#339 - Unpacking trauma: How early wounds shape behavior and the path toward healing | Jeff English

27:22I said, okay, great. But just play along with me. Who's the most controlling person that you've ever met in your life? Oh, you should have met my grandmother. Okay, tell me one of the most controlling things your grandmother may have done. Well, I live with her for three or four years in my childhood. Oh, there was that deal with the basement. When I was in trouble, the deal with the basement. Can you say more about that? I get blocked down there. How long? I don't know, it was dark. I learned how to not think about it. Back to the implicit with the explicit. So I think it's about this like files.

27:56There's this loss of control file in the traumatized brain. Can I prove that A plus B equals C? No, I can't. There's not going to be anything evidence -based that says that was a situation based on that grandmother's control and abuse in childhood. That is why that panic attack happened. But it certainly gives us something to look at. It's like coordinates on this war board, if you will, and there. Wow, there's a part of you that really gets activated when you seemingly don't have control and can't leave a situation. The hope that can come out of that. to see someone who could have been described as resistant to the process all of a sudden, at least like you're doing right now, not in your head.

28:37I'm going to start thinking about this. Maybe I'm not buying into it, but maybe something did happen to me. Gosh, Jeff, I don't even know where to start. I think there are so many huge hurdles for people to get over when they at least begin to entertain the idea that this is something they should look at. So that's the first one. So the first one is there's something wrong. Unfortunately, as a species, I suppose we have so many remarkable layers of protection that we have to be suffering quite a bit to go through this. I go back to some amazing lines in my journal. No one showed up here on a winning streak.

29:15Like, I mean, I'm not going to name who said that, but I bet you can remember who said that. I mean, could not be more true when I think back to us all sitting there on day one, the 12 of us. I mean, what a collection of losers we were. I mean, if we're just being honest, we were all on the outs. We had lost everything and we were there not because we wanted to be, but almost because we had no choice. How often do you see that? How often do you see people that somehow managed to show up there on the basis of pure introspection as opposed to, if I don't do this, I'm going to lose my family. If I don't do this, I'm going to lose my job.

29:55If I don't do this, I'm going to lose my life. Well, what you just described, I'll call that answer B. That's the status quo. That's usually how folks get there. Every now and then, someone may come in, maybe I could call the tourist or whatnot, but that doesn't happen much. We would say, and if you remember how that property is, you kind of drive down into it and all the things that are Kentucky you see on the way in and we used to play around with this like this is hard work and this is uncomfortable and if it wasn't there'd be a line of people all the way back up that hill trying to get in here but if you notice there's no line there's no line to get in here and there's also no gate on this place meaning you're free to go also I use it's just an average seven or eight when I think of groups they could be 10 but I use seven and eight and I think about those folks in that room There's so many different stories.

30:43Just about every group has got somebody in it that's pretty close if not right on surrender. And surrender within the spirit of my way does not work. I don't know if your way is going to work, Jeff, but I'm willing to try it on for a couple weeks, because my way does not work. Now, that is a wonderful place to get to that I believe most people don't. Meaning most people don't show up there. Don't get to that type of surrender. I spent many decades, this may sound familiar. in this space right here. Life's pretty bad, and I hear what you're saying, but I still think I know what's best for me. And I think that's where most of us spend a lot of time, but when you get in that circle, see to me that never mattered, because if you were there, you had a chance.

31:26You had a chance to get some different perspective. And if you're not there, I think just about every group that I've worked with has had at least one person in there that's there out of obligation, just to get somebody off their ass. and quite honest with you to do the thing so that they can go back and say, I tried your thing and it didn't work. I've seen that quite a bit, but there's still a chance for something to happen within that group dynamic. If I tell somebody they're an asshole, I might just be saying that from therapy heal. And maybe that's the same thing that their spouse has been telling.

32:00But if somebody in this circle that's living with you, eating with you, doing this uncomfortable thing with you? If they in some way let you know that they don't dig that thing that you do. I eat a thing that makes you maybe an asshole. Hmm. Okay. So maybe my spouse isn't the only one saying this. Now if you like it, I love it. I tried to retire from force and change on folks. But if you examine that, hmm. This person's letting me know they don't dig that either. Now I've got a chance to think about doing something different, right? And to pinpoint the explanation for why it is hard for me not to do that.

32:39It can be so fruitful, even with folks there that have less than what I would call healthy intentions, because they do show up there. You alluded to control one of the huge impediments to people, I think, making the journey to a place like the bridge is that you have to completely seed control. So you show up and you hand over your phone and you go to your room, which is literally a room from a camp. You're sharing a room with somebody else, sleeping on a cot that's not comfortable. And there's no luxury in your sharing bathrooms with a bunch of other people and they rummage through your books and they sign off on everything.

33:21I mean, I didn't bring any contraband, but I know that there was very limited in what I could bring. Basically, you didn't want anything there that would distract me. I don't think I could have brought books about F1 and sports or whatever. Talk a little bit about the control. I know many people who have ultimately gone to the bridge, and this was the thing that made it almost impossible for them to go, and they had to fall to a certain level of pain before they would go. And I know other people who just haven't been able to pull the trigger. And I put myself almost in the situation, which is I can't go off the grid for two weeks, four weeks, six weeks.

33:53That's not possible. You don't understand complexity of my life. Surely knowing that you must have a very strong conviction for why it's required. It's such a real thing too. It's true. Some folks can't do it. And we can't box ourselves into a world where we're talking about all the fruits of residential programs. But this doesn't have to be an either or thing. But within the spirit of that residential process that you described, so many different ways that I love the titles that you gave to place, the control. It's got vulnerability written all over it. I keep going back to that word, introduce invulnerability.

34:27We don't try to induce suffering, but distractions. You mentioned the word distraction. We want to take away as many distractions as possible. I don't pretend to know what you need to happen. What the magic is going to be. But I know that we got a hell of a lot better chance of it happening. If you don't have your phone, if you don't have your cigarettes, if you don't have all of these things that help you disconnect because I need you to be present. And for some of us, that's the vulnerability is being present where my feet are. The one thing you didn't take away that I think if it had been taken, I'm not sure I could have gone was exercise.

35:02So I was still able to run at 5 .30 in the morning in the woods and do some pushups and stuff like that. Had I not been permitted to do that, I might have lost my mind. Has that ever been questioned that, hey, for some people exercise is also a bit of a numbing distraction. That's an excellent point. Each case is different. There's no one size fits all. This brings up to me how many times declines come to me when group breaks and everybody's going to the bathroom and they come up to me and they're like, what do I need to do on breaks or in the evenings? Like, what am I going to do with this downtime?

35:33And the answer is some folks need to get serious. So they might want to pick up one of those books on the shelf and read a little bit in our library. Some people need to get serious. Some people need to play ping pong. What might look different for you? I did a lot of coloring. Okay. And I did a lot of dot to dot. You guys had a book of super elaborate dot to dots, like a thousand dot puzzles that would actually make beautiful pictures. I never thought I could find something like that so interesting, but I enjoyed it. One might say you had to disconnect and come to the hills of Kentucky to find the space to even discover that or rediscover that.

36:09That control thing that is such a player for so many it's a human thing. It's not just a client thing It's a human thing. It's like everyone I believe wants to have a certain sense of control and most folks who have a hysterical reaction as we say if it's hysterical it's historical to the sense of a lost Piece of control. That's where we get back into there's probably a precipitating event There could be something that needs to be healed here. And that's tricky too, healing versus integration. How can we integrate this trauma, this thing that happened? All these words bring up so much for me, but I do want to mention with control, because again, it's case study.

36:53Everything is so connected to these, in my experience, to the trauma. Let's take another client. For instance, we're going to stay on this control topic. So let's say this client comes into the group room and this client is getting ready to check in. You know how that thing starts? We kind of just say something to start the day and everything gets quiet until somebody gets nervous enough that can't stand the silence and starts checking in. Somebody always does it. Can you describe what a check -in is because it is actually a pretty interesting experience and I needed a piece of paper to help me do it because I didn't know what the words were?

37:30We'll try to let folks experience or start practicing letting their outside match their inside. And that sounds like a simple goal, and it is, but it's a complex scenario. Because again, some of us have paid a price for letting our outside match our inside. And so that's really the spirit of the check -in. Is to get some practice doing that. Just rigorously with as much honesty as possible, how am I starting this day? Where am I at right now? What's on my heart? Bringing the heart and head together. Kind of how I described that. Some folks, it's very personal and sometimes it's group dynamics.

