Your Therapist Needs Therapy 121 - Grounded in the Wilderness with Hatie Parmeter

This week Jeremy talks with Hatie Parmeter, soon-to-be licensed therapist and current communications director for the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, about her journey from fashion journalism and outdoor guiding to finally landing in mental health. They explore the mental wellness needs of guides and first responders, the idea that connection is the correction, and the overlap of climate anxiety, systemic issues, and mutual aid. The conversation closes with both reflecting on self-care, neurodivergence, and finding meaning and community amid climate grief and late-stage capitalism. 

To learn more about Hatie and her work, check out her website hatieparmeter.com. Follow this link to learn more, join, or support the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America. To learn more or get started volunteering with the Red Cross and their Disaster Action Team, head over to their site to get more info. 

As always, 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! None of my online work would be possible without my media maven Kenny, so check out their work as well at kenlingdesign.com

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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 - Hatie Parmeter - 2025/10/29 09:58 CDT - Transcript

Attendees

Hatie Parmeter, Jeremy Schumacher

Transcript

Jeremy Schumacher: Hello and welcome to another edition of Your Therapist Needs Therapy, the podcast where two mental health professionals talk about their mental health journeys and how they navigate mental wellness while working in the mental health field.

Jeremy Schumacher: I'm your host, Jeremy Schumacher, licensed marriage and family therapist. And today I am joined by a friend of the pod and somebody who I've gotten a chance to recently connect with professionally. I'm joined by Hattie Parader. How you doing, Hattie? I'm doing well.

Hatie Parmeter: Hello.

Hatie Parmeter: I'm good. How are you?

Jeremy Schumacher: I know Haddie,…

Jeremy Schumacher: you and I met from CPA, the Climate Psychology Alliance of North America.

Hatie Parmeter: It's true.

Hatie Parmeter: I am the director of communications for the org and…

Jeremy Schumacher: You're like, yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: yeah, it's pretty cool. If you're in mental health, it's for mental health practitioners and more. We're actually sort of updating the lingo around that right now of we're also talking to and including spiritual practitioners and somatic body workers and coaches in kind of the audience in terms of we just provide a lot of resources for people…

Hatie Parmeter: who are dealing with clients who have climate related emotions that they're trying to work through. So it's a really interesting organization and I've definitely met a lot of really cool people. So yes.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yes.

Jeremy Schumacher: Spoiler alert for future podcast episodes. I'm just going to be raiding the roster of people who are in CPA because it's a lot of cool people doing a lot of cool work. yeah,…

Hatie Parmeter: So much passion. Yeah. Sure.

Jeremy Schumacher: and we'll come back because we'll pluggables at the end, but I do like to start with how is it that you sort of came to be in your space in the mental health world.

Hatie Parmeter: So it's been a journey. I grew up obsessed with fashion and obsessed with teen Vogue and wanted to be a fashion designer. there was a Barbie fashion thing that you could print out on fabric from your computer and you could make the design and cut it out and then use it on your Barbies.  And so I was like a tiny child that was my direction. dress as your future career day as a pre-teen. I was the inchief of Teen Vogue. I had a media pass that I made at home with Modge Podge and a little blazer and went to undergrad for magazine journalism.

Hatie Parmeter: I have a bachelor of arts and quickly transitioned into teaching yoga…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: which my first ever yoga class was a threehour venyasa practice which is bonkers today as a yoga teacher so I don't know how that ended up happening but I loved it and I was just really enjoying my personal practice and was like I want to expand my personal practice let's do a teacher training I don't think a lot of people realize you can do that. Even if you don't want to be a teacher, you can just completely change your own personal practice by doing a YTT.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: And ended up being like, what, I actually could teach this. And the more that I taught it, I was also struggling to find jobs as a writer, just, was not struggling to find a job directly out of undergrad.  So, I was working in the outdoor industry as a outfitter and a guide on the Chicago River of all places kayaking and doing outdoor ed. And I kind of realized that the outdoor industry has absolutely no mental health support whatsoever.  So, we are expected as guides to take strangers out into the wilderness and have potentially very serious situations happen with absolutely no mental health training.

Hatie Parmeter: Whether that's like a camp counselor who's 18 years old and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Great. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: leading a group of olds in the Boundary Waters and there's a panic attack or there's bullying and there's anxiety or seemingly more serious like threatening risky stuff of a first responder who's like a wilderness first aid person who does a body recovery and then has serious trauma and effects from that afterward.  So all of my yoga and my outdoor industry stuff and my interest in mental health kind of combined into me realizing that I wanted to become a therapist, use the skills and information that I have from the outdoor from meditation, and provide psycho education for the outdoor industry.

Hatie Parmeter: So, I recently taught a huge group of camp counselors, a bunch of mental health and nervous system stuff before they went out with teens last summer to group therapy and one-on-one stuff, which I should preface this.

00:05:00

Hatie Parmeter: I am not yet a therapist. I am in graduate school. I'm almost done with my second year and I am tickled to be considered a mental health professional at this point.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah, it's been a journey, but I'm super stoked to be here. Isn't that funny?

Jeremy Schumacher: That's awesome. I was chuckling in your story because I didn't have that background. I knew you had your started in magazine journalism. I didn't know it was because of a love of teen Vogue and knowing where you ended up. That does make me chuckle.

