SPECIAL REPLAY! S1E7 with Brittaney Latta, LMFC - The Courage to Heal

This week, I’m bringing back one of the most vulnerable conversations we’ve  had on the JUST DO YOU. podcast. 

In this special replay, formerly titled Anxiety, Trauma and Loss, therapist Brittaney Latta, LMFT joins me for an honest and heartfelt discussion about grief, anxiety, trauma, and loss—and why healing requires us to face the hard things rather than avoid them.

Brittaney is a compassionate but no-nonsense therapist who helps people work through life’s most difficult experiences. In this episode, she also shares her own powerful journey as a survivor of child abuse, domestic violence, and sexual assault.

She speaks openly about her path to healing, her experience coming out as a bisexual, polyamorous person, and how choosing to live authentically has shaped both her life and her work.

After years of personal growth, education, and professional practice, Brittaney now dedicates her life to helping others find peace, empowerment, and authenticity through therapy.

Her story—and her work—beautifully reflect the spirit of JUST DO YOU.

Learn more about Brittaney and her therapy services:
https://www.instagram.com/brittaneydoestherapy/

Thank you for joining us and we can't wait to welcome you back again next week! New episodes drop every Thursday and can be found wherever you find your favorite podcasts!  

Remember to like, rate, share and subscribe to the JUST DO YOU. podcast in order to receive our weekly episode updates!  If you like what you hear, please leave us a review at Apple Podcasts!

To follow us on Instagram, visit: https://www.instagram.com/justdoyoupod/

Want to learn more about our host, Eric Nicoll?  Visit:  https://ericnicoll.com

Transcript

0:06

Hello everyone, and welcome to Season 3 of the Just Do You Podcast. I'm Eric Nicoll, your host, and I'm so glad you decided to join us today. Whether this is your very first time joining in on the conversation or you've been listening along since the beginning, thank you for being here. This podcast exists because of you. Your stories, your courage and your willingness to keep choosing yourself even when it's not easy. The Just To You Podcast is a safe space for authentic, unscripted conversations that connect us, inspire us, and remind us of who we are at our core. Together we're gonna explore confidence, voice, truth, and what it means to step fully into what I call the just do you sweet spot, that place where you are living honestly, intentionally and unapologetically. This new season is about growth, reflection. Possibility in community. I'll be sitting down with friends, colleagues, community leaders, and influencers who are willing to share their journeys, the wins, the challenges, and everything in between. We'll laugh. We may shed a few tears, but in the end, we're gonna continue to remind one another that none of us is walking this path alone. So are you ready? Great. Let's do this. Welcome to Season 3 of the Just Do You Podcast. I am so excited to welcome you to tonight's episode. I am thrilled to be joined by a good friend, Brittany Latta. Hi, Brittany. Hi. It's so great to be here. Thanks for joining me tonight. I'm really excited about our conversation. You and I have known each other for a little under a year, I think. Feels like a long time. I felt like I knew you forever when I met you and I'm really excited to have you on tonight. For those of you who are listening, Britney is a licensed psychotherapist and I was really interested in talking with Brittany tonight about loss and the importance of working through the stages of loss and grief and the importance of working with someone who can help guide you through those steps for me personally many years ago. I didn't work through some of those processes with a loss in our family and I realized the detriment to that now. So I'm excited to have you here. Brittany was interesting in your bio you said that you specialize in working with people who don't live by traditional social norms and those who experienced trauma and anxiety. We're going to get into that conversation about loss in a little bit but tell me what that means by traditional norms and a little bit of background about you. Yeah. So traditional social norms, people that don't fit into that box. I like to Describe those people as queer people, LGBT people, polyamorous people, kinky people. I've worked with people in recovery and addiction and people that were former gang members just anyone that walks a lifestyle that isn't the stereotypical heteronormative nine to five. Husband and wife, raising kids going to church. So that population that really has a lot of shame to work through and learning how to love themselves and all that fun stuff. I feel like I've always really created a place to. To make everyone feel really normal. Yeah. It's interesting. You use the word shame and it's interesting how that word has come up quite a bit in a lot of the conversations that I have with my LGBTQ And I'm just finding that really interesting because we do grow up with some of that shame and that's probably another podcast all in of its own. But have you, did you always know you wanted to be a therapist? Was that something that you had aspirations to do or did that come later? I want to say like at some point when I was young I was, I grew up in a