38:06We want to introduce that. But again, it's let's just get honest. Let's get honest because I think that's the beautiful thing about the group. And again, this scenario where if you can't do it with some yehu at the bridge, I hope everybody's Facebook friends for the rest of their life. But the fact of the matter is you'll never have to see these people again. So if you can't get honest with so and so or in front of so and so how can you do it on the couch with the people that Closes to your heart because those are the people who end up being if we want to fall back on the trauma word our biggest Trauma trinkers are the people that are closest to our heart Maybe I can build some muscle memory and being vulnerable in a scenario like we've been describing So that's the spirit of the check -in the example that I'm given where this client is in this rocking back and forth.

38:53I believe I can take this client's pulse from where I'm sitting at. So I'm gonna suggest that that client checks in first. It's kind of my job to notice something like that. They haven't set a crossword in my experience in the first three or four days of their journey. I haven't heard them say the word hell. Flat out. That was a bunch of bullshit last night. A bunch of bullshit. Nobody told us that we were going to that place. I had to sit out there. I wouldn't go in. Nobody told us anything about that. And let's say this client, one of their calling cards, when they approached the bridge, was that they were really thrilled about, mentioned about nobody on a winning streak.

39:32But one of the wins, they're not void of wins. One of this client's wins. Let's say is that like their medication management finally was dialed in. I finally got their anxiety medication dialed in. And so this thing happened. And 18 hours later, I'm looking at this person. Having this response to literally what it was was I didn't write on the board every detail that was going to happen that particular day, especially what was going to happen in the evening. When you guys went to a 12 -step program off site. Right. Exactly. In this example, this is the type of reaction. Still, 16 hours later. In this scenario, perhaps I'll roll the therapy dice if I have the rapport and say something into the effect of well, at least the medications are dialed in.

40:18Perhaps there's a uncomfortable silence that's probably five seconds, but it seems like five minutes. And then maybe in this scenario, we all sigh of relief because this pissed off client smiles and laughs a little. And knowing the journey, let's say this client a day later tells their story, and they tell story about spending a significant amount of time with a spouse who was controlling and emotionally abusive and the spirit of their relationship sounded kind of like this. Get in the car you'll know when you get there. Now, did this client have back to flashbacks of this but there seems to be a file based on this trauma based on this wounding experience that was able to push through the medication.

41:05So don't hear me saying, medications go on the wrong way. But in this example, I think the discovery inspires hope in a situation where there seems to be so little hope. And in this scenario that I'm making up, what's the answer? Do I just keep up in the dosage? Well, that thing happened to me, so that must mean, is that the answer? So back to this both end of, maybe there's something to look at here. I think that's profound actually because you could argue if you simply look at that experience and say, I need to up the dose, up the dose, up the dose. I mean, at some point you're going to become a dose.

41:38So there are other words, there probably is a dose at which there will never be a breakthrough. But then you're also not alive. So maybe we're better off, as you said, taking this as a gift, saying, wow, the fact that I got hysterical is now going to point me to something historical that I still need to go and resolve. Maybe there's some work that can be done. Maybe I do need to be on medication to get stabilized. Maybe the medication will help me be stabilized enough to build the window of tolerance that I need to do this type of historical work. But there's also some work that can be done, and we're not just treating symptoms.

42:14I'm going to day two of my journal here. I can't help but feel like it's a mistake to be here. How could this place, this experience, possibly make a meaningful difference in my life? Trust the process they say, surrender to it in quotes I'm told. Okay, I'm here, and I guess I'll try. I was day two. I didn't journal until I got to the bridge and now it's reams and reams of journals that have been filled since. What fraction of folks show up there with a journal, do you know? 20 % and now that number goes up. Often times the way you just described it and find out something different, a different way to do your day.

42:53It is an artificial environment one could say when we're talking about the bridge and also it's a metaphor for me in real life. It's not just these therapeutic interventions or what some group member says or what some therapist says, like all those things can be powerful, but like what are the things that you added to your day? And how can you take that back with you? Doing your day different, checking in with which means in the driver's seat. Journaling is an excellent way to do that. Or just simply some mindfulness and some meditation and life's busy. We don't always have time to do these things, but take a minute, which means in the driver's seat.

43:32That's the question. So, let's talk about the different versions of the kid. There's the kid that's born, the unwounded child. Remind me the name of that child again. The inner child? Inner child. Yeah. That's right. Okay, so inner child. Some folks will refer to the inner child, some folks prefer the original child. The original child, okay. The original me, authentic me, but yes. And then we have a wounded child that goes through this experience or these experiences. Again, very important to remind everybody, this could be a bunch of little teas, none of which look like much. It's too easy, I think, to look at the big teas and say, I don't have a big tea, could be that the sum of the little teas actually matters more than a big tea in some individuals.

44:15And then you have this adaptive child. So the example is that kid who figured out that by being deceptive, he could protect his mom. That was the right thing to do. I mean, clearly the right thing to do. He should do that all day, every day. Yeah. The more time it's done successfully, the more power it takes on. Yeah. And then talk about some other examples of how these adaptations that occur to trauma are really valuable and then they start to become net negative as opposed to net positive. This to me is the Darwinian nature of trauma. We're such resilient, adaptive creatures. The case of this kid, right?

44:55That's brilliant. That's adaptive. That's great. All the things that we do to not succumb. Maybe just share a few other clinical examples so that people get a sense of how insidious this can be and why when that kid is 30 and he's in a relationship and he's misbehaving and manipulating his spouse who's not his father, it starts to backfire. What it brings up for me, so many things, but this concept that I prefer, it's not going to sound very clinical at all. It's grit. Grit is something that I think we all have. I think we're all born with. And you talk about this wounded child and these wounding events.

45:36These something happens and a lot of us out of that our grit gets covered up. And so I've met so many people that to survive they did it by submitting. And so losing their voice, becoming compliant, to spend decades trying to find their grit. But while another human being out of their woundedness may have survived from grit and they live from it, they can't not live from it. Then they live from it from decades, and so the question tends to be at what cost? At what cost? When does this thing, there was a utility to, when is it enough? And I have always fall back on, it's not typically the thing that's bad.

46:24It's not the fact that I can do it. It's the fact that I can't not do it. It seems like I can't not do it. That's where that takes me with the utility. And when you mention the big T in the little T or those Thousand paper cuts, it brings up post -traumatic stress and complex post -traumatic stress. In a no way do I want to minimize Look, we or a lot of us would describe as big tea tromas when we talk about those tragic event, those one -time events, but in the spirit of unraveling things and the healing, journey, and integration, as a clinician, I would prefer not to this human had to go through that.

47:06But as far as there's that thing, there's the thing we need to work on. I know there's several interventions that have been very successful working on that thing. And versus this other thing that, again, going back to the example of the child with neglect. And every single day, going to school knowing for three years that he was going to be bullied and knowing that no one was noticing and so having to develop something to survive that. Living in limbic activation. Just think about that. And so how many times, how many years that muscle memory created of going back to the parts language or of that guard of that adaptive child.

47:48Unraveling something like that is a whole another ballgame. Please don't hear me minimizing big T trauma, but within unraveling in the integration, it's just repetitive. In these limbic systems, we only know what we experience. So abject abuse. I've heard horrible stories, you've heard horrible stories, but let's take a child that knows that when mom gets home because of what's happened, her ears are going to be held to the burner on the stove. Object abuse. Let's take another child that knows their portions laid out on their plate that will be eaten in a certain way, in a certain manner, at a certain speed.

48:31And after that meal, they will be weighed and their side will be pinched, and should things not be as expected, there will be a lecture. Who's to say which one of those humans are more limbically activated? The one doesn't know the experience of the other. It's helplessness. I can't get out of this thing. This thing I'm getting ready to have to do, so again, how can I survive it? And how many times does that happen? And how many years does that take place? And then we get frustrated and we have the shame bug that goes along with it because were back to the what's wrong with me. Why can't I not do this thing?

49:10I know this thing's not serving me well now, but I just can't not do it. Yeah, the utility of the behavior. How do you differentiate for folks the difference between shame and guilt? Because for many people, when you show up at the bridge, there's a component of something that you've done that's wrong. You've hurt people along the way. Again, that's I think part of the hitting rock bottom that gets you there. It's not just that you've hurt yourself. You've probably injured others and that's a part of this maladaptive behavior that's now spiraling out of just being adaptive. So how do you talk about the difference between guilt and shame and how do you work somebody out of that?

49:51Guilt's about making a mistake. Shame's about being a mistake. Guilt. I did something. I made a mistake. I did something that I wish I hadn't have done. I need to make an apology. There's a way back from that. I'm thinking of this classic John Bradshaw. He's talking about healthy shame versus toxic shame. When you talk about a difference between guilt and shame, we're talking about toxic shame. There's something flawed. This flawed defective core, if you will, my identity. There's something wrong with me. There's a way back from the guilt. Shame registers differently. So when we talk about folks being wounded, shame, and that's how the shame gets registered.