Hatie Parmeter: The listeners can't see, but I live in a yurt and I live in the middle of the woods. So, when I tell people that I wanted to be the editor-in chief of Teen Vogue, it's like, "Wait, you really?" Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: So, you get magazine subscriptions to the Y in the woods.

Jeremy Schumacher: Do you still

Hatie Parmeter: I sure do.

Hatie Parmeter: And the yurt is so unique that even when people get our address wrong.

Hatie Parmeter: We got a letter a couple years ago that the fire number was wrong, the road was wrong, but the person who wrote it to us said the yurt people. And so our postal service was just like, " we know who that is. We'll get that to them anyway.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, that's awesome.

Jeremy Schumacher: Shout out to postal workers.

Jeremy Schumacher: They are unsung heroes. yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: Absolutely. Yeah,…

Jeremy Schumacher: So, I mean, you're in grad school. I would consider you a mental health professional. I sort of as a therapist who's been doing this for a long time, I start my math on how long I've been doing this is when I started seeing clients because whether you're fully trained or fully licensed, like that is doing the work.

Hatie Parmeter: totally. Yeah, that's a good point.

Jeremy Schumacher: And most of us were woefully uninformed and not prepared and we did it anyways.

Hatie Parmeter: Mhm.

Jeremy Schumacher: I love this idea of working with guides and some of this outdoor stuff. I think there's this perspective that being in nature is healing for mental health and so that's enough. Is that sort of the vibe you pick up as well? Yep.

Hatie Parmeter: Totally. Yes. when I was actively guiding on the Chicago River, I remember one season we had I think it was 12 days in a row over 100° which in Chicago is absolutely unheard of. You want to talk about climate change, there you go. and we'd have tourists who are coming to see the river even locals who had never seen the river in this way and you're getting them in their boat and getting them situated and they look at you and they're like, "God, you just have the dream job. You must be just living the dream out here." And it was like, "You mean with my lack of health insurance, getting paid $12 an hour in this 102°ree heat for 10 days in a row? Loving it." Absolutely.

Hatie Parmeter: there is that assumption of but you're living the dream and you're so passionate and that translates to a lot of different places in a lot of kind of industries and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Right. Right.

Hatie Parmeter: what have you but the lack of you can as guides we don't have the information to take care of ourselves nonetheless to serve our clients and a lot of people also seek nature when they're looking for healing.  So, there are a lot of people who will do a big hiking trip or hire a guide to do a big hunting trip or a rafting thing and they're grieving or they're going through a huge life transition. they just lost their job. They're whatever it is and you have to be able to support them in that way. And there's a really incredible program out of Canada that's called wilderness first aid and it's kind of like what the Red Cross would teach for a physical first aid.

Hatie Parmeter: It's very high level like nothing terribly serious but super helpful but it's for mental health and the kind of motto of this organization and this training is connection is the correction and that is something that especially when I'm working with these guides I can only give you a certain amount of information and a certain amount of understanding and tools but you are a human being and if you can connect with someone no matter…

Hatie Parmeter: what it is that they're going through or they're dealing with in that moment that's going to make a difference  I think that's so important for all of us to know.  Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: And there's I think mental health first aid is not wilderness-based, but that's a thing that just everyday Joe's any random person can sign up for and take. And when I worked in athletics, I was the director of student athlete mental wellness. But it was a thing I was sort of surprised by how few of the athletic trainers who again have not medical degrees, but they know a lot of how the body works and they had next to no mental health training. And so again, you have an athlete who's having a panic attack and a coach who has no mental health training. you have all these people who don't necessarily know even…

00:10:00

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah, heat.

Jeremy Schumacher: what that looks like.

Jeremy Schumacher: And that's in a generally more cons the worst I would get calls from coaches on the bus right before or after a game and somebody's having a mental health crisis and it is scary and it can be really debilitating and so that's surrounded by a team but if you're out in the middle of nowhere if you're out in the wilderness I think that can be really dangerous and also for the guides too like what a tremendous IC experience that can be to have your work this thing that you like,…

Jeremy Schumacher: you enjoy, and then an experience like that that you're not well suited to deal with

Hatie Parmeter: And it's a career ender and…

Hatie Parmeter: in that if you're out there and you have a situation and you're out of service you're not able to contact someone you can't call you're like the camp that I have worked with and that I actually grew up going to they have someone you call there are mental health people on call during the season so that you can call someone…

Hatie Parmeter: if you have service, if you're able to. And that's awesome.

Jeremy Schumacher: right? Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: That's definitely a resource that is not available for a lot of places, but there is always the kind of stigma behind you can handle it yourself. Don't call camp. You can, but don't do it. that's I think a pretty common experience a lot of times to athletes, too, of you don't want to come off as weak or, vulnerable in any way. And yeah, I think we're definitely getting to a better place to some degree, people are a little bit more willing to reach out and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. And then

Hatie Parmeter: admit that they need support. And yeah, it feels like from a mutual aid kind of perspective, there's definitely a little bit more I spent 12 years in Chicago. That's how I met our dear friend Kelsey. and that from a mutual aid standpoint, I think people are learning more about mental health from a crisis kind of standpoint, like psych first aid in the field, whatever that looks You're at a protest and something happens or something like that. But it would be nice…

Hatie Parmeter: 

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah,…

Hatie Parmeter: if the regular population had the opportunity to learn more.

