When Depression is in your bed

Staying Out of the Stories: Transform Relationship Conflicts Using this Top Skill

• Trish Sanders, LCSW • Season 1 • Episode 25

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Discover the relationship-transforming power of "staying out of your stories" - a skill that can fundamentally change how you navigate conflicts with your partner. This episode reveals how our nervous systems create automatic narratives during tense moments that feel absolutely true but often lead us astray.

When conflict emerges, our brains instantly attach meaning to what's happening, creating stories that feel justified and accurate. But these narratives are heavily influenced by our current nervous system state, past experiences, and limited information. By recognizing when you're deep in these stories without either believing them fully or trying to suppress them, you create space for genuine understanding.

Through a candid personal example about a near-disastrous anniversary celebration, Trish shares how this technique saved what could have become a day-ruining argument. You'll learn how thoughts like "we're going to end up divorced" or "they never listen" are actually signals of dysregulation rather than reality - like objects in a side-view mirror that "may be less accurate than they appear."

This approach doesn't ask you to invalidate your feelings or thoughts. Instead, it invites you to recognize them as products of your nervous system's protective response while creating space for regulation. Once regulated, entirely new possibilities for connection and resolution become available that simply can't be accessed when consumed by reactive narratives.

Whether dealing with communication breakdowns, parenting disagreements, or recurring arguments, this practical skill opens doors to the conscious partnership you desire. Ready to transform conflicts into opportunities for deeper understanding? This episode offers a roadmap to getting there, one regulated conversation at a time.

- If you and your partner are ready to co-create the roadmap to the relationship of your dreams, join us for the next in-person "Getting the Love You Want" Weekend Couples Retreat!

For support in how to have deeper connections and better communication in the relationships that matter most in your life, follow the host, Trish Sanders on Instagram , Bluesky or LinkedIn.

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to the when Depression is in your Bed podcast. Are you interested in learning one of the most helpful relationship skills that can be used in just about any conflict you may have with your partner? Would you like to see how using this transformative technique can help you and your partner find solutions that had previously been totally invisible? If you're ready to grow into having a conscious partnership in which you can make choices that can truly transform your relationship into what you desire and deserve, join me today. I'm your host, trish Sanders, and I am delighted that you are here. Let's get started. I am so excited for this episode today because I will be sharing a skill that I have been using really only in this exact way, or at least thinking about it in this particular conscious way, for the last couple of years, but it has been one of the most helpful and most transformative tools that I have used in my own personal relationship, and I think I have been using this skill for many, many years actually, but the way I've come to think about it and therefore how I've been able to consciously choose to use it, has shifted. So I'm so excited to be talking with you about this today, because you, too, may already be using this skill, and if you start to think about what you're doing and really what's underlying the experience, it will have an even greater impact on your relationship and it will go that much further in actually creating transformation in your relationship. So, without further ado, I'm going to start talking about what I refer to, or what I think about, as staying out of your stories. I talked about it in the last episode and I talked about it specific to the dynamic of the disappointed and the disappointment in relationship and some of the common stories that can come up in that dynamic. So if you're interested in hearing more about that, then definitely tune into the last episode. But today I'm going to talk about staying out of your stories in a more broad sense and how to use this tool in a conscious way. And I talk about conscious relationships and I've talked about it before.

Speaker 1:

But just a quick recap for today being in a conscious partnership, or being a conscious partner, means that you have a level of awareness about what you're choosing to do. So when something happens, when you're in a conflict with your partner, you look at the conflict, what is happening for you, what your needs are, what state your nervous system is in and also looking at your partner and what their needs are and what their nervous system state is, and then kind of assessing the whole thing and saying what is the most helpful action right now. That really supports me being in alignment with who I am and also contributing to an environment in which the relationship I want can be possible and where I have the best chance of getting my needs met in a good enough way and my partner also has the best chance of getting their needs met in a good enough way. So this doesn't mean you're guaranteed that all of your needs and all of your partner's needs are going to be met exactly the way you want them to be and in the time frame that you want them to be met. It doesn't work quite like that, but it is really paving the path towards the relationship that you want to have, because many of us certainly myself for very many years, as much as I tried to be conscious many of us are living very unconsciously and what's really guiding our decisions is actually our survival techniques, what we learned in childhood, how we emotionally protected ourselves, and it's really wonderful that our nervous system and our brain has these automatic techniques because it does in fact help us when we're kids, when we're not developed cognitively and emotionally and psychologically and physically and we don't have all of these options and we don't also have a lot of power as kids either.