50:32Church somebody once told me that my father never had to get sober because he had me and my mother and my sister to carry a shame for him. It can be a generational thing and it comes from somewhere else. But shame can play out two different ways. Some of us, when we're living from our shame, we live out of superiority. Grandiosity. Grandiosity. I control, I perfect, I judge, I criticize, out of my wound, out of my shame, that can be the me that you see on the outside. And some folks, the other side of that coin, of course, is inferiority, broken, worthless, and my pathology. Why do you think one chooses preferentially one of those?

51:17I mean, I know that my tendency is always more towards grandiosity than inferiority. What do you think it is in some individuals that steer them one way or the other when there. And by the way, I love that these are, I don't even say this to be judgmental. I just think that this is a really interesting way to observe. But I know that when my inner monologue becomes more judgmental, that's a great yellow light for me. It's like, oh, look at the judgy words you're using. Look at the black and white thinking that permeates every statement that you're making. The tends to be the gravitational pull.

51:47Why do you think certain people have that? That thing you just said is the thing, though, that I can't not hold focus on that little conversation that you just had with self. Now you've done the work. You're still doing the work. I'm looking at the journal sitting in front of me. That's just a portion of the work. But having that voice that you've obviously cultivated, that's where the hope is because again to live in simplicity. I say I hate to oversimplify but I don't. At the end of the day I got bad news for the folks out there who think that there's going to come a time through my healing that I I just never get triggered.

52:23Again, especially those of us who have experienced trauma. Bad news, you will be triggered again. In this whole integration game is about starting to live a life where I tell stories that go like this. I noticed that I was starting to be really judgmental. I noticed I was getting triggered. I had this little short subtle thought conversation, whatever that looked like. Maybe there was something somatic that happened with my body that I did, but I had this thing that I cultivated, this new muscle that gave me enough space to choose my next step. When so many of us, especially out of our shame, out of our trauma, have lived a life telling so many stories that go like this, I got triggered and then I did this.

53:09And that's the reaction versus the response. Simple goal, complex process. Yeah, absolutely. Simple and complex, and ever to be distinguished. There were a bunch of interesting rules at the bridge. No minimizing. You've got to stand up to get your own Kleenex. Tell me again some of the rules and the reasons behind them. First thing is trying to create an emotionally safe place. If we can create a space where folks feel like they can let their outside match their inside, then we've got a chance for the magic to happen. Learning a new language. One of those things is eye statements. Why so many of us want to make statements for the world, the we?

53:53It's a lot easier to address someone's behavior when we're tired of this or we're tired of you doing that. How many times a client may come up to me and say something to the effect of when is somebody going to say something to Peter about being 10 minutes late to group? You were never like, but hear me out here. And the answer is, I think the appropriate answer is, we're wondering the same thing. Because if I say it, it weighs about 10 pounds. But again, within that group process, if another peer going through this rigorous journey with me says it, it tends to weigh a little bit more. That Kleenex rule, you mentioned that, there's so much that comes out of, I don't even know what a box of Kleenex costs nowadays, used to say $0 .99.

54:37Right? Like, so much can come out of that. How hard it is. for some clients not to give somebody a Kleenex. You can have the best of intentions in the world, but out of our windedness, our trauma, our shame, so many of us, the commonality is professional feeling stuffers. A lot of muscle memory and stuffing emotions, especially sadness. And so the very act of handing some one a Kleenex can cut off something that maybe had been 25 years in the making. And there's so much more that can come out of that Because for the person who's having the emotion, I think about my healing journey that I'm still on and like out of my co -dependence, like I expected a lot of people to read my mind.

55:22I don't ask for what I need, but maybe I'm sitting there thinking, why the hell isn't somebody giving me clinics? Can't they stay in crime? The answer is, because you're a grown man, you need to ask for them and go get them yourself, Jeff. And it is the person rescuing me from my pain or they rescuing themselves. The language that feels guilty part of those rules back to the I statements and learning how to have, I'm not crazy about the word confrontation, but like it's grouped on emics. So I need to let my outside match my inside. So how can I tell another human being that I've got issue with this thing that they're doing?

55:52To learn how to say, I get angry when you check in every day as if you love this place. And then on our walks in the afternoon, you're making front of the process and you're making and find the therapist and you're talking about the sick behaviors you're going to do as soon as you get back home. I didn't grow up in a house where we talked like that when you I feel. It just feels clumsy to again to create some new muscle memory. And to listen to be able to listen to somebody. We ask for folks to be present that sounds like, President's supportive sounds like the easiest rule. Why would you have to explain that?

56:26It's hard to be present when you're not in the room. That's why if you remember, we take breaks as a group. We try to take them every hour, every 50 minutes, but sometimes you know we always encourage the clients. If you need to answer the call of nature before then just let us know and we'll take a break because it can be also really handy to go and use the restroom when Jane checks him because Jane gets underneath my skin every day and brings up something for me that I need to say out loud. So the rules are there to create hopefully the safety so that the magic if you will can happen and also to give folks a chance at some new muscle memory.

57:06And I encourage clients in these scenarios, started off by acknowledging you're taking a risk. I'm getting ready to take a risk. Peter, I need to say something to you. And that's the spirit of the rules. And what about minimizing? That was a very interesting rule. Yeah. It's an ingenious damage control strategy back to the utility of behaviors. If it wasn't that bad, then I don't need to address it. But my behaviors also affect other folks. So when I minimize, let's say for example, a client, like it doesn't matter, I got abused. So what? A lot of people get abused. You get over it. You didn't have any effect on me.

57:43It doesn't have any effect. And another client, hopefully using some healthy language, when you speak as if child abuse, especially physical child abuse, doesn't affect the child. I feel sad and I feel angry because you've got to write to your own truth, but I know how much that abuse affected me. So that minimizing, again, it's very adaptive, but also if it didn't matter, if none of this stuff matters, I just am. And I think you've proven the theory something's wrong with me. Or nothing's wrong with me. Superiority or inferiority. How many folks find themselves in a situation where, and I say this because I definitely had a bit of this feeling myself, and I can't imagine I was alone where there's almost a reluctance to get better because there's also a belief that yeah, I get it.

58:38My life's a bit messy right now and I've my response is spilling out into bad areas, but look at all the good I remember in particular One of the rants I went on was about how much good has come from my trauma I think in telling my life story it was Virtually all good. It was look at this good thing and this good thing and this good thing and like we don't want to erase any of this stuff And I suspect you have a number of people who show up and yes It sounds ridiculous because on the one hand, there's clearly a bunch of things that are not good, but they're sort of like, maybe that's a reasonable price to pay in exchange for all this other stuff.

59:16How do you help people think through that process and what the trade -offs are? When you describe that scenario, it's like it was your fuel. I'm using the language of parts or guards. I call them guards. These protective parts, these protective adaptive behaviors. I've looked at many of folks. In your example, would be, thank God you've got your ambition. Thank God you've got grit. Thank God you can get angry and you've got a voice. Like, I don't believe I would have met you if you didn't. And I'd say the same thing to somebody who was an alcoholic. Thank God you had that then. I don't think I would have met you.

59:49Should you not have had that. But now can we look at this thing and can we just at least look through the lens of, is it making life hard. An important thing for folks to remember going into, am I going to do the work, do I need to do the work? Am I working on a part of me? These guards, these protective parts of self, we are not necessarily trying to retire them. And that's what happens, I think, to a lot of folks. That part of them, there's almost a fear of like, how do I exist? Does that mean that ambitious, at times, perfectionist Peter has to go away. Think of folks who go through life out of their woundedness that we might describe as they're always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

1:00:31I mean, I can think of clients. Multiple clients who have said, it's not if it's going to drop. It's when and how loud. So they are really good detailed at finding negativity, at finding danger. And they'd be a hell of a good person to have along on a walk in a bad side of town. I'm sure if they were a building inspector, they'd be the best damn one out there, okay? But can you not do that thing when you go home and sit on your couch? And back to the process in the vulnerability. The vulnerability can get brought up so many different ways. We keep talking about this group process that you experience.

1:01:07There's so many different ways. But the common denominator is the vulnerability is what triggers this protective side, this protective behavior to step in. And when that happens, we can work on it in real time, should that person be in at least consideration of doing something different? Every time I see you reading your journal, I think to myself, what must that be like? It's surreal, actually. I'm looking at a note this must have been about day four, though this is day five. We went to 12 -step meetings every night and I found it very difficult and awkward. I didn't understand why we were doing it.