Jeremy Schumacher: for sure. and…

Jeremy Schumacher: I'm not surprised we're going here already, but a lot of the stuff is systemic, right? That you brought up not having health insurance, not having a livable wage that you're doing some of this work in. And then, it would be great if everybody was trained in this way, but we really would also be great if we could get some of those basics figured out.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Yes.

Hatie Parmeter: That would limit the need for some of the mental health support to some degree.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. And…

Hatie Parmeter: Absolutely. Yes.

Jeremy Schumacher: then people who want further training or want some of this stuff have the time, have the have the space to pursue that instead of feeling like we're just scraping by all the time.

Hatie Parmeter: What do you do for real self-care? huh.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Are you asking me specifically or Yeah. I do a lot actually without knowing that's what I was doing. I think early in my career I didn't have the language for it. and I'm late diagnosed ADHD and autism. So, a lot of my self-care is physical movementbased because I grew up playing sports and…

Hatie Parmeter: Okay.

Jeremy Schumacher: sports is what I think kept my ADHD masked for so long is I was so busy playing high level sports all the time that it's always something new.

Jeremy Schumacher: there's a new game, there's a new practice plan, there's something else coming up. And then I think physically I was tired from being on the go all the time. And so in my adult life, when I started doing therapy, I was across the street from a YMCA and three times a week I'd go play volleyball for three hours. that's an insane amount of volleyball. And it wasn't good. It was me and a bunch of 50-year-old men who had the time to play volleyball for three hours at the YMCA. But I reflect on how was I seeing 26 clients a week? What was I doing how did I do that for seven years or…

Hatie Parmeter: Wow.

Jeremy Schumacher: however long I did that? It's like, cuz I had nine hours of self-care built into my every single week. And then, in addition to friends and family and other hobbies and recreation, but for me, I think the building block has always been athletics. and it's mellowed.

Jeremy Schumacher: 37 and I'm not playing that much volleyball anymore, but it's time in the woods, it's walking my dogs. I have a lot of alone time as an introvert that I can fill with what feels necessary or what feels helpful in the moment. and it's so weird because doing what we do, I talk about self-care all the time with my clients and I get the look that I'm this alien who's "What do you mean selfcare every day? what does that look like?

00:15:00

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: How do you And I did it for so long without realizing that's what I was doing that I really did sort of reshape my life around it because I think I would have lost my own mind or gone, off the deep end on a client or probably more likely like a loved one, because that's what So I think I was just always aware of in order to be a healthy  chill sort of person to be around. I needed to do a lot pretty proactively. and it's lucky that I stumbled sort of ass backwards into doing a lot of that, but at this point it's a lot of nature. I have two kids. I like being out in nature with the boys. I like taking the dogs out. and still sport, it's still sports then. It's still biking. And winter's harder.

Jeremy Schumacher: Even though I've been in Wisconsin my whole professional career and I prep people on winter is harder for your mental health. I find now that I play less competitive sports. that really was a pretty strong thing I leaned on for most of my self-care.

Jeremy Schumacher: And sports are a socially acceptable way to hit something hard is how I often describe them.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. It's all right.

Jeremy Schumacher: And so it's trying to find other stuff. I talk about chopping wood, probably an unreasonable amount for being in a city and in an urban setting. All my clients again sort of give me that look. what sort of hippie stuff where are you getting all this wood? I'm still here. My battery on my camera I just changed it yesterday. I'll swap over here.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: I actually heat with a wood stove. So, we are constantly self-care.  I love that idea of capturing the self-care that you're already doing because maybe you don't have to make up a bunch of fancy s* to add to your day. Maybe you are doing some of this and you just aren't recognizing it in quite those terms. That's great. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: And I think I do try and bring that up for clients listening to music is self-care, right? And so if we set some intention around it, then we can get a lot more benefit from it. Watching TV is self-care. If you're doing it sort of mindlessly with the office in the background for the 900th time,…

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: or if you're like, "Hey, Tuesday nights my partner and I are going to sit down and watch this show together."

Jeremy Schumacher: and it becomes a special thing that we look forward to. that impact for your mental health is a lot different. If you're going to have to take your dogs for a walk every day anyways, finding a different route, trying different things, going to your local park, again, you're doing it already anyway. How do we get some benefit from it? How do we I think plan for it? and…

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: so it's sneaky. I think in capitalism I approach it as let's find the sneaky times to do self-care. And that's not really maybe ethically aligned for me. Don't think we need to work to earn our rest.

Jeremy Schumacher: And I think that's what seems most approachable to people is that sort of the life hack approach, which again I don't like. But yeah, a lot of times people will be like, " I do one thing a week for self-care and…

Jeremy Schumacher: that's it." And then I'm coming in that's not enough. Let's do more." So

Hatie Parmeter: People have expectations of me as a yoga and…

Hatie Parmeter: meditation teacher. they think that I have no anxiety at all, which news flash, wow, are you wrong. I feel like most of the yoga teachers I know really need yoga and that's why we teach. there's also the expectation of I'm super chill all the time and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, right.

Hatie Parmeter: I'm all about self-care. And I think there's also the thought of people assume that teachers of really anything get the same benefits of what they're teaching as their students do. And maybe some people do, but I'm going to bet it's not a very high percentage cuz the experience of leading others through something. I mean, your comfort level with what you're teaching is a huge part of it. Some days when I'm teaching, I definitely get more personally out of it. And other days, it's my job.

00:20:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Right. Right.

