Your Therapist Needs Therapy 69 - Finding Empowerment Within with Patrice Flanagan-Morris

This week Jeremy is joined by the owner of Empowerment Within, Patrice Flanagan-Morris. Patrice shares her journey into the mental health field, driven by her personal struggles with anxiety and depression. We discuss brain-spotting and the importance of meeting clients where they are in their healing process, especially when working with trauma. Additionally, Patrice reflects on her experiences as a business owner and a mother, balancing personal and professional responsibilities while maintaining authenticity and self-care.

To learn more about Patrice and her work, head over to empowermentwithinllc.com, and be sure to check out the upcoming couples workshop! You can also follow on Instagram and FaceBook for updates!

Jeremy has all his practice info at Wellness with Jer, and you can find him on Instagram and YouTube.

Head over to Patreon to support the show, or you can pick up some merch! We appreciate support from likes, follows, and shares as well!

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Podcasts about therapy do not replace actual therapy, and listening to a podcast about therapy does not signify a therapeutic relationship.

If you or someone you know is in crisis please call or text the nationwide crisis line at 988, or text HELLO to 741741. The Trevor Project has a crisis line for LGBTQ+ young people that can be reached by texting 678678.

Transcript

Your Therapist Needs Therapy - Patrice Flanagan-Morris – 2024/09/05 10:57 CDT – Transcript

Attendees

Jeremy Schumacher, Patrice Flanagan-Morris

Transcript

Jeremy Schumacher: Hello and Welcome to another edition of your therapist Needs Therapy, The podcast for two mental health professionals, talk about their mental health journey and how they navigate mental wellness while working in the mental health field. I'm your host, Jeremy Schumacher, licensed marriage and family therapist, the show head over to Patreon.com/wellness with Jere. we've got other cool stuff, The podcast some subscribes are also Super Stoked to be back today with the podcast, a therapist Flanagan Morris, the owner and operator at empowerment within Patrice. Thanks for joining me today.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, I'm excited to be here.

Jeremy Schumacher: I always start with the same question, which is How did you get into the mental health field?

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I grew up with a lot of my own challenges around anxiety and depression and remember therapy being introduced to me as a teenager and being very

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Insistent that it was terrible and I highly stigmatized in the community that I was in because it was very conservative. And so as I started going through my undergraduate program, I just started seeing how impactful having somebody to talk to and work with to challenge your perspectives. And ideas about life could really shift your mindset and how you really find joy in life. And so, after I worked at the suicide hotline for a couple of years, I decided to go back into my master's program. To become a licensed clinical, social worker, and start to pivot in working in therapy settings, especially with my primary population. I worked with that first was adolescence. And then involuntary adolescents because I just love a challenge and connecting with teens is really fun, even if it's sometimes hurtful

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I can the process and just through all of my own personal struggles and then getting to support people who just really needed to be And heard really has felt like such a giving profession for me.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah. what was your journey then? you talked about doing some stuff in undergrad, where you were Psych Major, where I had a therapist

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, I moved to Madison and just the change in culture and openness that I found there, really, I didn't ever attend therapy in undergrad. I think I went a couple of times with the free counselors that they had there, but I wasn't super invested and I was still pretty held back from the process but all the ways in which I ended up challenging myself in going through school and then recognizing just how anxious I was in that other people weren't as anxious as me was kind of a wake-up call to be like I guess this isn't the way you have to live life all the time because I came from a very anxious family, so it was just very normal. So I think that shift into going to college living on my own being in a city. That was a lot more open-minded. Really helped me then make the pivot towards moving towards graduate school. And that's when I actually first started attending therapy regularly,

Jeremy Schumacher: Fun. I went to therapy for the first time in grad school as well. So when I got my ADHD diagnosis, my last year, my postgrad just, I like to joke the worst time to get a diagnosis. Thanks now,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I'm done with school and…

Jeremy Schumacher: I'm done.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: don't need any of the assistance that I could have gotten.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, could have gotten a lot more accommodations than I did. Curious about your grad school. Experience, as I know you are now owner of a practice. what preparation did you have for? Not just the work you do now and the clients you work with but also the business side of things, was that a thing that was promoted or talks about? Or was it just kind of like grad school to internship to agency pipeline of postgrad

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: yeah, I mean in getting your masters in social work, that idea is that you're basically going to Live to work for the rest of your life in order to serve and underserved population. And I think I love social work with the idea that it really involves a lot of systems and understanding external and internal impacts on what gets people where they are. But most of the teaching that I received was relatively generalized and very brief Support rather than long-term kind of healing for people and even long-term healing of the systems that exist in place that are causing a lot of the issues.

