: How the f*** we're surviving, how we get out of bed. what direction do you want to go in,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: Jeremy? And then I Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: It's so hard,…

Jeremy Schumacher: I think, to talk about other things right now, it feels almost disingenuous, I think, to let's talk about DBT.

Emily Lapolice: Yeah, totally.

Emily Lapolice: Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah. Or meditating. Come on. Yes. but I loved how you kind of synopsized if we were to phrase that in a different way, knowing that a lot of your listeners are mental health professionals, how do we do trauma work in a society that traumatizes people faster than they can heal? God, that pretty much sums it up,

Emily Lapolice: and so yeah, I mean, let's just dive in there because I appreciate what you're saying around it almost feels disingenuine if we just kind of go about our days, and it's always going to be a both because, we do have to get out of bed and we do have to interface with society and certainly folks who are parents or

00:05:00

Emily Lapolice: in this sandwich generation that I'm finding myself taking care of, parents that are getting older, but still raising my own little ones and taking care of myself and my clients and my community. it is that both. So what you were saying too about it almost feels just ingenuine and in a way and there's so many things we could talk about but when I took that little moment just to acknowledge the lands that I'm on and I think certainly in the states in Canada that's just common practice. and…

Emily Lapolice: I think things are freezing on my end but you can still hear me. Yeah, my monitor is getting wonky.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. No,…

Jeremy Schumacher: you glitched out for a minute. yeah.

Emily Lapolice: Okay, I glitched out. Yeah, I don't know if it's me because I try to put it on the bigger screen, but I don't know. Let me know if it happens again.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, I'll keep you posted. Do you want to go back and start where you sort of started?

Emily Lapolice: Yeah. Yeah, I think I was saying the point you made around it it's hard to just kind of go about business as usual without sort of naming and holding the enormity of what we are all experiencing and in a different way when folks are stepping into practices around doing land acknowledgements

Jeremy Schumacher: Hey,

Emily Lapolice: which again is kind of second nature up in Canada for sure but definitely here in the states we've kind of just gone  it it's like we just we read it from a paper to kind of check the box and kind of do our due diligence. but what does that really mean? And so that's a whole other thing, but it is kind of just like taking a moment. it's acknowledgement. It's landing. It's just like looking at complexity. It's holding all things. Here I am in Arlington, Massachusetts, right outside Boston. sitting in this beautiful office and all the things but there were people here before us.

Emily Lapolice: And so I think the thing that definitely mental health professionals are it I can only speak for myself but kind of navigating right now is like yeah, how do we not name this atrocity of living in basically this fascist me regime regime but also continuing to move forward and that is something I personally personally have learned so much from my indigenous brothers and sisters just around resiliency and just the ability to hold the dark past and…

Emily Lapolice: present and keep going in a positive direction. so I don't think I answered anything there, but there is some food for thought.

Jeremy Schumacher: And…

Jeremy Schumacher: and yeah, I think it is. I've had this conversation because I don't take insurance and so a lot of my clientele are upper middle class. They can afford to pay for therapy out of pocket and see me regularly. And so for a lot of them it's always sort of been a theoretical experience of fascism of knowing that black and brown people are policed different in America and knowing the incarceration system is bad. but I think for a lot of middle to upper class white folks this is their first time of being I could be in danger in some form or fashion.

Emily Lapolice: Right. Mhm.

Jeremy Schumacher: And so I think there has been a lot of grounding. You talk about a landing place and that land acknowledgement really as a landing place yeah that this is what has been happening for America's history North America's as we understand it since it was colonized in 1492 like that for a lot of people who are not in the privileged class this has been their experience.

Emily Lapolice: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. and so yeah, I mean another I think yeah the big question is how do we take care of ourselves? How do we kind of keep going? How do we hold all of it? acknowledge  look at all of it cuz that is a choice as well. that many people to your point aren't necessarily choosing or don't have to look right. it's a choice to open your eyes. It's a choice to kind of see the bigger picture. It's a choice to acknowledge the complexities therein.

00:10:00

Emily Lapolice: And we can flag this little nugget so I can continue this somewhat train of thought. But the ability to hold complexity is really hard. There are neurological components to that.  And I would say in a kind of broad sweeping macro brushstroke around what's happening in our nation right now there is a chronic inability to hold complexity to hold more than one experience at the same time to hold more than one perspective.

Emily Lapolice: the quote unquote putting ourselves in someone else's shoes that you referenced. so that is kind of I think a national and somewhat global endemic of its own. the inability to hold complexity, hold compassion, hold understanding. but the question is then how do we take care of ourselves individually, collectively? and this is now a new buzzword. I mean, back in the day, used to be the buzzword, and It still is. yo tumsensitive whatever, lots of things that folks just insert there at will sometimes.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: But this other notion of community and collective care and that at least for me over here in north northeast New England I don't know last couple years I feel it's been getting just more attention that we're shifting from that self-care concept to community and collective care. and I think that there's a lot that we can unpack a little bit there and what that looks like. and for me, when we have this big question of, how do we take care of ourselves individually, collectively, globally, it kind of could be quote unquote answered,…

Emily Lapolice: with that community and collective care. then there's a million tentacles that we can,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: go in from there. But that's a big one.

