Spicy Midlife Women: Real Talk, Raw Truth, and Bold Moves for Women Over 40
Spicy Midlife Women is the ultimate podcast for women over 40 who are rewriting the rules of midlife, breaking free from relationship drama, and leaving toxic patterns behind.
It’s all about embracing authenticity, building meaningful connections, and living unapologetically through candid conversations, hard-earned wisdom, and raw truth.
Hosted by Jules and Michele, two midlife women with real stories and no-BS advice, the Spicy MidLife Women Podcast will guide you in redefining relationships, breaking free from what's holding you back, and reclaiming your power—one episode at a time!
Prepare to get clear on what you really want in your relationships—whether it’s romance, family, or friendships, let go of past baggage and open yourself up to the possibility of fresh, exciting connections.
You’ll also gain the wisdom and confidence to approach dating and relationships with confidence and zero judgment, and feel empowered to ditch outdated expectations, creating a life that truly feels good on your own terms.
Plus, find a supportive sisterhood along the way—because you don’t have to do this alone!
Spicy Midlife Women: Real Talk, Raw Truth, and Bold Moves for Women Over 40
Season 2 Episode 64: Navigating Trauma, Therapy, and Transformation
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Have you ever wondered if the stress of your daily grind could be silently shaping the landscape of your emotional health? As we sit down with a seasoned therapist, Kate Schroeder, who brings a wealth of 25 years of experience to this subject, we uncover the vast terrain of trauma. It's not just the life-shattering events but the everyday moments that, left unprocessed, plant seeds for both 'big T' and 'little t' traumas in our lives. The discussion moves beyond traditional definitions, acknowledging the role of societal attitudes in pushing down emotions that desperately need to be felt and processed.
Trauma doesn't just reside in the mind; it's etched into the very fibers of our being. Our guest guides us through the concept of the body acting as an emotional archive, storing the blueprint of our past long before our first words. Therapeutic methods like body-centered gestalt work, somatic experiencing, and internal family systems are brought to the forefront, demonstrating their power to heal beyond the capacity of conventional talk therapy. The importance of embracing every emotion and the dance between our thoughts and feelings in crafting our reality is a profound thread woven through our conversation.
As we explore the rich tapestry of support systems and their indispensable role in personal growth, we learn that the craving for connection doesn't diminish with age. Whether through relationships, internal dialogues, or therapy, understanding the diverse ways individuals seek and provide support becomes clear. Rounding out our exploration, we touch on the burgeoning field of psychedelic therapy, the delicate art of handling resistance in therapeutic settings, and the transformative essence of Gestalt therapy. Our guest's insights leave us with a nuanced understanding of our emotional and psychological landscapes, promising a journey of discovery for anyone invested in the deeper facets of mental wellness.
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Connect with Julee & Michele on Instagram @spicy_midlife_women and send a DM about what resonated most during this episode so they can encourage you with steps forward in your own life.
Exploring Trauma and Emotional Health
Speaker 1Thank you for having me both of you Suffice it to say, I'm a licensed professional therapist and I work with clients all over.
Speaker 1Actually, I've been doing this for 15 years now private practice and before that quite a bit before that about 8 to 10 years and ever since I was a little kid I knew I wanted to be a therapist, so the fact that I ended up here doesn't surprise me at all.
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm glad to be here because this is such a great conversation to have Timing. I think there is such a need for us to talk about mental health related issues because it's such a critical part. Thankfully and I don't know if this is only because of the pandemic, but I definitely think it kicked it up into higher awareness but our emotional mental health is as important as the physical health and so it's high time, in my opinion, that we're having these discussions. And yeah, you know, when we talked about kind of what do you want to talk about on the show and everything, you know the question of what do you see the most of? You know and I mean I certainly could blurt out all these different kinds of conditions and you know presenting problems and things like that but really, if I had to answer the core, it's trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma, trauma.
Speaker 3I hear and I'm learning about trauma in my adult life and really just over the last couple of years because of different circumstances, couple of years because of different circumstances. But it's such an interesting word, trauma, because when I first started hearing about trauma I didn't really identify trauma in my life really or in my kids' life. But over the last few years I've come to realize there's been some trauma, cause you think about trauma for me and it seems like really horrible, bad stuff.
Speaker 2Right, that's how I've always identified with it too, and it could be like little, just little things, right.
Speaker 3Which is trauma? We're going to ask the therapist.
Speaker 2We're all going to do this whole self-analysis. Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 3You know trauma from what I'm learning. Trauma for a child can be feeling the anxiety of not having money. They hear the conversations coming from parents and they feel that stress and anxiety, and then they too, and it can become a thing 100% yeah.
Speaker 1When I talk about trauma, I like to think about it as all it really takes for something to be traumatic is something happens and you can't have your full feeling about it, so you can't have the amount of the feeling, the kind of feeling, the duration.
Speaker 1Somehow you have to shut down at some point in that experience. And you know we all have little things you know, not necessarily traumatic things, but things that you know we might have to kind of take a minute to process because of life. But trauma is really something that develops when there isn't the adequate emotional space and support to process through what's happening. And so you know there's certainly big T trauma, so things like, you know, being in a house, fire or, um, you know, natural disasters or chronic oppression and minority issue kinds of work, or there can be sort of the uh little T traumas which are much more of what I think is I don't want to say more prevalent, but I think it's the stuff that we as a society discount because it happens all day long, all you know, and and I don't believe intentionally I mean I don't think people are walking around trying to undermine people's wellbeing, but it happens unconsciously.
Speaker 2So things like suck it up or yeah, absolutely, man up Things like that. When you hear people say that to like a little kid or something, you're okay, everything's fine. Don't be a baby, absolutely, or get over it.