household with violence and alcohol abuse. And so I knew that I wanted to help kids that had gone through what I had gone through. We had DCFS come to the house several times and I just remember them. Kind of like laughing in the living room with my parents and not taking everything seriously and just being manipulated on what was happening. And so I remember at that point being like, Oh, I want to make a difference in kids lives and like protecting kids. And then as time went on and I went to college I just really thrived in my psychology classes and meds cause it was like turn and burn. So I really wanted to get to know people. And really help them with their struggles and I don't know, just also have been naturally good at it. So that's how that career developed. How old were you? If you don't mind me asking when that was happening with DFS and all that. I was in high school. So those are your teenagers. Yeah. Teenage years. I grew up with mom and stepdad most of the time. My dad lived in Texas and I would visit every summer, but with my mom, my stepdad definitely had anger issues. And so I became the scapegoat and that started to change around 12 years old where I was experiencing emotional abuse and like a lot of name calling, a lot of slut shaming, just stuff like that. A lot of control issues. And then when I turned 14 is when things started to get physical. And then finally at 16 is where it ended when my mom finally left him. It's I just keep using the word interesting and I have to find another word for that. Maybe that's a good word. I like to use that word. I think that's probably where I picked it up. It's interesting to me, because if you look at, I talk a lot on the podcast episodes and we tend to go back to our childhood and a lot of the conversations that we have because let's face it, that's where this all starts, right? That's where it all starts in childhood. And the trauma that we experienced back then, whether it's abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, mental abuse, whatever type of abuse that is, loss in any form, whether it's, a death of a parent or a loss of a parent or sibling, that really does shape us into this mindset. You made that decision that you wanted to help kids because of what you had experienced. And I remember saying when my parents went through the divorce, which You know, this wasn't necessarily the, June Cleaver kind of divorce. It was amicable, but I remember growing up with that sense of loss, that feeling of loss. My dad wasn't around that much and had remarried. And I was alone. always afraid of leaving my mom and going to my dad and stepmom's house because I was afraid she'd, not be there. And that's a whole other, again, episode and podcast. But I remember saying to myself that I wanted to, at some point help kids also interesting was why I said that was understand that, they're okay. It's okay. It's not about you. And I remember thinking at a very early age that I was going to be, believe it or not, a psychologist. And of course I you're podcast host, which is similar. Now Im the podcast host. Host, similar. I was gonna say similar, but I've taken a circuitous route. So you obviously went to college got this degree. Yep. Lots of school and did lots of schooling. Lots School of Schooling. How many years does it usually take? Yeah, I had a, I had to get a master's degree. So master's degree is about two years, two undergrad is about four, so yeah, about six, six and a half altogether. And does it still come with all those hours that you have to get in clinic and all that? And then you have hours on top of that. So once you graduate with a master's degree, you still have to collect about 3000 hours altogether to become eligible to take your licensing exam. So that took me about another two years, which is actually really quick. Most people take longer to get their hours, but I was working in community mental health, actually got a scholarship to work at this agency because it was such a high need area. I don't know if you know anything about LA, but I worked in Palmdale. And so a lot of Palmdale is very low socioeconomic status and their booming industry is foster care. So they have a lot of need. Yeah. A lot of me. And so I worked there and was very busy. So I got my hours very fast, but I saw probably some of the most intense traumas working there. I worked alongside like social workers. A lot of the kids were in foster care that I saw kids and teens and then working with families and like the foster families and how they adapt with children. Trauma has been. a part of my life since I was young and then it's followed me in my career and I think like It makes the most sense for us to have experienced something as therapists and to then be able to help people that have also experienced similar things. Cause we don't just have the school knowledge. We also have the personal knowledge and like how we've worked through it or not worked through it, and talking about like loss, like with trauma comes a lot of loss, right? Because these people that you're supposed to trust, especially when you're a child, right? Child abuse. These people that you're supposed to trust. Are the people that abandoned you and they inevitably hurt you in the end, and the effects that has on people. Do you find that empathy plays a role in being a therapist, or is that