Jeremy Schumacher: And I think looking at other cultures, speaking as someone from a Midwestern white background, German heritage, but who's been in America for a long time, I have to look for a historical perspective because that isn't something that is part of my family. Even for the family members who eventually immigrated to America, it wasn't under duress.

Emily Lapolice: Mhm.

Jeremy Schumacher: it was for opportunity or for whatever. my family's deeply religious so it was missionary based but it's one of those things where looking at other cultures who have gone through and lived through these atrocities already. They had families, they had joy, they gathered and had community.  And I think that is in the internet age hard sometimes because people just want to talk about how everything is bad and wrong and we've lost some of the joy and the ability to cultivate some of the connection that gets us through these difficult times.

Emily Lapolice: Yeah, definitely. And I think, one thing I could touch on here,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Love it.

Emily Lapolice: too, I'm going to take you over to the couch with me, Jeremy, because seems like that little monitor situation was being glitchy. So, I'm just going to grab a blankie and come talk to you on the couch. So, one of the things you mentioned around yeah, I'm a white m Midwesterner. my ancestors, came here by choice and all those pieces that you mentioned. And I think, there is this notion and nomclature around community and collective care.

00:15:00

Emily Lapolice: and for myself, and I think I shared a little bit of this on the first episode, my own journey around retrieving and reclaiming my indigenous heritage and identity which is ongoing and it will be a constant work in progress and healing.  But I think sometimes a lot of folks who have gotten disconnected, as you said, just the natural ways of your ancestors came for another opportunity and so we are where we are.

Emily Lapolice: but everyone has a, sort of culture that they came from. and even if it's not one that anyone might be kind of tapped into or connected with, wherever we are in the world, for the most part, we have these more community sometimes tribal way like elements at our core.

Emily Lapolice: we were more community and tribally oriented. and that's across the board. So even if I'm speaking about North American, Turtle Island, kind of indigenous ways of being and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: and connecting when we just go back to kind of even we could just say Pre-colonization. No. And I can't say this across the board because I don't have the knowledge to even say this, but I would say a lot of cultures across the world, capitalism, pre-colonization had some centering values around respect, reciprocity, and relationship to your family, relationship to your neighbors down the street, relationship to culture, to tradition, to ritual, to food. You look at any culture, okay, indigenous or…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: I mean, we're all indigenous from somewhere. in that sense my grandmother was from Italy and here in Massachusetts and when she made meatballs the whole f** neighborhood came in I mean they lined up at her door I think she gave meatballs out for Halloween too. It was just like they could smell it.  They were like, " Milliey's cooking meatballs." And they'd drive their bikes over and come get my grandma's meatballs. I would love one of my grandma's meatballs right now. I can almost taste it in my mouth.

Emily Lapolice: so I just kind of wanted to say that too because I sometimes feel and I'm still walking this myself that and please forgive this very kind of u I don't even know what you want to call it but in quotes like plain old white American I'm just a plain old white American. I think there can be so much disempowerment in that narrative of I don't know, I'm just a plain old* white American. what do I have to even say about this? I don't even know the culture of my origin or anything like that.

Emily Lapolice: And so I definitely invite and…

Emily Lapolice: encourage folks to that's colonization too, effects of that and we all have community origins in just our soul essence no matter what.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: So I mean I know there's a lot there, but I just kind of wanted to name that piece Yeah.  Mhm.

Jeremy Schumacher: And I think I mean I don't know. I try and speak for white people because I'm not all white people, but I'm not trying to extrapolate beyond my experience. but I work with so much religious trauma and these are people who are coming out of their culture, what they grew up in is unhealthy for them.

Jeremy Schumacher: If you look at the history of missionary work and you look at the history of various religious institutions, they are colonizing institutions and so it is work to sometimes find that community and center around something like, you mentioned food as a ritual. sometimes it's building some of that from the ground up. And not that that community isn't out there, not that it doesn't exist, but it's work sometimes for people to find it. and I think there's wisdom in studying the history and…

00:20:00

Jeremy Schumacher: looking to if it isn't your own ancestry, other cultures who have lived through major cultural upheaval in living under fascist regimes, this is not unique. This has happened before. And there are ways to,…

Emily Lapolice: Exact. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: I think, learn some of those lessons and apply them today.

Emily Lapolice: 

Emily Lapolice: Yeah. what you said about sort of that grassroots element of creating community when community has been either denied or…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.  Yep.

Emily Lapolice: colonized out of us, However you want to look at that or capitalized out of us, right?  Because if capitalism says, "Hey, you don't need to commune with people or share food or break bread together to be happy or share what you have or you don't have to do that. You just have to buy X Y f*** Z and you'll be happy and successful. Piece of cake. Amazon.com, It'll just give you what you need."  And so it's so sad when we can kind of take that approach and try to have some compassion and empathy for ourselves being victims of colonization and capitalism because we're all affected by colonization and capitalism. I think a lot of white folks and I'm white presenting.