Hatie Parmeter: I'm showing up for an hour and I'm teaching a class. And that's fine. we can't all be 1,000% in our job all the time. But it does crack me up as a person in the wellness industry, even outside of being a clinician,

Hatie Parmeter: that the expectations are wildly inappropriate in some ways.

Jeremy Schumacher: And…

Jeremy Schumacher: yeah, and most of the therapists I know are neurotic in some or multiple ways.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: You're talking about yoga therap anecdotally, I will not make this generalization, but anecdotally, the yoga instructors I know personally are all wound pretty tight and yoga is a foundational sort of base for their wellness and their own self-care, because they need it.

Hatie Parmeter: Yes. I love when I walk into Totally.

Jeremy Schumacher: They're not Zen masters.

Hatie Parmeter: Whenever as a student before I ever did a yoga teacher training, I was always enchanted when the teacher would first, get people's attention and would immediately ask, "Is there anything that you guys would like to do today? Is there a body part that needs attention or…

Hatie Parmeter: a pose that you'd like to do? I will work that into today." Because I always thought " my god, that is a flexible, adaptable person. that's incredible." And now that I've been teaching for long enough to feel confident that I can also offer that at the beginning of class, it's not uncommon for there to be crickets because people are like, "We're here because we want to do what you want to do." And so once I ask …

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: "Hey, is there anything you'd like to do today?" When nobody says anything, I go, "Great. We're going to do what I want to do." And then I just do whatever. And I kind of feel like I'm like the Jim Carrey Grinch when I do that. It sort of makes me laugh, but it really I'm like, " I have a headache today. Let's do a headache practice or my low back could use some intention. Let's do this. it definitely I'm doing what I need frankly.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: And as an athletics coach, player choice practices were always, we didn't really make a practice plan, so we're just going to add lib.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah, totally.

Jeremy Schumacher: But it's interesting.

Jeremy Schumacher: I think even thinking of outdoor guides and some of those positions, it's that expert role that I think people cast these professionals into and assume they have all their s*** together. you brought up the 18-year-old guiding 12-year-olds in the boundary waters. that's an insane thing as a society that we're just like that seems fine. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: I think back to being a 12-year-old and…

Hatie Parmeter: babysitting four children who are under age five and getting paid for that. And that's in the front country. But an 18-year-old with a bunch of 12-year-olds out in the woods by themselves,…

Hatie Parmeter: like what?

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: That is a formative part of being a human being and how I look at the world and the way that I respect myself, respect my gear, respect the woods. it's totally a crucial part of my well-being and it's insane.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Just skating by 18-year-olds vast overconfidence in their own capabilities.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: But it is one of those things where it's right, I as a therapist of a long time feel pretty confident doing a lot of stuff in a crisis situation because one, I'm practiced at it, but two, part of the reason I was drawn to the work that I do is because my brain does some version of it well and…

Jeremy Schumacher: I think,…

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Weather thing.

Jeremy Schumacher: experts and professionals have a scope of practice that they're probably quite exceptional

Jeremy Schumacher: at and nature, throw in a variable like a wild animal or whatever it is, a weather thing.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Absolutely.

Jeremy Schumacher: And it's a totally different environment even if it's something that you're really qualified to do.

Hatie Parmeter: I recently started volunteering for the Red Cross. There was a local television station that did a call for volunteers as we move into winter season because that's when there a significant increase in house fires.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: And the Red Cross has a million different ways to volunteer, but the one that I signed up for is called the disaster action team. And it is when there is a house fire within a certain radius of where you live, you are a first responder and you show up on the site once the fire risk is over and you provide crisis care for the humans and the pets who are affected by the particular incident. That idea of I have not been a mental health practitioner for very long and I am a human being. I very much rely on the connection is the correction model…

00:25:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.  Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: if you will. but it's the kind of the case of you have these skills and you have this knowledge and this training and then you put yourself in a completely different situation and see how does this work? What can you offer in these situations? I went out on my first call out a couple weeks ago, two 3 weeks ago and mean what to say? it was crazy. It was no one died.  I'm incredibly grateful that my first call out was not something with a fatality or with serious injuries because that's a whole another ball game. But it definitely felt especially in a time where it feels like all of the systems around us are slash completely broken and not actually supporting us.

Hatie Parmeter: Finding ways to bring meaning into my personal life and to potentially use professional skills in that way was very rewarding for me to feel like I made a difference in this person's life when they were in a serious moment of need. I definitely like with all of the friends and all the loved ones as we talk about the world and…

Hatie Parmeter: the state of things and all of this, it's like find a little moment of meaning. It does not mean that you have to get called out to a houseire.

Jeremy Schumacher: Great. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: That's a very extreme example I will note but finding ways to provide a little bit of meaning in your daily life that especially in a local community impact way has been super helpful for me personally.

Jeremy Schumacher: And I think for young professionals who are listening or for non-therapists who are listening, nobody knows what the f*** to say in that situation. I've been doing this for 16 years.

Hatie Parmeter: Yes. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: It never comes across to my clients that I don't know what to say cuz I end up saying something. But if you asked me ahead of time what I was going to say, I probably couldn't tell you. a lot of it is just showing up as a human.

Jeremy Schumacher: And I had one of my dogs was good citizen certified. So that level right under therapy dog. And going someplace where there's a community event or taking them out for a mental health reason people they just want to connect.

Jeremy Schumacher: They want to pet a dog. They want to talk to a human. They want to process out loud what they've experienced. they're not looking for answers. They're looking to be grounded in some way.