difficult to be empathic? And is it more clinical, if that makes sense, in dealing with your patients? Because I know for me, and I guess a better way of asking the question would be something to the effect of, how do you protect your inner Energy, your own energy and dealing with your own kind of journey when you are faced with dealing with some trauma and loss like that in someone else. Yeah. Empathy is definitely needed. You definitely need empathy in this job. If you have a therapist that doesn't have empathy, I would be nervous. I think maybe they would be more like psychiatrists. No offense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love psychiatrists though. Definitely. Me too. Me too. I take antidepressants. They're great. But on the other hand, there, there has been like boundaries I've had to learn. In my career and how to take care of myself because it is really to have what we call a compassion fatigue and burnout. And so we can be caring so much that suddenly we just get really numb and we can't really feel anymore. And so as I've now entered the world of private practice, I've gotten to be a lot more picky and choosy with my clients. And so I know the clients that are the most triggering for me and the most draining for me. And I get to refer them out to other people. So that I can keep that energy going. So talking about loss suicide is one of the things that I'm really good at. I have worked alongside a lot of. Clients that have struggled with suicide have been on the edge and I've helped them come back. But my own personal journey, I lost my brother from suicide. And since that happened, I just working with suicide has never been the same. My anxiety just goes through the roof now. Not that like I can't do it, but it takes a lot more out of me. Sure. You're human. Yeah. Brittany. First and foremost, you're a human being and we're a sister, right? And we're a family member. So let's talk for a second about, cause I think this is something that, that I'm really fascinated on because again, I've been through my own loss growing up, obviously in multiple forms. I don't deal well with loss. I lost my grandparents. I haven't had a lot of death loss in my family. I lost all my grandparents. Not very young at a, at an older age, still. Horribly traumatic and awful and I miss them dearly, but again, you deal with that in a little bit different way But I didn't really deal with it a lot. So when you have lost like that, why is it important to? Work through the process or the stages of loss and grief And is there this may sound like a weird question, but is there the right time? To deal with that. Is it right in the moment? In the moment, not necessarily that moment, but in the soon after moments of that loss, is it important to really get a handle on it? Or does it matter? I feel like that is probably a case by case basis. I'm an advocate for therapy always. So it's always the right time for therapy. Now there is an idea around how much people are willing to actually dive deep. I don't know, I guess that depends on person to person. I'm going to say it's people should always do, especially after loss. I am a person that did not after my brother passed. So I got to experience what it was like not dealing with it. And. Probably as you did as well, right? There are a lot of different symptomologies that come up from it. I think one thing people don't realize is that grief is also trauma, right? And that's something that people talk about very separately, that grief is grief and trauma is trauma. Okay. Talk about that. Cause I think this is the point that I was trying to make earlier on. So talk about that for a minute. So grief. Okay. Let me say that one more time. So people talk about grief being grief and trauma being trauma and two different boxes, but grief is trauma, right? So the thing that we know about trauma that's been studied is that it changes our brain. It changes our DNA. So what is the definition of trauma, right? It's when something significant happens in your life and then it changes you afterwards. Let me ask you a question. Do you remember what you had for lunch? What is today? Last Friday? No. And so like with our memories, we tend to forget things that are trivial and aren't really a big deal. But if I were to ask you about your grandparents passing, you probably would be able to tell me a lot of big detail. So that is the difference between trauma and just something bad happened to us. Got it. It's significant and though different types of traumas affect us in different ways, same thing with grief, the way someone dies and who dies affects us in different ways. Sure. Someone that's like your grandparents, from my understanding, grandparents are very near and dear to you. Oh, my grandmother was one of my best friends. Absolutely. Absolutely. And she passed as with complications of Alzheimer's. So that whole last year it was difficult to watch because she obviously wasn't the person that we all knew. Although there were glimmering moments, there were glimmering moments of her in there in those moments and in those subtle little things that, that we noticed there towards the end. But yeah, she was my best friend. Yeah. And so something like that where it's Alzheimer's, like you are the one probably experiencing more pain than her, right? Because her brain goes offline