00:05:00

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I will say that I did a informed certification route in my master's program, and that was really helpful for me, because I connected with Teacher that I took multiple classes, with where I really felt like I got Hands-on experience and understanding of how trauma works in the brain in the body and used that as my platform to kind of bounce off of, which really helped me from the very start of my practice, just having a very different understanding of what's actually neurobiologically going on with people.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, for sure.

Jeremy Schumacher: so what was then the journey to Owning your own practice and get it into the business side of it.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: So in my graduate program, the teacher that I was talking about, introduced me to brain spotting and that is what I did. I completed my phase one and my phase two before I graduated undergrad. And so it was my primary modality to use and in going through the trainings and then seeking out my own brain spotting therapy. It just transformed me so much as a human being I tell everybody, I'm a recovering perfectionist and it's still comes out in some moments. but prior to brain spotting part of So much of my anxiety was this high rigidity and black and white, and white and wrong. And as I went through brain spotting my own therapy and brain spotting.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: So much of that just kind of got broken down into understanding the different parts of myself that were holding on to that and why they were holding on to it and so much of my anxiety got relieved in that process. that really helped me kind of grow into where I went after grad school. So I started at a nonprofit residential teen center and then I was also in tandem working at a private practice time. until I got all my hours and then I decided to it was really challenging in the residential facility because I loved getting to be there with all the girls and I think it just creates such a different relationship to get to sit down and have lunch together and I'd come in early if they wanted to exercise and we do like a little program together. It really helped build the therapeutic relationship to do some of the deep work. But unfortunately.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: The company itself, really struggled with having informed, practices and I had to hit a point where I had to decide Do I continue to participate in a company that is unwilling to shift and is actively traumatizing the kids? I'm trying to help heal trauma, or do I try to make a shift and go somewhere else and see if I can make a difference? And so, after that point, I shifted to a group practice for a while and just recognized that, I would be okay on my own and that I could do things a little bit more in the way that I was aligned to do them. I really believe in supporting people as holistically as possible, helping understand the whole picture doing that deep-rooted healing. And so, I just wanted to start a company that kind of represented that instead of being with other companies that had different missions and values and maybe at times weren't always very congruent with those missions and values.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I wanted to start my own thing where I could keep myself in checks and balances of being very congruent in that way.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah, there's so many pieces to pull apart there. I love the word congruent. It's one that I use in therapy a lot with my clients, but also experienced That's similar journey of being in different agencies working in different private practices and seeing how other people did it. And for me, it was seeing other people do it poorly that finally gave me the confidence to be like I could do that. I didn't know that I could do it…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: if I could do it But there are things worth at least I won't be doing that. At least I can practice from an ethical,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: or an aligned perspective. Instead of a money-making perspective or a retraumatizing perspective, kind of like, you were mentioning

Jeremy Schumacher: A lot of my listeners are our therapist.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: brief Patrice. I could tell you, I could talk about brain spotting for hours, I have. So I tell people in the simplest manner, Brain spotting is a bottom-up therapy that supports in bridging the gap to what you feel. So a lot of us walk around the world knowing we should take better care of ourselves, knowing we should quit our jobs knowing we should leave a relationship but really struggling with the feeling of wanting to stay and keep trying. And so what brain-spotting supports us in going into those felt senses and those feelings to reorganize the brain. So we get to act in our present moment with what is best for us in the present day, rather than what our wounding or conditioning from our past is telling us to do.

00:10:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Should we start beef with EMDR providers? I'm powering through here. I was introduced to brain ting. through a professor who referred to it as the red-headed stepchild of EMDR which I think is offensive on a lot of terms…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: but it is a different experience and I think EMDR is one of those ones that I'm not trained in it. I don't do it but a lot of my clients who have experienced you either? Kind of love it or hate it. And I find brain spotting anecdotally has been a softer. Sort of launching point for that brain body connection work and that bottom up, that therapy that you're talking about, is that as someone who does brain spotting, is that Is that something that you hear from people who have maybe tried EMDR before and our heads that's in about brain's body,