Hatie Parmeter: Yes. Just to be heard.

Hatie Parmeter: Absolutely. I should mention too the disaster action thing that I just mentioned, you're not trained in mental health for that.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: I happen to be going into that career, but these are just random people who are I would like to help and I would like to show up to this. I have yet to meet anyone in this part of the Red Cross that is mental health trained, but we're showing up and we're doing this anyway. So, there's all kinds of ways to show up and to support people. And as mental health providers, sometimes it is hard to shut that part off.  It's just like I spent 15 years in the marketing industry as a writer and editor and I have friends who are writers who cannot read books for fun because they can't shut their brain off. They can't turn off that part. So when you're working with humans that's really hard to be like okay I'm I'm not predicting things. I'm not like those thoughts you got to shut it down.

Hatie Parmeter: So sometimes your service part maybe needs to be very very different and…

Hatie Parmeter: maybe it's not even working with humans. Maybe there's not direct contact. Maybe there's some other way to be helpful in a way that will benefit you as well.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. and…

Jeremy Schumacher: longtime listeners know I societal collapse will improve most people's lives. So that's what we should be rooting for. but the idea of mutual aid,…

Jeremy Schumacher: the idea of community care, this is stuff that has existed throughout all of humanity. It's never been something where the government came in and did this. Would they fund it? Sure. They used to anyway. but no,…

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Mhm.  Yep.

Jeremy Schumacher: It was people showing up. It was volunteers through Red Cross. It was local community members. we know research around natural disasters is like community members show up for each other. people Capitalism is not our natural setting. Altruism is our natural setting.

Jeremy Schumacher: And so, I do think even expanding beyond some of this conversation of why going to a protest is important, volunteering at a food bank or donating food or any of those things while we're looking at SNAP benefits being cut. it does ground our own experience to see other minded people doing this and…

Jeremy Schumacher: to be reminded it's not all news headlines and doom and gloom. they're just real people out there. And I think like that matters.

00:30:00

Hatie Parmeter: Absolutely. I'm a hardcore crier.

Hatie Parmeter: That's something that I'm relearning about myself. and if there is any sort of community connection going on that sounds strange.

Jeremy Schumacher: Hang on. He had lost your mic.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Hardcore crier community connection.

Hatie Parmeter: 

Hatie Parmeter: All right. hardcore. Yes. So, if I'm in a protest, I'm crying because everyone around me is connecting and the community and the empowerment and I'm not alone and we are not alone. I'm crying. If I'm watching my neighbor, he is the girls basketball coach at the high school.  If I'm watching the basketball team, I might have sunglasses on because if everyone is cheering for someone, I'm crying. It is mortifying. my poor therapist is like, "Hey, it's just crying. It's not like what is so upsetting about this to you?" And I'm like, Marcus, I don't know, but when there is connection, I will be crying.

Hatie Parmeter: It's interesting that it is so visible when I'm having a meaningful experience because I cannot hide it. And I wonder what it's like to not be quite so visibly emotive when you are in a situation like that because I'm over here just like I'm sorry I'm such a weirdo.

Jeremy Schumacher: I'm reminded I don't know I don't know…

Jeremy Schumacher: what brand of neurode divergent you are. so some of my experience as a late diagnosed autistic person is I'm on the side of the spectrum and…

Hatie Parmeter: ADHD all day, baby.  Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: it's not a linear I'm on the sphere over here side of pretty low emotions like I'm a chill person but my affect is somewhat naturally flat.

Jeremy Schumacher: Not that I don't feel feelings but I don't feel them very big, which is great for a therapist…

Jeremy Schumacher: because I come across as very chill sort of collected person. And I've learned in my older age here that it's just because I'm autistic, not because I'm a good therapist. but then there's this other piece that's been weird for me to learn about as I work with a lot of other late diagnosed folks the highly sensitive folks is like this whole other world for me…

Hatie Parmeter: Totally.

Jeremy Schumacher: because that's not ever been my experience. And so it is interesting and as a not cryer I always think it's really lovely that people can be so emotive because that doesn't feel particularly approachable for me.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.  Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah, the nerd divergence is so fascinating. my I listened to I think it was maybe one of your recent episodes where a gal came on and talked about being diagnosed ADHD in their 40s and I was diagnosed two years ago and I so relate to learning about that it's not who you are, it's a part of you and how that has affected your experience. And as going into being a therapist, ADHD is a superpower for me in a lot of ways.

Hatie Parmeter: It's not the best. I won't say I wish I would have known about it, a while ago just so I could understand why I do some of the things I do. But one of the cool parts about it, I think, it seems like in a crisis, most people who have ADHD are incredible. stable, steady, chill,…

Hatie Parmeter: take care of things. That's supposedly why a lot of us are hardcore procrastinators because we need the adrenaline of getting the task done. And if there isn't a fast turnaround or whatever, that's part of it. Procrastination is my biggest problem as a person with ADHD by far.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. …

Hatie Parmeter: It is disgusting how much I procrastinate.

Jeremy Schumacher: and I think for a lot of ADHDers, that crisis is a lot of dopamine. we're highly stimulated in that moment. And when our brain is well stimulated, our autopilot works pretty well actually. we can do things.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Mhm.

Jeremy Schumacher: And this is not everybody's experience, but I will say for ADHDers who have fast processing speed, like being able to sift through problem solving it can go really quickly when we're well stimulated.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: And so those high intensity situations, those crisis situations can be really good.