at some point, but yours doesn't. And so you see that regression and that is traumatic in itself, right? It's a long process. Yeah, can I share a fun little story about her though? Yeah, so so obviously it was just gut wrenching to lose her right and my grandparents passed separately Obviously my grandfather passed first and then my grandmother passed later but my grandmother loved hummingbirds and at her Memorial, which was at the house as an event producer, I, of course, put together the memorial and she's the one who taught me how to do parties. Because she was an amazing, although she couldn't cook, she was a great party thrower. She couldn't cook. She hired out, which is now what I do. That was passed down genetically to you. Genetically. Yes. I, we hire out, but so it was outdoors and She loved hummingbirds and she had this beautiful kitchen window and the hummingbirds would always come out to the feeder. And during the service memorial at the house, which is out in the backyard, this hummingbird came and sat and, hummingbirds don't come and sit for very long. And this hummingbird came and sat on a branch over the table where people were getting up and talking about her. And there was a beautiful centerpiece and a picture. And we all remember talking about that hummingbird, like how interesting that was that hummingbird came and sat the entire time. Can I tell you? But that hummingbird has followed me to four different cities and four different houses. Everywhere I go, I always experience this hummingbird that comes and hovers in my window. And nobody believed me until living in Palm Springs in the desert of all places. And this hummingbird would come join me every morning. So I knew she was around and staying with me. But there was that moment when I realized that the grief and the loss that I was experiencing with her was just because I missed her presence, right? I missed those moments of her and I watching Days of Our Lives together, of her and I, scraping apples together, of going to our house at the river. I missed the memory of her. And then when I started to see The Hummingbird and to experience those things, I was still sad and I was still just gutted that she wasn't with us, but I, those hummingbirds made me remember the good times. And so fortunately for me, and this was just my experience that although that loss trauma took a while to get over now, obviously as an adult, I look back and I remember all the good memories. So yeah. I've heard it said before that that, that loss and that trauma is obviously about us, not about the person who's no longer with us. I was going to actually say like one of my favorite reframes for grief and the pain that comes with grief is we can't have grief without love. And so that deep sadness that we feel is actually the depth of our love for somebody. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. That's a great. I love that because it makes it. And what'd you call it? You call it reframing. Reframe. Yep. Reframing. Do you use that a lot in your therapy? Reframing? Yes. Yes. 100%. I'm a, what we call like a CBT therapist. So I do a lot of work with thoughts and like the power of the mind and the power of thinking. Yeah. But yeah, I don't know. I I had another question I wanted to ask you though, about that story. It's so funny that your grandma was a hummingbird because my brother also comes in forms of birds. And so our family, when so my brother who passed, he was my half brother from my biological dad and my step mom. And so he was who I would see every summer. So he was always distant from me. So after his passing, that family really got together and they got to experience some things that I didn't, but they told me some of the stories from it. And so one of the things that they did is they had a medium come in and the medium shared with them that my brother was going to be communicating with them through animals and electricity. And so all of them have shared different stories of experiencing that. And they're not the only people I've heard that I've said stuff like sure. But for my family, they all see him as what is it a red Robin and I see him as a pelican. Oh, I love it. Is there a reason that you see him as a pelican? Oh my gosh. Yes. I can tell you the story. Okay. Tell me. As we were I was in Texas for the funeral and his passing and everyone's talking to me about all these stories that they've had where they've experienced him and like experienced like his spirit and I was having some just major bad luck. That trip just a lot of weird things that normally don't happen. He was happening to me and I was like, Hey, this is my brother messing with me. I don't know if we can curse on here This is my brother messing with me because I used to make fun of him for having gi joes And I would call him barbies and it was just like, you know teasing who's my younger brother. Or he is my younger brother and I yeah, so I was starting to get really upset I was like, okay, he's messing with me, but i'm not really getting this like Spiritual feeling that everyone's talking about. One of the last things him and I did together is we went jet skiing in the middle of winter when it was like raining on a lake. And so I did that trip went jet skiing on the lake and on the lake. There is this like island, this tiny little island that always has different