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, I have. Quite a few clients who have done EMDR in the past and found it to be either too.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Organized and planned almost for what a sub cortical brain can handle because so much of the information we store down there just doesn't make a lot of sense. I tell people. It's like, if you give a four-year-old, a bunch of different colored papers and colored folders, your expectation isn't going to be that they get it a 100% accurate and that's kind of how our subcortical brain is too. So I've had a lot of people who either experience it as two structured and rigid or who experience it as relatively traumatizing, is something opens up too fast and it's hard to contain. And so the reason I really love brain spotting is there is such a emphasis on that relational attunement with your client. And there's so many ways that we can ebb and flow in and out of things. And only need to stay there for a little bit that people can pendulate in and out of the pain points, without needing to stay too long. If that's what they need in order to start moving through what they need to move through. So there's just so much flexibility.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: With it to meet clients where they're at and attend to what they're needing in the here. And now,

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and I think that sounds like it aligns with what you're talking about, holistic treatment in that having a modality that is a little more flexible and To be fair to EMDR and a lot of lovely providers, who do it like a skilled provider can be flexible with EMDR,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yes.

Jeremy Schumacher: It does not need to be overwhelming, but I've heard from a lot of clients with that feedback that whether that's how the provider does it or that's how they're taught or whatever. And so I think that holistic care, especially for a community that's coming from complex drama, being able to have flexibility is really important and provide some autonomy for that client to work through their own healing

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, and a lot of what we struggle with on a day-to-day basis is implicit or on known unseen un not understood by us and when we don't have targets or memories or specific things we can pull on, we just have this felt sense. that's where brain spotting really can do some deep and meaningful work because it's not even that you'll get the whole picture but you can start moving stuff through that. You don't even know what it is. We have kind of a saying that we say you don't have to know what it is to know that it is and to be able to process it. And for a lot of people, it's those implicit callings and senses that push them into making decisions that maybe just aren't aligned for them, or they didn't want to make and they just end up doing it anyways.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah I am a hundred percent gonna steal that I don't always need to know what it is or we don't know why it is to know that it is I think a lot of times I say to clients like That's a rabbit hole,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: we can go down. I don't know what it will change. If that feels meaningful to you, Let's do that. But because again I think that's people's idea of therapy often is this still sort of freudia and let's go back to childhood. It's like we might not need to we might but we might not and deciding and again, providing that opportunity for clients to weigh in if that's something they want to do or not.

00:15:00

Jeremy Schumacher: so, that was Transformative for you and then bringing that into your work. I know your website has DBT and all these other modalities. How do you as The mortalities that you're bringing to build kind of this holistic treatment for someone.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, I try to support clients in an intake to see, what, their long-term goals are, and what they might need before. They do deep Subcortical processing is just I guess another phrase of really looking at ourselves, honestly, and seeing ourselves honestly. And so sometimes we don't have the regulation tools, we don't have the calming effect, we don't have the emotional discernment to be able to look at that because sometimes when we look in the mirror, it's like I know when I first did brain spotting I was like, but I thought I didn't really think I was perfect but I thought I was right. A lot of the time and it turned out that that was a part of my defense mechanisms and I was actually, maybe stepping on people or being too brutally honest. Instead of compassionately honest because I could, guys it under my values system that it was fine. And sometimes, looking at ourselves, we see the pain points. But we also see the pain points that we've caused for other people.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: People. And if we don't have the skills to Deal with that in a non-shame-based way it can be really disorienting and unraveling and so that's kind of how I gauge for people of maybe we need to start with some nervous system regulation. We need to start with some reflection. Works, some emotional discernment work, Maybe you need some DBT skills, to be able to start challenging your perspective in the here. And now, before we can move into this modality, that's really gonna send you into a time warp. And we just don't know, embracing uncertainty. I have no idea what's going to come out of it.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah. I joke with a lot of clients like some of the things The stereotypes of therapy marriage therapist.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Right.