Speaker 1:

And so it's great that we have these techniques that help us in our childhood. But what we automatically do to help us get through, get by when we're young, we often carry with us into our adult life and we react in our adult life and in our adult relationship from that same unconscious place, that self-protective, automatic reaction, becoming conscious moves, being reactive to being responsive. So the idea of staying out of stories is a way of being responsive, a way to respond to a situation in a way that actually helps things get better. So what do I mean when I talk about staying out of the stories?

Speaker 1:

What happens in all of us is that our nervous system actually receives a cue, a cue of danger or a cue of safety. Probably many cues of safety and many cues of danger actually are present in different ways, all the time actually. But our nervous system receives cues from the environment, from our own internal body, what's happening inside of us and also between nervous systems, or another way of saying, that is, in relationships, so between your nervous system and your partner's nervous system or any other nervous systems that are around you actually, and your nervous system is always assessing these cues Is this a cue of danger, is this a cue of safety? And its job is to figure that out and when the cues of danger outweigh the cues of safety present. It's not a numbers thing like you have to have more cues of safety, but they actually have to be weightier, and so sometimes the scales shift and our nervous system determines that our cues of danger are outweighing our cues of safety that are present in any given moment, and when that happens, it sends a message right out to our brain and it says danger, danger. We need to protect ourselves.

Speaker 1:

And thank goodness this happens because in a life or death situation or in a physical threat situation, these processes happen extremely quickly, and it's excellent that we have the ability to react and we jump into our fight or flight survival mode. Or we go into our freeze response, our shutdown response, or we go into our freeze response. Our shutdown response, our fight or flight response, is our sympathetic response, and that freeze collapse, withdraw, is when our nervous system is in our dorsal state. This all happens so very quickly, and it also happens below thought. It's not unconscious, it's non-conscious, it doesn't involve our thinking brain at all. It is our sensory body experience and what our nervous system is receiving. And so all of this gets sent up to the brain.

Speaker 1:

And then our brain loves stories, and so very, very quickly it creates a narrative, an interpretation. It attaches meaning oh, if this thing is happening, that must mean dot, dot, dot. We don't choose the stories. They just get tacked on automatically to whatever our nervous system experience is. And most of us I know this is true for me for sure we live believing our stories, and that's very easy to do because they're the thoughts that we're having in our head. So if we're having a thought in our own mind, it seems like we should probably believe it. However, they're not always accurate. As a matter of fact, they're often not accurate because the narratives that we attach to our current, present situation, whatever's happening in this moment, the stories that we attach, the narratives that we have about what's going on right now, are impacted by many, many other things in addition to whatever the events are of any given moment. So, if you think about in a relationship with your partner. If you have a conflict or a problem or you're frustrated with your partner or something like that, there's all the things that are happening in that present moment that are contributing to that experience. The state of your nervous system in that moment is contributing to your interpretation. Are you a little bit on edge? Did you have a stressful day or are you in a really positive place? Did you have a really relaxing, nourishing day and you feel really grounded and calm? That will affect the story that you create. Also, you can look at if you're feeling hungry or tired or you have a lot of things on your to-do list. Those are more things that are happening in the current moment that are actually going to directly impact the story that you attach.

Speaker 1:

And I've talked about this in the past. I've always called it depression goggles. When I'm depressed, I have on these goggles that color the world that I see. At this point I still refer to them as depression goggles, but I could also say dorsal goggles, because that's the same nervous system state. When I have on my depression goggles, the world looks very bleak, very gray, and my stories follow suit. And when I have on my sympathetic goggles or my fight or flight goggles or my anxiety goggles. That is a different lens that colors my world differently and will also affect the interpretation that I'm making in any given moment.

Speaker 1:

Also, in the current moment, I have a certain level of knowledge or awareness what's happening for me, what's happening for my partner, what is my partner really thinking or wanting or desiring? And so there's information that I don't know or is limited, or I might think I know. I also have this vast history, going all the way back to my childhood, my early days of experiences where I have felt different feelings of frustration or letdown or hurt, or feeling unheard or undervalued or unloved. And what happens in this present day moment goes through all of these filters in my brain, it checks in my memories and all of these different things that happen and it happens in fractions of a second, by the way and all of these different things affect the narrative that I make up. And then I believe the narrative, even though it's probably not accurate, or at least not fully accurate, or it might just not be complete, right, there are so many factors here that I'm not necessarily considering, and when I believe the story, I'm going to also react.