Speaker 1Get over it. Yeah, get over it, or you know, that's just the way. Here's another one which I think is a huge microaggression that we don't realize. But it is what it is.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's a huge thing I've said that before plenty of times. Huge thing. I mean in my mind that's kind of accepting what's happening in front of you, me as an adult. I never really said that as a kid, yeah, but I don't remember anybody saying that to me as a kid either. But that's kind of more of a today statement, I think you hear.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah, I think it's the more modern version of get over it. You know, it's kind of like it is, and I think it's the energy too right. I mean, there is sometimes an acceptance when we look at life in front of us and we go well, this is where I'm at right now, versus the energy, when somebody is kind of you know somebody's having a hard time, and you turn to them and you say, well, it is what it is. It's kind of it's always about the energy of it.
Speaker 1And you know there are plenty of things that can happen in life that don't end up having to be traumatic but instead can be life changing. Don't end up having to be traumatic but instead can be life-changing, as long as you have the support to move through that and to have your feelings. And you know the funny thing about feelings is they're not really that big of a hairy deal. I mean, they become a big hairy deal because of all the ways we twist and contort and everything else inside, away from feeling uncomfortable things. But in their essence they're not complicated, they're very simple, they're discreet. They have a beginning, a middle and an end, as long as we have the supports to move through them. So yeah, trauma.
Speaker 2That's a long answer. That's probably the biggest issue, I would think, because if you think about, generationally, people not having the skillset to be able to process their feelings, then they're having children and those children are not going to be guided. You know, in the same way, and I don't know when things start to change, I mean I think as a kid it's going to be very different, like 20 years ago maybe, than it would be today. Like I think what I run across a lot is the stigma of mental health and of trying to express your feelings and like, say, and I and I go to um, I go to male more at this point because I think that they're men or boys, are not given the same opportunity to have feelings, um, or to express them, and so they seem more stunted or have more difficulty communicating about things, or they feel like they're weak or like they are uh if they do that right If they do so.
Speaker 2when you see, when you see men doing that, it's kind of nuts. It's not something you see all the time. I know, I know. But think about your four boys and how they communicate and convey their feelings. I mean, they are so, so different with how they've done that. You know, and they grew up in the same household.
Speaker 1Yeah, and everybody, every kid's personality is different, right, absolutely, and everything kind of their center of security is different. So what might make this kid over here feel really safe and secure? May not even touch it with a 10-foot pole, for this kid. So you know, trauma is relative too. It's what we perceive as being slighted in some way, and it's unique to each person and you know. To speak back to the thing around males and difficulty with emotions, without a doubt, I feel still and I see it in my practice too and people that I work with and teach and things I think it still is very difficult for men to have as much support in the world to cry, say for example you know, or to be vulnerable, and it's sad to me, but it's not just men only, I mean.
Speaker 1I think there are plenty of women out there too, and all kinds of people. However a person identifies or expresses himself, where it really comes down to there isn't the emotional adeptness inside to feel what they need to feel. And there's a fantastic book out called Better Boys, better Men, and it does such a great job. I think, of talking about the feeling process. Now, certainly, if you listen to the title, it is written towards men and males for sure, but it's a fantastic book for anybody who's taught to kind of toughen up and get through it. It's a great book, I mean.
Speaker 1So, yeah, feelings are different for everybody. What makes people happy doesn't make them happy, you know, it varies from person to person. So what I see a lot in my practice right now, and I think the question, the topic we need to be really exploring more, is trauma, and it's not even so much all the kind of traditional trauma things, but you know this idea of complex trauma, which is trauma that is based from developmental relational pieces in a person's life and it shows up. It shows up one way or another later in our lives developmentally when we try to have relationships or work through conflicts or keep jobs or even our own relationship to ourself. So complex trauma is a big thing that I see in my practice.
Exploring Implicit Trauma and Feelings
Speaker 2Do you see that and I don't know if this is true or not, but this has always been kind of my understanding is that the time frame when you're little you know three, maybe four years old, when you really can remember things, up until like eight or nine little things can happen in there that can kind of formulate your personality or how you respond Is that, and then that can carry on because that's when you is that. Is that true as far as you're learning and what you're, what you're growing up to understand?
Speaker 1Absolutely. I mean different, different schools have different thoughts right, but I think the common consensus now is that our earliest years really shaped the rest of our life. You know, here's the really, I think, fascinating thing but this is my jam, this is my job, this is what I do that we can hold trauma even from pre-verbal experiences and before explicit memory was developed. We hold implicit memories around unpleasant things in our bodies too.
Speaker 2Like how you felt 100%, like when something took place or something happened 100%.
Speaker 1Yeah, and it's really, I think, a pretty neat thing because it's pre-verbal. So that's why a lot of times traditional talk therapy isn't going to scratch that itch, because you're working with an implicit experience in your body that's been saved in your body. You know, our body is like our emotional hard drive. Every experience we've ever had is in our body. So working with implicit trauma, you know it takes a different approach. The talk stuff isn't going to get there. So so working with implicit trauma, um, you know it takes a different approach. It's the talk stuff Isn't going to get there.
Speaker 2So what would you do instead? I mean, because that's all I've ever known about, is talk therapy- I guess I know that there's other types of therapy, I guess.
Speaker 1Yeah, so so you know. The funny thing is is um, what was that? What was the movie with Bill Murray lost in in Translation? Was that the movie Way? Long ago Anyway you know they're speaking different languages and they could communicate. It's kind of what's happening, what happens a lot, I think, in the mental health field, because feelings aren't cognitive thoughts.
Speaker 2Thoughts are cognitive, feelings are experiences, they're energetic experiences in our body.
Speaker 1So if we want to get to the core of why people are depressed or anxious or have addictions or whatever, which are, you know, things, patterns and things that I see in my practice, we have to be able to get down to the feeling themselves, which we can't get to with words. It's in a place that's deeper than words, it's older than time, so we have to. In my opinion, the most successful shifting has to happen with experiential work. I mean, there's lots of different ways, right, there's body-centered gestalt work, which I believe deeply in. Somatic experiencing is another one, even looking at things like internal family systems, which helps you understand the context of how a person came to be who they are.
Speaker 1But feelings are experiences.
Speaker 1That's why talk therapy is only going to get you so far, and I'm not bashing talk therapy at all, because it's a really important piece for a lot of people in terms of really beginning to peel back the layers and get a sense of who they are and how they've become to be that way.