Jeremy Schumacher: Kind of like this is all really good for you. Let's try and find two or three things that feel natural and resonate. And let's practice them as a skill-based thing. And I find people really like that and that tends to be a good practice for them. I'm a sports background person. So that aligns with kind of how I do therapy and then we can move into the philosophy because I'm aware as kind of a guy who looks like a hippie, if I lead with radical acceptance, if I lead with some of the philosophy of DBT, it feels. Far less approachable for clients than if we start with the skill-based stuff.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah. I mean if you've never had the lived experience of any of those philosophies then they can see either really toxically positive or just so unattainable that it almost starts its own shame response and it's like I want to live like that but I have no idea what a lived experience of that would be that I can't even get close to it. So I love that. It's helping clients get to a space where they can kind of see some of that stuff themselves that then they can move in that direction almost on their own.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, this shame response, you've mentioned a couple of times that's underline that and…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: talk about it. I grew up in the Midwest. I grew up with a parent who had anxiety undiagnosed and untreated. I also grew up super Conservative Christian so that shame response is something deeply ingrained in my lived experience. But I think any of those components whether it's culturally Midwest, whether it's high control, religion, growing up. With the parent who has perhaps untreated or undiagnosed, mental, health condition, there is a shame response that a lot of us get

Jeremy Schumacher: No choice in the matter. We're kind of shown that's what you do. As even the laughing just I traveled for a conference this past weekend and some of the cultural norms in the Midwest are to be quiet and not bother people. And so what's your experience as a provider working with some people, the shame response where they coming from with that shame response. And how do you sort of introduce that topic to them if they're not aware that? That's really what's going on?

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, shame and self-compassion are really big in my practice in general. And I don't follow traditional self-compassion tactics because they find a lot of people at least initially have a really hard time connecting into them. But when I talk about shame responses to people, there's a lot of places that it can come from, I think with having such a big emphasis on trauma right now, that's what everybody's looking at and trauma is real, and it exists and there's small teas and big t's. But our simple conditioning societally through our school systems, through our family of origin through, what our expectations to be a man or a woman. And what does it mean to not fall? In those categories? all cause underlying shame responses to know who you're supposed to be and if you don't fit that, which the update is almost no. And I've never met anybody that fits like

00:20:00

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Dietl standard of what a person is. It's wild to me that it even exists. So if you don't fit that or the ways that you don't fit, that is something that you need to learn how to hide and mask because it is either going to cause other people to be uncomfortable or you're gonna kind of get found out. I think that's what a huge shame response is. We don't want to get found out that we take up too much space and so we just kind of find a way to contain and maybe find some people that we can share some parts of our self with. And then we just navigate these darker sides of ourselves on our own.

Jeremy Schumacher: yeah, and How do you introduce that to a client who you're maybe seeing it pop up regularly? It's a theme. It's probably a thing to work on, but maybe they're not aware that it's shame-based.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah. I'm a pretty direct and honest person in my sessions. I think the clients that do the best with me are the clients that are

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Wanting that and I used to be a very brutally honest person. And I have found that for some reason, that just turns out. It never worked for me, and it doesn't work for other people. And so I found very compassionate ways to and I'm noticing it. I just bring it to the table and I say, Hey, I'm seeing this pop up now, multiple times. And it looks like, you're feeling a little bit shameful about a part of yourself, and you're almost trying to let me in certain avenues, but you're not fully wanting to go there because you're kind of afraid of my response. Can you tell me more about that? And some people consciously know it and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: then some people subconsciously, then have an opportunity to bring awareness to it to start recognizing it in their day to day life, and in our sessions.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, one of my specialties is religious trauma. So shame again It's a built-in component for a lot of people raised Catholic even joking about Catholic guilts as if it were some sort of good thing. and shame is just one of those really provocative words, I find and so finding ways to talk about it, with clients and frame it in a way, that makes sense to them. Because even sometimes bringing up, shame illicits a shame response. And so,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: that just it's this cyclical thing. That kind of finding that way to bring some awareness to it. And gently pull it out and say, Hey, this thing, we can look at thing, we can talk about again, why I love DBT? Because it sets, it up, as a way to sort of tolerate, some of that distress as you're working through that shame response.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, I think even those conversations. Then give you a good clinical impression or idea of what clients might need in order to move in that direction more if they're really struggling to do it. And I try to explain most of what I talk about with clients from a very brain and body-based nervous system, kind of idea to decarize it as much as possible. And instead of this almost being like who you are as a person it's just like Wow that's the way that you're nervous system has adapted to things like that.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: This is the physiological experience of shame and the psychological consequences of it. And then how do we kind of deal with that and work with that? When it's coming up rather than it being? something characteristically wrong with me in how I'm shutting down or perceiving or experiencing the world.

Jeremy Schumacher: And that. Sounds very nice and succinct but can be a very elaborate messy process.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: It is I get feedback a lot that my statement sound very succinct and I always remind people. I know I make it sound easy and simple and the thing about human beings is they are not easy and simple the process of doing all of that is complicated and very individualized because everybody's brain is formed differently and has different stuff stored for different reasons.

