(Big T) Trauma, (little t) trauma, and Trauma Therapy

In this episode we discuss (among other things):

1. Different meanings of the word "trauma", and how trauma can impact us.
2. What makes a person a "trauma therapist" and how that differs from "trauma informed".
3. How trauma therapy might look and feel.
4. Tools of trauma therapy including eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and accelerated resolution therapy (ART).
5. How to FIND a good trauma therapist.

If you feel triggered by any information in this podcast, or if you feel led to start your own therapeutic healing journey, please visit psychologytoday.com to find a mental health therapist in your area.

If you are having suicidal thoughts, please call 911 or 988 for support. You can also visit 988lifeline.org for more resources, and information.

Remember.....YOU MATTER!

To schedule a discovery session with Sherri, please go to Elevatetoabundantlife.com. 

The information provided in this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as medical advice. We are not responsible for any losses, damages, or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome back to Divine and Most Unlikely. We are your hosts. I'm Nathan. This is Sherry.

SPEAKER_04 0:06

Hey Nathan, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:07

I'm doing pretty well. How are you, Sherry?

SPEAKER_04 0:08

I'm doing great. Isn't it a gorgeous day outside today?

SPEAKER_01 0:11

It is absolutely beautiful today. And man, I appreciate days like this just so much, especially after we have such long cold winters. We need days like this.

SPEAKER_04 0:22

I know, right? We we were weren't really born for those winters, were we?

SPEAKER_01 0:26

I certainly was not. I'm born for warmer, warmer climbs.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

Warmer climbs. Me too. Being from Texas, the world shut down when we had snow in Texas.

SPEAKER_00 0:37

That sounds appropriate. I mean, why why should I have to go anywhere if there's snow?

SPEAKER_04 0:42

Right? Right? Only if Minnesota could shut down when there's snow. We'd have a relaxing winter, wouldn't we?

SPEAKER_00 0:48

Yeah, we would. Just take it easy for a couple months. Like summer break, but in the winter.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

Right.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

All right. We last time we talked about some really good stuff, and you and I you and I kind of debriefed after the podcast, and we said, even during the podcast, that there were a couple of things that we wanted to get into in a little bit more detail because we thought they'd be really helpful. And then you and I kind of did a debrief afterwards, talked about that some that stuff too. So unless you you have like a different idea, I'd like to talk a little bit more about trauma because the word is used a lot. I think people have a general understanding of the word, sure, but maybe not the specific definition as it pertains to like mental health and psychotherapy, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_04 1:44

Sure, sure. Yeah, we can definitely do that. I think it's important to understand the definition of trauma. It is a word that can be overused, and it is also a word that people don't talk a lot about at the same time. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:57

Right? People can use it casually, kind of throw it around, but it is a really important topic to know, to be informed about, to be aware about, because it greatly impacts our lives. As we talked a little bit about last time, it can really change um how we see ourselves. It covers up our true identity. It does, it can have a lot of negative impact.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

And we don't we're not necessarily aware of that. Like we experience the effects and the impacts, but we're not necessarily able to draw a line between here's the thing that happened, right? Here's the wound that that caused, and now here's the experience that I'm having internally.

SPEAKER_04 2:32

That's right, that's right. What do we think instead, Nathan?

SPEAKER_01 2:36

We we think that there's something wrong with me, that I'm broken. Yes, yes, that I'm bad, all of that nonsense, and I'm sure there's a bunch of other stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

Absolutely. I thought that for years about myself. Like, what is wrong with me? And I will never forget, it was probably about eight or nine years ago when I was starting to become a trauma therapist after being in the field for. I I'm I'm bad at math, so I'm not even gonna guesstimate. Don't make me do math on a podcast.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

We will not, there will be no math on this podcast, people. You're gonna need to go somewhere else for your quadratic equations.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

That is right. No quadratic equations.

SPEAKER_00 3:19

Or otherwise, no equations. The boy's not good at math either.

SPEAKER_04 3:25

Yeah, we have that in common, don't we?

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

Okay, so for however many years I was a therapist, and then I moved back up to Minnesota and um started to kind of develop a specialty in trauma. And I will just never forget hearing that, and I heard it from Janina Fisher's work. You like her a lot.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

I love her stuff, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:43

You love her stuff. Um, we'll talk a little bit about the trauma chart that she created. It's a brilliant informational tool to help you understand what is going on in your life. But when I uh got trained in her trauma chart and found her trauma chart, and she loves to say, and which I when I was a therapist, I used to say this to the clients all the time. Nathan heard this a lot. It's not about what's wrong with you, it is about what happened to you.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

And well, and something else you said to me that was like it it just about put me in tears right away when you said it. And it was very early on in one of our sessions, and you said, There's nothing wrong with you.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, yep.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

And I I I I don't even know how to describe the overwhelming emotions that I felt then. I I had lived with that internal, not even a belief, it was knowledge. Like I knew there was something wrong with me. I knew I was broken, and then here's you who says, There's nothing wrong with you. And I just that was a really incredible moment where I felt like this burden got lifted. And I never talked about I never it's not like you go around telling everyone that you know, hey, that's I really feel like there's something wrong with me, and I'm broken.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

But for someone to sort of see that internally and pick out that one thing and go, nope, that's not true, that made a massive impact for me.

SPEAKER_04 5:11

It does. I'm glad. I'm glad that it did, and that's why I love telling people that because it also had a massive impact on me. I'll never forget. Like I said, when I was in that training and saw that and heard that, I was like, I just took a big um sigh of relief, thinking, really? Same thing, same thing as you, right? Like, really? There's nothing wrong with me, because evidence of my life kind of says there's something wrong with me.

SPEAKER_03 5:36

Right.

SPEAKER_04 5:37

But we don't know what we don't know, right? When we have challenges and relationships, when we have challenges at work, all the challenges that can come as a result of trauma, whether with the trauma, we start to develop the mistaken beliefs of we're not good enough, we are not lovable, we're not worthy. Those are just a small sampling of the mistaken beliefs that can come from trauma. And when we start believing those, then we do think there's something wrong with us. Yeah right? Like, why am I not lovable? Why do, why am I not worthy?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_04 6:09

And then um, and who who wants us to believe those lies?

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Well, I'll tell you who doesn't. It it the person that doesn't want us, the entity that doesn't want us to believe that is our Father God who created us.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

And if you were to create an enemy whose job was to take you off, whatever your mission is, wouldn't it? I mean, yes, he could actively fight against you, but that takes a lot of effort on his part. Wouldn't it be great if you took yourself off the path because you believed you were less than you are?

SPEAKER_04 6:40

Yep, absolutely, absolutely. And that I know I've shared, I'm pretty sure I shared my life verse last time. Not my life verse, but my work verse and podcast verse and all the verses. Nathan's just grinning because he hears it all the time. It's John 10 10, you guys. The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but Christ came so that we could have freedom and live an abundant life. And that's what we are all about. That's what we, Nathan and I both want to help those of you that are listening. We want to help you live an abundant life. We want to help you understand trauma, and we're gonna get back to the definition of it. But we want to help you understand trauma, the impact of trauma, and the lies that it can bring. And and that there, there one of the lies is there's something wrong with you. But the truth is it's not what it's not what's wrong with you, it's what happened to you.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

Yeah, right. You know, from my perspective, when you explained it to me, the way that it clicked in my mind is it was to me like thinking, you know, you got you got a guy and and he has a broken leg. You wouldn't look at him and go, hey, what is wrong with you? Why can't you put on that rug? Right. Why can't you pick that heavy weight up and walk? What's wrong with you?

SPEAKER_03 7:48

Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

You wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_03 7:49

No, no.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

And but we we see the those sort of heart wounds and mental wounds, we see them differently for some reason.