Emily Lapolice: I'm only just reclaiming my indigenous roots. but we think that colonization doesn't that has nothing to do with us. And in fact, we're all impacted and it's sad. And when we can hold some compassion like, my goodness,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: look what was indoctrinated out of you or colonized out of you or capitalismized out of you. what is that that's been indoctrinated or capitalized out of us? it's community. It's connection. It's my god, reciprocity, thinking about someone else, respect, reciprocity for the land.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: Do people think it's just given to us?  We just on a silver platter this earth just here you go humans have fun wreak havoc have wars drop nuclear bombs this isn't a video game I mean my god I have a nine-year-old son and he likes his video games and things but this is a finite gift that we're all standing on and that I think at the core of so many indigenous cultures around the

Emily Lapolice: world regardless of where there is a respect for the land. And when you can build that of just, hey, this is a gift. The sun coming out every morning, that is a gift. The waters around us, that is a gift. Like the earth, the wind, that will then transcend to how we treat each other, to how we show up.  the fact that I have, a neighbors next door, That's a gift that I have neighbors on my street, that I'm not isolated. so it actually can be quite simple when we try to get at the marrow of what's been, again, capitalized out of us, and then we ask ourselves, okay, then how could I get more of that?

Emily Lapolice: How do I So, here's the thing that I'm missing that was taken from me. how do I get more of that? you said, and I also have religious trauma and shared certainly on the first episode. that piece where be we all have that innate cellular instinct to be a part of a community. So, what doctrine and dogma did was it manufactured that for us. look, here are these pews. Everybody's going to come together. Here's the himnil. We're all gonna sing the same psalms and read the same stories together and ma and sing the same songs together.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Mhm.  Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: And That is just a human need.  But then when we unpeel the veil or whatever the thing that the priests wear you unpeel that and then you see the demon then you see the toxicity then you see the poison of highcontrolled religion and just dogma

00:25:00

Jeremy Schumacher: and I think too, I mean, talking about capitalism, I was thinking sort of the manipulation of these group outgroup dynamics from this is your tribe, this is your community to here's your billion-doll sports team and that is now what provides your identity and you're one of 40,000 people in the stadium, but there's no real connection with the person sitting next to you.  And so it's again providing this outlet presenting community that is kind of devoid of any of the meaning underneath community.

Emily Lapolice: Wow, that's powerful, Yeah.  I mean, and even when and I think growing up and we all can look at my family of origin, we all kind of collectively, there's five of us, my parents and me and my two sisters, we can hold this macro lens now when we were practicing Catholics and we can kind of hold the complexity.

Emily Lapolice: There goes that nugget that I referenced in the beginning, the inability to hold complexity. but we can now kind of step back and my parents have witnessed my journey of really kind of stepping away from Catholicism. and I think at first my mom especially kind of had some guilt like, " my god,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: did I do this to her?" I'm but now we of can kind of come together and collectively say look there's no blame blame and shame I mean gosh that's certainly the root of a lot of high controlled religion but as a family unit healing from high controlled religion and other aspects we can show each other there's no shame and blame everybody was just doing the best that they could with the rule book that they had with the tools that they had  And was there a part of me that liked going to mass every Sunday? Yeah, there was. I I loved singing. We were in choirs. there is goodness at the core. but again, we can't turn our eyes from the really harmful aspects as well.

Emily Lapolice: So I think when we can all be in a continual state of learning and curiosity and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Okay.

Emily Lapolice: and compassion that's when we can tilt the needle. and that takes a certain kind of I don't want to say neurological makeup, but a certain amount of access to healing and to self energy. that's from IFS perspective but to again kind of hold the complexity and be like okay I don't blame anybody that the first time I touched my own body as a pre-teen I felt that I had to go confess I mean I know that's a little blunt to say that but it's true and nobody told me that. but that was the messages I received.

Emily Lapolice: So, it's like that Sunday I had to go and ask this random old, white dude for forgiveness for just being curious about my own body.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. …

Jeremy Schumacher: and when we study the development of little kids, little kids are naturally altruistic. they are interested in that.

Jeremy Schumacher: And capitalism is sort of just the water we swim in. it replaces that compassion with competition really really early on and sets it against community building and creates instead this idea of competition.

Emily Lapolice: This idea of competition.

Emily Lapolice: And then what you were saying with the big Gillette stadium and everybody sitting next to each other but nobody's actually connecting. and then even the sign of peace. I remember this, as I was raised Catholic, super nice gesture. I think it was right before the blessing of the Eucharist thing.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.  Hey, hey,

Emily Lapolice: But everybody's just like, Peace be with you." Like robots. just complete lack of aspect. Just doing it because we have to. Peace be with you. But are we sharing our resources?  Are we helping out these neighbors and these community members? Do we even know anything about their lives or their struggles? Not really. that was also part of the like and maybe it's a New England thing or who know, but you don't talk about your problems, right? Or I mean it's not just New England thing, it's a generational thing, but don't tell anybody and you got to keep up with the Joneses. we're going to this parish because that parish that's the other side of the tracks.