00:25:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yeah, I frame that as humans in. General are incredibly predictable and follow very easy patterns. Single individuals are very complex and…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: That's true.

Jeremy Schumacher: almost impossible to predict so it's easy to see some of these patterns and note, some of these things and know that they're unhealthy or unsustainable, and yet, Kind of creating a plan for what that looks like to do something healthier is so variable that doing a case by case basis is really what makes sense?

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, I think that's the challenge sometimes that I even have with social media and stuff like that. Because, I try to post stuff and I've had a really hard time figuring out ways to present information to a general public, that's really meant for an individual because

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: you can read something and understand it. And the way that you go about doing that thing is going to have to be so different than the person next to you. And I think that in and of itself, causes a shame response. People have the most access to self-healing and self-help that they've ever had. And it almost is causing more anxiety and overwhelm because we know what we're supposed to do, but we can't and it's not working for us the way that it works for this person, and I really think that's where individual therapy comes into play because it needs to be about you as an individual. It's great, you're gathering information. what do we do with it?

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and so much of social media is clips for engagement and it's short and succinct you think about how long the average tiktok is that doesn't allow for nuance. And so, my ADHD ears that I work with a lot. I saw a real that says where shoes in the house and that helps your ADHD and…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: it's like, yeah, if that works for you absolutely do it and if it doesn't like that just worked for that person and I think a lot of influencers are posting based on personal experience without necessarily that depth of knowledge from being a provider or engaging with other people's experiences that allows them to say,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Hey there's some nuance here, it's easy to say wear shoes and that cures your ADHD and as a therapist

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Right.

Jeremy Schumacher: Needs therapy to our also online and business owners, and you have to have online presence as a business owner,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: in 2024. And so, how do you kind of navigate some of that? How do you find a balance between Being real and authentic and playing the algorithm game and some of those other things.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, I mean that's been really tough for me as a business owner, I first started going online more when I had employees to just kind of start creating my own brand I guess even saying that doesn't feel the best but it is a brand to me. It's hopefully represents who I am mostly as a person and I initially started with trying to figure out how to play the game and the algorithm, but stay aligned with my values and I just found that with time. That was so taxing on me and caused so much anxiousness and overwhelm that, I just took a step back and I was like, if I'm causing and I think about this with individual clients, too if I'm a drop of water, that's causing a ripple for somebody.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: that's really important to me at the end of the day. And so I really try not to play too much of the game anymore. And I try to post weekly to be consistent and share stuff that I find to be interesting. And then just try to stay true and consistent to what my messaging is and sometimes that means it goes really far and other times it means it doesn't go far at all.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: My headphones just died. Hang on.

Jeremy Schumacher: Gonna note what time it is and the recording. Dang Okay, give me one sec.

Jeremy Schumacher: I have my charging cord. I don't know that. I have an open plug. Hang on one second. Sorry.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: It's okay, take your time.

00:30:00

Jeremy Schumacher: I am not done. my headphones died. It's not gonna reach.

Jeremy Schumacher: this is a disaster.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: This is the disaster. It's okay.

Jeremy Schumacher: Problem solved.

Jeremy Schumacher: Maybe my three year old popping in there to be like. Are you done recording?

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Are you done? Can we hang out now? I love it.

Jeremy Schumacher: I mean, it's not the end of the world if I just have my

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: It's just nice to have on blocks, everything else out. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: I I got dog that kids, I have kept an olds, I'm a millennial who doesn't throw boxes out of old technology, but I have an old laptop power cord because it has a USB plug in the power cord. It's in my office. So I had to run upstairs unplug a grab an extension cord, come back down.

Jeremy Schumacher: Here we go, though. Four minutes.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Okay.

Jeremy Schumacher: Where were we? We were on.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: The new ones is a social media, how you manage posting and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yes.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: staying true to yourself.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, awesome.

Jeremy Schumacher: As you get used to. Not playing the algorithm game and wearing a little bit less and more authentic.

Jeremy Schumacher: Have you found that anxiety about posting and doing some of that has diminished and you're able to just kind of do the authentic thing or is like, there's some, I guess my question is, how do you navigate? If what you're posting is useful or not. Because I can't turn off that part of my brain, that is psychology and…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Okay.