Speaker 1:

From the story I'm going to have feelings based on that story. I'm going to react if I'm having a conflict and I'm feeling frustrated and I go into a sympathetic, survival response. Or if I go into a shutdown, collapsed, dorsal response, if I feel like I need to protect myself. Those are the options that I have. And it starts in my nervous system experience but it becomes a story and the story is what I have awareness of in that moment. I don't have awareness of my nervous system experience. You can develop awareness of your nervous system experience and that is immensely helpful. But starting with the story can be really powerful because that is what is happening in your mind that you know is happening. And staying in the story, believing the story, can escalate things really quickly because whatever frustration you're holding, you can really fuel the fire of it by believing it.

Speaker 1:

I mentioned this, I think, in my last episode. You feel really justified in your story, like this is what happened, this is what's going on, and what choice did I have but to react this way? Right, what did my partner want me to do? Those feelings of not having choice, feeling really justified in your actions, those are usually pretty good indicators that you're in your story and that's a fight response. You're fighting and you're protecting your ground right. You're engaged in this battle. So developing the awareness that being consumed or enveloped by your story can be truly damaging to not just your relationship with your partner, but also it's damaging to you because it's using a lot of this survival energy, a lot of chemicals are being released in your body to protect you. There might not really be a threat, right, your nervous system is perceiving a threat, but there's not actually a life or death situation happening. Learning how to use the story which, again, you have awareness of, is so incredibly important and it can shift everything.

Speaker 1:

From that point on, I'm telling you, stay out of the stories. And some people might say, like, well, what does that mean? Does that mean I can't trust my thoughts? And that can feel really, really scary and that could be a cue of danger for you, that your nervous system says, whoa, I can't trust myself, I can't trust the thoughts that are happening in my brain. That's terrifying. That can possibly make you go into a self-protective reaction as well, which, of course, would make perfect sense. But I'm not telling you that you can't believe your stories or that you're crazy for thinking those stories or anything like that. I'm saying that the stories are the product of real things. They're the product of all those present moment experiences that I told you what's actually happening, the state of your nervous system, your biological needs, if you will, the information that you have or don't have about what's happening for your partner, as well as all of the history of experiences. So your interpretation, the story you're creating, is absolutely based on something and it's valuable and it's important. But believing the story at face value is potentially really harmful.

Speaker 1:

And when you go to talk therapy traditional talk therapy, which is a form of therapy that I have always done and still do really you're talking about your stories and there's many different approaches to therapy. If you're in a more behavioral therapy, then this may not be exactly true, but in a traditional talk therapy session, you're largely talking about your interpretations, your narratives, your stories, and you're doing that to try to understand those stories. You're trying to get underneath why you're thinking what you're thinking, why you're feeling what you're feeling. What does it really mean? What are the underlying unmet needs that are there, that need to be met and acknowledged? You're also having the experience of sharing your story and your narrative with somebody in such a way where you feel heard and seen and valued. Those are basic needs as human beings and all of that can be very regulating and very helpful and make us feel better, so to speak.

Speaker 1:

And so a lot of talk therapy starts in the story and tries to work backwards to get to a place of having someone feel regulated. Whether therapists think about it that way or not, I did not always think about it exactly in those words, I think. For many years I've talked about reactivity, but now for me the difference is really thinking about it as a nervous system experience, that your nervous system is feeling unsafe, and that is what dysregulation is, and we want to be able to help our nervous system feel safe again, and that's what regulation is. There's a lot of different roads that get to the same place and so, starting in the story, you can kind of work backwards to nervous system regulation. And what polyvagal theory does is it starts in the nervous system experience and then it helps you regulate and then from that regulated place you can dive into the stories and understand all of those things I mentioned and you can have the experience of connection that you're really longing to have, feeling heard and valued and important and all of those things. It's not a better or worse kind of thing. There are different approaches and there's value in both. I work from a polyvagal perspective as well as from a talk therapy perspective and they go beautifully together.