Jeremy Schumacher: And yeah, from my experience, even in grad school, I had a professor was like, "You should think about crisis counseling because you're just so calm." and again, it's like, why didn't you give me an autism assessment then? I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was 23 and figured out I was autistic my mid-30s. So, It's a journey we're all on. but yeah, I do think and shifting a little bit back to the climate, it is something that a lot of our clients bring up, but I think also deeply impacts us as therapists. here in Wisconsin, this summer wasn't as bad, but the summer before the smoke from the Canadian wildfires was so bad that even though we weren't facing some sort of direct loss of our environment, we couldn't participate in our environment.

00:35:00

Jeremy Schumacher: I have a partner and a kid who have asthma and that high-risk group could not go outdoors and so I think there is some existential dread and also even if you're not in a flood zone crisis kind of situation we are having to deal with these types of events more and more frequently.

Hatie Parmeter: It's interesting being in the Midwest when it comes to climate stuff because I think there's a lot of assumptions that the Midwest doesn't really get touched by any of this because we don't have hurricanes. We don't have, …

Hatie Parmeter: tsunamis. there are definitely wildfires. There have been a handful of wildfires in every summer forever. but yeah,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Heat.

Hatie Parmeter: the smoke and the direct impact ripples to us regardless. So, yeah, I think of the AI processing thing that's supposedly going to take from the Great Lakes that's being, considered that it's very hard to take on all of these concerns at once. I think that's one of the things that clients are definitely talking about of I don't even know…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: where to focus my attention and energy because I don't have any to share. I have to survive. I have to get through my day and I can't think about the climate right now.

Hatie Parmeter: I can't try to find ways to reduce my impact because I just need to get through my day. There's so much guilt and shame on all of that. I'm right there with you.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: And that might not be again like active crisis,…

Jeremy Schumacher: but we're living through a mass anyone who's paying attention, I don't want to be doom and gloom here. I'm going to be a little doom and gloom. we're living through a mass ex Yeah,…

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: The poly crisis.

Jeremy Schumacher: we're living through a mass extinction at the level of the dinosaurs dying out. this is a thing that is not like we can still wait till whatever future year to hit our climate marks. this is happening now and has been happening for a while. but I do think it's that overwhelm.

Jeremy Schumacher: I think some of that's by design in capitalism of the overwhelm of people feeling like they need to solve a systemic issue individually…

Hatie Parmeter: Yep.  Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: which we know is not possible. but that is where having some I think values aligned action. what book am I reading right now? It's not that radical. I'm drawing a blank on the author. I could barely remember the title. But it's sort of encouraging people to pick a thing whether it affects your local community or you're well informed in it or you like the people who are already running activism on it. As a religious trauma therapist, I say this to especially white people who have left religion other people have doing this work for a long time. You don't need to create your own activism. just join someone who's already doing the work.

Jeremy Schumacher: But yeah, it's usually not you need to recycle more, we need to stop the next drilling company from opening a new pipeline. that's the much wider issue. And I think when we can sort of focus on one thing instead of we need to solve all of them and…

Jeremy Schumacher: we need to be our best little green living tiny carbon footprint people like that's minuscule. We need to stop the Shell company from opening more pipelines. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: Absolutely. Because I live in a yurt,…

Hatie Parmeter: there are expectations with that from other people of " my gosh, are you off the grid?" I'm like, "No. I am 100% on the grid. I am far too on the grid. I just happen to live in a yurt. I don't even have a composting toilet.

Hatie Parmeter: You know what I mean? I think there's a very all or nothing attitude from a lot of people and I have it myself sometimes where I'm like, " my god, I used an aluminum can today. I am a terrible person." And it's like, homie, that's like nothing. Yes, it is helpful to reduce your personal waste and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

00:40:00

Hatie Parmeter: to take some of those steps. But that's a great way to go about it of kind of a single stream. This is a thing that I can try to do stuff about. Even if it's just be more aware of things, learn about things. That's important,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. …

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah, absolutely.

Jeremy Schumacher: and it's part of what brought me to CPA was it's this thing I care about. It's this thing that I know other people know a lot more about than I do. And whatever despair I'm feeling if I connect with people who are doing the work are more involved in it. I will feel less overwhelmed by it. And I think that's good for therapists. have your consult group, have your professional.

Jeremy Schumacher: Don't just have your professional whatever lensure you are and your default one conference every other year. I did that for a lot of my career. I'm speaking from experience. that doesn't help.

Jeremy Schumacher: Having people who you actually vibe with and are ethically aligned with is what helps. but yeah, it's systemic issues are going to take systemic change. And how to participate in systemic change is to join a healthy system. Yeah. Which I think,…

Hatie Parmeter: Absolutely. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: Or create one if you have to.

Jeremy Schumacher: again, I'm wary of that. not that I'm opposed to the revolutionaries. I support you. And I'm wary of newcomer to climate change needing to reinvent the wheel.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: No, no, no. They're indigenous folks. There's people who have been in this activist space for a long, long time. If you're naturally gifted and love spreadsheets and want to organize something in a different way, awesome.