00:30:00

Emily Lapolice: we got to go to this parish and we can't let Bob and Mary know that we're struggling. we have to like, it just confines us so that we're in our own little silos of pain.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: And when we say peace be with you, what there and then we know as mental health professionals the type of healing that we're referencing today, complex kind of like comprehensive healing, whole body healing, intergenerational healing, cultural healing, this kind of bigger macro sense collective

Emily Lapolice: of systemic healing that can't take place in a silo and that can't take place with one treatment modality with just CBD or just this and I think when we can approach healing from a decolonized lens of again holding both things at the same time or many things at the same time. Thank you Western Medical providing us the knowledge and the resources and xyz and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: advancing all the things. Thank you. And there are old ways that actually have nothing to do with capitalism have nothing to do with pharma have nothing to do with gatekeeping around healing.  And I understand why you don't take insurance, Jeremy. I understand. I mean, sh, I'm getting sick of it myself. It's so hard. and also we're gatekeeping healing that healing is only for some. and if we could get to the core of again what is that healing that we're trying to access or what is the thing that's been colonized and capitalized out of us?

Emily Lapolice: when we can pick that apart, which I'm happy to kind of think through with you in dialogue here. then what we find out when we look at kind of the seeds, the roots in our hands, we find out that everyone actually has access to them regardless of insurance, regardless of capitalism, regardless of anything. we actually find, and this is the big secret that capitalism certainly doesn't want us to know, we actually find that we have all we need to heal. And that's a big statement to make…

Emily Lapolice: because sure, but not if we're not in communities and conditions that support and nurture our healing. and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Okay. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: It's like this secret they don't want us to know. You have to go see a professional to get better. You have to go see someone who has extensive training and has had the means to get extensive training and certificates and what are those things called?

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: Diplomas. …

Jeremy Schumacher: Right. Yeah. Right.

Emily Lapolice: and you have to go to them and you have to wait in line, too. You're probably going to have to wait in Six-month waiting list around these parts in Boston, for sure. you wait in line to heal. they don't want us to know that we could actually start that healing process now.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: Right now.

Jeremy Schumacher: I remember when I was working in higher ed still, I was the director of student athlete mental wellness and this was right before COVID hit. So, that blew a lot of things up. But I was in a meeting and one of the VP for the school I was at said,…

00:35:00

Jeremy Schumacher: I don't understand how we're supposed to make money off of this." And I was like, "f*** of mental health?

Jeremy Schumacher: we're not supposed to. it was just such a ludicrous statement. and I could make the argument that every dollar spent on mental health, we get it back. But that's so besides the point on that isn't…

Emily Lapolice: My.

Emily Lapolice: Yeah. No.

Jeremy Schumacher: what this is about. when we're talking about wellness, when we're talking about there's not a price tag on that. I mean, apparently there is, but that doesn't make sense to me. But, …

Emily Lapolice: No. Certainly doesn't.

Jeremy Schumacher: going back to what you said about complexity, I think complexity is uncomfortable and sort of where we see the rise of author authoritarianism, certainly in America, but we see a turn to in a lot of global politics right now.

Jeremy Schumacher: As things get uncertain, people want a simple answer. And there's a desire for this person has the solution rather than doing the work and putting in the effort to sit with the discomfort and…

Jeremy Schumacher: to connect with our neighbors and to hold different perspectives to say, we put all our eggs in this one basket. That should work." And that's appealing even if we have a ton of evidence that says it doesn't work.

Emily Lapolice: Yeah. O God,…

Emily Lapolice: I love talking to you, Cuz you say these oneliners or these little nuggets and I'm just like, is somebody quoting him? I know your media guy is going to pull some nuggets from what I say here and then it's going to be an Instagram post and it'll be really cool. I appreciate that because I don't really do that on my end so it'll be nice. but I'm just like somebody getting your nuggets too because I love speaking to you and so many others out there with minded perspectives and good f****** hearts.

Emily Lapolice: I mean, let's just be honest. It kind of is what it comes down to, I had recently come back interestingly I think under a week time. I was in Mexico for a few weeks, came back to Boston for 4 days, I think, then went up to Canada. This was just at the of February, beginning of March. So, I had to do the American Walk of Shame, with our closest neighbors below and beneath us. but I was just surrounded by good humans everywhere I went, who didn't chalk me up to just be, whatever it looks like I am or,…

Emily Lapolice: where I come from or was just met with a lot of good hearts. but what you just said, could you remind me what you just said?

Jeremy Schumacher: The problem with my nuggets is I have ADHD,…

Jeremy Schumacher: so I don't** remember what I say. Clients will be like,…

Emily Lapolice: Where did you I got it.

Jeremy Schumacher: "Hey, you remember that thing you said two weeks ago was really profound and changed my life?" And I was like, "Yeah, idea. It just Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: I got It's a team effort, you were talking about the and holding complexity is uncomfortable. It's super uncomfortable. And I'm going to with your permission and with the grace of your listeners, I'm going to take what you just said and if you're interested,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Okay.

Emily Lapolice: put a neuroscientific spin on it. a neurocognitive, neurological, and I'm not a neurol I'm not a doctor. I'm not a biologist. but this is just kind of my take on some of the neuroscience behind the inability to hold complexity and behind the discomfort that you're referencing. And I don't know, I could be totally wrong or off. If anybody listening has more knowledge than me or,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, let's do it.

Emily Lapolice: wants to do a little research study or something, let me know. But here's my take. What do you think about Is that cool? And then I want to hear your thoughts because you're brilliant. and what I'm going to be I'll just say too, a lot of what I am about to share is rooted in the evidence-based embodiment practice of trauma center, sensitive yoga that I'm trained in and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Sure.