Speaker 1But if we really want to deeply transform, you have to get deeper, deeper than the language and the words. And so I mean there's that's a, that's a whole, nother multiple series of podcasts on that. But you know, feeling a feeling is really different than talking about it or thinking about it. It's it's a whole different experience. And the cool thing about that is is that feelings, they're sort of our emotional GPS. So you know the feelings that show up that we all are like oh, I'm so glad it's going to be that kind of day. I feel so good today. Those are certainly important feelings. But equally important are the feelings that show up on the day when you wake up and you go oh, this is going to be one of those days Like we need both sets of feelings.
Speaker 3Well, in order to have a high, you need a low and you need to have something that gives you that gauge right. Do those? As I'm listening to, I'm thinking the whole cognitive and emotional as a feeling and experience. That's that. That just kind of turned the light off, cool. But, um, can the cognitive thoughts dictate what kind of day you're going to have? Like, do you see that correlation? Like, if I wake up and I'm feeling sleepy and like I'm dragging and I don't want to get going, if I sit there mentally with those cognitive thoughts like, come on, you can do this, it's going to be a great day, do you do? Is there a correlation there? Can those cognitive thoughts help with a better experience? You know what I'm saying. I do, I do.
Speaker 1It's a great question. So you know, I like to think about thoughts and feelings as sort of like a pilot and ground control right, that our feelings actually are where need comes from, okay, and our thoughts are there to help us figure out how to get that. So the problem is when we put cognition before feeling. A lot of times we do this now like, well, what's logical, what makes the most sense, and now let me run it by and see how I feel about it.
Speaker 1Versus the other way that goes what do I really want to need based on what I'm feeling? And okay, now that I've got that figured out, let me get my brain involved to help me figure out the logistics. So can cognitive thoughts help us? I mean, people you know certainly have supports and you know meditation and daily readings and things like that, which I think are great. But the problem is is that unless we really get down to the core of learning how to feel, we're just, we're going to keep.
Speaker 3I mean we may get really lucky and really allowing yourself to feel a whole different bucket yeah.
Speaker 1And so I kind of, you know, in some ways, I think that there's a potential to do what they kind of call spiritual bypassing, you know, which is more like skipping the hard work and just feeling better. I mean, for some people that's enough, it's not even happening.
Speaker 2No, I mean really. I mean, for some people that's enough, they're good with that. No, I mean really, if you're at the core of it, you're not able to unpack whatever it is that's creating those feelings, then how could you skip them over unless you leave them in the box with a little lock on them, which is what a lot of people do?
Speaker 1Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1And so I think in those cases when people kind of choose that path for themselves, life becomes it's not that you can't have a fine life that way, but it becomes kind of a you know keeping the house of cards in place, right, so let me really hope nothing crazy goes down, or I don't lose my job, or my kids do what I tell them, or like life becomes a little more tenuous in that way because there's not that deeper, solid foundation that you can stand on that says, hey, I know, no matter what, not only am I going to be able to get to the core of what I'm really feeling, but I'm going to be able to do what I need to do to take care of myself and move towards that peace.
Speaker 1So, you know, I think that is what is kind of cool is I think that there is a shift starting to happen now where people are seeing that, at least in the mental health field, we need something different. There's something else, because you know we just keep going around the loop, and I've never been one that that says, hey, I'm going to help you catch a fish. I'm much more interested in teaching you how to fish, because then you don't, you're going to be fine no matter what. So it also kind of depends on people's approaches. I think things like yoga, meditation, daily readings, affirmations, all that stuff is great, but I see them more as supports than as actually taking that deeper step into where they need to go.
Speaker 3Like eating healthy food.
Speaker 1Exactly Support for your body, right, fantastic.
Speaker 3The meditation, the math, yeah, those things yes.
Speaker 2That actually is a good way to look at it, yeah.
Speaker 1And some people are okay stopping there. Some people are like that's fine by me, I'm doing pretty good, Things are okay, I've been sober for whatever years or whatever, and that's okay. But I think for people who continually struggle, or they feel frustrated or unsatisfied, that's kind of the deeper call inside of them that's saying you need to go deeper.
Speaker 1And those are the people I really like to work with, the ones that say you know and they don't ever never, although I do occasionally get folks who come in and say I need to turn everything upside down, but usually people come into my practice to help because they want to feel better you know they want to get through something, and so one of the first things I always like to kind of go through with people is that therapy isn't about feeling better. It's about getting better at feeling, and that's what I'm going to help you do, because when you get better at feeling and being with all your feelings, you're going to actually feel better.
Speaker 2Well, you're not afraid of your feelings because you're able to confront them head on, exactly.
Speaker 1Yeah, and so even in that, I mean, you know, a very simple practice or exercise I ask people do is to take a minute and think back to one of their hardest things in their childhood or their past, and how was their support around it Like? Could they cry and cry and cry, or was it okay for them to be frightened, or did people try to fix them or make them feel better? You know, and that's going to tell them a lot about what they unconsciously do inside. You know, and the coolest part about this is that 90% of what hangs us up in our life is unconscious. It's like we don't have any idea.
Speaker 1We think it's an outside job, and rarely is our issue an outside job, like if I made more money or if this person was nicer to me. Not that those things aren't important they certainly have an impact on us but 90% of why we're stuck or having a hard time in our life is something inside. I call that the inside job. We have to turn in and go in there, and finding somebody who can help you go there is so essential. And people are like well, what does that look like? What does that mean.
Speaker 1Like, well, imagine the worst possible thing you'd want to feel, and that's probably where you need to go towards that direction inside. It's going to be really counterintuitive. It's not going to be the worst. It's not going to kill you. If it were, you wouldn't be here, right?
Speaker 2now.
Speaker 1So I always tell people growth looks like what feels most counterintuitive in that moment that there's a decent chance that there's something about growth in that it's not as cut and dried as that and say, well, I'm going to only do counterintuitive things, but it is a clue that says there's something. That direction that is probably important for me to look at and explore and so I think that's a big piece in the therapy process is helping people build enough emotional stamina, emotional muscles inside to be able to go to those hard places. And it takes work. It's like learning anything right.