SPEAKER_03 7:57

We do.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

It's not different though than a physical wound. Those those heart wounds are gonna impact us and and reduce our capacity to live.

SPEAKER_04 8:07

Yep, absolutely. I think we give the guy with the broken leg grace because we can see the broken leg, right? Yeah, we can't see we can't see the heart wounds, we can't see what happened to someone's heart or their history or even what happened to someone's body or however the trauma came, like the impact of war. We we can't see inside someone's mind to see the trauma. Yes, right, but that is just as real, if not even more real, than the broken leg.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

We are very visual creatures, so our inability to see those wounds definitely has a huge impact. I also think that when someone breaks a leg, there's kind of a structured pathway forward, right? And we understand what healing looks like. They're gonna have to have some surgery, they're gonna be on maybe bed rest for a little while, then they're gonna have to get up and start doing PT and you know all that stuff. And I don't think that for most people they see as clearly a defined path for some of those heart wounds.

SPEAKER_04 9:06

Right, Nathan. Sadly, our society, and I I don't let me get like all don't let me get all fired up about this because I sure can.

SPEAKER_03 9:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

Um, but sadly, our society has minimized mental health and trauma and magnified physical health. Right? Like um when you go to the doctor, they don't necessarily they're getting better, like through COVID. I know that they did some assessments. They did the the GAD, it's called the GAD 7, the GAD Generalized Anxiety 7, to assess for levels of anxiety. PhQ9 assesses for symptoms of depression. But I I went to the doctor once and they gave me those assessments, and they're just kind of like, here, you you need to feel these out for me. They didn't like tell me what they were, and I was like, I mean, this the questions are pretty straightforward and simple, but you could tell it was something they weren't super familiar with, as you know, as opposed to the physical health stuff they were really trained in. So anyway, they're getting they're getting a little better, but we're not quite where we need to be because we need to marry our physical health, our spiritual health, and our mental health because we are triune beings, we have a spiritual side, and we have a physical side, right? Our body. Nathan made me laugh. We have our body, and then we have our soul, what I consider to be our soul, which is our mind, will, and emotions. And we'll talk more about who's driving the bus, but so many times, so many times, Nathan's quietly cracking up, so I can't quietly crack up, so I'm loudly cracking up. Um so many times. Um the soul wants to drive the bus because I don't know about you guys, but my mind, will, and emotions try to dominate my life and tell me what I want. Like I'm sitting here looking at chocolate on my counter, and my body's like, you're not hungry. And the spirit's like, you don't need that. And sometimes the soul's like, yeah, yeah, you do, you do, you need it. So we have to, we have to, we have to shift that and we have to um allow the spirit to lead and guide us, right? And that's a whole other conversation um because we're people of faith, so we believe that the Holy Spirit, when we have a relationship with Jesus and Father God, and the Holy Spirit lives within us, and so that's a that's a whole probably two podcast episode. But um, yeah, so there's there's that. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yeah, it does. I want to go back to something that you said a little bit earlier, and you talked about when I became a trauma therapist. So I want us to talk about the definition of trauma, but even before we get there, I want to tell me about trauma therapist. And here's why I'm asking. That's good. From you know, I'm kind of the caveman knuckle dragger from the outside. This is what I thought therapy was. I thought therapy was you go and you talk to a guy, he looks like Niles Crane. He's got a freaking notepad, he's sitting there in his leather wing back chair, and he, you know, hmm, says a lot of that. Hmm, hmm. How does that make you feel? I'm laying on the couch, and 50 minutes later I talked about how I feel, even though I didn't like to talk about my feelings in the first place. And then I walk out and I'm like, well, what was that for? You know? Right. And you know, lather, rinse, repeat until I die. That was not my idea of a good time. I didn't realize that I saw therapy as being monolithic. I did not recognize that therapy was multifaceted, multimodality. So I definitely want to talk about the definition of trauma, but first, tell me a little bit about trauma therapist. Yeah. And I want to hear like what makes someone a trauma therapist and what is the difference between being a trauma therapist and being trauma informed.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

Oh, that's really good, Nathan. Really good. Okay, so I for many years, probably starting in my late 20s, I started therapy because of my own history of trauma. And you guys, I was a therapist. I became a therapist in 2000, I'm gonna say 2002 because that's when I started my practicum. Maybe 2001, even, but so I've been a therapist for a long time. So I was a therapist when this happened. When I went to therapy, no, that's not true. I started, I say that all the time. I'll say something, I'll be like, wait a minute, mathing again. Mathing. I'm having to math. So I did start therapy in my late 20s. I didn't become a therapist until my um late 30s, early 40s. So um, but I did attend therapy a lot in my late 20s, and I had trauma and did not know I had trauma, and you guys, I had serious trauma. Grew up with an alcoholic dad, domestic violence, lots of dynamics in that relationship. Dad carried a gun all the time, and we'll get into that later, but lots of trauma, and I had no language for it. So I would go to therapy for the problems, the surface problems, right? That would arise. Those surface problems were relational problems, low self-esteem, not liking myself, can't get along with my husband. So I went to therapy for the surface problems. I guess what happened?

SPEAKER_01 14:11

You probably uh might have helped cover up some of the surface problems for a little bit, but the root cause wasn't addressed.

SPEAKER_04 14:18

The root cause was not addressed. They always just tried to go after the surface problems.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

So I want to pause there and then I want to re-engage in that. But what I just want to say is going back to the broken leg example, because that's so easy and physical to see.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

My my caveman conception of this is the the comparison would be you got a guy with a broken leg, and so you give him morphine. And you keep treating him with morphine, and he gets as much morphine as he wants for the rest of his life.

SPEAKER_03 14:44

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

But that doesn't fix the broken bone. Now, will it heal on its own? Yeah, I mean, probably, but not well. Not not the way that it's intended to, and it's gonna impair his function.

SPEAKER_04 14:54

Right. So it totally impaired my function, right? It impaired my function as a parent, it impaired my function as a wife because I I became a mother at the at the ripe old age of 19.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 15:08

I know, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:09

Yes, ripe old age. I remember being 19 and I was not, I was not father material.

SPEAKER_04 15:15

I probably wasn't mother material, Nathan. But I didn't know that. I didn't know I had trauma. Didn't know I wasn't mother material. I just thought that, I think I thought you and I had a conversation about that one time. But I think I thought that was the solution. Get married, have kids. I I think the the the world, or I'm gonna stick to the to America, the United States. I think our country tells us that like that's the dream, right? The husband, the two kids, 2.5 tens white picket fence.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Yes, right? And yes, definitely.

SPEAKER_04 15:45

And that's not the solution, you guys. That is not the solution. When people come in and they whether they came as a therapy client or now a coaching client and they're like in their late 20s, early 30s, and they're having anxiety because they're not married, I'm like, praise God, you're not married yet, right? Yeah, you um are still able to work through things and and you don't have to take these things into your marriage. And so I get excited honestly when people come in and they're and they're that age and they're not married yet, because I think sometimes we get married way too young and we don't, if we're not given those skills and tools, which I absolutely was not, I don't think either. I've been married twice, as you know, Nathan, and neither husband was given those skills because you know what happens with trauma when you get into a relationship?

SPEAKER_01 16:31

Um, you the two people that are in the relationship with trauma, they just trigger each other. It's trigger, as Sherry says, it's trigger city. You don't want to live there.

SPEAKER_04 16:41

It's trigger city, but too, Nathan, and you've got some experience in this, as I do, right? Trauma attracts trauma.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Oh man, I remember when you said that, and it was one of those moments.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

It was one of those moments where it just stopped me, and I go, I I kind of like internally slap my own head and go, oh, yeah, okay. I I see what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04 17:03

Yep, yep. He had some good aha moments.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Yeah, many aha moments.