Emily Lapolice: facilitate in. And Jeremy, you came to one of the training offerings. I'm actually offering one in May, too. I haven't done one.  I think since yours in October that you came to so I'm doing one in May but I learned so much from this model from a lot of the work that the center for trauma and embodiment in Boston is doing and it's really widened my understanding and perspective and education around the kind of neuroscientific elements of this because again I don't know these

00:40:00

Emily Lapolice: So, inability to hold complexity, as you said, to stay in what's comfortable. So much easier to do as we're told. To get in the pew every Sunday, do the sign of peace because that's what you're supposed to do.  take the bread and put it in your mouth. And again, we're doing the religious piece, but I know that you hold a lot of reference there. and that's just only one example, but and I will say too, there is goodness in all religion. There's a difference between high control religion, dogma, and spirituality. And there is goodness in all of it.

Emily Lapolice: And what folks who are called to religion are seeking or needing is a common human need as we've already referenced. So I don't ever want any listener or any member of my family to feel that it's just constantly putting down people who practice religion. that's not it at all. but dogma and doctrine is really harmful.

Jeremy Schumacher: And then

Emily Lapolice: And it creates big- time trauma. so it's much easier to be told what to do. I mean, and that's the core of fascism, too, And what they want. that's a very high level of control. and it's easy to keep doing what we're doing.  It's easy to stay in our little silos, stay behind our white picket fences. prune our shrubbery and make our little concrete boxes, look pretty from the outside. and just do what we're supposed to do.

Emily Lapolice: And so when we look at the brain basic basic we have that quote unquote human brain the prefrontal cortex that's where all the thinking language executive functioning learning okay is there and…

Emily Lapolice: then there's the lyic system that's the animal brain that's just hey news flash too We actually are all animals with animal needs too and animal instincts and animal desires. God forbid animal desires, sexual desires. I mean yeah,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Which is…

Jeremy Schumacher: which is why there's so much control around those things when you're looking at authoritarian control groups.

Emily Lapolice: 

Emily Lapolice: for I can still picture that priest that I went to that I can still viscerally picture it when I brought myself to confess and I later told my mom when I was an adult and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Mhm.

Emily Lapolice: she and she was almost brought to tears my god Emily I would have never brought you if she wouldn't have anyways so we are animals we are animals and we are wired for connection as well all the things that we've talked about community  and all of that. but our lyic system too that holds our emotions and our behavioral responses and the fear response and the trauma response. That's where the smoke detector in our brain is. and thank God for it alerts us when there's danger.

Emily Lapolice: and certainly in repeated experiences of trauma, and living within trauma paradigms, that's systems, that's doctrine, that's dogma, that's political fascism, that's right wing, but all of it. when I lost my train of thought there for a second, but that's the alerting to danger and even if the danger is not like it's done let's say it's actually not because we're living in this kind of constant danger state.

00:45:00

Emily Lapolice: That's the piece that I think a lot of folks don't necessarily see. that it is kind of ongoing.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, right.

Emily Lapolice: So we're in this kind of chronic trauma response, this submit, right? Fascism. flight, wn, freeze, all of it. where that's chronic.  And so our neurological just pathways and all of it it's faulty. It got a little tripped up because we're just constantly in this fear state. that's uncomfortable, That's uncomfortable. it's uncomfortable. It's unsustainable. It's not healthy to live in a constant fear state.

Emily Lapolice: has impact on every other biological system in your immune system, all of it. Your relationships, it certainly has an impact on your relationships. …

Jeremy Schumacher: Right. Right.

Emily Lapolice: all of it. So, it's uncomfortable. So, what do we do? we don't want to feel that uncomfortable feeling. It sucks. so, there's a million things we to do. medicate. We could try to escape.  We could try, what? This is all too f**** hard. Somebody just tell me what to do and I'll do Tell me where to put my foot. Tell me what to do and I will just do it because It's just too hard. And you could take a cognitive approach. You could take that prefrontal cortex.

Jeremy Schumacher: Right. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: the Bible said, hey, Elon said, Trump said, I mean, I have a visceral response even when I say that man's name out loud, but in essence, someone in power said, do this. So, I'm going to listen." there's this other part of the brain called the insular cortex.  It's where the The insula, as I describe it to a lot of folks who take my trainings I go to a lot of underserved populations and here in the US and up in Canada, as I've shared, engaging with a lot of indigenous and native communities.

Emily Lapolice: And sometimes we just got to break down this neuroscientific language and just kind of explain it simply. The insula it's kind of like our feeling and sensing and noticing muscle. It's our noticing muscle. with my own kids, if they're noticing a pain in their body or discomfort or maybe anxiety, too, I'll always try to say "Good" Yeah, good noticing, Max. That doesn't feel good for you, Okay. That's a muscle that gets underutilized and actually in conditions of chronic trauma starts to atrophy.

Emily Lapolice: We forget how to use that very visceral feeling, sensing and noticing muscle where we might notice discomfort, be curious about the discomfort and not rely on those other very overutilized muscles of the threat response.

Jeremy Schumacher: right?