Speaker 1If you wanted to learn to play a musical instrument, you know you have to start practicing Right. And if emotions are the same thing, you know we have to practice. And we have to learn and practice with support how to feel our feelings. Usually the hard feelings Cause most people. I've never had anybody come into my practice and say I feel so much joy and I want to pay you money every week to just tell you how great my life is. You know they come in because they're like I'm struggling.
Speaker 2Do you find that avoidance is a huge issue? It can be Because of that uncomfortableness, yes, that people are just like they don't want to go there Absolutely.
Speaker 1They know they need to.
Speaker 2Of course, I'm speaking for myself here. Do you know?
Speaker 3avoiding I speaking for myself here, do you know?
Speaker 1avoiding. I don't know, julie. Well, tell your friend that, yes, kicking the can down the road, avoiding whatever you want to call it, but I don't see that necessarily as a problem in the sense as long as we're conscious about what we're doing and we have support to that. Because you know what I call, kind of that place where you know you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Like you know, there's stuff you need to deal with or a next step you need to take and you just can't quite do that. Yet I call that kind of a place of impasse and it's actually critical in the growth process is to get support to live through impasse.
Speaker 1Now, the key word there is support, because when we're at impasse and we're just whatever drinking too much, spending too much money and whatever it is the thing we do to kind of anesthetize ourselves. Impasse is just suffering, it's just uncomfortable, it's dissatisfying, whatever. But when we can live impasse with support and growing awareness around, oh, I'm not taking that step because someplace inside of me doesn't know, my muscles aren't ready. I don't have enough muscles inside to lift that emotional thing up and open it up and look at it, you know. So I work with that in a whole different way.
Speaker 1I mean I never. The truth is, you could take a horse to water. You can't make him drink anyway. Somebody may know I need therapy, and they've been saying that for 20 years and what they need most is not people who go hell yeah, you do.
Speaker 1They need people who are like absolutely, and when you're ready, you'll get that. It's funny, right? It's the paradox of change the more we try to change, the more stuck we're going to stay, Whereas when we can learn to support where we are, even if we're not happy about it, we actually end up beginning to shift and grow. And so I always say you know, dissatisfaction without support is just suffering, but dissatisfaction with support leads to growth.
Speaker 2So when you're talking support, are we talking like therapeutic support, family support or just anything, anything in general, like the things that we're doing with yoga or meditation, all that?
Speaker 1kind of stuff. That's a piece of it, but what I go ahead I think it looks different for every person.
Support and Connection for Personal Growth
Speaker 3it's going to be different, um, and I think it's important and, of course, as we're sitting here, I'm thinking of circumstances in my own life, people in my own life, situations in my own life, and there's there own life situations in my own life, and there's a lot of different situations, and each one of those have different ways of supporting it. As a mother, I have different ways of supporting my children, based on whatever it is that they might be going through. However, it is that they're going through it, and my support for a family member is going to be different than maybe one of their siblings is going to be able to support them. It's there's so many different. I think that's how I would see it anyways.
Speaker 2Yeah, as a mom, but then just as like a woman, just as a person. It's like you know, where do you glean support from? Where do you? Where do you gather all of that from? I mean, it could be your family, it could be, but there's a lot of things you won't. You don't necessarily share with your children, for example, because it's just stuff you don't share with them.
Speaker 3Yeah, I think it's the same that I'm thinking. This is so interesting. Like, just as you're talking about it because I'm thinking of different things with really close friends, like, I think, things with youileen, thanks, you know, stephanie, uh, you know, all these different women that I have in my life and honestly, I support each one of you so differently.
Speaker 3Yeah, uh, and I think I I get the same uh from from each of those people. I get a different kind of support from them to me. That is how they can do that for me and each one is different.
Speaker 2Everybody, I guess, has their strengths too. And what?
Speaker 3they bring. Yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1Yes, take the village, even when you're an adult, it takes a village right For sure you know our need for connection doesn't go away as an adult, like we still need. I mean the difference we still need. We have all the same needs that we had when we were children. The difference is I don't need you to tie my shoe net, but I still need help. You know, I don't need you to remind me to brush my teeth, but I still need connection. Or if I have to do a hard thing, I still need, you know, people to help me work through that.
Speaker 1And so I think support is, it can absolutely be external. You know the piece I think that's also really important and key is that we need support. We need to build the internal support inside too, meaning, for example, you know I've worked with plenty of people who are really smart, brilliant people, highly capable in their professional lives and things like that, but they struggle personally over and over and over right. Or they get themselves in a situation and they're like, oh, I can't believe I did this again. You know how many times have I done this thing? And it's like, first of all, it's not a brain thing, it's not logic, it's not nothing rational.
Speaker 2Clearly, because you don't want to be there, but you ended up there again.
Speaker 1So, by that very nature, there must be something important happening here, or else why would we be doing the thing we don't want to do? You know people who say, oh, I should give up smoking or I should, you know, stop drinking or exercise more or whatever. It's like we know that we wouldn't be saying that out loud if we didn't know that. But there's something that we're lacking inside to that point to take that next step in the direction that would really make us feel good. And, as odd as that sounds, it's the truth. Like, if we're not doing something we know would help us or make us feel better, there's something really important going on.
Speaker 1So I think, a big piece of what I love to help people do is kind of crack their own code. Like everything we do, folks, has meaning.
Speaker 2Every single thing we do consciously and unconsciously, and in fact, 90% of the unconscious is running our show.
Speaker 1So, we're better served not trying to figure out a different behavior or how to talk to ourselves differently, kind of thing Not that there's anything wrong with that but we're far better served in learning our own unconscious language, because all day long we're communicating unconsciously about what's working, what's not working, what we need more of, what we need less of. But we've learned to ignore that part of ourselves and only be with the rational. Logic makes sense. This is what I should do.