SPEAKER_04 17:07

Many aha moments. So, okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Um Can I say one thing about that though? Of course, there's a corollary, and the reason I want to say this is because if when I heard that, I guess what it what what I kind of felt like is well crap, you know, what am I gonna do now? Trauma attracts trauma. I don't want any more of that. But the corollary is healed people attract that healed people energy. So I don't want don't don't think that because you have trauma, then you are stuck attracting trauma. It once you go through the healing process, you will attract a different kind of energy.

SPEAKER_04 17:44

Amen. Which is why when I got divorced at the age of, I think I was 52, I made a commitment to myself and to the Lord that I was not going to get into another relationship until I found healing. And I've spent the last 10 and 11, 10 to 11 years finding that healing for myself. Yes, I'm a healer. And sometimes they call us as therapists, coaches, whoever's in the healing field, you've been in the healing field. They call us wounded healers. Right? Just because we're wounded doesn't mean we cannot heal. I think wounded healers actually have greater ability to bring healing because, and Nathan's experience is when we have those personal experiences. My experience as a coach and when I was a therapist did not come from a textbook. Of course, some of it did, right? Some of it had to, right? Because you have to go to school to do this. But most of my experience came from life experience, the school of hard knocks, as we like to say. Um so that can be really helpful when when the healer is a wounded healer. And I have a lot of therapy therapist friends, and I've yet, I think I can say I've yet to meet one that doesn't have their own story.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

You know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

So um going back, so we're going trying to define the definition of trauma.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Well, and talking about what makes a person a trauma therapist. Oh, that's right first. As opposed to.

SPEAKER_04 19:10

So I went down the bunny trail because you guys, I went to see so many therapists, and they didn't tell me I had trauma. And then when I um moved to Minnesota, worked at a clinic that was trauma, depression, anxiety, eating disorder focused, I learned about trauma. Well, and I learned more about it prior to that, but and actually I do want to tell that story real quick because it was probably okay, I was a therapist, became a therapist 2001, 2002, licensed, I think 2007, 20, like 13, 12, 13, 14. I was sitting in a CEU class for PTSD, and I could not quit crying. I was like, what is going on? And it was a it was a man teaching the class, and I was like, how does this guy know all about my life? Right?

SPEAKER_03 19:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

Um, and so he helped me to greater understand that I had grown up in trauma, and um, that's where the ball started rolling. And then in 2018, when I moved back up here and went to work for the clinic, I realized I that's when I started to realize the impact of trauma. It's like, no wonder I couldn't do a marriage relationship well. No wonder my kids grew up with an anxious, a really anxious mom and the challenges that I experienced as a parent. Um, it really helped me to understand myself and it took me back to that place of there's nothing wrong with me, and it is what I experienced. Yeah, right. Yeah, okay, so trauma therapist.

SPEAKER_01 20:38

What makes a person a trauma therapist?

SPEAKER_04 20:40

Thank you. What that very thing, right? I kind of described how I became a trauma therapist, right? So it's more to me, it's more than being trauma informed. I um I took a sensory motor class, an intensive sensory motor class, which talks about the body and how trauma impacts the body and sensations in your body and how it shows up. And it was fascinating to take that class. When I first it was like a three-month class, and when I started that class, I realized that I kind of carried my body like with my shoulders close to my ears, right? Because that was like a way to unconsciously kind of self-protect, or that was trauma even showing up in my body, and then now when I do that, I can catch myself. And sometimes um it even in my legs when I'm sitting, my thighs get really tense, and I don't even realize I'm holding the tension in my thighs, and then I'm like, okay, I realize it, and then and that's trauma showing up in the body, yeah, right? So that class really helped me. I did I got a lot of in-house training at the clinic that I worked at, and so trauma informed means you understand trauma, you can recognize trauma, but you don't necessarily have a lot of deep training with trauma.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

So you have an awareness of trauma and maybe how to identify it, but you don't necessarily have the depth of knowledge. Right. To be able to identify root causes and then treat those.

SPEAKER_04 22:04

Right, right. And I went to school, Nathan, at Adler Graduate School, and they were really big on family of origin. And I've always looked at your family of origin. If you remember when you came in, I did a map. It's called a genogram. I did a map of your family because it helps me see stuff from generations, which your parents, both of your parents experienced, and then what you experienced. Um, so it helps me understand and I can see really quickly why you're struggling when I look at that map. If dad was an alcoholic or if dad was abusive or mom was an alcoholic or mom was absent or dad was absent. Those family maps are so telling. And I will never ever forget when I did my family map in college. I was like, oh my God, no wonder. When I did it in graduate school, man, I got a great awakening as to no dang wonder again that I'm struggling so much, right?

SPEAKER_03 22:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Um, so there's that's the big difference is I got I got sensory motor training, I got trained in EMDR, eye movement, desensitization, reprocessing. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Well, I do at some point I do want to talk a little bit about both EMDR and ART accelerated resolution therapy. And the reason I want to do that is for people listening, I remember being on the outside, and again, I told you what I thought therapy was. I had no idea about these modalities, and I will tell you that me personally, I would say that the the healing that I have experienced with EMDR has been dang near miraculous. And it is a modality that I I would like more people to be aware of so that they can try it.

SPEAKER_03 23:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

I'm not saying that it is a panacea, it may not work for everyone, but I believe it's probably highly effective for a lot of people and it's worth giving it a shot.

SPEAKER_04 23:50

Yeah, it has been one of my favorite interventions, and I don't know how much you realize this, but one of the reasons in my office that it's so effective is because the Lord is always present. And we brought the Lord into your into your sessions with EMDR.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

Yes, right?

SPEAKER_04 24:08

I will say, can you invite Jesus into that place?

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:12

Or where was Jesus in that really hard space for you when you were a kid? Right? And I think you've had some, you along with other clients, have had some like really amazing you've seen some amazing things and felt some amazing things in that way, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 24:28

Yeah, yeah. So that's EMDR and accelerated resolution therapy. I call it like a third cousin to EMDR because it was born out of EMDR and someone that we both know and love has had great results from that. Um, that I took that training because of people like yourself, Nathan. Being in the first responder world, in the police world, military world. Accelerated resolution therapy is really helpful for visual traumas. It shifts the picture of how the how the trauma impacted you because first responders, police, they can't they see all the all the stuff that civilians can't really imagine. Right. Right. I've heard some horrific stories when I worked with um mil the military police population. I I oh man, I just heard horrific stories about what they went through. I worked with a uh he was in um basic training, but he was um a police officer in the civilian world, and my goodness, he had some horrific stories and things that he had seen. And I didn't I I didn't know accelerated resolution therapy then, but just helped him. I was I was one of those people, right? I was one of those people that was barely trauma informed back then, and and so I gave him the support that I could, but in my role with the military, we weren't allowed to do like really deep therapy, but let me tell you, when you got Jesus as a tool, um you get to break all the rules, right? Yeah, I broke the rules a lot, Nathan. Um uh hopefully no military people, no military family life counseling people are listening, but I broke the rules a lot because God showed up a lot. That'll be another whole another episode. So trauma informed versus trauma experience. When I, if somebody can when I was a therapist, I have to keep saying that because I'm no longer a therapist. And you guys, I just have to say, I think I said this last time, like that was terrifying to give up my license, but I had no idea I was gonna have as much fun as I'm having right now. I'm having a ton of fun.

SPEAKER_01 26:33

So, um okay, so we talked a little bit about what makes a person a trauma therapist and what the distinction is between being a trauma therapist and trauma-informed. I think those are really, really helpful. Something that I want to say again, gently, lovingly encourage people, especially dudes out there. Uh, if you think you've gone through some trauma, my strong recommendation is don't just find a therapist.

SPEAKER_02 27:03

That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

Find someone who is a trauma therapist.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

And ideally, if they have experience in your field or or uh helping people in your field, that would be really beneficial because you really have to find it.