Emily Lapolice: Okay, I got to numb. I got to run. I got to fight. I got the cognitive muscle of, I'm going to read this book and I'm I'm going to do this thing and I'm to get better. I'm going to listen to this dude and I'm going to get better. And then there's this muscle in between that's like our self muscle. It's just like, what to do? what am I noticing and what do I want to do about that? one of my colleagues Le Leela Johnson up in Canada that's a phrase she has kind of lended what am I noticing and what do I want to do about that so it's very uncomfortable it's hard to be uncomfortable and it's really hard to hold complexity and what engaging with the insula if we take that neuroscience what engaging with that muscle

00:50:00

Emily Lapolice: and nourishing and feeding that muscle, kind of nurturing that muscle. What that does is it actually helps us to be able to hold complexity because then we're noticing, And we're being curious with we're widening our perspective. We might have our own kind of felt sense, but There's studies that kind of increased introsceptive capacity also goes line handinhand with increased empathy…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yep.

Emily Lapolice: because if I'm connected and aware of what I'm feeling then I can kind of maybe more easily imagine what someone else is feeling. So interception and empathy go hand in hand. And so if we could nurture that muscle and there are capitalistic non-farmacological ways to do that that is going to in increase our capacity to whole complexity to hold more than one perspective and…

Emily Lapolice: to say f*** to capitalism and f*** you to dogma and f*** you to fascism.  That's my neurological take.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, there's the podcast,…

Jeremy Schumacher: people just listening. I'm just nodding aggressively to everything you're saying Yes, how it works." Well, and it's fascinating too because I think, when we talk about something like connecting with community, that soothes some of that fight, flight, freezer fawn. when we talk about there are ways in which some of these things that we're talking about get there to having compassion, to feeling connection.

Jeremy Schumacher: And there are ways in which capitalism, high control religion, authoritarian regimes have hijacked these systems.

Jeremy Schumacher: These are known things. It's not a mystery. And so how do we shortcut that so people aren't getting in touch with it? So I think it's one of those things where there's not a right or wrong answer. And certainly like moving away from the western colonized approach to healing, which is to say there are experts who know. There's lots of ways to get here.

Emily Lapolice: …

Jeremy Schumacher: There's just unfortunately lots of ways that people are throwing up hurdles or creating obstacles to getting in touch with this so that you're not in touch with yourself and you are complacent or you are a good little worker be instead of connecting to your

Jeremy Schumacher: community. Cool.

Emily Lapolice: And so whatever it is, we've referenced high control religion, we've referenced fascism. but it's abuse of power. It's definitely hierarchical, so when we kind of look at the opposite of that, and again I'm leaning into and referencing indigenous ways of being because that is a part of who I am and a part of what I have been recently embracing and nurturing in my own life and in my lives of my children.

Emily Lapolice: But indigenous ways of being are cyclical, non- hierarchical, so holistic, matriarchal. and at the core there is again coming back to that reciprocity and respect and relationship. And so, yeah, I think maybe our last couple minutes we could even just sort of collectively brainstorm. Like you said, There's lots of ways to quote unquote get here, like you said, to quote unquote be able to hold complexity to be able to think of other people.

Jeremy Schumacher: Jesus woke Jesus back then. Right.

Emily Lapolice: I mean, I think it was Jesus Christ himself who said treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated. I mean, it was pretty solid message right there, for And poor Jesus, He gets s*** on a lot. I partake in that sometimes. there was nothing wrong with what that guy was doing. Talk about community and connection. it's religion that then, turned that whole thing upside down. and that also had financial motives behind that. Didn't you tell me about that man like that you can't with the whole priest not marrying not getting married so that they could something get them.

Emily Lapolice: No, it was my mom. I think there was some kind of financial impetus around, why priests couldn't marry.

00:55:00

Jeremy Schumacher: a dowy. Mhm.

Emily Lapolice: Something about what were they called? when the families would give money for their daughters to be married, the dowy or something like that. there. I'm botching it right now, but some of those monies went into the religion, the coffers, their whatever. I don't know. Somebody could look into that.

Emily Lapolice: But yeah, those kind of financial motives and control motives, right? Power motives.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. …

Jeremy Schumacher: and…

Emily Lapolice: something. Mhm.

Jeremy Schumacher: I think about the missionary garden because I know a church that has one on their property and I'm like, " that's so gross." if you know the history of how that was used to steal land from indigenous tribes and how that has led to some of our lack of nutrition and modern farming because people who were here longer knew how to farm better and not deplete the resources. So it's just even in some of these small almost innocuous sort of ways you still see geez there's a lot of control and…

Jeremy Schumacher: there's a lot of colonization even in something so small as what is termed a missionary

Jeremy Schumacher: American.

Emily Lapolice: Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. when we think So, there's a lot of ways to get to that goodness that marrow of reciprocity, respect, relationship. and so one thing I've been stepping into literally just in we started it around the inauguration. So there's a beautiful studio space in my local community in Somerville, Massachusetts. it's called Constellation and it's a studio for creative and mindful practices.

Emily Lapolice: And so it's community, it's different ways to move your body, meditation, yoga, chiong,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: just making art together, sharing space together. we kind of have open hours sometimes where literally it's like come on, bring your laptop, have some tea, do this whole living working thing together. we're all remote and we're all behind our screens, but if you don't have to be in a meeting, come and do it with other humans, And so around the inauguration, we had some I held open hours okay, this is a really tough day. stop by the studio if you want. I'm going to have puzzles. I'm going to have coloring pages.