Jeremy Schumacher: research-based and so I can say logically, I don't care about the algorithm but when I have all this data to look at, it's really tempting to still dig into some of that stuff.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I think it's hard because I haven't seen a ton of success with social media, so I've kind of gotten to the point where it's like,

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I don't know I spent a year putting in a lot of time and energy and I grew to 2,000 followers, which is something. But it's not significant enough to really make an impact for me. And so I was kind of like, maybe this just isn't the place that I am going to thrive. That's been something. I've been trying to learn in last few years, of life, is pick a path and walk down it. And if you do, you do well and you can find ways to do well. And if it's really important for you, you can find ways to do well. But because it's not super important for me. Then I'm just not putting all of my effort into it and I'm just basically there to maintain a presence and hopefully provide people some information that is helpful for them. I have a YouTube channel too that I haven't posted to in forever…

00:35:00

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: but I still have people call occasionally and they're like I learned about brain spotting and your videos were so helpful and moments like that come in. I'm like, maybe I could do even more and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: then I'm like, No, you picked Elaine, and right now, this is the lane that you're in. you have to focus on this lane primarily

Jeremy Schumacher: I think. I want to highlight and reiterate some of what you're saying that to. Translate Social Media Success to getting clients. In the door is not a direct translation. I haven't spoken to a single therapist. The thing that gets me my clients. And obviously,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Okay.

Jeremy Schumacher: they're huge accounts with large followings, but Just to set that expectation especially for young Google ads. That's not how you're gonna get a majority of your clients. Even if it is good to have a presence there. I've translated my approach to My online presence as if a client finds me and they want to see what I'm like, before they work with me, it's very out there.

Jeremy Schumacher: Which I think is important and that's how I picked a therapist. So I think that's good and it is a time, commitment Tiktok I'm too old for it. I've decided and it's just too foreign to me, but Reals and all that stuff. I have a YouTube channel as well, it is time- To have that much content, and that the algorithm really appreciates consistency. So, Posting regularly, it's so weird because we can talk about these topics for hours. But to pull content out of a hat is really hard. I think as therapist

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: And the idea of it being so nuanced to really makes it challenging to put something together, that's going to be meaningful and impactful for people that isn't too much information, but isn't too little information. there's just so much that then goes into it that I think can cause some of that overwhelm and make it really hard especially when you're talking about something like Instagram or Tiktok or even Facebook where it's fast and under a minute, it's like man I don't really know what I can put out there that I want to make sure isn't also harmful to some effect.

Jeremy Schumacher: yeah, I remember the first time I tried to do I think the limit on a tiktok at the time was 90 seconds and I could not Get it under 90 seconds and be like, I can't post this then because there's not enough information. I need the qualifications. I need the asterisks to this, simple, communication, technique, I'm giving people. So it really does limit. What we're able to present to people that and again we'll get into this in a future episode but then on a living people instead of talking about suicide directly talking about some of the things that can end it edited you have to say sex instead of sex and…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: what goes against what, the research shows, as being the best way to prevent harm and reduce harm. So I think there's just so much in it to talk about who owns it. And yeah, there's a lot of

Jeremy Schumacher: Issues. I think it is great and wonderful for community building And not be the only source of information that we have for people.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: And can't be people's primary source of community. I think we kind of forget that too. it is a great community builder, but when we talk about community even talking about therapist needs therapy, at least.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Get answers Then we stop seeking real life community. That is so much more impactful for our nervous systems and our well-being, and our joy in life. it just makes such a difference.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, for sure, I think. Yeah, Social media is great for access community building. But yes,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: having that mix, and I think it's different for different people that mix of online.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: And in real life is really important. Still, I'm gonna left turn a little bit here, how as a business owner as somebody…

00:40:00

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: who carries the caseload yourself, Creating Content for Social Media and Stuff. How do you balance all of that? What does it look like for you to sort of take care of yourself Having all these different plates spinning, at the same time.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I think things I had a daughter. she'll be too in November and things really changed. Once I had her prior to that I could do a lot more and mostly because I was able to work until 6 o'clock at night every night and that's I'm willing to sacrifice with my time with her, especially when she's so young right now. And so I'm really glad that I had the time that I had to do all of what I needed to do to get to a place where I can coast a little. and if anybody who knows me listens to this, the laugh because my husband says I'm the worst coaster ever, I'll post for a couple of months and then I just get a little bit antsy and I'm like, but I have all these ideas of all these things I could do. And it turns out every single one of them takes a lot of time. So I really worked hard since I had her on cutting back my case load. And before I