SPEAKER_02 27:16

That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Can we talk a little bit about trauma? And then one of one of my favorite things that you told me that I just I never even thought about.

SPEAKER_00 27:24

So I want to I want to talk about the definition of trauma, but I also want you to talk about little T versus big T trauma.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

Totally, totally. But let me let me say one more thing with regarding finding a therapist, okay?

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Yeah. How do we do that? How do we because I got right? I this was a total God thing. I mean, the way that I found Sherry was absolutely a god thing, and and I I don't know that that exactly my way can be replicated. So if somebody is out there and they're looking and they're going, well, great, you know, okay, you finally convinced me, I'll go do the thing. How do I find someone?

SPEAKER_04 27:57

Yeah, because the hard thing, Nathan, is no one knows our lingo, right? So, you guys, psychology today is a really good tool to find a therapist. Um, referral is also a really good way. That's how Nathan found me. And he says it's a God thing because he might have a different reason, but my reason is I don't this sounds weird, but I don't usually take I don't like to work with friends of people when I was a therapist because if those friends have conflict, then it brings conflict for me as a therapist. It brought conflict for me. Um, but I was like with Nathan's good friend and and now now my good friend and client. Um I was like, okay, are you do you think you guys would ever have any conflict? And the friend was like, no, I don't think so. And so I was like, I don't usually do this, but I I think I'll do it this time. And and that's how he became a client.

SPEAKER_03 28:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:51

So um going to psycholytoday.com, there's lots and lots of therapists on there. And you want to see if they say trauma-informed versus trauma experienced, and you want to look for what kind of trauma interventions do they do? Do they do EMDR? Do they do accelerated resolution therapy, which is usually shortened to art? Do there is prolonged exposure therapy, but I am not a I'm not a proponent for that therapy. Many is it's a therapy that the VA uses, and I've just heard from way too many veterans that that jacked them up, it re-triggered them. That's a therapy where you sit and sit and sit and sit in the traumatic experiences to help you get desensitized. And it's just not pleasant because military for people in the military who have been deployed, that trauma can be so big and so awful. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm not a fan of sitting in those experiences. Now, with EMDR, you might go, you might go bleep into those experiences a little bit, but you don't sit in them. You let your brain go where your brain needs to go. It's quite a fascinating therapy, actually, to be honest. And clients don't ever understand how it works, but it works beautifully. But you want to see if they're trained, what modalities, what uh trauma modalities they're trained in. And there's other ones like there is um like ketamine therapy. Um, I'm not trained or knowledgeable about that at all. Some people are having success. I've had clients do that that were military that had no success. Um, so that was kind of all the rage for a little while, kind of still a little bit of a rage. And there's some things that I'm not trained in, but what I am trained in is accelerated resolution therapy um and EMDR. And I also got trained in, not certified, but trained in internal family systems, which is parts of self. And I think parts of self, wouldn't you say, Nathan, is elemental in finding healing because you need to freaking understand who's showing up. Who is showing up?

SPEAKER_01 30:52

Well, yeah, and I'll just say, like, my my one individual experience, you know, I I think I was 37 when I started seeing you, and so I'm a grown adult man. I'm a grown adult man, okay? I have I have been in plenty of situations where you know my life is on the line or someone else's is on the line, and I was the one making the decisions to get us into a better, better position. And and the reason I'm saying that is there were times, and I I I think maybe I recognize this in a small way, but not in a more conscious way, where something I would do or say or feel was coming from the little boy in me. And when that came up before therapy, that was really disconcerting because I'm going, listen, man, I'm a grown dude. Like, I I got a gun, I got guns. I mean, we can't be doing this. There can't be little, can't be a little kid playing with guns, you know what I mean? And and what Sherry helped me see by helping to identify that is, or at least the way that I conceive it, is that it's ali when a a tree grows. The seed is planted in the ground, that tree grows from very small and progressively grows larger over time. And the little tree is still inside the big tree. It's just that the big tree progressively, iteratively, sequentially grows layers over it. The little tree didn't go away, and the little boy in meat didn't go away. And now, I mean, now, just to be honest, at a different time in my life, I would have wished that he would have just evaporated or dried up and blown away.

SPEAKER_03 32:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

But now I'm actually really grateful for him. I love that little dude, and you know, I'm starting to learn how to let him out in the right, you know, circumstances, and I feel a lot less internally conflicted and much more internally integrated than I have before. So, yeah, that identifying parts of self is really important. Here's another funny thing. Here's another funny. Oh boy, where are we going now?

SPEAKER_02 33:00

Where are we going?

SPEAKER_01 33:01

So we're in session one time, and and uh Sherry, I think she must have asked me, she goes, uh, which part of you is driving the bus? And the bus, let me just really explain the bus really quick. The bus is you, the human, and then the the uh people in the bus is the different parts of you. So maybe you have uh uh a young child part, maybe there's a young adolescent part, an older adolescent part, a young adult part, etc. etc. And then maybe there's additional parts of you that have to do with your profession or professions. And all of those people are passengers in the bus. They're in the bus. But as Sherry mentioned, one of the important questions that we need to ask ourselves is who's driving the bus.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

And so one time she asks me, you know, who is driving the bus, and I don't think I gave a, I don't, I don't think I quite was connecting the dots yet. And she goes, I think, I think it's the little boy, and she goes, and you can't see the head bob, but I want you to imagine the head bob side to side. She goes, he is driving your bus.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

And that, man, that made me crack up. But I and she's right, there's a lot of times when without knowing it, my little boy was driving the bus. Not that he shouldn't get a voice, not that he shouldn't have a say. Like he should have a say, he should be heard, he should feel safe, all that stuff. But the adult me has to be the one in the driver's seat making the choices.

SPEAKER_04 34:25

Yes, yes, absolutely. Yes. I told Nathan earlier. Am I really like that dramatic? Do I really say the things that you say that I say, or is that your is that you I may have embellished a little bit. I don't think I'm like in the chair snapping my fingers.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

No, there was no there was no snapping. There was no snapping. Remember that. There was no snapping, but there was definitely some head movement.

SPEAKER_04 34:59

Okay, I don't know about that. All right, but we'll leave that there. Okay, we got to get back to big T, little T.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yeah, big T little T.

SPEAKER_04 35:07

Big T, little T. Okay, big T. You let's I want you to define big T.

SPEAKER_01 35:12

You know, big T trauma when I think about, I think of these major events. So, you know, uh when you have a teammate killed, that's a big T trauma. Yeah. Um, if you yourself are involved in a car accident, that's a big T trauma. You get shot, stabbed, blown up. That's big T trauma.

SPEAKER_02 35:32

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 35:33

And then, but and by the way, that's not a comprehensive list. Those are just examples of what might be considered big T trauma. And I think one of the really important things is that people have sort of an internal gauge and an assessment, and they think, well, if I didn't experience that, then I shouldn't really care. It shouldn't bother me.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

Right. That's and that's an incorrect assumption, right? Incorrect. So little T traumas, which many, many, many of us have little T traumas, and we tend to blow them off. Little T traumas can be getting bullied on the school playground. It can be having your emotions minimized by mom or dad. Like me growing up with my dad, a common phrase in the in the years, the generation when I was raised is little girls are to be seen and not heard, or you better shut up, or I'll give you something to cry about. That's a little tea trauma. Parents getting divorced can be a little tea trauma. Um, not getting your emotional needs in your family of origin, little tea trauma. And what people don't understand, and I want to say this really loud, and I might say it twice. What people don't understand is that the impact of little tea trauma and big T trauma are the same. Say it again for the people in the back. The impact of big T trauma and little T trauma are the same.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

So just because you didn't experience some horrific major uh event that is broadcast on mainstream news, that doesn't mean that the wound you've suffered isn't the same or similar.