Speaker 1:

Talk therapy does tend to take longer because people are often in their stories and I have been stuck in my stories with therapists for years and they've been doing their talk therapy approach in a beautiful way to be able to help me get under the story. But it tends to take a while because that's a top down approach, because we're accessing the thinking part of our brain with words, which, again, there's a lot of value in that. However, when we're using words, that's not connecting to our nervous system because, as I said before, our nervous system does not use words. Our nervous system is non-conscious. It is below our thinking ability.

Speaker 1:

As a matter of fact, the word for how our nervous system perceives information from the world it's called neuroception. It's different than perception. Perception is thoughts. The perception of our neuroception are the stories that we make up. Essentially, that might sound a little confusing so you don't have to spend too long thinking about that, but there are two different things the information that is received by our nervous system and the thoughts that we attach. And so we're talking about the thoughts that we attach and the narratives that we have.

Speaker 1:

So when I talk about staying out of the story, what I'm saying is to understand that your thoughts, of course, mean something and are, in fact, valuable. They just might not quite mean what you think that they mean. They might not be quote unquote, true, on the surface level, but they definitely mean something and what they really are is a reflection of the state of your nervous system at that particular time. And again, those depression goggles or those fight or flight goggles color how we see our experience, and knowing this is vitally important, and I'll give you an example that hopefully will make things more clear, because some of this may feel very confusing, and that's okay. If this is a new concept, especially if you're not well-versed in nervous system language, this can feel a little bit uncomfortable or confusing and could be a cue of danger actually for you. So if that's where you're at, I invite you to do whatever you need to help your nervous system get back to a sense of safety, and you can pause this or take a break or come back or anything that helps you feel better. But the reason I talk about nervous system stuff is because it has truly transformed my whole approach in my life and in my relationship, and I want to be able to share it with you. And so, if this feels like a cue of danger, if it feels overwhelming or you feel like you want to shut this off and avoid it altogether, take a breath and see what makes sense and feel safe for you in a way to proceed.

Speaker 1:

But I will be sharing a personal story and it was actually really funny because I knew that I was going to be doing this episode. I knew that I was going to be talking about stories and I ended up having this experience where I was so fully in my story and, after everything was said and done with my husband, I told him like, wow, thank you so much, because I didn't know what example I was going to use when I did my episode about staying out of your stories, but I'm going to use this example. That happened today. So this was actually just last week. It was our 15 year wedding anniversary and my husband had gotten out of work early because it's the day before 4th of July and his office closed and he came home early and I was still in the middle of my very busy day and I was with my kids and I was sort of between things, getting ready to go and see some clients, and when he walked in the door he made a comment to my daughter about how she was drinking from her cup. And just before he had walked in, my son had made a comment to my daughter about how she was eating or drinking, I don't remember exactly and I had told my son to not comment on his sister's eating. And then, sure enough, within five minutes, my husband walks in and comments. Of course my husband didn't know that and again, I was busy, in the middle of doing a lot of things. I had just had the conversation with my son about the very same thing. So I was a little bit dysregulated and I was a little snappy and I said something to my husband like don't say anything about how she's drinking, or something like that. And he got dysregulated in response to my dysregulation. And I know this now. I knew it in the moment because my nervous system could feel his nervous system shift, as his nervous system could definitely feel my nervous system shift. But I also since have talked to him about this, so I do have more information now than I had at that moment. So I know now that in that moment he was thinking like gosh.

Speaker 1:

I got out of work early today, happy to come home and celebrate our anniversary, and I walk into getting criticized or spoken to in this manner Like why did I even leave work? Right, but at that moment I didn't know where he was coming from. Again, I was just in the middle of a bunch of things and I was trying to rush off to see some clients and when I left that interaction it was really brief, just like a few seconds. But I was dysregulated and my nervous system sent some cues of danger in the direction of my husband and my husband's nervous system responded appropriately. He felt like he needed to protect himself and his nervous system sent some cues of danger right back to my nervous system.

Speaker 1:

And within just that very short timeframe I was really in my stories and I was very aware that I was in my stories and they were strong, they were pretty intense actually, and I think, because it was our anniversary, added to it, the narratives included things like this was supposed to be a special day. Why are we fighting, we can't even have a nice anniversary, or we've been married for 15 years together, for 21. After all of this time, we're still having problems like this. And I was seething. I really was Again. I was in my story, I was well in it, I was aware that I was in my story and I was kind of like letting it flow for a moment. I wasn't saying that it was true, I wasn't telling myself that these things are true, but I also wasn't telling myself that they were not true. And this is really important because my nervous system was revved up. I was in a pretty angry, sympathetic fight or flight response and my narrative was running and going like I can't stand him, we're going to end up divorced. If it hasn't worked by now, it's never going to work. All of these pretty intense thoughts were going through my head and again all happening in a very short period of time.