birds that land there. And it's always like the group of the same type of bird. That trip, it was a bunch of pelicans. And so as I'm riding on my jet ski, these pelicans fly up and they just start circling around me. Like circling. And it was a spiritual moment. It was a spiritual feeling. That night his wife comes home and she had just gotten a tattoo and she got a tattoo of a pelican. Oh my god. Ha. Yeah. Did you know she was getting a tattoo? I think I knew she was going to tattoo, but not what, not the Pelican. Yeah. And so she told me the story about he bought her a Pelican after a fight that they had one time. And so that reminds her of him. And I was like, that's crazy. But my question to you with that is one of the theories I have, this is not like scientific research, just my own idea from experience is what we believe after death can also be. Something that brings us comfort, and so with that experience that you've had, what do you think happens after people die? Such an interesting conversation because I have this thought in my head that that I'll just paint the picture. I've had a lot of pets in my life. I've had a lot of dogs that I've loved, and a lot of family dogs that have obviously passed. And the only thing that gives me the only thing that gives me a sense of comfort with Luca now and getting older is that I will see her again someday. In that next life, after I'm gone, et cetera, et cetera, however you wanna frame that and believe it. And I just believe in for me that in some form we will see each other again. I don't know what that is. I don't think I want to put a label on that or a descriptor on it, but I've had a couple of experiences with mediums as well, and it's been pretty jaw dropping, right? And so I do believe that. Our loved ones are always with us. I do believe that, my, my beloved dog from childhood, Amy is still with me and with my beautiful Chelsea. I do believe that's what I believe. Again, I don't know what it looks like. I don't know where it is. I don't know. I just believe that we will all be together again at some point in our next life. Yeah. I yeah, the hummingbirds, an interesting concept though, because I find them like When, if there's no floral flowers and there's no nothing for them to eat, they're not here. Exactly. And living out in the desert, there's not a lot, it's a desert. And so I just had to laugh every morning when this hummingbird would show up at my window. Now, in retrospect, it was reflector, it was reflective. So I think it was looking at itself and think it was But I made the story that it was my grandma saying Good morning. But here's the funny question that I asked about. And I sat up there one morning and I thought. If they're always with us, are they watching everything you do? I hope they leave the room from time to time, the room, the B I don't know wherever we're at. I don't mean to make that awkward, but I thought, I'm not sure that I want that Humminbird watching everything that I do. Cause it is my grandmother. Privacy is necessary. Privacy is necessary. Definitely. It's interesting. I was thinking earlier before I hopped on with you. My 40th high school reunion is coming up, which I can't believe. And I lost, we lost, our class lost just an angel of a human being my best friend from high school. And he was taken from us way too early. in the 80s, 90s, I should say. And I remember all of us coming together, this group of friends that would hang out together. So was this after high school? Sorry, I'm really was, yes, I'm sorry. It was after high school. Actually I was He was four, 25 years old. So after college, and he had passed and unexpectedly, and I remember all of us coming together and sharing the stories of our experience of our friends and the times that we used to have, whether it was in band or it was in drama or it was in music. We even had a little kind of a little after club, if you will. It was like our after school club or after football club. And when. We obviously all moved on and became adults I still remember those days and I remember him through that moment and I remember the experiences that we had together, but losing that friend in that kind of timeframe was very different than losing my grandparents and yes, their family, he was my best friend, but are there different Levels of loss and grief in that, like you said, it does depend on the person, but do you find that? Yeah, I feel like 100 percent that goes with like the different types of trauma, right? The different types of way grief can hit you and affect you. And it's really common, like the younger people are, right? It's as people age, We understand that there is going to be a time and place that they die. And we are able, if we think about the five stages of grief we have shock slash denial. Then the second one is depression, then anger, bartering, then acceptance doesn't have to go in that order and it can move around all the time, but it is easier to get to acceptance When that person is older. And that is we think of processing grief or processing trauma when we can get through all the five stages, then we're processing in a healthy way. But when someone is really young and when they're taken suddenly and unexpectedly, we get stuck with a lot of different emotions that inhibit us from being able to get to acceptance. And so like with your friend, with