SPEAKER_04 37:11

That's right. So let's take, for example, the military, okay? I in my years, 10 years, you guys working with the military, which I I had the best time of my life doing that job, and I really missed that. But um in my 10 years of working with the military, there would be soldiers who had um some false guilt because they didn't get deployed in a time of war.

SPEAKER_03 37:34

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 37:34

And like they felt like they were less of a man because they didn't get deployed during a time of war. And but you guys, yes, you have trauma when you get deployed during a time of war. I mean, there's all kinds of trauma. If there's bombs going off, missiles going off, and you don't know if it's gonna hit you or not.

SPEAKER_01 37:53

Well, and just the the the posture that you have to be in internally because you know that, hey, when you're in this war zone, yeah, your people are potentially trying to kill you 24 hours of your existence.

SPEAKER_03 38:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:07

And you have to take action to make sure that doesn't happen, not just for you, but for your guys all the time.

SPEAKER_04 38:12

And you're not in a cement building, you're not in a building that can protect you. You're in a freaking and it most likely a tent or maybe a kind of a semi-kind of building, right? There you're not in luxury. You're not you're not living in any kind of luxury, and you still have to try to sleep because you need to sleep to function. So can you imagine sleeping while bombs are going off? But then let's go to the other side of it. Even some training with the military can be traumatizing. Having a a certain kind of drill sergeant or a certain kind of commander or whatever, and so many people come into the military. I know if you're in the military or you've been in the military, you're gonna be able to relate to this, but so many people come into the military looking for a family because they came from a broken family. And the military is a family, it's a systemic family. And I think a little bit of codependent family because when I would work with recruits or young soldiers, and then their captains or their first sergeants, or they're in training when it was drill sergeants, um, they were like, okay, let's say after basic training and after I AIT, then you're then your uh like your first sergeant is really like mom or dad, right?

SPEAKER_03 39:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:28

Or the commander, commander's big time mom or dad. Um then they're responsible for you. So like when soldiers would get in trouble, I would get called and get involved, and I would have to work with the company commander to help that soldier work through the problem. And so it is a family, it is a system, and it's not all bad. It's not all bad, but it's pretty dang broken. Um, it can be pretty dang broken. I there were some drill drill sergeants that I encountered that were not healthy. And you know, when you think drill sergeants, you what movie maybe?

SPEAKER_00 39:58

I think Arlie Ermy man from full metal jacket. That's that's the drill sergeant I think of.

SPEAKER_04 40:06

Yeah, I know drill sergeants are supposed to be harsh and in your face and all that stuff, and they were, but there were some drill sergeants that were borderline abusive, and you know, a couple that that uh we won't go into that. Uh yeah, we we're not gonna go into that. But um, so I I was talking about trauma in the military. So whether you're deployed during a time of war, do you see trauma? Absolutely. Being in the military, sometimes the training, sometimes the people you encounter, sometimes circumstances that you encounter. Um, and and sadly, you guys, there's there can be a lot of sexual abuse in the military. That I got trained on that a lot because that came up a lot because of that that system where the there uh the authority, right? And the higher you are, the more authority you have. And then if you're a low soldier, I say soldier because I work mostly with the army, if you're a s a low soldier on the totem pole, and and the more you go up in that system of hierarchy, you're kind of powerless, you know. So there can be lots of there can be all kinds of trauma. So does that make sense the difference between little T and big T?

SPEAKER_01 41:10

Yeah, and I think that that's really important for people to absorb that they're you can have big T trauma and and have that can have a big impact. Yeah, you can have little T trauma and have a big impact. And I it's not I would say it's not terribly helpful to compare yourself to someone else's trauma, not at all and then go, well, since they're fine, then I should be fine.

SPEAKER_04 41:35

That's right. Or I tell people all the time, Nathan, it does not help to compare. People will come in, you know, like for example, if they had trauma growing up in their family of origin, they'll be like, Well, at least it wasn't that. Oh, yeah, yes, yes, yes, at least it wasn't that. And I think maybe you've done a little bit of that.

SPEAKER_00 41:54

Well, yeah, that's why I said it so quickly because I was thinking, yep, I've done that. Yep, I've said that.

SPEAKER_04 41:59

It's not helpful, you guys, because whatever we've experienced, that's been our experiences. And and I I tell Nathan all the time, and clients and friends all the time, that it is the lens of how you interpret the experience that matters. Like, I know my my kids have come to me with things, and occasionally I might feel like, hmm, that's not the way I remembered that. But I'm not gonna tell them that. I'm gonna see it through their lens because that's how it impacted them. It how they remember it was their experience of it. So it's not helpful to argue and debate like that is not right. That's not what happened as a parent. That's not helpful. You need to understand through your children's eyes how that played out for them. Now, Nathan, before we go on, we want to talk about you can't substitute therapy.

SPEAKER_00 42:51

Yep. You want me to share a little bit about it?

SPEAKER_04 42:53

I do. You can't start, you can't substitute therapy for what, Nathan? What did you try?

SPEAKER_01 42:59

But psychedelics was what I tried. So I'm gonna tell you guys a little bit about how I got to this this psychedelic point. I watched uh about three podcasts in a week. They were each from separate individuals. And on each of those three podcasts in that one-week time period, they all talked about a couple of specific psychedelics. And those were Ibogain and Five Meod. The more that I listened and the more that I learned, I thought, man, these guys are talking about a lot of stuff, a lot of similar experiences to what I've had, and they're experiencing a lot of similar symptoms to what I had. And I would say, for me, one of the main ones was I just felt like uh my heart. Normally I would feel things in my heart. Like if I said to my mother, I love you, I would feel something in my heart. And for about a two, about a two or three year time frame, I felt nothing.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 44:00

And what it felt to me like is I had gone through some pretty powerful stuff, and it felt to me like, you know, when a person gets a severe burn, the like a third-degree burn, the the core, the internal core of that burn, the tissue is dead. It is destroyed. And the person still feels pain, but the pain they feel isn't from the center of the wound where the tissue's dead, it's from the periphery where the nerves haven't been killed yet. And my heart felt like it was the core. Like I had a third-degree emotional burn, and it just burned my heart out, and there was just it was like charcoal.

SPEAKER_04 44:36

Wow, Nathan.

SPEAKER_01 44:38

And that really deeply bothered me. When I started to hear about these psychedelics, I thought, okay, between sitting on a couch and talking about how I feel, and this and what these guys go through and what they describe their experience was taking these psychedelics, I thought this is the only thing that I've heard so far that sounds like anywhere close to an actual solution to the problem. And so, as a friend of mine put it, I'm very mission-oriented and and I'm very direct-to-threat kind of guy. And so I hear this stuff, I'm like, all right, that's what I gotta do. So I started doing some research, found a place. I'm by the way, I'm happy to share more about the specific place that I went. I'm not being deliberately evasive about that. I just don't want to go into too much detail now. But if somebody's curious, let us know and I'll I'd share everything I know. Found a place over about a one-year time frame, spoke with the owners, had many conversations because I'm a very security conscious guy. Yeah. I am a guy that knows that, hey, you know, uh medications matter, and so dosing matters, and concentration and purity and all that stuff matters. And over about a one-year time span, with multiple conversations with the owner, I became more comfortable with the idea, and I eventually became I kind of convicted myself that alright, man, like time to do this. So I went and I did Ibogaine and 5 MeodMT. You guys can look this stuff up, but Ibogaine is from uh the root of an African plant called the Tibernanthi uh or Tabernanthi Iboga, and then 5 MeodMT is from the poison gland of a Sonoran desert toad. And I'm not making any of that up, but but check for yourself. So the Ibegaine is I'm not sure that I can say it was the worst experience of my life, but it was definitely in the top two. That was not a good time. Well wouldn't recommend that for someone I don't like, uh let alone someone I like. However, the without going into too much detail, and if you guys want to hear more about that, let us know. We can I can certainly share more about that. But basically, the the end result was what I learned from the IBA game is that the two things that I needed to work on were fear and control. And I was maybe 80% confident that the control came from fear, meaning for me, meaning when I am fearful, what I have learned in my life and especially work experience is take control of the situation, make it go the way that you want it to, be the feeder, not the receiver, and that's fine for certain situations. It's not as good when you apply that all the time. Because if you are a hammer, then everything's gonna look suspiciously to you like a nail. But but there are other things than nails out there in the world. And the other medication, the five MEO DMT, that was that may have been the very best experience of my life.