Emily Lapolice: I happen to be a therapist. So, if you want not in a clinical clinical sense, but if you want to talk to me about…

Jeremy Schumacher: Mhm.

Emily Lapolice: how you're feeling or if you want to move a little bit with me, do some breathing, come on in kind of thing. And so, we've been building upon that. we did the same thing for the actual election day itself as well. and kind of calling it community what are we calling it kind of like community based collective care circles. this community-based collective care. and so it's like, a couple hours. We might be doing it once a month and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Right.

Emily Lapolice: it's another way to break down barriers around accessing sort of mental health and wellness support, right? I am a clinician. but no one is coming to those care circles for therapy. I'm not billing anybody's insurance. Nobody has to have insurance. we have a sliding scale, common share space where, I typically start with a little landing like we just did, hey, Let's just land in this moment. Let's just land in our bodies. I offer a prayer, an indigenous prayer, just a non-dogmatic sort of gathering us all together. we might connect, a little conversation, a little sharing, all in the presence of community. moving our bodies a little bit, maybe breathing together. And I'm really excited about it.

Emily Lapolice: Cuz I feel like that, in whatever iteration, shape, form is kind of what I was referencing about that secret that capitalism and colonization and dogma doesn't want us to know that we have the capacity for connection, for community, for introsception, for feeling our own bodies and doing that within the context of safe relationship. ationships that nature is medicine, that the wind is medicine. And nobody has to wait in a six-month waiting list to access that.

01:00:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Okay.

Emily Lapolice: And that's the whole thing. there's so many ways to access that.  But that is sort of if I had to go back to our original question of okay, How do we get out of bed? How do we do trauma work in a society that traumatizes people faster than they can heal? it's got to start with us. Healing it has to start within and then it extends without. One person at a time, one family at a time, one community at a time. and all of these things and I want to hush up so I can hear from you too. But just these are just all different what's that talking head? we're on a talking head song we're on a road to nowhere. No, but we're on a road to somewhere.

Emily Lapolice: When we can kind of lean into these things that we all have some access to and even more access to if we're in a community that can support and nourish us and remind us that we have access. Because when we're isolated,…

Emily Lapolice: we're not going to even know necessarily or have access to some of these tools or these other non-c capitalism non-farmacological medicines within us and around us.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: But when we support oursel, surround ourselves with ive safe communities, safe people, then we can support each other. that's the reciprocity behind it all.

Jeremy Schumacher: And I think it is community- based. again, we're wired for it. We're mammals that executive functioning, that frontal lobe that humans evolved was in response to we're not particularly fast or have big fangs or sharp claws. those thinking things are designed for our survival. And so applying that to how do we build community? How do we find people?

Jeremy Schumacher: If we're coming from a more privileged space, how do we lend our voice to the marginalized communities and elevate those things? I think much of my community has shifted. I was raised in high control religion. Leaving that, finding community,…

Jeremy Schumacher: but then really building community in person has been my I would say past year I've really focused on I can't do the Zooms all the time. They're great and I love it. I know a lot of people from around the world who I would have never have met without the internet and…

Emily Lapolice: Same.

Emily Lapolice: Mhm. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: and I find I need to be in a room with people and sometimes that's other therapists, sometimes that's metal heads at a concert who are all just vibing, like that that can be very grounding and feel like community.

Jeremy Schumacher: So, I think being expansive in what that means and checking in with yourself to see where you feel safe sometimes going to a concert or I was just at a pro wrestling event. how many dudes with long hair and big beards I saw more than normal hey here are some of my people.

Jeremy Schumacher: So I think it's being aware of community can be your neighbors. That's lovely and great and it can be, these people who like to play board games with you or who are passionate about the climate and are protesting with you. there's so many different ways to find that community. It doesn't need to look a certain way.

Emily Lapolice: Yeah, I love that. …

Emily Lapolice: these shared interests, these shared just anything that's shared, Because we can't do it alone.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Good.

Emily Lapolice: We can't do it alone. shared. So, going for a walk, going, hey, you want to come to the grocery store with me? You want to do it together? Let's just do it together. know what's happening at constellation? It's okay, so we're all behind our laptops. But can we all be behind our laptops together? and then occasionally pause and have some tea and kind of nibble on some chocolate together. that's cool,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: .

Jeremy Schumacher: I think I'm a big proponent of nature. Just working with both religious trauma. I find that nature is very healing, but also the neurody divergent community. Nature is just so stimulating. and again, it's grounding and it connects us and it's something that ideally everyone gets to experience.

Jeremy Schumacher: So, it's one of those things that I think is really approachable for most folks and is also a great way to connect those people you see out on your walking path in the morning,…

01:05:00

Jeremy Schumacher: those people who are out picking up garbage and are volunteering to clean up spaces. great. Let's do that collectively in community. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: Totally. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: I mean, nature for me for sure is the answer. I mean, it really kind of is. and you talked about certainly for neurody divergent community but for all humans really. we've built our concrete silos, but you said nature being stimulating and energizing and also soothing, and grounding like you said, because it's rhythmic, it's cyclical.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: We get to observe the patterns and I had a particularly tough fall. I had a little mental health like woo ouchie.  I had some ouchies in the fall and creating ritual. I went back to the same spot, the mystic lakes. I actually really like cold plunging. So I did that all throughout the winter. And some of my neighbors were like, "What? You're jumping in the Mystic Lakes? we're from Boston? That's dirty water right there." And I was like, "It's It's okay. I'll take a shower after." But I went back to the same spot, right? and I took pictures, too.