Speaker 2So I'm going to force myself.
Speaker 1And the thing is is it doesn't usually stick. I mean and when somebody is really struggling, you know and, and they cold turkey, whatever that is rarely does that stick and if it does, it's usually a pretty traumatic experience for them.
Speaker 1So, and I'm not saying for some people going cold, turkey isn't it? But what I have seen is that sustainable change happens by the inside going inside and saying, okay, I'm, I'm stuck, I'm in this thing, this pattern, it's not, you know, helping me, and I guess I probably don't have enough internal support yet to take the next step.
Speaker 1And that's where a ton of work can happen for somebody, because usually when a person's there, they're beating themselves up and they're feeling shame or embarrassed or judgmental towards themselves. Usually there's a lot of negativity toward ourselves which actually makes us want to do more of that thing we're trying not to do because we feel like crap.
Speaker 1So it's about beginning to work with that, and that's one of the things that I love with the Gestalt work that I do is helping people start to get separate from that negativity and judgment towards themselves inside first, because we can't walk through trauma if we're getting hammered every time we try to take a step First we have to deal with and that's where the support work starts to happen is we start to work on quieting down that negativity inside. And it's not magic and hocus pocus, it's hard work of feeling things and stepping into the center of hard things before we can even begin then to address the original kinds of experiences that happened so you know support is.
Speaker 1I think it's common for it to start externally, but a piece, for example, of an internal support for somebody who's stuck in a loop that they're like I've been doing this for 50 years, what am I doing? An example of an internal support that would grow for them would be to be able, when they get to that place and realize it, to be able to actually be really compassionate towards themselves and or, if they can't, to be able to reach out to somebody who can be compassionate towards them. Because it's like you said, michelle, like we can't heal and grow and change without connection. Right, we just can't. We're a social species, yeah, so we're not going to take those steps, especially not into hard place.
Exploring Gestalt Therapy for Healing
Speaker 1Think about your kids when they were young and you said you need to go in that dark room with no lights and put your pajamas on. They look at you like what? No, no. So that's the thing, right, it's kind of like doing that for people is we're going to go into the dark places together, though Like you're not going to get stuck. That's the thing is that you know people who are really, you know, just kind of. Their life is just this really hard experience, that it's sad to me in the sense that somewhere along the line they didn't get the support they needed to actually move through the feelings and that our system can fail them so much. Sometimes the mental health world that says, well, think something different or track your thoughts or do more yoga or like that's great, but those are band-aids, which we need right. If my arm's bleeding on the way to the hospital, I might need a band-aid, but we've got to do better.
Speaker 3Can you elaborate on? Is it?
Speaker 1Gestalt.
Speaker 3Like you mentioned that, so can you just explain or give some history on what that is? Sure, yeah.
Speaker 1So I mean, that's been my kind of cornerstone even all the way back to grad school. Gestalt is really about exploring and I say gestalt, some people say gestalt, whatever. It's about exploring the here and now as what I call kind of a doorway into something from our past. That's gotten us hung up. Here's the other thing that I think is really fascinating. It took me a long time to learn this personally, but when our focus is on somebody else, like what they're doing or not doing, that that is an indication that we're in a very defended place. When our focus leaves us and goes outside of ourselves and you know my partner would just take the trash out, or if my kid would keep their job or my whatever, like we're no longer in here, you know. And so it took me a while to learn that.
Speaker 2So we're no longer in here because we're externalizing our frustrations, so it's keeping us from really focusing on the things that we need to focus on for ourselves.
Speaker 1Yeah, Well it's, it's what we do to get out of a feeling, because feelings happen in our bodies. So the the particular kind of gestalt work that I do is very much about connecting back into our bodies and understanding that. You know, I get clients often who find me. It's not because necessarily I'm a gestalt therapist, but they find me because they have a lot of physical pain that Western medicine can't touch, eastern medicine can't touch, like they've been doing everything they can but their body is talking, it's somatizing big time. And so rarely do we not get to a place because of that body pain where we really can touch some deep healing and then nine out of ten times their physical stuff goes away.
Speaker 2And it's not magic. Mind is such a powerful thing you know, absolutely, it's so.
Speaker 1Yeah, and that's one of the things I think we love about kids, right, is they're they're pretty connected still.
Speaker 1I mean they're body, mind, spirit, like they don't think, they just do stuff, and sometimes it's great, and sometimes you're going to pull your hair out but like that, spontaneity and aliveness is wonderful, and so I feel like that's a lot of what we've lost connection with is our aliveness inside, and I feel really lucky to be able to help people clear the clutter out and get back to that, because that's key. And what I find is that a lot of the source of our distress, whatever it is depression, anxiety, addictions, eating disorders, you name it is because of unmet need, unmet developmental need that if we didn't fully resolve it, we bring that forward into our life and then usually we project a little bit on our kids and our partners and our friends and our neighbors, which isn't a problem. I mean, that's part of being human too, that you know you wave at a friend across the street and they don't wave back and you're like I wonder what's going on, are they okay?
Speaker 3Projection's not a problem.
Speaker 1It's just when we live as if it's true. We don't go check it out, we don't call that friend up and go hey, did you see me the other day? I waved at you Are we good? Is everything okay? We just assume whatever we assume. I'm just a parent.
Speaker 3I'm having my children, you know, you know it's their adult life, some of the decisions, and you know there's just so many different things and it's like yeah you know, then it brings on a lot of self-reflection and try and figure out what the heck without going into details, you know it's there's a lot of I'm learning there's I don't necessarily want to say responsibility, but it does has caused self-reflection for me and, like, maybe it wasn't as easy breezy. I've obviously put a lot out of my head.
Speaker 2That was but survival, a lot of that's just kind of survival, or say, keeping your head above water. You're just kind of doing what you need to do. I mean, I just think about being like a young parent or or working in the corporate world and, you know, being the superwoman kind of a thing. You're not not really doing yourself any favors, right? You know you're trying to be too many things to too many people and it turns into other stuff where you're not able to really cope with it. It can be, it certainly can be. I don't know.