my brother, like young people a lot of our family, and I don't know about you guys, but a lot of guilt. Had been held on to a lot of I could have done this. I could have done that. What if this, what if that, and then this idea of like, why, right? This unanswered why for me, I luckily have been able to get through both of those things, but I know a lot of. My family has not a lot of people don't understand why. Yeah. And they don't understand or they feel like they could have done more, right? What is, can you, cause again, I'm hoping that our listeners can relate and hopefully connect in multitude of ways through this conversation, but can you just briefly explain bargaining? Cause I don't understand that. What does that mean? Yeah. In the processes of grief and loss. Yeah. So bargaining is the idea of trying to do whatever you can to like, get that person back or have Some kind of contact with them. This is like really, it's a lot easier to see when you're going through a breakup because you are constantly back and forth. And so when it comes to losing somebody and someone's passed away, this can come out in a lot of different forms that you wouldn't expect. Yeah. So true. So true. On that note, I have a question. Yeah. And it seems as though through some of our conversations that we've had and coffee and stuff and just communicating that obviously working through these stages of grief is super important. Do you believe that you can complete with someone who's no longer with us? come to that completion stage of dealing with that after they're gone? Is that something that you feel is not only possible but it's important for you to move forward and to continue to go and to grow, to complete with someone, even if they're not here or accessible, but potentially you may lose contact with someone that type of loss and not be able to complete with them. Do you think that's important as well? So first I, I want to say I know what you mean by complete, but I don't know if other people are going to know what you mean by complete, but can you describe like what that is for you? Sure. Saying everything that's maybe necessarily or needed to be said. Maybe there was an incomplete fight or there was, you didn't end well and that in order to allow both of you to move on. It I believe that there is a need to be complete to say what's there to and again, even if they're not. present to for yourself to say what's there, get complete on your thoughts. Maybe if there's an apology to be made whatever the case may be, that's what I mean by completion. Yeah. In an ideal world, we would all get that experience, in an ideal world, we would all be able to say all the things we wanted to say to someone, but when it comes to a sudden death, there's so much unsaid. For me personally, like when my brother passed, I remember I didn't answer his last phone call, right? Like he was him and I would text and that was really easy to do. But I remember he called me and I was tired. I was up late the night before. And I never got to call him back, but I texted him back. And then. What was it like about a month and a half later is when he passed away. And so there was a lot of things that I didn't get to say. And the great part about healing is it doesn't need to come from someone else's response on to help us get through or help us process emotions. It has to do with how we view this situation. Okay, I'm going to stop you there. I want you to say that again. Okay oh my gosh, from which part? From the part of, it doesn't need to be in the presence of someone else. That's the part that I want people to hear, right? Because I think so many people struggle with that. I didn't get to see them face to face. I didn't get to say to them in their presence. So that's what I wanted you to say again, because I want people to hear that from the therapist standpoint. Yeah. So in order to be able to like process emotions and process. grief or trauma, like we don't have to say it to the person. We don't need to get a response from someone else. When someone has passed away, suddenly we won't get that opportunity. And if we lose a relationship because there was like harm and abuse, we're not going to get that from that other person either. If there's manipulation, it's not going to happen. In order to get to this point of like acceptance or completion, what you're talking about, it has to come from us. That response has to come from ourselves. And it does usually come in a reframe. So we have this idea in therapy called reprocessing, right? So we process emotions one way, the way we see it, the way we view it, the way we talk about it is in one direction. But when we go to therapy, we work on reprocessing. So we learn how to see it and view it in a different way that then can help us move through our emotions and not stay stuck in one emotion. Like I'll say when I went through the loss of my brother, I stayed in the shock phase and the anger phase for a really long time. And it started to come out in like panic attacks, anxiety, like phobia of driving, like just all these different things until I. Processed and reprocessed. And then I was fine. And it's been years. Like I do a ritual every time my brother's anniversary comes up. And that's actually in a couple of weeks and I write him a letter every single time. Every time I've written him a letter, it, it