1:01:48I don't have a drinking problem. Why I'm at an AA meeting. I don't have a sex addiction problem. Why I'm at an essay meeting. I don't have a drug problem. Why I'm at the narcotics anonymous meeting. I could just keep going from one to the next to the next to the next. But I wrote something here, said the essay meeting last night was amazing. Three men shared painful, shameful stories. One of them said that he He was getting, I can't even read my handwriting. Something his wife said, things about him and his kids. He was losing his family, right? He was losing his wife. He was losing his kids and he was so upset.

1:02:22But his sponsor told him that he had no right to complain about how his wife feels. I found that very powerful. And it was like he was taking responsibility for his action. And this was interesting because I remember walking into that meeting kind of thinking, Good Lord, another one of these meetings? How many of these things do I have to sit through? People have to remember too, like we're doing these meetings in a part of town where you're seeing people on the wrong side of the tracks. You are not looking at the affluent part of society showing up to these meetings. You're really seeing people who are hurting beyond just, this is my dirty little secret.

1:03:02How many people have the same reaction I do initially, which is I'm not a fill in the blank addict. Why do you keep making me go to these meetings every night? By the way, I've already done 12 hours of group therapy. Can I just go to sleep? Just about 100 % of the folks whose survival strategy is not substances as far as that type of reaction. What am I going to do during the 12 step meeting? Well, you're going to hopefully sit there and get something out of it. You're just going to take alcohol and put in caretaking, put in control, fill in the blank with your word. Helping folks wrap their brain around, they're having an area of powerlessness.

1:03:41It's not always well received at first. For example, let's say that the client's there because he's married, let's say he's married to an addict, okay, wife's an addict. He's considering the same thing. She's the addict or whatever. And so within the spirit of sharing, maybe not in the group, maybe it was overheard, But anyway, the information comes out that this husband talking about his teenage daughter and going through the laundry found birth controls. So, discovers that teenage daughter is on birth controls. And so, the first words that come out of his mouth, what if the people at church find out?

1:04:22And so, when you can, in some way, try to help someone use a different lens, one would say, and I would say this, One might say that you're no less powerless to your image management than your wife is to alcohol because you can't get into couples therapy You're not gonna not go to church on Wednesday night and tell the people that you're married to an alcoholic So the area of powerlessness is image management. So back to that meeting You're gonna fill in image management in that blank where everybody else or some of those people have got alcohol and some of those people have got cocaine Again, to tell someone that they've got an area of powerlessness or to suggest it, it's not always received well initially, but it can be an aha eventually an aha moment.

1:05:12So if I recall, Jeff, the end of week one was when we do our story, right? Depending on where you were in the order, but yet tends to be the last few days of week one. Talk about what the instruction set was for each of us as we went off and prepared to do that. The guidelines that we would typically give folks, we always suggest that the clients write something out, bullet point it, we'd ask that the story be told within the framework of the trauma tree. These stories don't need to be void of success and great moments, and if it wasn't for my grandfather and that stuff, there's a thing we're here to focus on as well.

1:05:51So what happened to me? and that we've been given 45 minutes to tell your story. And we try to stay out of the way as much as possible unless it's therapeutically necessary. Some folks, rescue would be the wrong word, but some folks can get going down the rabbit hole of dysregulation with their emotions and going into detail. So that client may need a little help moving forward. Whereas another client may machine gun through a story. That's ingenious too. You don't have to fill it if I don't stop, and we might need to slow that client down. But the essence of the story again is just to tell the what happened to me.

1:06:32And then I think where the real magic can happen is during the feedback. Because you get 45 minutes to use your mouth, and then we ask you to use your ears. And we ask folks to play by one more rule, and that is, please do not give feedback to the feedback. and then we're back to the control ward. Because I've got this thing I'm ready to present. Perhaps I've presented it 10 times, and I've got it written out or I've at least got bullet points. So I feel good about no problem. But you start telling me how you felt and what came up for you, Peter, when I was talking about my dad, and what he did, I don't know how that's going to fill for me.

1:07:13And so many times, almost 100 % of the time, within the spirit of not giving feedback to feedback is, feedback equates to, I'm gonna throw some love on you. Maybe I didn't have anything in the world common with you, but when you talked about that thing at eight years old, I felt myself getting angry. That's how somebody lets somebody know, I was listening to you. I was there with you. 90 % of the time at least, and it's so hard for folks to not give, to just sit there and let somebody share from the heart and to not give feedback to that feedback. But so many times it's like, well, my brother had it a lot worse.

1:07:51And it's like, I just throw my hands down. I'm like, it happens almost. That's why we do it. It's like somebody throws some love on you. And it's almost like out of my shame and my wound in this, I need to remind you that I'm a piece of shit. And it happens so often. How do you break that cycle? It's very, very difficult. A lot of folks, they think that change is about announcing what they're about to do. I know this is going to sound co -dependent. Well, if you're firing on all pistons as a therapist, the response should be, then don't say it. Because there's enough muscle memory there. We need to practice the uncomfortable thing of not saying the thing you've been saying for years.

1:08:31Not doing. I'm the last person to be black and white about many things. I think much of my work with clients individually in groups, what have you with human beings is find in the gray. But I'll tell you what, when it comes to compulsive behaviors, complex, post -traumatic stress, these things that we've been doing for years and decades, I'm eyes are strengthening an old connection or I'm building a new one. When those clients say, what should I do when I leave this group room, do something different? An experience what it's like to do something different. And so many times it's not doing something.

1:09:05I mean, we've took the vacuum cleaner away from clients before. It's an ingenious, damaged control strategy. It's written all over the walls. We're here to talk about some deep stuff, and I'm finally going to be expected to talk about my stuff. We've encouraged other clients to break rules. Some folks at the bridge might not like that, but it's like you need to go take some coffee into the morning meeting. Even a rule follow your whole life. Yeah, we were only allowed one coffee a day or something, right? Yeah, first of all. First of all, that's not much. Oh my gosh. What I understand is not the strong scoffy in the world.

1:09:35You do a lot of work now with clients individually as well. I wonder how that is different. I've recommended a number of people go to the bridge. I've recommended a number of people go to PCS a place I went to three years later and taken together those two places changed my life. And one of the things I've said when people ask me, yeah, but Peter, it's just such a huge commitment. Do I really need to do it? I don't know the answer to that question. I'd love to hear your thoughts. But what I do say is for me in the state that I was in, it could not have been done any other way. I had to have immersion.

1:10:12And I say, I suppose it's not unlike learning a new language, where if I decide I want to learn Portuguese and I'm willing to take lessons two hours a week, I'll get there. But if I move to Brazil and no one speaks English to me for a month, I think I'm going to get there a lot faster. And it's not just the sum of the hours. There's something accretive about the total and utter immersion literally in the experience that changes it. So, how do you think about the difference between the work you do and have done at the bridge, which is indeed what we're talking about here, this immersive residential type of treatment versus someone who's listening to us that says, I hear everything you guys are saying.

1:11:00I just can't do that. I can't go there yet. Is there something in between? Can I start by working with Jeff just an hour or two a week? How does your work with clients differ? And how do you help somebody decide? Maybe I'll start with this question. How would you give somebody the way to think about whether or not they could find some success in individual therapy versus whether or not. It's really just rearranging the deck chairs in the Titanic. You got to go hardcore. Yeah. So the answer would be yes to the can I do this or can I do that? Yes, because it's not a linear path. Whatever it takes, whatever works.

1:11:37Before I started doing this gig, before I found the bridge, I never thought about doing anything residential when it came to mental health and being a professional, being a therapist. And then all of a sudden, I couldn't imagine doing it any other way. Couldn't imagine doing it without the group process because all those things that I'm talking about there's so much access to vulnerability and Let's not box ourselves in because some folks it's their truth some folks they can't they just can't go do something like that The way that it's changed the way that I approach the individual Dynamic the individual therapy Efficiency not a rush, but I think that through all the years and all of the clients within the group process and how I see that works and to be able to somehow synthesize that into my individual assessments and the way that I can work with clients, that discovery process doesn't have to be as long as sometimes it plays out to be.

1:12:37So within the spirit of the individual process, it's like we may reach a point where it's like here's the next level. But the same could be said on the opposite side of that coin, somebody might be like, I'm going to a residential program. And then they find out all this stuff. And we can take that and integrate that into the individual therapy. Practicing individually would have looked so different 10 years ago because of how the trauma, it's no one's size fits all. And so to think that this intervention needs to be used because it's my specialty or this has to happen or this is exactly how long it takes for someone to have a window of tolerance, every human being is different.

1:13:20And I haven't seen everything, because every Tuesday at the bridge will remind you of that. But I've seen a lot. And so my hope is that most people that I meet, or I have, I have met so many people and continue to meet them that you've described them when you talk about folks like I've got a lot. If you want to call it high functioning, I've got a lot, but there's something missing. Now they won't all say that initially, but that tends to be the truth. There's still something missing. There's a hold there. Something's just not right. So why are they with you? Meaning from their end, from their standpoint, why are they seeking therapy if it seems all right?