SPEAKER_03 47:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Uh that one I literally felt like it turned my heart on in about 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 47:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 47:54

And I, when I told my mother I love her, I absolutely felt it, and I've not stopped feeling that sense.

SPEAKER_03 48:00

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 48:01

You guys, I used to wish to be a like a Terminator robot, you know, to have no feelings, just like, you know, you know, in the scene where Terminator where he like scrolls through the the response choices in his eye and he chooses. That's what I wanted to be. Well, you know, when I got that, it was a lot less fun than I thought it would be. So don't recommend that route. But the five MeO DMT was amazing. I would do that again in a heartbeat. The I Begain, I don't think I'd ever do again. But here's the bottom line I thought that by doing those medications, those medicines, I thought that I wouldn't have to do therapy. And about six months from when I did those those medications, I ended up coming to therapy. And so from my perspective, I'm not saying that it's necessarily an either or situation. I'm certainly not telling anybody to do that, but what I'm saying for me is I needed both and. And I needed them in the order it happened. I needed the psychedelics because I didn't realize that the two major issues were fear and control until I had that experience with Ibagame.

SPEAKER_03 49:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

And I also didn't realize that the control originated from fear. What that led to then is when I came to therapy with Sherry, I told her, and I remember telling you this very early on, that I felt like, yes, there were these symptoms, and those were unpleasant, but I almost don't care that much about the symptoms because they're an external indicator of an underlying problem. And that if we go after that underlying problem, the symptoms will go away, but not because we tried to address them, because we fixed the thing that was causing the symptoms in the first place. So all that to say, that was just my one individual experience. I'm certainly not telling anybody the choices they should make or how to live their life, but that was my experience.

SPEAKER_04 50:02

Powerful.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

Yep, and then just to kind of double tap what you said earlier on for me, those plant-based medicines, they were not a substitute for therapy.

SPEAKER_04 50:11

Yeah, yeah. Good for you, Nathan. Lots of courage on both ends, right? And we we love the both hand, right? We love the both hand. And I'm I'm glad that the one was helpful.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

I am too.

SPEAKER_04 50:24

Hard that the one wasn't, but we don't know what we don't know.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

We don't know what we don't know.

SPEAKER_04 50:28

But now you know.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

Yes, I do.

SPEAKER_04 50:29

Now you know. And and having the courage to still come to therapy, right? Six months later, realizing because you guys you heard him that he got some relief. He got he started feeling emotions again. He could tell his mother that he loved her and he felt it in his heart, whereas prior to that, he did not feel it. And that that obviously primed you for therapy because in therapy, and here's here's why I think a lot of people don't come to therapy. Um, it's because we have to feel the emotions. We we I tell people, you do not, I use the analogy of a swimming pool. We're not gonna go in the deep end and float in the deep end with your emotions, but we are gonna we're gonna stay in the water for a minute and feel the emotions, right? Like when you got sad, you had to cry.

SPEAKER_03 51:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 51:18

When you got angry, we looked at the anger iceberg and saw the emotions underneath the anger. Because you guys, when there's anger present, man, there's a lot of emotions underneath the anger.

SPEAKER_03 51:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 51:30

Anger is a safe emotion to feel because it's really easy to be like with people and loud and all the things. And trust me, I used to be there. Man, did I used to be there? Um yeah. I don't know if I should share this or not right here, but I'm gonna share it with you. I had so much anger. One time I uh I used to carry this, this, this, this desire, you guys, and and we're not gonna stay here very long, but it's a it's a big thing that was in my life. I used to carry this desire. This is crazy, that I used to want someone, I used to want a man to rape me so I could kill him.

SPEAKER_01 52:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 52:12

I'd call that some pretty heavy anger. What what do you think, Nathan?

SPEAKER_01 52:16

That I think that is that's really, really heavy. Yeah. That's really heavy. But I also think that you are it is unlikely that you're the only person that feels that way.

SPEAKER_04 52:26

Very unlikely.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

And something that I learned recently, uh the last five years, is that anger is it's not a primary emotion, it's a secondary emotion. Right. Meaning it comes from somewhere else. Often but not always, it's either fear or hurt.

SPEAKER_03 52:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

And it's there to protect us. And but however, the way that we express that often does not end up protecting us. You it can often make the situation worse.

SPEAKER_04 52:57

Right. I, you guys, I was a therapist. I was early in my career, and I said that in a room with other therapists, and I think some people's faces froze, and I was like, oh, I think that's something I need to work on. And that that anger, that rage towards men came from growing up with domestic violence, being being in two failed marriages, alcohol addiction, being involved in those marriages. That anger came from some righteous places. It really did come from righteous places. But when we hold on to it, it's no longer righteous. And boy, we could go into a whole other podcast about the importance of forgiveness and releasing, and oh, you guys.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

Um we're we're going to go into, we will eventually get to forgiveness and how important that is.

SPEAKER_04 53:47

Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, anger, anger can be um a really good defense mechanism, but when you hold on to it, it it becomes like a cancer that eats away at you. It it feels like, okay, when you're in this place of surviving, right? Because when we have trauma, we learn how to survive. And we don't know that until we know that.

SPEAKER_03 54:11

Right.

SPEAKER_04 54:11

And when you come to therapy, it's like, oh, you've been surviving. And I'll speak for myself and not you, Nathan, but anger helped me to survive, control helped me to survive. Boy, did I ever, oh my God, did I used to? And if my kids ever listen to this, they they don't know about this yet. But if my kids ever listen to this, they'll be like, yeah, mom was super controlling. I'll never forget when my youngest daughter, who's now in her late 30s, was on the floor playing as a toddler, and a friend came over to my house, and my daughter had blocks on the floor, and my friend was like, Oh my god, I'm shocked that you're letting her play with blocks on the floor. And I was like, What? I had no idea I was that controlling, but oh my gosh, I was so controlling. And that's a survival skill.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

Right. Right?

SPEAKER_04 54:55

That's a survival skill. Can you think of can you think can you think of a survival skill that you engaged in, Nathan?

SPEAKER_01 55:03

Oh, a survival skill. Yeah, for me, I would say uh relationships were a survival skill.

SPEAKER_03 55:08

Oh gosh, Nathan.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 55:10

Yeah, I do.

SPEAKER_01 55:10

And well, and let me just explain a little bit about that. I and this is not something I realized until I went to therapy. And Sherry is showing me this psychoeducational chart that she mentioned from this is Nathan's favorite page. My favorite page. And it's it's from uh a person named Janine Fisher. She deserves all the credit.

SPEAKER_04 55:31

Yeah, Janina. Janina, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:33

Phenomenal. So basically, the title of the page is The Abstinence Relapse Cycle. And so you can look that up if you'd like. But it basically details how someone who is utilizing a substance will utilize the substance essentially to treat their own internal wounds and their own internal pain. So it's self-medication. It's by the way, not that much different than taking ibuprofen when you have a headache.

SPEAKER_03 56:03

For sure.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

Now it's not it's not as effective, it's not helpful in the long term. But what it primarily is talking about is substance as in alcohol or drugs.