changes like what comes out. And I'm always having a conversation with him where I take a whole day to just be with him and the things that remind me of him. And this last year really is when I felt like the most acceptance. And I want to say like he passed and it wasn't that long ago, but like 2000. But it's, there's still been like a few years of being able to go through this this roller coaster of emotion. And it's amazing that like I, the last time I wrote to him, I just. I basically told him like, I get it. I understand like why you left I hate that you left, but I understand he was in the military like forever since he was 18, severe PTSD, severe bulging discs. So just sends so much pain mixed that with some substance use. And yeah, I just I finally came to that point of being like, okay you did what you had to do. You did what you had to do, even though I hate it. Yeah. I'm not mad at you for it anymore. I'm not mad at me for it anymore, especially being a therapist, right? And in a sense, and I hope I'm saying the right words but granting him that grace Transcribed That's a good word like compassion granting him that grace because we don't know what everyone goes through right and you as a therapist experience this on a daily basis in your practice you just get connected to what people are going through and some of the reasons I want to have this conversation with you because I think there's a lot of people out that are struggling with it. loss of many kinds, right? We've talked a lot about death, but we also talk about the loss of a friendship, the loss of a relationship, of a marriage, I dealt with that myself. And I started going through some interesting conversations with friends who were losing jobs and what we've all been through the last couple of years. And so I think to be able to give ourselves a little bit of grace, but then to also know that it's really important to get together and to talk and to have conversations. One of the things I talk about My premier episode is that it's so important to get connected and get it out of your head. My head is not always the safest place to be because it tells itself stories. So in getting it out, there's two things I want to say, and I want to say this one first because I don't want to forget. I always believe there's a Willy Wonka golden ticket in every conversation that I have with my guests. And you said something that literally gave me the chills when you said it. or goosebumps, I should say, not the chills, and you said that you, and I hope people will resonate with this and hear it, is that you, in order to process your grief and your loss and your trauma, you do not need to get a response from someone else. That to me is the golden ticket in this conversation because so many times, and myself included, In order to get completion, I have wanted the other person to say something, or I've wanted a response from them. And you may never get that. You may never hear the words that you want to hear. So for us to move on through our own grief, our own trauma, our own, breakdowns, our own loss, is that we have to be able to have that space. And I believe now more so than ever. After these last couple years that finding someone like you to talk to is so important. And I remember many years ago when I was younger, I remember sitting in the a therapist, psychologist, or yeah, psychologist's office. And this psychologist kept asking me why do you think you feel that way? And I remember saying to him, as a very precocious teenager, I don't know. But I think that's what my mom's paying you for is to help me figure it out. Help me. I love that. That was your first experience. Cause I love to tell people you're not going to get that from me. Every therapist is different, but I like to keep it super real. If I know something that you're not figuring out on your own, I'm going to assist you. But yeah, but that's quite frankly the reason why you're there. No offense to you, but it's yeah, that's why you went through to get your master's degree and your undergrad and got your 3000 hours of it's funny though, is every therapist is different. But there is an idea that is constantly taught to us while we're in grad school of You're not giving people advice. You're not giving people advice. You're a blank slate. You're not showing any emotion. You don't show your personality. There's a lot of these things that are taught to us that are not always helpful because it's taught to us from still like older generations. And as time goes on, we learn new things and No, people actually want to know about the therapist. personality and who they are as a person and like that helps them connect that helps them trust and then this idea of okay, you're not giving them advice. Like I'm not going to tell you what to do with your life, but I do have a lot of knowledge and expertise on certain subjects. So I'm going to share that with you. Sure. Sure. And also too, for me back then, I just really was looking for someone to tell me what I was already thinking and make that right. Does that make sense? I wanted to be right about the way that I felt about my parents divorce. I wanted to be right about it. And it wasn't until I actually went through some kind of development work and self and personal development work that I realized that was a story I was telling myself, right? I