Jeremy Schumacher: because a lot of my experience around activism is we like the big ideas and…

Hatie Parmeter: Somebody has to. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: not the spreadsheets necessarily. but yeah, no I think it is like that connection idea again we need to connect. especially for the poly crisis that is climate change, latest stage capitalism, a rise in fascism, all the fun things. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: All the things,…

Jeremy Schumacher: so we've learned you're not off the grid and you also have anxiety in spite of being a yoga instructor. what do you do for self-care? How do you take care of yourself?  Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: 

Hatie Parmeter: I have a therapist. I see him regularly. I walk my dog all the time. I am incredibly lucky that I happen to land in a physical place where my neighbor who lives half a mile diagonally from me is wonderful and has become my best friend. So, we walk our dogs together every day and that it's my sort of offload time of it's the end of my workday. I work from home. I have for way longer the pandemic and…

Hatie Parmeter: it is helpful to have a little transition time. If you don't have a commute, it can be very hard to get out of that mindset. So, that's kind of little turn my brain off time.

Jeremy Schumacher: for sure.

Hatie Parmeter: Of course, because I'm still in grad school, I don't actually get to turn my brain off after we do that walk at 5:00 PM…

Jeremy Schumacher: And you have ADHD,…

Hatie Parmeter: because I then have to come home and study. But, my, absolutely not.

Jeremy Schumacher: so your brain doesn't ever turn off.

Hatie Parmeter: I have really enjoyed the yoga studio, one of them that I teach for, asked me if I would like to lead 15inute meditations every week. six or eight months ago. And at first I was kind of like, wait, me for reals? are you sure? Cuz because of the ADHD and the anxiety, I'm like, my gosh, that's crazy. And the more I've done it, the more comfortable I've gotten with kind of recognizing if there's a little poem that I hear that speaks to me and I want to share it. I am a human living in this time and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.  Yeah. Mhm.

Hatie Parmeter: the things around me are affecting me and they are also affecting my clients, my students. And so I've gained a lot of comfortability and confidence personally through leading meditations because I'm connecting and I'm facilitating connection through that. So that is a form of self-care for me is I would not say I plan the meditations. I wake up 15 minutes before it starts and then something happens in my brain and I make it happen. But facilitating that has been a form of self-care which is interesting. I love yoga nidra. Are you familiar with that? Yeah. So that yoga nudra is a kind of hypnis It kind of talks to your bilateral systems and…

00:45:00

Hatie Parmeter: gets your brain and your nervous system into one place. And it works really well for me. when I was working 80 hour weeks, I would do yoga nidra on my lunch break in my car and that is how I got through. so that's definitely I would say when I'm really struggling I will do a ninja practice whether it's 20 minutes or…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: whatever and that is a life changer for me.  Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. tiny little aside here, but you talking about having that download time is important. I do think therapists who are work from home, I think anyone who's work from home, it's sort of like the doorway method going through a doorway provides your brain with new stimulation. which may not be a good thing, but taking some of those intentional breaks I do think are important.

Jeremy Schumacher: letting your brain and your body experience a shift together instead of just doing it intellectually I think is really great. what sort of as a new professional in the fields and having this idea of how you want to work but that not being one of the maybe I'm going to say more formalized versions of work. you're not planning to open your own practice in an office. what does it look like for you? What's sort of the vision for the future of

Jeremy Schumacher: how you're going to meet clients and how you want to serve the community that you want to work with?

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah, I think I'm going to have to do a private practice,…

Hatie Parmeter: but I'm hoping to We have a cute little historic downtown and I'm hoping to be able There's a little group of friends that I have, many of whom are much more financially well off than I am, so they have resources where we want to kind of create a little office space that people can have access to a working space to some degree…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: but with some private space and I'll probably be working out of that and it'll be a combination of serving my local community because we have a unbelievable lack of mental health services in my county. It's abysmal. the biggest town in my county I think is like 4,000 people and that's the county seat. So we just don't have the resources. So, I'll be doing that locally, hopefully, sliding scale, figuring out ways to provide for people who don't have access as well as people who do have the funds to pay some of the take on some of the load from others,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Mhm. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: if you will. and then I love to do group for people who have experienced outdoor trauma.  So whether that's like I was camping with my dad and there was a bear attack and now I'm afraid to go back outside or I did a body recovery as an avalanche professional and I just physically cannot get over that. plus psycho education. So the training I led for the camp, I would really love to do pre-season trainings for outfitters and guides to be able to give those resources and those tools.

Hatie Parmeter: It's a great combination of why are people reacting in this way? How does the nervous system work at a very high level plus here's how to help someone get grounded in a panic attack? Or what can you say when someone admits on day four of a backcountry trip that their dad just killed himself?

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: What do you say in that situation? So that's the dream. I see it coming true. I'm actually getting to the point where I'm like, "No, I'm going to make this happen for reals." And that's pretty exciting.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big advocate for private practice. I think as a grad student myself years ago, I feel like something was really discouraged and since opening my own place, I've had no regret and just if I had any regret, it would be that I didn't do it earlier in my career.

Jeremy Schumacher: But it is one of those things too where being on team collapse I offer some limited slots for walk and talk therapy and I love that and…

Hatie Parmeter: Yes. Yes.

Jeremy Schumacher: I think it's great and it is harder to formalize it. It's harder to do something like a schedule and see my clients in office and go to a local park or I would love to do paddle board therapy in the summer here and I'm terrified of a client drowning. So, balancing those legality and…

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Heck yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: ethical concerns while trying to be like, hey, there are people who like this is what healing would look like for them. And having that as an option would be So, five years from now, we'll do another session and be like, "Hey, Lake Arbutus paddle board group, we're doing it."