SPEAKER_04 56:13

And Nathan, can I just interrupt you for a minute? Because when you told me this story about you and relationships, I had never thought about that that that cycle applying to relationships. So go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

So it basically, you know, uh uh someone who is is utilizing those substances, they don't feel really good. They're trying to avoid, you know, utilizing the substance. They get to a point where they're just like, no, to heck with this. I I'm feeling like crap, I need to feel better. So they take it, they feel better, then they feel bad for being feeling better because they felt better by taking the substance and they know they shouldn't do that, and then they you know try not to do that, and and it's like this whole cycle. And I'm doing, I'm not doing a good job of describing that. Please look that up. But the bottom line is what I realized is that is 100% what I was doing with relationships. The voice inside me that was telling me that I was worthless, unworthy, not worthy of being loved, that I was a bad human, um, all that I was broken, that there was something wrong, all of that, those voices tended to be much quieter when I was in a relationship. But then the and part of that I think was because I thought, well, if some other human is willing to be with me, then I mean, I guess not, I guess I must not be that bad. You know, I must kind of be worth at least tolerating. But then when they were gone, then it was like, well, yeah, no, no wonder why they left you because you're a terrible person and you know you don't you're not worth being loved. So when I saw that, that was like an eye-opener for me. And I especially because I'm gonna tell you my first, my very first thought was definitely arrogant. But the first thought was, oh that doesn't apply to me because I'm not a drug addict.

SPEAKER_00 57:57

And by the way, that was like the first seven seconds, and then the eighth second was oh no, yep, you do the same thing.

SPEAKER_04 58:03

Just different substance, different substance, yeah. Because you came to see me because of a relationship um ending, yes, right?

SPEAKER_01 58:12

Yep, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 58:13

Relationship ending, and you guys, oh my gosh. Again, we're gonna I keep saying this. That's a whole other podcast. But we do that. We okay, hmm. This might be where Cinderella and Prince Charming come in. This might be where they come in.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

Hang on. I just I'm just gonna warn all you good people out there who love Disney, okay? If you love Disney, you just harden your little heart for a second here. You put a little wall around it and don't you just all right, hang on, here we go.

SPEAKER_03 58:45

Oh, Nathan.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

So tell me about Tell me about Cinderella and Prince Charming, Sherry.

SPEAKER_04 58:51

Well, Nathan, I think, first of all, I think the world tells us we're good, we're gonna go back to get married, have 2.5 kids, get the little white picket fence, right? You're and I'm showing my generation I grew up in. I don't think that happens anymore. People aren't even really getting married anymore. They're still having kids and doing the house together, but they're not really getting married anymore. But anyway, that's beside the point. We are taught, whether it's a Disney movie or pretty woman, you said that is still my favorite movie, even though I didn't I didn't realize why back in the day. But we're taught that um I think as women, we're taught, oh, where's your Prince Charming? And for men, men are taught, what do you like? How do you guys are looking very like, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 59:40

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:41

Well, you're taught as a man. What do you look for? Is it a prince? Is it a princess?

SPEAKER_01 59:45

We're looking for the princess. You're looking for the princess.

SPEAKER_04 59:47

Do you have the glass shoe?

SPEAKER_01 59:48

Uh well, I can manufacture one.

SPEAKER_04 59:52

Okay, so the women are looking for Prince Charming, the men are looking for the princess, and you guys, I told Nathan this is a little harsh, maybe, and I it it goes back and forth as to who's dead, but Prince Charming is dead and Cinderella is in rehab, is what I say. Because there are you guys, ladies, that you know, as much as I love Nathan and I love it, I tell him all the time, I love you and adore you, my son. But he's not perfect.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:21

Oh, he is not perfect, he is not perfect. Let me tell you.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:25

And and I, as a woman, definitely not perfect. Um, so there's there's no Prince Charming and there's no Cinderella guys and girls. Um, the reason I love to tell people, the reason Prince Charming and Cinderella look so successful and so happy is they didn't raise kids together, they didn't pay bills together, they didn't have to split chores in the house, they didn't put their finances together, they just got in the damn carriage, and yeah, there's a little one. They just got in the damn carriage and drove off and lived happily ever after.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:58

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:58

As did Sleeping Beauty. There was no carriage, but Oh the Kiss and then Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, Pretty Woman, right? He climbs up in the ghetto, Richard Geere. Richard Gere and Julia Roberts. Like, who doesn't love that scene, right? That he climbs up, I think he has a bouquet of flowers in his hands. He jumps out of his limousine and he climbs up the outside staircase, and she's like, I forget the words.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:25

I don't remember the words either, but it's very romantic.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

It's very romantic, right? And and there's nothing wrong with being romantic. You're very, you're a romantic guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

Yes, I am.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:36

You're a romantic guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

There's nothing, but I'm just gonna tell you guys I got the mom look. I don't know what I did, but I got the mom look.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:47

He got the mom look because sometimes that can get him in trouble.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:50

It can.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:51

Right? We're not gonna go there either. But there's nothing wrong with romance. I think being romantic is amazing. But when we're looking for romance in that way, like someone to come up the stairs and rescue you. Oh man, Lord, you're so good, Lord. There's only one rescuer. Did you know that, Nathan? There is only one rescuer. It's not a therapist, it's not a coach, it is not Prince Charming, and it sure isn't Cinderella. It's Jesus. There's only one rescuer.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

Well, and I think one, another important component to that is, and I'm just I'm not speaking for anybody else, I'm speaking for my own experience. But for a long time, I had the by the way, that's a part of who's on my bus and and parts of self, rescuer. Uh shouldn't shouldn't surprise anyone. And I for a long time operated with a mistaken belief that I could rescue people.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:46

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

And the kind of challenging thing about that is in real life, that is kind of what I did. You could say sometimes.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:55

But you definitely did that.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:57

But the the reality is that when we're talking about rescuing in this way, like for for dudes, the damsel in distress.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

Dude, I I'm sorry, I'm I'm so sorry to say this. I'm so sorry to say this. You can't rescue the damsel in distress because you can't do the work for her. The damsel in distress needs to essentially rescue herself by doing her own work. And the same is true for dudes. You you can you can be there, you can love him, you can support him, and he has got to do the work himself, and there is no substitute for doing the work.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:33

That's right. That's absolutely right. And so who helped you though? Yes, you do your own work as a dude. We do our own work as a chick, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:43

Nathan has given me a whole new language, you guys. I've never used the word dude in my life. And now he's got me saying dude and chick. I don't think I've used the word chick either in my life. But Nathan, who was on who else is on your bus besides the rescuer, the little boy? Who else did you learn rescue can rescue you?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:02

Well, God. God's on the Yeah, for sure, you guys.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:06

Nobody can, like Nathan said, a significant other can't do it, um, a parent can't do it, a sibling can't do it, friends can't do it. We need community without a doubt. And we need our parents without a doubt. I'm Nathan's a spiritual mom to Nathan now, and he needs a spiritual mom without a doubt. But guess what? Spiritual mom can't rescue either, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:27

That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:28

Um a spiritual mom can pray, support, do all the things, but can't rescue. No one can rescue. Um, I used to tell people if you look up codependency in my in the dictionary, my family picture would be there because boy, did my family think they could rescue people. I I sadly have to say that my parents, who are both now deceased, but they they tried to rescue my sister who struggled with drugs and alcohol most of her life. They, you know, they tried, I can't even tell you all the things. One day we'll tell you that, but they tried so many things to rescue her, and I think their rescue efforts, um, I don't know, they just weren't effective. Um, she died at a really young age.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:12