didn't need to hear that. I was telling myself that story. So I think having someone to talk and walk it through with is really important. And so what else I was going to say was how grateful I am, and I'm going to speak on behalf of the entire LGBTQ community in San Diego and wherever, cause you're now doing obviously your work online, which has opened up therapy to people all over the state of California. So there's a benefit to, to, to being able to find you. But I just want to say thank you for being who you are, you, and my experience of you online on your social media page on in life is somebody who exudes this, not only do you exude the just to you pathway, you're helping people find that for themselves. So I'm grateful to you and I know the community as well. And for the work that you're doing within the community, we have a lot of things to work through and we always will we're up against some pretty big loss, right? We as an LGBT, right? We're in gender and sexuality. We are people that experience loss and trauma. All the time, right? Just because of who we are, we're not even doing anything but existing and we have to experience it and we have to learn how to work through it. And something I've seen a lot is like this fear of abandonment that gets created from it, right? And we haven't processed that trauma. We haven't built up our self esteem, right? This fear of abandonment that other people are going to leave us. So we hold on super tight to anyone that comes by. And myself included, I've done that because of, some facts that have happened. Yes. And I think, again, I would love you to come back and talk about that at another episode. And I think at some point I'd love to have you come back and talk about boundaries. We teased about that earlier, but I think that's something that's a super hot topic right now. But I think as far as the community is concerned, I'm hopeful and I am standing in the place of empowerment that we will create a conversation that if we all just be ourselves, and we be our authentic selves, and we work through the things that we need to work through, whether it's with a therapist, whether it's through your guru, I don't care. who you work it through with. I just want you to work it through so you can come out the other side being confident, having great posture, knowing that who you are makes a difference, knowing that who you are is a viable part or a vital part of our world. And those are the conversations that I'm hoping come out of the podcast. I know you and I could talk forever, but I want to say thank you for joining me tonight and just giving us this brief. I'm going to give this brief kind of glimpse into your world. I want to thank you for your honesty and your vulnerability and sharing your story. I'm very clear that people will resonate with it. How do people find you? Brittany, if they're interested, I know there's a lot of people that are interested that just need to take that next step in finding a therapist. How do they have a conversation with you to see if it's a good fit? Yeah. So I have a couple of ways of being reached either my website, your therapy rooms with an S dot com. You can always schedule a time for us to chat on there, or you can follow me on Instagram, Brittany. does. therapy. And you can shoot me a DM and we can also schedule a time to chat through that. I encourage everybody to hop onto Brittany's Instagram page. I love, it's one of the first things I see in the morning when I wake up and I'm having my coffee is I go right to your page to see what you're up to. And I love that. I've been having a little bit more fun. of the last couple of months making some fun videos. Just do you. It's tattooed on my arm. Just do you. You're living it. Thank you. I always ask my guests one question before I close out the episode. You shared with us a little bit about going back into your past. If you could go back now to that young Brittany that very young Brittany, what would you tell her about her life now? About her life now? I would tell her that her life now is Everything she wanted it to be like, all of the hardship, all of the dreaming, all the planning as crazy as it sounds, and as crazy as those dreams were, like, keep doing it because you're going to get there. And you did, and you will continue to do brittany, thank you for being with us tonight. I am very grateful to know you and have you as a friend and I hope you'll come back and visit us again. Oh my gosh. Yes. Okay. Definitely. Sounds good. Thanks for being here. Thank you, Eric. Have a great week and remember to go out and make a connection with someone that you haven't talked to in a while and just reach out and say, Hey! All right, everyone. Thank you again for joining us on today's episode. I hope our conversation resonated with you like it did me, and I cannot wait to sit down with you all again next week. Remember to subscribe to the Just Do You Podcast on your favorite platform so you can make sure not to miss a new episode, which drop every Thursday. If you like what you hear, you could easily share the podcast and episode directly with your friends. And if you would rate us and leave us a review, we'd love to hear from you. You can also follow us on Instagram at Just Do You Pod, as you go out back into the world today remember to JUST DO YOU! Alright, talk next week.