Speaker 2I think you're right when I think about like my children, for example because that's obviously what I have to go on but they're so, so different and the way that they communicated and conveyed their feelings was so different. So like, for example, my youngest he's kind of a well, he's very quiet now as an adult, but he was the one that was the most emotional and the most conveyed the most loving and tenderness and everything. As a child he was very much that way, zoe, she'd get away with as much as she could. She was not that way. She was actually more like me. And then my oldest just didn't say anything. He just wouldn't really communicate at all, but he also was the one who had, I think, more what we call trauma, more trauma. He was really very well disciplined or very strict, and it was a little bit loosier, goosier, I think, with the other two.
Speaker 2I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, they all have, like I said, they've grown up to be so different and I don't know that we did anything different for each of them. Is what I'm saying. It's. I don't remember saying oh gosh, well, you have to have things the same way that you do, or I communicate or support you in the same way that I do with the the other one, I don't. I don't remember any of that, but I think we learned things along the way.
Speaker 2Yeah, I was on a lot more shakeups.
Speaker 3The older ones are older than the younger ones and I just experienced that being against an eight. I know, yeah, my parents didn't weigh up for me. You know, there was just like way less restrictions around so many things.
Speaker 1You know, being the youngest, Well, and I think too I mean as a younger parent you're stressed Like you've never done this before.
Speaker 3Yeah, You're supposed to know all the answers. You're supposed to know all the answers.
Speaker 1And, like you know, raise these perfect children and it's like what pressure I mean? Talk about pressure.
Speaker 2Well, and the whole thing about the perfect child or what you're deemed in society is doing as a parent, like a working parent, and all those things.
Speaker 2It really weighed on me a ton when my kids were growing up and you know, I think we did a pretty good job with them. I mean, your kids are great. I, my kids are doing really well too, so but they have their own little trauma and it's funny how, you know, I hear you know, like with zoe. Zoe will just tell me what she remembers or what we did or didn't do or what have you, and I'm just kind of like wow, I hadn't heard things from that person, not mean or anything like that, but it's from her perspective.
Speaker 1it's very different, yeah than what I thought it was interesting yes, hindsight's 2020, right, but it's hard in those moments, you know, when your kid's about to stick a fork in a light socket and this other one's losing their mind and you're like I'm just going to do the best I can, and that's another big thing that I think really can create a lot of trauma, like you were saying, julia, that it felt like a lot of pressure that I gotta do a certain thing with my kids because you know we've got to take, we've got to take judgment out of feeling. There is is no such thing as right and wrong in this world in the sense of if I do this, this is right and if I do this, this is wrong. They're just different decisions that are going to have different impacts and may be more or less dissatisfying and may be more or less in line with your integrity and your values and your morals, but you know, from a feeling perspective, there's no. The only place right and wrong shows up in all of existence is math. Yeah, that's it. It's not right if you do this and it's wrong if you do this. You know we do the best we can and that's.
Speaker 1I think the other really huge piece of transformation that can happen for people is not only with yourself, because you know, because what?
Speaker 1often happens with clients that I work with who have children and things that they'll grow to a certain place and then it'll hit Dawn like, oh crap, I did this to my kids. I think the key takeaway is finding something, and Gestalt is one path for that that takes you below the cognition and down into the actual feelings of it, because really the core is we need to learn how to move toward all of our feelings, including the not fun ones, if we really want to change something fundamental in our life. And you know, I mean that brings up a whole another area of exploration around. You know psychedelic therapy and things like that, which is amazing so talk to us about that.
Speaker 2I know that's kind of a new thing. That's out there, right?
Speaker 1Yes, yes, you're learning all about that. I am, I'm getting certified in it to be able to do the journeys with clients and things like that. So it's so profound and it's interesting because in the very beginning I don't even know now, six, seven years ago I had clients who would bring it up and they'd ask me about it. And you know, I didn't really give it a lot of stock because to me it felt so different and unusual and in the Midwest I was in the Midwest at the time.
Speaker 2So you know the chances of that happening there are like that's going to be the last place, so she moves to the West Coast, so I moved to the progressive areas where I can have an opportunity to do more of this.
Speaker 1But it's amazing because if we're talking about getting beyond the words and beyond the cognition and down into, in most cases, the implicit memory of what we went through and what shaped us both, lovely and not so lovely.
Speaker 1Psychedelics are just an amazing tool for doing that. And you know, michelle, we were talking a little bit about how I think one of the first ideas that people think about with psychedelics is oh yeah, I did them when I was in college or I did them at a party once, or whatever, and that you may have had a great experience. You may not have had a great experience, but the difference is, when you do them therapeutically, that it's. It's a. It's a very structured, intentional. I mean lots and lots of hours working with somebody. You know, I had an experience last fall. I did some of it myself to get a sense of that for my clients, and I know it's such a cliche thing to say, but it was literally like doing 10 years of therapy in six hours and it wasn't even like longitudinal therapy, it was like depth work, which is amazing because initially it was. I'd never done anything like that before.
Speaker 1Yeah, but I was wanting that. I had felt kind of like in a place of impasse, in kind of the bigger picture of life Like I needed and had just made a gigantic you know change in my life. But I wanted I was bumping up against the limits of ordinary consciousness and I mean this is coming from somebody who's, you know, does therapy on on the regular and group therapy I mean I'm I'm down for all of it.
Speaker 1It took me to places, implicitly, where, I mean, I was able to get in touch with grief, things that I'd tucked away in my body from, I think, very early on, even pre-verbal kinds of places, so it was amazing. I wanted that, though, you know, I think it's healthy to have a little bit of concern or questioning about it, because you are opening 10 doors.
Speaker 2Right, I mean, that's the thing. Do you remember after the therapy? Do you remember what you experienced, like the details?
Speaker 1I don't remember all the details because it was such an experience like a non-ordinary experience.