And something about rescuing, well-meaning, well-so well-meaning. It comes from a place of love and a genuine desire to see that other person do well. So it's please, it it's all good, it's all well intended. But it's also a little bit like someone saying to you, I want to get in shape. And you're like, Okay, yep, sounds good. And then they say to you, All right, so I want to get in shape. I need you to go to the gym and work out for me so that I can get in shape. And you go, uh what? That's not um, that's not really how that works, dude. Like you want to get strong, go do some squats yourself, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:47

Right. Absolutely. And let's just say, real quick, Nathan, when you are when you were in that rescue mode and you wanted to rescue the damsel in distress, we will not mention any names.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:58

When I was in rescue mode, by the way, that That was from the time I was like six years old until the time I was 37.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:03

Yeah, because Nathan. Nathan. Okay, just give me a tidbit of why. No. Well, it started at six because of your family dynamics. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:17

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:18

Right. So we're not judging that little boy, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:20

We're not judging the little boy. We're not judging the little boy. But we're understanding.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:23

We are understanding. But as a man, when you tried to wreck when you tried to rescue the damsel in distress, what kind of damsel did you attract? What kind of what kind of woman did you did you?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:36

The kind that had a lot of her own trauma.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:39

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:40

And um, yep. Trauma attracts trauma.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:44

Trauma attracts trauma. And ditto for me. Guess what kind of man I attracted? Why? What? Oh, I know what you're thinking.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:03

I'll let you share that one if you want to share that.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:06

Are you thinking about what I told you one day in session?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

Yep. About men? Oh no, no, no. I was thinking no, I was thinking something else. Something else. But that that one is pretty funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:17

Okay, he's gonna write down what he's thinking to see if I'm gonna talk about it. Wow. I am not gonna talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:32

I didn't think you would. But it is funny, people. It's funny.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:40

Oh my goodness, Nathan. Okay. What we haven't what we haven't touched on is um surviving versus thriving.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:51

Um, so go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

What do you think about wrapping this one up for today?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:56

And then we can pick up with some of that next stuff on our next podcast.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:01

Do you want to save surviving versus thriving?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:03

Yeah. Okay. If you're good with that.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:05

Yeah, we'll save it. We'll save it. That sounds good. So um we talked, we pray before every episode, you guys, um, to see. Well, we did a lot of follow-up from the last one with this episode, but we um we pray before every episode to see what God wants us to talk about. And we talked about closing with gratitudes. Like, what are we grateful for, right? So we're gonna start closing the show with gratitudes because here's the thing, you guys. Latest research shows that um, and well, we've known, I think, for a while, that anxiety happens in the amygdala. And gratitude also comes from the amygdala in the brain, and they cannot coexist at the same time. And so, one of the things that greatly helped me, yes, I've done a lot of EMDR myself. I haven't ever done art, but I've done a lot of EMDR, a lot of spiritual involving God and my healing, which has been unbelievable. Lots of works on the lot of work on the parts of self for me as well, which have all been really helpful. But gratitude, you guys, I trained myself like I've never really been a morning person. And I trained myself as soon as my eyes opened, whether I got three hours of sleep or whether I get eight or nine hours of sleep, which is a dream these days. But um, I would just I train myself when my eyes open to say thank you, Jesus, for another day. Thank you for whatever amount of sleep I got. Thank you for all the things that are going great in my life. And you've got to rewire your brain instead of focusing on all the traumatic events, and I'm not saying, you know, I'm not saying there's a magic wand, but instead of living in that deep end of the pool with the traumatic events, start rewiring your brain, right? To focus on gratitude and the positive things because we all have positive things in our life. And I I have to tell you, I went to play bingo yesterday. He's looking. I don't know what he's experiencing right now, but he's looking away. I went to play bingo yesterday, and um I sat at a table with some some uh family members of a friend of mine, and they, you guys, they were so negative. They were like, I never win, I never this, I never that. And I was like, and the woman uh it was a it was a husband and wife, and the woman was like, I've never won. I've never, and I was like, Okay, can you start saying instead that you're gonna win? And and she kind of shifted, and I'm not kidding, Nathan. She won a round of bingo, she was the only winner, and she got like the the whole pot to herself. It wasn't, it was like 40 bucks, which is it's cool, not huge, but cool. And I'm just like, words, you guys, your words bring life or death. Okay, they bring life or death. So if you are walking around saying, I can't, I'm it's never gonna happen, it's not gonna happen, it won't happen, I'm awful, I did, I did this or that, I'm awful, I'm not good, I'm not lovable. If you're walking around saying those things, guess what you're gonna get?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:08

You're gonna get more of that. You're yeah, and that's whether it's internally or externally. So I think that's a really good reminder for all of us to be mindful about our internal dialogue.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:22

Yes, and therapy can help with that, by the way.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:26

Yes, and coaching. And coaching, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:28

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 1:11:29

Yep. So sirens going by, you guys are probably hearing that. It's all well. Um, and I love to pray. So Jesus, just bless the siren, bless the ambulance drivers, bless the people that they're going to and keep them safe. Every time I hear an ambulance go by, I pray because they need angels with them and God's support. So um, I just want to say about positive thoughts. There was a Japanese scientist, Dr. Emoto, I believe is his name, that did research with words and water, frozen water. And it's so, it's so fascinating. Because when he spoke words of evil or hatred or death, the water formulated into like a big looking, ugly globing thing. And when he spoke words of life, it formed beautiful crystals like a snowflake. And so that's evidence of what words do. And the word the Bible literally says words either bring life or death. So, all of that being said, Nathan, you know, the teacher in me has to keep teaching a little bit. So, all that being said, what are you grateful for today?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:31

I am really grateful for this country. It is that's so good.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:37

That's so good.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:39

This country is an absolute miracle. I love that. To me, it is a great example of divine providence and serendipity. I mean, a new world. We left England, which was hard enough in the first place, and then we we worked under that rule for a while until we decided we had had enough, and then we threw that off and we we started a government, and it didn't quite work the way we intended, and so we fixed that too. And and man, the the Declaration of Independence just is a beautiful document. The Constitution. I can't say that the Constitution is beautiful, the Declaration definitely is. But uh for these men of various backgrounds to come together from the 13 colonies and be able to construct this document that has checks and balances that makes the people the sovereign. I it's just amazing. And I'm I'm very grateful for this country and to be able to live here.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:38

Nathan, I love that that's what you're grateful for. And you've heard me say this before, and you're gonna roll your eyes. That's the government coming out at you. I tell him all the time he's full of government, you guys. He's got a gift for government. Okay, what am I grateful for? Yeah, this is gonna, this is different than yours for sure, but it's okay. I am grateful for normally I'd be complaining. Like today it is beautiful outside. I think it's close to 70. Normally I'd be complaining because our temperatures here in Minnesota have been still sometimes in the 40s, 50s, mid-50s, right? Kind of cool. Um, and I, when I was younger in my 30s, 40s, even in my 50s, I had really bad allergies. Um, so I never I never um spent time with the windows open in the house. I always had to have the AC on because I had bad allergies. I couldn't have the windows open because I would go into sneezing and congestion and all the things. And my poor oldest daughter still experiences that. So, all of this to say my air conditioner's been out, as you know. I think for three weeks now it's been out and I've had to live with my windows open. Um, so I'm grateful for the milder temps that we've had. Um, we were actually getting a spring instead of jumping straight to summer. We've we're getting some spring temps, right? And it's it's again it's been beautiful. So I'm grateful for the spring to uh the spring temperatures and that my AC repair guy's coming on Monday morning. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:04

And along though those lines of gratitude, we want to thank you. Yes, time is very valuable in the finite resource. You can't make more of it, you can't buy more of it, you can't negotiate for more of it, you just have what you have. We're really grateful that you chose to spend some of your time with us, Nathan and Sherry, on Divine and Most Unlikely. We hope to see you again soon.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:28

Bye.