Emily Lapolice: I documented this just looking at the same tree in September and it was all covered with leaves and then they started changing and then they dropped and to observe that sort of cyclical just cycle rhythmic nature rhythmic aspect of nature is that's super regulating and that really helps with interosceptive awareness, too. When we can be attuned to our intrapersonal rhythms and what we're noticing, what we're feeling, what we're observing in our own bodies, and then having that be connected to interpersonal through people,…

Emily Lapolice: but also through nature, through these other types of relationships. So yeah, I love you centering like it doesn't even have to necessarily be relationships to people. It can be relationships to little,…

Jeremy Schumacher: right? Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: relationships to a tree. I go back to that That tree got me through some freaking hard times. I'm not going to lie, and so even my own son has some neurode divergence and He's not a hugger, but if he's holding Snuggy, our bunny, then It's so fascinating. He comes to me for a hug. But he has that kind Snuggies between so our little woodland creature,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: just hopping around our house and offering rhythmic soothing medicine for my son and for our family.

Emily Lapolice: And then that ripples to our community ecosystems and beyond.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: For And again it's a whole separate thing but looking at the different approaches I see so many people who are late stage diagnosis either ADHD or autism spectrum or both and intraception is a muscle that's not very practiced. A lot of times the body and brain communication isn't great to begin with and can be really hard but it is nature as a metaphor if you're not in tune with your body but understand your body does go through seasons and we can look at this tree and follow those seasons and…

Jeremy Schumacher: we start to reflect on our own it's another pathway into practicing some of that and into experiencing some of that in a different way.

Jeremy Schumacher: So, I hold so much space for there's these different ways. even as a therapist, answering our big question of how do we do this? in my own head, so many times I will say something be like, but who the f*** am what do I know? that's my best guess. I don't know. because it's hard. We're experiencing so much of what our clients are experiencing at the same time. and having that idea of we're all in this together changes how we approach it instead of I can fix you or you need to be fixed.

Emily Lapolice: Exactly. yeah,…

Emily Lapolice: Totally. I loved what you said too around we all need scaffolding of some sort. So Snuggy helps Matt my son scaffold to connection, right? and yeah, some of those impaired interceptive pathways or…

Emily Lapolice: not having a lot of access to them. Yeah, like nature, rhythms, all these other things can be scaffolding for us toward awareness, toward connection. I mean, apparently going to a heavy metal concert could be scaffolding. I mean, you might not see me there,…

01:10:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. …

Jeremy Schumacher: yeah. …

Emily Lapolice: but I fully support you.

Jeremy Schumacher: and music, …

Jeremy Schumacher: you talked about food earlier. All these things that humans throughout all of history have ritualized. those are some of the pathways. Yeah, Emily,…

Emily Lapolice: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Emily Lapolice: Okay. …

Jeremy Schumacher: this has been lovely. Of course, I knew it would be.

Emily Lapolice: I guess we have to stop talking. Bummer. Yeah,…

Jeremy Schumacher: If people want to learn more about the work you're doing, if people want to connect with you, where do they go? How do they find you?

Emily Lapolice: so yeah, I'm on Instagram. just my first and last name, Emily La Police. The police. L A P O L I C E. I've got my website. I'm sure you'll put all this. I w therapies. integrative wellness therapies. iwapies.com. Traumasensitive yoga.com. That's the modality that I'm trained in. and yeah, I'm offering a upcoming 20our training. it's the foundational training for our certification program, but literally any human can come and literally any human can walk away with some concrete tools of really a lot of what we talked about today and how to bring that into your clinical practice or your yoga practice.

Emily Lapolice: educators come, wellness professionals, sematic practitioners, just kind of integrating some of these decolonized and traumainformed aspects into just being human into how do you talk to your barista down the street? it doesn't have to be in the clinical realm. It certainly can be.

Emily Lapolice: But yeah, so I'm doing that and yeah, I love connecting.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Emily Lapolice: I'm a big community connector and a global connector and reach out, email me, talk to me on Instagram. I'm all for it. Exactly.

Jeremy Schumacher: We'll have obviously your links to your website and your socials in the show notes, but also some of the projects that you're working with now. We'll link there so people can find more information. And your website has just resources one of your tabs is like so you want to be an ally. What does that look like? And again so for people who are maybe wrestling with some of these ideas for the first time or…

Jeremy Schumacher: from a new direction like great stuff. So we'll have links to all that stuff in the show notes.

Emily Lapolice: Cool. …

Emily Lapolice: thanks Jeremy. It's always a privilege and an honor and really enjoy talking to you and you're doing good work and we're all doing good work. We're doing the best we can and grateful for my ancestors too.  Thank you for helping be here with us during this conversation and we'll talk soon. Cool. Bye. Bye.

Meeting ended after 01:13:11 👋

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