1:14:02Well, it could be because they've just discovered been exposed to something that happened to let them know maybe not. Oftentimes that that client that I just described may have got to see me to get somebody off their back. Like you need to go do some work, you need to go get some help, you need to go help. And then it becomes pretty evident whether the person's there for that reason or for something a little more authentic and for self. I think part of my paperwork should also include Jeff Englisch cannot fit a square peg into a round hole, which oftentimes translates into, I can't change somebody else's behavior in your life.

1:14:38You see that a lot too. This person that has finally gotten to a point where they have been willing to go talk to somebody. And so that is so often the people that I'm seeing. One of the things about the bridge that I assume it's still true, but it was remarkable to me was that everybody who worked there had been a client there. Is that still the case? Outside of some staff members, certainly all of the clinicians, most of the staff members, and I can't imagine being a clinician there or working there without having done that. And that honestly has been the reason why some folks won't work at the bridge.

1:15:16So we don't operate from therapy hill, right? I'm in my own journey too. I've got my challenges as well, yes. And so to know, I'm going to have to do some work. And then to wrap your brain around, these are the people I'm going to work with. To be able to look at a client like yourself and say, I'm literally not going to ask you to do anything that I haven't done and to be able to say that from the heart. That's really an amazing feature and I sort of imagine that through the lens of anyone who takes care of another person. It's sort of like people, I think, are right to be frustrated when they have a doctor who's asking them to take care of themselves when the doctor clearly doesn't take care of themselves.

1:15:53How is it that you can tell me that I need to eat better and exercise when looking at you? It's clear you're not doing those things. It doesn't mean that the advice is incorrect or that you shouldn't listen to it. It's just you're asking me to do something you won't do. Whereas, yeah, at the bridge, we can talk about some of the other things that are very difficult to do there, such as in the second week when you're beating this shit out of things. Those are not easy things to do, but to know that when Jeff and Julia are asking you to do it, they did it. Yeah, absolutely. And if you think to the way the journey starts is we disclose, and some professionals be careful with self -disclosure.

1:16:32It's not about me, it's about them, but like, hey, we're gonna ask you all pretty quickly to start showing us a piece of your soul, so to speak. So I'm gonna tell you a little bit about mine. Hopefully we can start building that rapport early. I think we can trust these folks. I think that they can lead us. Maybe not everybody, but like to introduce that. Because like you say in week two, we ask folks to go places us with us. That experiential therapy, and you mentioned one way of doing experiential therapy, the somatic part of what we do, but things have come a long way. Within the spirit of that process, and when you talked about that learning of language, I love that analogy, because you are immersed in that.

1:17:13But it's being able to experience the emotion, hijacking if you will, of the emotional brain. I liken it to, we're going to walk you down to the edge of the river and we're going to put your foot into the water. Now the water being here your past your pain right because we want you to fill a little bit of the temperature but we're going to stand here right beside of you and our job is to keep you in 2024 25 whatever year we're going to go there but we're going to stay here do awareness that's the integrative part some people need to yell, because they haven't had a voice. Some people need to learn that they yelled, and they were able to not get lost in it.

1:17:59Everybody's journey being different and befriending. It's almost like some people say, why can't put my finger on what it was? But I just something was different. What is it that you did? I say, well, sometimes you might say we were activating your limbic system so that you could do something different while activated. learning how to get space from the emotional brain. So many clients, especially clients with trauma, years of frustration, learning coping skills in safe offices with therapists. They're done beautifully and repetitively within that environment, but it's really hard to recreate that back at home or at work.

1:18:44When triggered, my coping skills live in a part of the brain that gets hijacked when the emotional brain takes over. And this doesn't always have to be about trauma. Can you believe I'm saying that? The example I give, I'm a professional, right? Well, mother's 87 years old, with dementia, she's living in a nursing home. All the things to go along with that. Irrationality that's involved with that. And so Jeff goes to these visits and he starts noticing that all these visits are starting with my mother talking about how somebody is stealing her blue ink pens and what I call her O lady blue jeans.

1:19:25And so I'm sitting there saying, are you kidding me? Who would want your blue ink pens? Think about this rashly mom who wants these old blue jeans and how many of my visits? That's how that visit started. It just went downhill from there to literally be sitting in the truck outside before a visit praying. Give me what needs to happen here. So many times as clinicians, we ask clinicians to take your hat off, take your therapist's hat off. But sometimes you need to put it on. Because Jeff the clinician is not sitting there in front of his mother. There's a son sitting there in front of his mother who is facing the reality that it's not his mother anymore.

1:20:10And that's very sad. The anger is a much more comfortable place to be or frustration. So I'm going to argue with mom about how irrational this thought is, right? But it's breaking because I don't want my mom to think that people are still in her blue ink pants. I want her to change. I want this to be corrected. But I'm forgetting like one of the golden rules of change when it comes to therapy, rolling with resistance. The more that I fight for change, the more this other person is going to fight for the status quo. It happens 99 % of the time. But when you sell crazy back to somebody tenfold, they start to suggest rationality.

1:20:55Here's what I mean by that. And one day in that truck, I realized I have got to do something different. Right? So I'm going to go in there and when I went in there, I went in there with my executive functioning. I went in there from the prefrontal cortex. And so when mom started talking about her blue jeans and her blue ink pins, my response was, you know what, you're right. And I think I know exactly the lady that's doing it. I'm going to give her a piece of my mind. And what did my mom say? Jeff sit down. Be sensible. Jeff. Right. I didn't have access to something that I do all the time with clients.

1:21:30Selling crazy back to them. You go home, you'll get your cigarettes back. If you're talking about the bridge, you'll get your cigarettes back, you'll get your phone back, you'll go back home, you'll go back to your perfect girlfriend and life will be okay. And I didn't say life's okay. All right. Well then we got something to talk about. You got to stay here. You're going to die if you don't change. They just fight. They just fight, fight for the status quo. But that Jeff that I was talking about, I didn't have access to those skills. I wasn't being driven. Now there's all the baggage, there's to be in the sun, there's a trauma related to mom, there's all of that that played into that.

1:22:03But to be able to get access to what some folks call the bill paying for. What year were you acclaimed at the bridge? 2016. Okay. So only a year before me. So you'd been a therapist obviously for many years before. How did you find the bridge? It was an email that I probably wouldn't have read. And there was an opening and a mentor of mine sent me an email and said, I know your story. I know your background. I think you ought to check this place out. Then to grow up somewhere like that, Bologna and Kentucky, and to not know this place that's existed now for 50 years, it says something. I had a certain mindset about what residential therapy would look like in residential treatment and Yeah, so I was just blown away and Privileged to be able to do the work.

1:22:54I mean, it's a gift. I talk about Folks not wanting to do it and sometimes that being the reason that they won't join the team there That's a very true thing. I wasn't crazy about doing it either. I knew there was stuff that I was still working on and Will still be working on and it was gonna be very vulnerable in one way. I was like This is an audition. Do you want to know all my crazy? And they're like, yes, we do. What is it that attracted you to this field? I've done a lot of different things. Sales, marketing, I used to build based fencing. People would say, oh, really? Like jousting, I'm like, no.

1:23:29Wouldn't chain link fences. Let's not go too far with that. I did undergraduate in psychology. And then there was that gap in between me determining and realizing that this is what I need to do. The self -discovery part for me, it was like starting to do my own work and then realizing that to see someone get a taste of hope, to see somebody get a taste of hope, and to be part of that. When I tell clients you know it's like you've got it in you, maybe I can create a space where it can come out. It's a privilege. I don't take it lightly what I do and what clients trust me with. I think you have a really special talent for it, Jeff, and I just wonder, is that something that only comes because you've experienced the pain as well?

1:24:16Does someone have to have necessarily been through this journey to be able to guide someone through it? Do you think that's necessary? I don't think it's necessary, but it sure is, ale helps. I'll say that. the depth of the connection with the heart and the work. Because it's one thing to say, my profession, I've got purpose. I could say I do something that matters, but does that thing matter to me? And it does. Me personally, I think the weight of that purpose is from the pain, in addition to the hope. Having that type of impact to where I think I heal little bit each time I help somebody integrate their trauma and I've had some amazing things happen in the group room.

1:25:06I'm human. Certain things that I've done in the group room, I don't need to be doing my therapy while I'm a leading a group, but certain things that I would do on like an art therapy or something I use the same scene on the board that I use time after time because again that's something that I've tried to unpack and process and I don't need to be doing anything new and then to be sitting there and because of something that happened in the group room or maybe it's where I had realized that I look at that scene that I just drew on the board differently. And it's personal. We've trauma and we talk about how it's shame like it's something that's touched my family.