Speaker 1:

In that moment when I was all revved up, my nervous system was going and in that self-protective mood. If I had told myself these things aren't true again, that's top down. I'm using words to try to communicate a message to my nervous system. My nervous system would have called BS Like no, I'm pretty angry and he sent cues of danger your way. My job is to protect you from him, because that's the thought when you're in a fight or flight response. And so I didn't tell my nervous system that this wasn't true. Again, it wouldn't have believed me. If I try to convince my nervous system that I'm safe when it does not feel safe, it's going to double down and say, well, now I really have to protect you because maybe you're crazy. I don't know what's going on with you. But internally now I'm creating a cue of danger for myself because my nervous system is receiving this cue of danger from my brain that I'm telling it that things are okay when it doesn't feel like things are okay. So I'm creating more of a reason for it to stay in that self-protective mode.

Speaker 1:

But I just let these thoughts sort of flow and like kind of wash over me and just kind of like like fizzle out. Like I let them slow down on their own, which they did, and I didn't fuel them by saying that they were true. I wasn't like yeah, that's it, that's right, we are going to get divorced and I hate him and yeah, he's the worst. Like I didn't do that either. I was in this very kind of as neutral of a place as I could be, of acknowledging that the thoughts were there and knowing that they meant something, but not that they meant again what I call a face value, what I was thinking, like when I was thinking that I couldn't stand my husband. Is it really true that I can't stand my husband? No, that's not true at all. In that moment it felt really true because I had on my sympathetic goggles or my fight or flight goggles, and so everything's real fiery when I have on, when I look at the world through those lenses, right.

Speaker 1:

But I just let it be there, balancing, acknowledging that the thoughts were there and knowing that they meant that I was dysregulated. And so I think about it sometimes as like, if you know the little warning that's on the side view mirror of a car, it says objects in mirror are closer than they appear, warning to the driver when you look over. So I sort of think about it in this kind of a similar way, that the thoughts in your head may be less accurate than they appear. And so in that moment I was like, okay, I'm having these thoughts, they feel very real, I'm just going to let them be there. They may or may not be as accurate as they seem right now. They slowed down on their own because I wasn't fueling them. I didn't like start texting my friend and saying, oh my gosh, can you believe what Ben just said? Or what happened. I wasn't revving myself up and saying like, oh my gosh, yeah, this is going to be the worst anniversary. I'm not going to waste my time celebrating with him. He's such a jerk.

Speaker 1:

I just like let the thoughts cascade as they needed to and then, when they slowed down, I was able to start the process of regulation. I knew that what the thoughts really meant was actually that I was dysregulated. Again, I had on the sympathetic goggles and it didn't mean that I didn't have to address what happened with my husband, but if I had tried to address it with him in that moment, I would definitely not have said anything helpful. I would have been on attack mode, I would have absolutely been criticizing him and judging him and acting like the expert, and it would have been a nightmare of a conversation. So I calmed myself down, I grounded myself and I went to work and I saw some clients for a little while and by the time I was done and it was time to go out with my husband. He had done the same in himself and he had regulated himself and he said we can talk about what happened and he really wanted to enjoy our evening together and celebrate our anniversary together.

Speaker 1:

And because I was in a regulated place, because I wasn't fired up, I was able to receive that and say, yes, it's true, I was feeling dysregulated as well. I also would like to talk about what happened and I also would like to enjoy our anniversary now if I had fueled that fire earlier and was believing the stories. I mean, first of all, I wouldn't have even been a very good therapist, by the way, like I would have not been present for my clients if I had been that angry and let myself feed that fire, receive his repair and his attempt to reconnect with me. But because I was in a more regulated place, I was able to accept the repair and we were able to reconnect and we ended up having a really lovely night together.