Exploring Psychedelic Therapy and Healing
Speaker 1It's really hard to talk about something ineffable like that and put it into words, but my sitter had, you know, taken some notes and things along the way. Which, again, I think is part of doing this therapeutically is that you actually have someone who's trained to be there with you to be witness and to hear the things and the themes, because for me that's really important to be able to go back and kind of revisit these things. I remember some images, I remember the feeling, and what's so cool is I was able to go to some of these really hard feelings without getting stuck in all this fear and, you know, kind of wanting to go the other direction. You know we talked about growth is counterintuitive. It's like it allowed me to go into those counterintuitive places without the fear, and you know I had to have a lot of support to do that, and so I think we have to be really careful about that too because this isn't just a party game Like it's not just hey, let's go, you know, take mushrooms and listen to some music.
Speaker 1Yeah exactly Because you're going to. And that's where people then get re-traumatized is when they drop into feeling experiences, old trauma, that they don't have the internal supports to process that that's where things can get really difficult.
Speaker 3I would imagine there's stuff I know we were talking about it a little bit that is critical for the before and the things that are happening during yes, and after absolutely so, having that to your point earlier that it's got to be some of the supports through that process absolutely are key in how that turns out absolutely 100 like the, the set, the setting, the container that you create, the, the pre-work to.
Speaker 1You know, help, really get to know what a client is. You know, listening to what they're wanting and it's not just the verbal words or the audible sounds they're making, but listening in a deep way to what they're asking for and assessing like, what are their supports? I mean, you know where are they at, what kinds of things, things you need to be thoughtful about while they go through this journey and experience. So it is, if done therapeutically, I think it, it really and it's worth it, I mean right now, because it's still so new and things I mean it is pricey for people to do and hopefully that's going to change so much with insurance and stuff. You know, the the really cool thing that I've, I think, probably so far just been profound, is how behind this the military is and that they're on board, they, they've done the research, they've validated, you know, because there's so many people that have ptsd you got it, yeah, you got it, and so they're and they're getting medicated.
Speaker 2So there's the whole and it's costly of it, it's ongoing, costly care and sustainable.
Speaker 1But their only question now is how do we implement this? And so it's kind of exciting, because when I think about that, I think, if we've got that big vehicle running the show, that maybe we'll get to a place where insurances are beginning to look at this as necessary as antibiotics and, you know, psychotropic medications and things. I mean ketamine is legal everywhere now, and some insurances are paying for their various forms of ketamine, s-ketamine and things like that which is a derivative, and you know it's a whole other discussion.
Speaker 1It still can bring a lot of change for people, but my hope is that Is that? A psychedelic. Well, it's not a classic psychedelic, but they group it into psychedelics.
Speaker 2I've heard of it before, I just didn't know what it was. Yeah, it's more of a disassociative which?
Speaker 1again is kind of what you get in some of the psychedelic classical psychedelic where you can approach these things without all that fear and stuff. So it's a different compound where you can approach these things without all that fear and stuff. So it's a different compound. But actually several psychiatrists that I know they say now for treatment-resistant depression all they recommend prescribed is ketamine. Really they don't even do psychotropic meds, especially if a client's been on a couple of different rounds of meds and nothing's shifted, then that's the go-to.
Speaker 1So I think this is well? I don't think it. I know it's going to become the next wave in the mental health field. And I'm so excited to be like on the forefront of this, because this is what we need. We need that deep, profound change. And you know, one of the coolest things I think I brought back from that journey was it was not only this experience of being part of something much bigger than our.
Speaker 1you know we look around the room and the table and the computers and our cars and our job, like that is like one blip of our existence, and so it was really, really cool to have a feeling of being connected to something so much bigger, where you know that perspective can be powerful too.
Speaker 1I think there's something about perspective that helps us shift out of some of our the way we get hung up in feelings and things and like it's such a big thing. You know, it's like having some perspective to realize, like in another lifetime. I'm not even going to remember this one, you know, whatever your belief is around that stuff, but it's profound, I mean I, so I brought that piece back. And then the other piece I think which was so cool is a validation for the necessity of of deeply living, of feeling things deeply and having the ability to walk through that. It's like we all feel things deeply, whether we're aware of it or not. So I mean I could talk forever about that experience. It was so profound, but my hope is so. Psilocybin is legal in Oregon right now, but it looks like MDMA is going to be the next one to be legalized.
Speaker 3Yeah, that's what you said, yeah probably, hopefully, august of this year.
Navigating Resistance in Therapy
Speaker 1Yeah, I know, which is pretty cool too, because it's excuse me it's a whole different entheogen itself, you know, whereas psilocybin might be more about the depth work, mdma although you can do a lot of depth work on it there's also an element of connection around it which I think can be really powerful for people too, because a lot of what we're isolated and we're lonely, you know we're, uh, we're lonely with ourselves, you know we've lost our connection to ourselves, and so you know we have to work on that piece critically in that way too. So you know. And then there's lots of other sort of smaller companies, but those are kind of the big three that you hear a lot about. I mean, there's Ibogaine and Ayahuasca and some of these, you know, 5-MeO-DMT, lots of stuff like that.
Speaker 2I've heard of the ayahuasca one, yeah, so yeah, it's important.
Speaker 1This is what I'm talking about doing the depth work you know and being able to process, because 90% of the show is ran from our unconscious, so why not learn how to go there and communicate with it and crack?
Speaker 2its code, you know so there's a lot.
Speaker 1There's a lot of exciting things about that.
Speaker 2So let me ask you it's like you know, people come to therapy, you're, they seek you out. But have you have you experienced where you have people that you're working with that are just there's like a brick wall, and then you have to kind of try to figure out how to get through the brick wall? Or they don't want to be there, or husband's making them do it, or they're what. You know what I mean? It's not, it's not their choice, but they're there. Do you see that people will make progress in those circumstances? After a while, maybe they become more open-minded about things or see that you know it's helping them.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I've I've had occasional situations where a client may have been motivated to come from something outside of themselves, where, as they've been there, something clicks inside for them and they're like, oh, I need to be here. But I think what's more common is that if somebody's being kind of I say, quote unquote, mandated to be there, right, I'm going to leave the marriage if you don't go to therapy, or court mandated or whatever, it's not that folks like that can't make progress, but much of the work at that point is just going to be helping them support themselves, whether they say I don't want this, or growing the work, the emotional muscles inside to get to a place where we can even begin. It's kind of called befriending our defense system. We hear those words, defense system, and they sound like such bad words.