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: At least a few employees and I was still seeing 25 people a week and it was just a little bit too much with the business and everything. So now I try to be really cognizant of when I take on new clients, I used to feel really obligated to take on anybody who wanted to see me or that I felt really compassionate towards and I've realized through my own work and reflection that sometimes compassion is saying no. if I take somebody on and then I just can't hold the space for them or holding the space. For them comes at the sacrifice of being able to hold space for my family. It's just too high and so sometimes the most compassionate thing I can do is say no and delegate and pass something smaller caseload managing if I take on new intakes and what that kind of looks like and then

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: my greatest act of self-care I swear as delegation because I'm terrible at it and it goes against every fiber in my being and everything I've learned growing up which was like you just do it all yourself and then you die and I decided

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: that not how I wanted to live life, as I grew and have really worked hard on asking for help. Even my mom says she's like, you're so much better asking for help Then I ever was and I am so aware of that and it's been something. I've had to work really hard on because we grow up in a society. I think that is very individualized and really places value on Wow, you run this business and you do all this stuff. it's so great. And I'm the first person to say, Yes, I have built a lot of that and it is because I have people that are willing to stand beside me and you got to take this, they go, perfect, I got it. I can put it on my to-do list. And so that's been my greatest act of self-care. And it's still something I'm always working out is learning how to delegate. And then, finding that balance in my personal life, especially with motherhood. I think there's a lot of guilt around parents of needing to spend all

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Of your time with your kids and needing to make sure especially as a therapist needs therapy, a full hour, or if I can only get 30 minutes. that's a top priority for me. And then, having space to meditate throughout my week. For very short periods of time is also a top priority for me. And as long as I'm hitting those, typically, I'm in a relatively good. Space. And then I mean the last thing that I do is just notice when I'm not and see what I need to shift because we all have tendencies to move back into habits. I think that

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: we're near and dear to us at one time and helped us survive. And so noticing, when those are coming up, and I have some wonderful people around me that kind of go like, You've been a little bit more like this lately, and I just wonder if there's anything else going on that. You need to kind of figure out a way to move out or you're doing too much because I have that core group of people who, I really trust to give me that information. I take it and I really reflect on it and try to look at what is going on in my life. And I think that all of that has been super helpful for me.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, I think. delegating and asking for help are kind of two sides of the same coin and I find I love delegating. It feels really great and I have always been bad at asking for help and there's some difference in my brain. That seems significant between those things. Bonus working in higher, Ed. delegating seemed really values, aligned, and really easy. I coached a team, like It made so much sense, but I think therapy, we don't really have that structure. It is kind of this almost bleeding. Heart concept were not just raised in, but then educated within that you take on everybody who walks through the door, and, there aren't resources in your community. then you're gonna fill that gap and…

00:45:00

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yep.

Jeremy Schumacher: what is this client supposed to do? They're not gonna solve it, so you have to help them. So it's like there is this idea of

Jeremy Schumacher: I don't know as you were talking was like The structure within therapy doesn't exist for delegation that's so Almost foreign to what we're taught as therapist.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I think that's part of the reason. I don't get burnt out in therapy, as much as I used to, because I do delegate a lot of responsibility back to the client. I think a lot of us go into the field because, we're gonna heal the world and bring world peace and make sure everybody feels okay. And what you learn in the process of helping people is that a part of empowerment comes from people doing things themselves with support and with guidance. But that's part of the reason I named my business empowerment within because as I shifted and grew, I was like, I don't want to be the person who is having to hold your hand through every single thing. How disempowering does that feel that you need somebody there constantly and can't trust yourself. And so a lot of our work here focuses on

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: How do we help you heal, what you need to heal and build up, not so that you have to do it all on your own. so that you can do pieces that you couldn't do before on your own, and you can trust your own guidance when you need more, and what more really means for you,

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and I've been in the field for 15 years. I've always said my goal in therapy, is to make myself not needed. that's been in my, My little spiel that I give when I first meet mines for over a decade.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Let's go.

Jeremy Schumacher: But when I reflect on my career, as a therapist needs therapy now,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: at this point, my career than it did, when I started,

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I did not always know that. I fully started off and I think it comes from my own places of needing healing of wanting people to take care of me and so I'm going to be the person to take care of people and that's been such a beautiful thing to unburden in my life because now I'm just like I am going to take care of myself. I'm going to support you as much as I can. To the point of part of my goal is to help you lift up and be able to move forward without me forever.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: This is an expansive topic and I know where we're going to wrap up soon. So I don't want to go too deep but since you brought up being a parent now and navigating a lot of that I think, as providers Our human experience impacts our work too. I look at how I've done. I'm a licensed marriage, family therapist needs.