1:25:38Unfortunately, there's not much of that family left. My sister passed away in 2014. She grew up in the same house that I did. So, piece of my heart's connected because it doesn't have to go that way. You alluded earlier to the generational nature of trauma. Terry Riel has written about this in some of the most eloquent ways I've seen. And I think that for some people that can be the motivation to change, once they realize that there's a pattern and that it's not linear. If you have a belief that it's linear, then it's really easy to say, well, I've already stopped it. So for example, if your parents were alcoholics and you're not, well, the story's over.

1:26:20I don't need any help regardless of whatever other behaviors I'm manifesting. But if a person can accept that, no, that's not how it works. There could be this type of trauma in generation G minus 2 that manifested as a different trauma in G minus 1. And now here in G 0 where you are, you have this blind spot to what's going on. I know that for me, that was among the most powerful motivations to stop the cycle, as Terry described it. How much do you think that that factors into people's willingness to kind of endure the challenges and discomfort of the journey? Oftentimes it becomes pivotal in willingness and in that surrender game that I mentioned because I think as a parent, one of my jobs or the most important job is in my opinion.

1:27:18Then my children go to bed and wake up safe. They don't grow up in fear. I have a lot to do with that. But like they tell you on the airplanes about your oxygen mask, you gotta have yours on first. It's the end of the day being a parent. You mention about why I do what I do and what I get out of and what not and to know my clients on a different level because doing the work is hard. Sometimes at the end of the day, when you need to have that hard discussion with somebody, when a boundary needs to be set, when conflict resolution in a relationship needs to happen some days, when people finally go to bed in the house as quiet you just want to watch Netflix to understand what happens.

1:28:01What can happen is that you put off these things and things start to build and they build in the build and then when in the little heavy breaks I'm the worst version of Jeff. If I let that happen, what about that generation? What about that next generation? It's responsibility on a whole different level. But a gift too. And this conception you were describing of, well, at least I don't drink, at least I'm not an alcoholic, so that means that I'm not as bad as my parents and there's no work to be done. Because there's so many other ways that I can have an unhealthy impact on that next generation.

1:28:36But to be in that place of okay, this is it. This is it. And I have the opportunity to change this thing. In my case reverse the cycle. You must encounter a lot of people who have these socially acceptable maladaptive behaviors. In many ways it makes it even more difficult to reconcile because because society is externally sort of patting you on the back for your workaholism, your perfectionism, your achievements and all those things. I don't know. Is one pattern in your view harder to address than the other or is it all about the individual? In other words, if you think about the individual characteristics, the manifestation of the trauma, and the nature of the injuries.

1:29:21Those are three things that are all blended. Do you try to disentangle those when you're working with people and pattern recognize? or do you just say, no, every person's a clean slate and we're just trying to figure out how those three things fit together. That's a place I try to operate from. Out of, I think, my humanity, our humanity as clinicians, there's client files. I've seen this, we've seen this one before, and sometimes it needs to be set out loud. Some people need to hear, you know I've seen you before, right? Not always appreciated, but sometimes it lands. For me, that's a very calming message, actually.

1:29:56actually the, you know what, Peter, you're not unique here. There are lots of people like you out here. It's really easy to think you're the only one. Yeah, an amazing to wrap your brain maybe you're around the fact that that's actually calming. It's nice to know. There's certain interventions that tend to go along with certain personalities or certain maladaptive behaviors, if you will, but to the best of the mobility, What does this person tell me? How they're telling me. When you think about examples, I've seen examples where it seems like everything we're talking about has been taken too far.

1:30:33There's a story I read about a teacher who started every day with her school children basically trying to get them each to talk about what was making them sad. The story digress so much, one kid would say, well, I'm sad about the fact that something happened. And it was a legitimate, it sounded actually quite traumatic in that kid's life. They were getting yelled at all the time at home or locked in a room. And it sort of derailed the ability to do anything. This is a group of kindergarten kids that ought to be learning how to write and color and stuff like that. Everything was being pathologized for them.

1:31:07So what do you say to the person listening to us that says, we've gone too far? And I get it. I'm sure that some of the people that Jeff works with who have genuinely been abused, deserved to be there, but aren't we just coddling people too much and don't people just need to sort of buck her up? I mean, isn't this what makes us who we are? Yes and no. I'm certain that those things are happening. I would not be comfortable painting a broad brush and saying, yes, we are too far. Again, I'm back to depolarizing things. Most of my folks that I meet through the therapeutic work grew up in much more of the get over it.

1:31:47Buck up. And then the other end of this continuum, if you will, is everything is trauma. Let's not box ourselves in. I worry about the example that you just give there because I'm just thinking about kids in general, especially younger kids. Kids can be mean. Is that the space for that? Emotions? Yes. It can be so powerful, I believe, for children to learn about their emotions. But to be guided by them, that's a tricky statement. I would hope the spirit of guiding is learning what the behaviors are, learning when the time in place for emotional attention is, and the time in place that it's not for.

1:32:27Again, my experience comes from individuals typically who are from the far other end of that. What would you say to a person who's listening to us who's trying to even understand if they've experienced trauma, which sounds like a dumb thing to say, but let me give an example, right? So you have a person who's listening, who's either introspective enough to realize that some of those things we described as the four branches of the trauma tree, whether it be codependency, attachment disorders, some sort of maladaptive behavior, et cetera, addiction, maybe. They're like, okay, I mean, if I'm being brutally honest, I'm not flying on a perfect level.

1:33:08My spouse has complained about X, Y, and Z, and there does seem to be a little bit of interpersonal discontent in this nature, in this release, jib, et cetera. Okay, fine. And then they, if they're, again, in a particularly charitable mood, they look at the kind of five roots of the tree and they're like, well, okay, yeah, I mean, these sort of things happen. But they can't make the leap to say, but does any of that stuff actually rise to the level of, quote unquote, trauma, even little T -trauma? Is the answer just that I need to get my act together and drink a little less and just try to be more present with my kids.

1:33:43It doesn't matter what the fix is, but they're just not sure that going back and stirring the pot of what happened to them during the first 10 years of their life is going to be an exercise worth engaging in. How would you help that person decide that you're right? It's probably not worth stirring that up. Let's just work on some behavioral tools right now to address the behavior versus actually, I don't think you're ever going to truly fix these things until you go back to the root. I think that's a perfect way to approach it. Let's try that. In your example, like, maybe I should just do this less and do this more.

1:34:19All these behaviors. Let's try that. Let's put together a plant goal setting. I'm coaching you. We're not doing an intervention here in the therapeutic intervention. And if it happens, it happens. Folks who realize or already know that they have trauma or have been wounded significantly. Secondly, sometimes I think the word just trips folks up and they just can't get over the word. Wounded. Survivors, whatever we want to call these folks, they have a really hard time putting knowing into action. I spent many years as a very well -informed prisoner. I know all this stuff about why it is I do the things that I do, but it's the putting it into action.

1:34:59The thing that you'd said about the not doing, that's where we get to realize, hopefully admit to self if that's the fact, when I come back to see Jeff or whoever, well, the goal is still failing. For some reason, I just can't do that. Well perhaps there's something significant connected to this. Maybe something needs to be integrated. the part of you that is unwilling to do this thing that you say is the goal and the plan when you sit in front of me, that's who we need to work with. So how do you begin to do that integration? Let's go back to the example you gave because it's so profound and probably tragic where that four year old boy that learned how to manipulate and deceive to protect his mom has now carried that behavior into his marriage.

1:35:52So step one is obviously getting to the point where we uncover that story and make the connection, which was an inner child is wounded, that inner child adapted with a strategy that was very positive. Everything about that strategy made sense. But guess what, your dad isn't kind of hurting your mom anymore because luckily she got a divorce and he's gone. You're now applying that same behavior pattern in relationships that have nothing to do with the relationship in which that was developed to be protective, and he says, OK, I get it, Jeff, how do I change? What are the next steps? How do I go from the understanding of that to creating a new pattern of behavior?

1:36:31Because this is really wired. These paths are heavily, heavily myelinated at this point. In general, what we're going to have to do is we're going to have to expand your window of tolerance if you will, to vulnerability. Because typically that protective behavior, again, the enemy is vulnerability. And so, to create some muscle memory, doing something different when vulnerable, not doing that same thing. When you talked about your experience at the bridge, and you talked about what it would have been like if we had a taken away exercise, simply sitting still for some folks is a very vulnerable experience.