Speaker 1:

And it could have been very different if we had stayed in our stories and continued to escalate the level of dysregulation and continued to escalate the fight response and certainly fight response easily can tip over into feeling that freeze, shut down response, like it's not even worth it. Forget it. I'm not even trying, and I don't know if you can hear how this shows up in so many relationship conflicts in so many different ways. And little, tiny things can lead to people feeling like they want to end a relationship or get divorced, or they feel overwhelmed and they don't feel like they have the tools to have a happy relationship. They don't have the tools to have the relationship they want to have, or at least they don't have the tools to have the relationship they want to have with the person that they are with, and that's part of why people end up getting divorced. And so the idea of staying out of your story is so incredibly powerful. And again, it doesn't mean that you're telling yourself that the story is not true. It's understanding that.

Speaker 1:

What your story means is that you're dysregulated and you really can't figure out what you think or feel, for that matter, until you're regulated, because you have on these goggles. You have on the dorsal goggles or the shutdown goggles or the sympathetic goggles or the fight or flight goggles, depending on how you think about it or look at it, so you're not seeing clearly, so you can't figure out what you really want to do. But if you start to be able to notice, oh, I'm in a story, okay, and this story feels really true to me right now, that's okay. It is true for you right now because you have on this particular lens, when that lens is removed and your nervous system is back in the safe state which is called ventral, when your nervous system is feeling safe and grounded again and you can take a breath, that's a good indicator probably, that you're feeling safer. If you have a good sigh, a little reset, then you can look at the situation and say, hmm, what was really happening? What did I need to convey?

Speaker 1:

And again I was able to talk to my husband and say my son had said something earlier. And this is my concern about how these criticisms land for my daughter, who's six, from the two most important men in her life right, her older brother and her dad. And I feel very strongly about not supporting a dynamic where she experiences criticism from these two incredibly important people in her life. And I was able to share my perspective and be able to have a conversation. And again my husband was able to share his perspective of where he was coming from and, of course, both of our experiences made total sense. Neither of us was wrong. It was just we were having two different experiences that were valid. So I will talk more about how to use validation and empathy in helpful ways as it pertains to stories and our nervous system experience, but more on that another time.

Speaker 1:

But for today, I invite you to just start noticing when you're in the stories, in these dysregulated stories, when you're in that protect yourself place and you don't have to judge yourself for having the stories. Our nervous system is doing what it's supposed to do to protect us and our brain is doing what it does by attaching meaning and trying to understand and attaching this narrative. The problem is not that this dynamic is happening. The problem is that we often take our stories at face value and we believe they mean what we think they mean, instead of looking underneath and seeing that the stories are a reflection of our nervous system state, and our nervous system state is something that we really can influence pretty directly. We can really help ourselves feel regulated and safe in a pretty powerful way, with some practice, of course, but it's pretty astounding and transformative. It absolutely has been for me over the last few years. It has put my wellness journey into hyperdrive or something like that, where I feel like I've just traveled light years from where I was just a couple of years ago by understanding how my nervous system is connected to how I experience myself in the world and my partner. I hope that some of this information connected with you and, like I, I invite you to try to notice when you're in your stories and acknowledge them, and notice if the relationship to your story changes when your nervous system feels safe and regulated once again, and see if there's doors that open possibilities, that open ways of communicating that are accessible, that are not available when you're really consumed by the story. So good luck. I look forward to hearing what your experience is and I will definitely be talking more about this topic in the very near future.

Speaker 1:

As our time comes to a close, I ask you to keep listening for just a few more moments, because I want to thank you for showing up today and I want to leave you with an invitation as you hit stop and move back out into the world on your own unique wellness journey In order to move from where you are today to the place where you want to be. The path may seem long or unclear or unknown, and I want you to know that if that seems scary or daunting or downright terrifying or anything else, that is totally okay. Know that you do not have to create the whole way all at once. We don't travel a whole journey in one stride, and that is why my invitation to you today is to take a step, just one, any type, any size, in any direction. It can be an external step that can be observed or measured, or it could be a step you visualize, taking in your mind. It can be a step towards action or towards rest or connection or self-care, or whatever step makes sense to you.

Speaker 1:

I invite you to take a step today because getting to a place that feels better, more joyful, more connected then the place where you are today is possible for everyone, including you, and even when depression is in your bed. If today's episode resonated with you, please subscribe so you can be notified when each weekly episode gets released. I encourage you to leave a review and reach out to me on social media at trishsanderslcsw. Your feedback will help guide future episodes and I love hearing from you. Also, please share this podcast with anyone who you think may be interested or who may get something from what I have shared. Until the next time we connect, take care of yourself and take a step.