Jeremy Schumacher: Those life transitions that we go through, in our own personal lives impact, a lot of how we work and some reflection points on how we're showing up with our clients. and so,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: yeah, I mean,…

Jeremy Schumacher: I find Yeah,…

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: think

Jeremy Schumacher: go ahead.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I just think since becoming a mom, my understanding of my mom's is Tenfold. And I think it's the most amazing thing for me about getting to be a therapist.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: You better look in the mirror today. It's like,…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: it's an Self reflection point of just like yeah, I'm giving this very genuinely to people. I need to also make sure that I'm taking in what I'm saying outwardly.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and as we're talking about the importance of community and delegating and asking for help I have a six and a three year old. So these are concepts of Supporting autonomy and then teaching how to ask for help? When needed is That's a big thing for a three year old right now. And so just there's this almost repairing you go through while parenting your kids of that's not how my parents did it. This is how I'm showing up for my kid and then this kind of light bulb moment of you're saying Look in the mirror today.

00:50:00

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah. Yeah, I love that. I think that that's been. A really cool part and a really really challenging part of parenting. My daughter has been

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Having the opportunity because she is very similar to me which is really challenging and I have a lot of empathy for some of the people in my life sometimes because she can be very spicy and very emotional and has really big opinions and is absolutely sure of them. And so it's been very cool to get to support her and love her compassionately even in setting boundaries through that and getting to recognize how I've needed that in my life and that specific way too. And I know none of us get out of parenting like Scott free. I mean there's always stuff that's gonna happen that you're like right that probably wasn't my best moment but I think getting to parent after you've done a lot of your work and I can tell you really moved through a lot too is that you also get to then be open to being wrong with your kids. And I had such a reparative and restorative thing for your kids to get to say no, you didn't get it right or this hurt me and have

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Actually show up in that.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah. Yeah. This is fun work that we do.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: It's challenging and it's a lot sometimes. But Patrice. If people want to work with you, let's talk about your workshop. That's coming up. Promote, let's do the plug.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Your PLUGGABLES here.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, October 5th. The 2024 for anybody in listening in the future, we're doing a couples workshop. It's labeled Finding Us Again and basically What My Colleague and I Serena really want to do is kind of create a jump. Start to connection for people, Couples therapy is amazing and it takes time to build some of those foundational blocks. And so, our hope is really that this workshop is gonna help enhance emotional intimacy relatively quickly and understanding so that you can kind of take those tools and either decide, you want to continue on with couples therapy to deepen that or really it should give you the solid tools and foundation to move forward and stay in connection with your partner more. I think a lot of couples counseling sometimes focuses on mediation and there's a time and a place for that. But this workshop is really about

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Thing self-understanding and then understanding of your partner to have that be the connection point and actually, the resolve of the problem rather than the problem being the focus point itself. So it's four hours from nine to one on a Saturday so that hopefully people can get childcare if they need it and take the time out and our hope is that, we're gonna teach in the group setting that's psychoeducational information and the exercises but then we're actually gonna have everybody break down into their couple to work on the exercises privately together. So I've gotten some concerns of people being like I don't want to talk about my issue in front of everybody and…

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: I'm like exactly don't do that because we're talking about individuals being individuals and then you got two individuals and a couple like you just can't really compare and contrast relationships like that, so yeah.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, and if people want to find out more information about the workshop sign up or they want to find out more about your work or connect with you, where do they go? How do they get that information?

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, anybody can visit us at our website. Is empowerment within llc.com. We're on Facebook as empowerment within LLC. Instagram is empowerment within so is my tiktok. So follow us on social media and visit our website.

Jeremy Schumacher: Yeah, yes. And we will have show notes with all those links so that they're easy to find here Patrice.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Beautiful.

Jeremy Schumacher: Thanks so much for coming on and sharing all this. Wonderful wisdom with us.

Patrice Flanagan-Morris: Yeah, thanks for having me, Jeremy.

Jeremy Schumacher: Hence, to all our listeners. Thank you for tuning in again. We're back from our little hiatus, so we'll be back next week with another new episode. Take care, everyone.

Meeting ended after 00:54:48 👋

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