1:37:11And so to create an environment where that person can experience the discomfort. And that's why I think that within my work and a lot of professionals looking at individuals from a part's perspective. There's different systems, different theories, internal family systems, structural dissociation, but this language that I'm using. It's not necessarily new because it's like you're talking about this original self, this wounded self, this adapted self. The adapted self tends to have some really hard line beliefs. Safety equals control, safety equals distance, safety equals self abandonment, safety equals somebody else.

1:37:54And as long as that part of self has that core belief, I believe it's going to be damn near impossible to do those things that I know I should do. So to know that there are interventions that will fit that process, the first question is, do you got issue with this? Because I'm back to if you like it, I love it. When a client, they're at the bridge and they're there because their spouse, their spouse is going to leave them, their spouse is finally fed up with it and they've got all these opinions about it. So here I am because they said I needed to go to a place like this and you know, you're like, it doesn't sound like you got a problem at all.

1:38:35What do you mean? You can keep being you. You've just got somebody telling you now that they're not going to deal with it. Maybe it's the biggest controlling jerk in the world. So all you need to do is go find another door mat. I'm just here and you say your spouse is not so you decide whether there's a problem there or not. This behavior again that's become the problematic behavior. How difficult it is to unravel and stop doing that behavior. Again, tied into the trauma, tied into it being an ingenious, damaged control strategy at a time in life, perhaps. And perhaps done multiple times successfully.

1:39:12So there's a part of self that says, why not do this? We've been doing pretty well like this for a long time. There tend to be these moments along this journey. I assume I'm not unique in this where people have really significant breakthroughs in beliefs. And it's mostly that a belief gets shattered. Again, this is, I think, one of the real joys of having a journal is you can kind of go back and read what that was like and read on this day through this exercise. This really profound thing happened. I mean, I wrote about two of them in that last chapter of my book. I wrote about one at the bridge and one about PCS that were undoubtedly the two biggest breakthroughs in beliefs I've ever had in my life.

1:39:57They've had a far greater impact on anything in my world. And they both happened in an instant. They were huge step function changes in a radical belief system. And what I find interesting about it is how much easier it became to make any change after the fact. I never want to represent that I'm better. We're all in recovery here. But when I think about about the December 2017 April of 2020, or maybe it was by this point may of 2020, those particular days when those things happened literally within an instant. I don't understand the neurobiology of how it happens, but something really switches, and I never look at the world the same way I did before.

1:40:44There's an immediate acceptance of something typically. That's the shattering of the belief system is the acceptance of something that is more honest and more close to the innate child that we all were. Is that common? First of all, that people have these major, major life -changing appreciations of something, and then secondly, is that by itself sufficient sometimes to drive change? I'd be careful with the common word, but it happens a lot. I typically hear about it kind of the way you described it. Months, even sometimes years later, it hit me one day, or this thing was happening and I was incredibly compelled to do it the old way and I heard something so and so said in my ear, something against that belief system.

1:41:28That's what's so tricky about that process at the bridge or if you want to talk about experiential journeys, using experiential therapies. I mean, just going to a process, a group therapy process, residential is an experiential intervention. And so to be able to put my finger on, well, what was it? What exactly was it? And can I prove that that was the thing? It's interesting. For me in both cases, it came down to a therapist pushing very hard, but very kindly against a set of assumptions. It was me saying something, offering it up the same answer, and the person saying, what about this? What about this?

1:42:14And just maybe be described as a loving confrontation, that when fully backed into a corner in an unthreatening way, collapse the scaffolding of a mental model. Yeah. And thank God. I mean, when you tell that about putting your finger on that, I've got so much gratitude sitting here. Obviously, I know the moments, several of the moments. And it is common. I think the spirit of you in this example, putting yourself in a position for it to happen. And there being a process to get this guarded version of self out of the way enough to allow something like that to happen. And there's a lot going on to create that or to cultivate that possibility.

1:43:02I think that's absolutely maybe the lesson I would want somebody to learn from this is in science, there's an expression that I think it was Louis Pasteur that said that chance favors the prepared mind. And the idea is that great scientific breakthroughs don't just happen. They happen to people who are toiling in the lab, failing, failing, failing, trying again, trying again, constantly thinking about the problem. And yes, usually something lucky happens that trips them in the direction of a discovery. It's often very much an accident, but that accident can't happen if you're not on the field.

1:43:42That accident doesn't happen if you're in the stands. Maybe that's the takeaway I would want somebody to have here, which is you're very unlikely to have that Eureka moment if you're not mired in the trenches of going through the painful work of figuring out your story, understanding trying to create the map of what's happening. It's unlikely to happen when you're continuing the distractions or the numbing behaviors. Absolutely. Sometimes I guess the frustration with, and the individual one -on -one therapeutic dynamic would be, I've heard many of the therapists who would ask the question, why would somebody go to a residential program that wasn't an addict or alcoholic?

1:44:25To talk about the frustrations of like the goals not being able to put the knowing into acting. You see this person we have four steps for, we have this great 55 minute session. And then six days later they come back and I'm like, who the hell is this? What happened to them? Well what happened to them is more than likely they went back and lived underneath the same roof with their biggest trauma tree. And so in your experience and many others having the ability to get that separation, Season of separation to make that possible. Not the only way to make that possible, because again, we paint ourselves in a hole to wear.

1:44:59You mean if I can't go to a residential program, I can't heal. We certainly don't want to paint that, because then we've got a lot of folks without hope. But one of the ways, absolutely. Do you view your work today? The work you do just with individual clients is something that you prefer to only do with people once they're coming out of a residential program? or do you take clients that are saying, hey, I think I need help, I'm not ready to fully commit to doing something as intensive and committed as residential care. Either one, absolutely. Because you mentioned that it's a journey, healed past tense, typically isn't a reality.

1:45:37We're all on a healing journey, I hope. Yeah, we can have these lightning bolt moments, get this momentum, make this progress, you describe your experience of it, and also know that the word continues. Because back to the language of these maladaptive behaviors in all the muscle memory. To have a eureka moment just completely wiped that out. But when you talk about that scenario, yeah, if I know somebody has been to a residential program, and I have an idea of what they did, because I have familiarity with where they were at, then I can do a certain thing with that. But at the same time, I guess the fire that it lights for that person that you've been talking about so much is finally getting to the cusp or to that place of, I think I need to look at something.

1:46:23I got a lot of good. You talked about that person, but something's just not right. And to be at that point of that journey that we talked about not being linear. And having a system, if you will, where with the background I believe with, that group experiential process has a different way of making that one -on -one relationship and back to the word efficient and trauma efficiency. Hopefully being able to help recognize. Here's to what and the when and let's make sure we're using our time wisely. Jeff, what advice do you have for somebody who's out there trying to find a therapist? They've listened to us today and they've been like, okay, these two guys have got me at least think in Ayada, maybe scratch this a little bit, see if this scab bleeds.

1:47:09What are the attributes they should be looking for? First of all, how do they even begin to, like, what do you go on Google and search trauma -based therapy? How do you find somebody? And more importantly, when you find somebody, how do you say, look, I'm going to give this three or four sessions to determine if this is a good use in my time. What are you looking for? Is it, hey, if I'm not uncomfortable in three or four sessions, this person probably isn't doing a good job? What are the metrics? It certainly wants some input from a professional, a seasoned professional, a personal referral. You mentioned, do I just Google, trauma informed is kind of like the buzz thing, and what does this mean?

1:47:46Did you go to a 45 minute seminar on trauma does affect folks and now you're trauma informed? Is there a certification that people should be aware of that says you're a true trauma -based therapist? There are several, but I would be more interested in what I do when I look at bios. Sometimes I get more concerned about the more specialties I see. So when I see these lists that cover every class that someone takes during a graduate program for counseling, that troubles me. How come? He looks great. I cover all of these different things. But no depth. Yeah, but like how much muscle memory do you have as a clinician working with a certain population, the way that you do it, and where did that muscle memory come from?

1:48:31That's a big part of what I do. Is helping folks make sure that they are with the right person. That's where I go with the efficiency of it. Knowing the story, learning the story, getting that eye -opening moment, and then that hint that someone wants something different, and then to be a part of that process, or to point them in the right direction. What else should they be looking for? So they find somebody they think they even get a personal referral that says this person is good, how should they evaluate what is going on and if they're on the right path within a month, for example? What's a sign that things are going well?

1:49:05What's a sign that things are not going well? I personally think that sometimes I would say that challenge, how challenged do you feel? How do you feel going into a session? How do you feel after the session? What's a good sign? Is going in apprehensive and coming out exhausted a good sign? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don't think it's a good story when it's like, I can't wait to talk to Jeff because I'm gonna get to Gryte for 55 minutes and he's gonna let me pay him for that. Now, it's happened before and I would just say we need to call this what it is. If this is where you want to put your anger at for an hour, we can do that, but let's call it what it is because we're not working on change here.