Jeremy Schumacher: But yeah,…

Hatie Parmeter: My god. Amazing.

Jeremy Schumacher: no, I love that and I love some of the new young therapists. Part of what I like about networking and doing the podcast is getting to talk to people who are "Hey, yeah, I'm new to young to my career, but this is the population I already know…

00:50:00

Jeremy Schumacher: who I want to work with and this is how I'm going to serve them." And that's so cool. That is not how I came out of grad school at all. I was like, " I need to work for an agency or I'll be poor forever." And then I worked for an agency and was still poor. And what a shock that was. and then you burn out and then Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah, some of I'm very old as a grad student in this field.

Hatie Parmeter: I am 10 plus years older than most of my fellow students. Some of them will answer assignment questions with one of my fellow students replied to a discussion question in a professional context with the word And I sat there and was like,…

Hatie Parmeter: what is happening? I'm definitely like I've lived my whole life to get here and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: so it makes sense that I'm a much more situated and knowing what I want and I have the business experience too. So, a lot of people are afraid of that part of private practice of taxes and administrative stuff.

Jeremy Schumacher: Mhm. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: And I have no issue with that. I've already done that for, years. So, I'm ready.

Jeremy Schumacher: And I'm ADHD as two ADHDers here, too. there's lots of tools and ways that have simplified that maybe when I came out of grad school maybe weren't as good as they are now.

Hatie Parmeter: Yes. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: But that was something that held me up a lot and it really doesn't matter. I mean everything's automated on my end is how I choose to. Not that everyone used to do it that way but it's not hard and…

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Absolutely.

Jeremy Schumacher: that isn't a reason to not do it.

Jeremy Schumacher: But yeah, I don't know that's sad about grad school and…

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Boy.

Jeremy Schumacher: also man some of the dumbest people I've ever met in my life I met in graduate school and they went on to get their PhDs. So, Im It's a weird nuance space to be like I'm wary of experts and…

Jeremy Schumacher: also expertise matters so that we're not just living off of what Facebook or AI tells us to do. And there's some not clever people who have lots of degrees.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: Those letters after your name may or may not mean anything at all. Mhm. Yeah,…

Jeremy Schumacher: humanity, it's being somebody who's worked with mental health for a long long time, humanity continues to be full of surprises. So that's fun at least. Doesn't get boring.

Hatie Parmeter: it's part of why I want to be here. Yeah, the novelty I think is a huge part of every single day is different and that's so important to me.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, for Haddie, I know you're not fully licensed yet, so maybe can't plug your own pluggables yet. Although once that happens, we'll swing back around and make sure to put people make people aware of that.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: But if people want to learn more about what you're doing, if people want to learn more about CPA, How do they connect with some of that stuff? Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: CPA Climate Psychology Alliance of North America, climate psychologyalliance. us, I think, is the website. We're actively redoing it, so ignore that for a month and then come back and it'll be really pretty. there's a lot of committees.

Jeremy Schumacher: I mean, There's a great new logo.  Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: 

Hatie Parmeter: Yes, thank you. there's a ton of committees that you can get involved in there. So that's awesome. if you're interested in volunteering, the Red Cross is a great place to start. There's a lot of other places to see what's in your community. personally, I teach yoga online as well as in person. So if you go to Room to Breathe, that is the yoga studio that I teach out of there in Chicago. And I'm teaching a yoga and journaling class on November 16th, which is super fun. We're very seasonal with our yoga and journaling. So, this will be about growing and grounding before we head into the holiday season and the dark months and all of that. So, as a writer, I really enjoy the yoga and journaling classes because I get to kind of bring that into my sematic space and…

Hatie Parmeter: I really love it.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, I love that.

Jeremy Schumacher: And someone who's new to CPA, but workshops,…

Jeremy Schumacher: climate cafes, trainings for non-therapist, again, yes, yes, you can volunteer and yes, if you just want to show up as a learner, there's lots of opportunity for that, too. Yeah,…

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah, absolutely.

Hatie Parmeter: We've got a couple of classes left throughout the year. We're hoping to have one on November 6 that's breath, body, mind. It's kind of a sematic approach to some kind of traumainformed sematic stuff. So, that'll be exciting.

Jeremy Schumacher: very cool. That's probably when this episode will go up. So, quick turnaround on that if you're interested. but yeah, it's good. And again, I think finding that community is really helpful.

Jeremy Schumacher: So big shout out to people who are already doing the work and to other professionals who are listening. finding those communities that are aligned really makes a world of difference compared to your every other year conference. Again, I think that's what too many of us as therapists do.

00:55:00

Jeremy Schumacher: It's not a good return on investment.

Hatie Parmeter: Yeah. And…

Hatie Parmeter: if going to one a year is all you have the energy and…

Hatie Parmeter: finances for, that is totally okay. But if you have,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yep. Yeah.

Hatie Parmeter: the bandwidth to do it a little differently, there are other benefits to glean that way.

Jeremy Schumacher: Part of the podcast networking, we're doing it like real professionals.

Jeremy Schumacher: Haddie, this has been awesome.

Jeremy Schumacher: Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us today.

Hatie Parmeter: You're very welcome.

Hatie Parmeter: Thank you. I enjoy listening.

Jeremy Schumacher: And to all our wonderful listeners, thanks for tuning in again. We'll be back next week with another new episode. Take care, everyone.

Meeting ended after 00:55:55 👋

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