Speaker 2Honestly, we need our defense system.
Speaker 1I'm so glad we have them all of us.
Speaker 2It's like a survival, it's 100%, it's a survival technique.
Speaker 1It's like our skin. Right, we need our skin. It protects us and so does our defense system. So it's not about I want to get rid of that and I don't want to be defensive. It's more, I want to know when I'm defensive and so I can take a moment and dive in and figure out what I'm defending against. And when I sort that out inside of me, my defensiveness will naturally go away, Like when I can feel safe enough inside and I've worked through whatever needs to be worked through.
Speaker 1So to me defensiveness is. It's not a bad thing, it's a clue, it's important, you know whether it's it's in a relationship with someone and just a certain place in your life. It's important, you know. It's just so. It's about working with that.
Speaker 1So yeah people who show up there because somebody else told them they need to be there. Sometimes this is their lifetime and sometimes it's not, and they still need support for that. And I've found honestly and you know I don't have an agenda Like it's not my job to fix anybody. Really, it's not even my job to help anybody. It's my job to help them help themselves. And so when clients are coming and they're even looking at me to help them feel better, often what that indicates to me is that they're in a very young emotional place.
Speaker 2And so maybe they don't understand what therapy, what it's supposed to do, because they think I'm paying you to help me figure out the stuff or to figure it out for me, or, yes, you know yes, so it's.
Speaker 1It's one of the things I love most about the work is it's so unique to every single person, and I don't believe there are quote-unquote impossible cases like I just don't think that if you're able to work with a person's defense system, and it's not even like trying to get the defense system to break down. Right. It's working with their defense system to understand how important it is.
Speaker 2No judgment.
Speaker 1The goal is not to take away the.
Speaker 2Thing you don't want right now, because if we do that, you're going to implode?
Speaker 1Yeah, let's figure out why that thing's here, what it's protecting you from feeling, and let's take baby steps into that feeling All along the way. You're the boss Like you get to say yes or no. It's amazing how transformation can happen, and sometimes for some clients a bulk of their therapy work might be from a place of impasse. I mean, I'm talking about years and years and years, and then they'll get something and their whole life shifts, I mean it doesn't.
Speaker 2It's like a light bulb moment, a hundred percent like, and it doesn't always happen that way.
Speaker 1But but I, you know, I've never turned down a client, who I mean? I got a client once who showed up who said everybody else had kind of referred them, and you know I don't know that therapists told them they were a hopeless cause. But that was kind of what they were feeling, because so many people just said I can't work with you and I'm like, absolutely, come in, and now they're doing wonderful, they're like a therapist themselves and like just changing people's lives. So I just everything we do is important.
Speaker 3Well, thank you, I mean.
Speaker 2I've actually asked you before, not today, but asked you before. It's like, aren't you just exhausted? I would just be so exhausted, like trying to hear everything else that was going on with other people and trying to manage. I mean, obviously I've never done that before, but and then have to deal with my own life. I don't think I can do. I don't think I do a very good job. Yeah, no, it's my friends over red wine right, yeah, exactly, oh goodness.
Speaker 2Yeah, I've heard about those. Yeah, the red wine method, that's what we're going to call it.
Speaker 1Which is therapeutic sometimes you know? Yeah, you know what. I feel really energized by this stuff. I mean sure you get tired of doing anything six, seven hours a day, but, like to me, it's the greatest. It's so I get to help people connect back to themselves.
Speaker 2And it's kind of honestly, it's a gift because it's like, not that many people can do it and do it well, it's so amazing.
Speaker 1I mean I use the word excited a lot in therapy. My clients look at me like how is this exciting and fun?
Speaker 2I'm like well just hang in here, just work with me.
Speaker 1Hang in here. It's amazing, yeah, like we're learning where I'm getting to help them learn their deepest language and connect back to the part of themselves they lost connection with, like years and years and years and years ago. How is that exhausting?
Speaker 2Just when you see the progress or you see that kind of shift. It's got to just feel so good.
Speaker 1It's amazing, it's so amazing.
Speaker 3And yeah, so I've learned that trauma is a thing Trauma.
Speaker 1It's so amazing and yeah trauma, trauma, trauma trauma, trauma capital big, trauma little trauma.
Speaker 2Yeah. So, kate, do you have your schedule open, so maybe I need to schedule an appointment? Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1Of course, yes, I am taking new clients.
Speaker 2I definitely will want to, at some point, talk to you about some of the therapies that you're learning about. Yes, and be one of your for sure. Yeah, people, because I think that would be really cool absolutely that's.
Speaker 3That would be lovely so yeah I just like I said, it's an incredible work that that you're doing, that you've done, that you're continuing to learn about, and and the ways that are, um, you know, most impactful for people, especially in the depth of work that there is, and all of us. I've just learned that more over the last couple years yeah, you know yeah, yeah yeah, so will you come back and visit us again?
Speaker 2love that. Okay, this has been wonderful. Thank you, yeah, this has been great. I'm kind of like hanging on your words and listening to all the things you're saying, I'm like, oh yeah, that totally makes sense.
Speaker 3And she did mention Kate. You said you're taking medications.
Speaker 1Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3So maybe we can have an email or something Sure.
Speaker 2We can definitely share that.
Speaker 3Sure that, Sure Absolutely, so that we can make that happen for them. And if you there's anything, cause I know for me there's things in this episode that I'm going to go back and watch you revisit and listen to? Absolutely, there will be. So, you know, just download the episode. You can, you know, then find things easier. That way you can find us on our socials thank you so much thank you today and we will definitely have you back again.
Speaker 3I will love it next time everybody would like to say this little thing at the end peace out peace out peace.
Speaker 2Bye, everyone bye.