1:49:45So what's happening? What's being illuminated? Because they wouldn't call it a blind spot if I could see it. So, what's happening within that back and forth? What did I not know? What made me think? What made me pause? But the main thing is what's different? Not all therapeutic relationships are a good match. And so, to just know that that's a reality. And to give yourself permission after an adequate amount of time, this isn't working. Let's not keep doing this. Let's not keep doing something that's not working. Life's short. I'm looking at my last entry before I left the bridge. I see a couple of great lines here.

1:50:23One of my favorite other co -residents there. She said this. She said, I asked God why he beat me down this year. He said he broke me open. I thought that was very powerful. You said on the way out, the more you cry here, the more you win here. That was pretty interesting. There's just no escaping it is there. Like it's very, very difficult. If the name of the game is I have to become vulnerable to become connected. That's the central thesis here. I am disconnected and I am using something to stay disconnected. Sometimes those things are obviously bad like drugs and alcohol. Sometimes and many times they are not that obviously bad like work and perfectionism or cleanliness or you pick it right, depending on the extent of it.

1:51:10But I have to get vulnerable to be connected. And being vulnerable feels like getting broken down and you're going to shed some tears. Exactly. And the sheer factor thought of shedding the tears might amplify the vulnerability through the roof. So it's written all over the walls literally. I mean, if you remember group rooms with emotion words on the walls. And to have clinicians sit in that room as guests of hours and and refer to them as negative emotions. I squirm in my seat. Maybe they're not as comfortable, but like there's a utility to all of these emotions. And I liken stuff in emotions to like tightening the string on a guitar.

1:51:51And you think of how many times, how many times that you've stuffed that emotion? What happens? And that thing right there, I think a lot of folks have been misinformed or it was an old way of doing things, but I think a lot of folks go into it thinking that they've got to have this explosion with their emotions for the thing to happen. And if being lost in my emotion, if drowning in a pool of tears is what trauma integration is, then let me have no part of it. Because if dysregulated emotions is what comes out of the work, then I keep referring to them as guards. My guards, my protective parts, They've got more reason than ever to do their job.

1:52:34You just introduced me to vulnerability and it was overwhelming. So when working with the client regardless of the setting, it's befriending vulnerability. And to introduce vulnerability as overwhelming, that is counterproductive. These protective selves, you mentioned back to the connection and human connection is vulnerable. It's not something that's meant to be controlled. There's unknowns. There's another person. We really don't know what they're going to do, what they're going to say, how we're going to be received. That's vulnerable. And if you look through the lens of these protective parts, my guards, the irony is, the means by which they do their job typically brings me the thing that they most fear.

1:53:23Another example. Let's say that a client, this is one that works sometimes, let's say that a client, like one of their things, is they've got some trauma, they've got some insecurities around betrayals. And they're in a relationship and one day their partner comes home and tells them that their ex is back working at the hospital where they work at. Now, who wants to hear that? Nobody wants to hear that. But it's going to be especially bad news for somebody with a betrayal file. It's going to be very vulnerable. Introduce vulnerability into the equation. This is where the disconnected self shows up.

1:54:01I have to do something to take care of that vulnerability. So I have this avoidant part. I used to call it the too cool for school part. And he was born out of hearing a lot of what kind of man's he gonna be. What kind of man's you gonna be? So in other words, this part of me doesn't believe that a man says something like, I'm scared. I'm vulnerable. So this part of me says, you want to hear about all the skeletons in my closet? I don't care that your ex is back at works five years ago. But when that partner's on their seven to seven shifts, it's hard for me to be connected, Jeff, when all that stuff starts going on through insecurities and betrayals and things of that nature.

1:54:40So I need something, something to step in and take me away, and that's where that disconnection comes in. For some folks, it would be drinking or whatnot. Then the spirit of the example that I'm given and trying to give the irony is, again, the problem is not having the parts. It's how they do their job and the relationship between those parts. Because eventually what happens is, is that as I do the thing with, let's say the behavior's drinking. So I'm drinking, I'm drinking, I'm drinking, and eventually I get to a point to where not thinking that much about what might be going on that hospital and then I get to a point to where my buddy leaves.

1:55:17We were watching the ballgame. I was able to be connected Jeff in front of him, but now I'm really starting to get up in my head about what might be going on at the hospital where my partner's at. When the following finally rings at 1130 or 12 or whatever, it's not connected Jeff it answers the phone. I'm using myself in this made up example, right? But it's going to be a disconnected version of Jeff. You having fun? Well, the night so young, maybe you guys will have time to go at it again, right? All this woundedness starts coming out. And so eventually what happens is in this example, if this partner's got any healthy going on, I'm going to come downstairs one day and there's going to be a note that says, I wasn't created to save you.

1:55:53I can't do this. You need some help. And now have I ever been any sadder than I am because that it's a triangle of vulnerability, sad shame and fear. And that's what all these guarded parts of self, they're there to protect us against that. But you see the means by which the protected, disconnected self, did its work, actually played out, brought me the thing that I feared the most. So now here I am sitting at this table alone, realizing what's happened. That's how that happened. So back to disconnection, connection, what is connected, Jeff says, I know this is my stuff and I've got work to do.

1:56:34It's a reminder that I've got work to do, but I got to tell you, I got to be honest with me, it bothers me what you just told me about this person being back working with you. bothers me. But that's a very vulnerable thing to say. Of course, you can only really say that if your partner is equally vulnerable, because if your partner is not vulnerable, that message isn't going to land, and that's going to be triggering to that person. And I guess all of this is a long -winded way of saying, you have to have two healthy people to make a relationship work. You can't just have one. Absolutely. That might not be welcomed.

1:57:05That emotional, vulnerable self might not be welcomed. And that's information that's necessary. A necessary information about my partner. It bothers me in that example. I'm not asking you to do anything, I'm not asking you to quit your job or anything like that, but I just need you to know my truth. And I've got work to do around this. But it does bother me. It scares me to death. It scares me to death. Probably the bravest words I've ever said to another human being in my life, it scares me to death. It's spent so many years trying to act like it didn't. If you're in that relationship where one of you is feeling like, hey, I can be vulnerable here, but it's not being reciprocated, what are the tips for maybe helping your spouse if this is thinking about it as a marriage or something like that?

1:57:49What can the vulnerable member of that relationship do to help the other one? Because it's not going to be tenable indefinitely. How do you lovingly get that person to come to a place where they want to get help? A lot of folks have wasted years trying to pull and push people into help. You just have to be the agent of change in the relationship. You have to break the dance. So in this particular dance is it's I'm wanting to be vulnerable and you're not having anything of it. Something's got to change. So you gotta sharpen your skills with the boundaries. Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries, and sometimes it's a worn out word, but it's a hell of a skill to be able to utilize.

1:58:28And to be able to set a healthy boundary. Top to your boundary setting often times doesn't include the word you. Flows folks away when you just talk about me. I realize when this behavior happens, whatever fill in the blank, that it's affecting me. I'm building resentment. This isn't good for me. When this behavior happens again, I'm going to choose to do blank. And whatever blank is, is whatever change looks like. It might be in this example, like, I want to be able to share my heart with you, but evidently, I can't. So, I'll be taking it to my best friend. And so, to be able to set the boundary and set a boundary with there's a consequence, it's something that I can hold.

1:59:14It's something that I can do. Because a boundary without a consequence is useless. Jeff, or thank you very much for not just coming today, but for obviously being a really important part of my life. I owe you a great debt of gratitude as I do a number of therapists who have been really lucky to work with, but I will forever reflect on what can only be described as just an unbelievably difficult experience that I'm so glad I had no idea how bad it was going to be when I reluctantly agreed to go because I just don't think I ever would have done it. And I've had the privilege of encouraging many people to go since then, not just to the bridge, but to other places as well, I think almost without exception, it's helped them.

1:59:57In fact, I know it has. I can't think of an exception where it hasn't. So if someone's listening to us and they're sort of contemplating either dipping their toe in by working with a therapist and trying to probe some of these things, or if they're thinking about jumping in the lake, then going to a residential place like the bridge, what would you say to them? If there's a voice saying it, listen. If there's a voice, even if it's a whisper, it's there for a reason. And I think more important than anything else, you're either going to deal with it or it's going to deal with you. My hope for the you and humanity and what we do as far as helping people.

2:00:36In this case, we're talking about emotional health, but longevity. Yeah, deal with this. Grab the ball by the horns. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you so much for having me. It's honor to be part of your journey. And congratulations on everything. Keep up the good work, brother. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Drive. Head over to peteratia -md .com forward slash show notes if you want to dig deeper into this episode. You can also find me on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter all with the handle peteratia -md. You can also leave us a review on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast player you use.

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