#081: What to Do If Fear Holds You Back in Life and Relationships | Dr. Rebecca Showalter, PsyD
If you’re from a broken family, you’ve likely dealt with a lot of fear. For so many of us, that holds us back in life and relationships. At the core of that fear is usually the fact that we don’t feel safe.
In this episode, a psychologist joins us to discuss why so many people struggle to feel safe and how that affects their life and relationships. We also touch on:
What exactly is healing? Dr. Showalter explains 3 aspects of healing.
Is healing actually possible, or are we doomed to merely manage symptoms?
What to do if you feel afraid or embarrassed about seeing a therapist
A healing tool called the Safe and Sound Protocol
Sign up for Therapy or the Safe and Sound Protocol with Dr. Showalter
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Dr. Rebecca Showalter
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TRANSCRIPT
Transcript produced by artificial intelligence. Please pardon any errors!
if you're like me and you come from a broken family, you've likely dealt with a lot of fear and so often that fear holds us back in life and relationships and at the core of that fear is usually the fact that we don't feel safe. And we've seen this again and again with the young people from broken families that we work with at restored. It's a real struggle to debilitating struggle. And so in this episode, a psychologist joins us to discuss why so many people struggle to feel safe and how that affects their life and relationships. She also answers the questions what exactly is healing? She hits on the three aspects of healing. What are common misconceptions about healing? We talk about how healing is actually quite intense, especially at first it's healing actually possible are those of us who feel broken, doomed to merely manage symptoms. What should I do if I feel afraid or embarrassed about seeing a therapist and then she offers a healing tool that involves music called the safe and sound protocol. Really great stuff in this episode. You're gonna learn a lot from this interview. So keep listening. Welcome to the restored podcast, helping you heal and grow from the trauma of your parents, divorce separation or broken marriage so you can feel whole again, I'm your host, Joey Pontarelli. Thanks so much for listening. This is episode 81. If this podcast or other resources from this sort of helped you. We'd love to hear how they've helped you and the benefits of sharing how we've helped you is that it gives us insight into what's most valuable for you so we can do more of it helps us set strategy for the future so we can keep serving you and it shows people the effectiveness of our work which convinces others to use our content and our tools. If you will share your story here's how just go to restored ministry dot com slash testimony restored ministry dot com slash testimony. Just answer the quick questions about how restored has helped you. It can be anonymous by the way, totally your choice and then we'll turn that into an anonymous blog article. So if you want to share how restored has helped you just do that Today restored ministry dot com slash testimony. My guest today is dr Rebecca show walter since she was a child. Dr Rebecca had a fascination with people and their stories and later in life she graduated from the Institute for the psychological Sciences in Arlington Virginia where she studied the human person on a philosophical and scientific level. After receiving her doctorate in clinical psychology, she became the director of testing at Saint Raphael counseling in Denver colorado. She now has a private practice in the Denver area. She's trained in various therapy methods including emotion focused therapy in her personal therapy, Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. That's E. M. D. R therapy. Internal family systems therapy and non directive, child centered play therapy. On that last note, she has a passion for the psychological development of Children and has seen that method of therapy help Children find significant growth and change in just a handful of sessions. Dr Rebecca also works with parents on how to play therapeutically with their Children and build secure attachment which basically means a strong and loving bond between them that's built on trust. In the 15 plus years she's spent in psychology she's learned that her ability to help others heal and grow is actually dependent upon her own healing and growth. She's also learned that she still has a lot to learn. So here's my conversation with dr Showalter Rebecca. It's so good to have you on the show. Thanks for making time for us. Thanks Joey. It's really great to be here. I'm excited to learn more about the particular therapy that you offer and then as well talk about healing but before we get to that I have kind of an interesting question for you and that is why do you do what you do? I'm always interested to hear, kind of what makes big bill tick and what drives them? What what's your purpose? So what do you do, what you do? Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's it's a different answer now from when I initially started I think going down this path I had a strong sense of of really wanting to do something, you know I guess just sounds kind of cliche but important with my life and something that really helped other people and in general, you know, I always had good feedback about being a good listener and being a calming presence and really helping people and yes, so, so initially I was in college, I was initially a business major and then at some point I realized, no, I think I just want to be a therapist and so I switched over to psych, but I was kind of ambivalent about it. So then I ended up doing english literature, but that that desire to kind of do that was still there and and I pursued it and now honestly, I would say I'm I'm fascinated by human development and the ability to to change and grow and heal and the sky is the limit kind of an idea and how far can we really, how far can I go personally, and how far can can my clients grow and change and heal? And I really believe people have the power to substantially change their lives and change the direction that their life is going and reveal even mid mid life kind of thing. That's certainly been the case for me. I just can't imagine having to have continued to live the life I was living for a while. The gift and help that psychology and therapy has been for me is it's hard to put words to it. It's been really profound for me and I love being in a place where my work is both continuing to do that work for myself and helping others in that way? I also do psych assessments, which I just find completely fascinating. I think it's wonderful that we have all these tools and measures that can really help get behind defenses and help somebody understand themselves in a way that just simply looking in a mirror or being in some kind of echo chamber will never help them attain. So yeah, that makes that makes so much sense. And I was talking with a friend recently where, you know, especially when there's some illness of physical illness, let's say you're dealing with, it's so freeing to be able to put a name to it, to say this is your diagnosis, this is what's wrong and there's such fear and uncertainty and not knowing and being like something's wrong with me? I can tell, but I just don't know what is. So the psych assessments make so much sense. I'm excited that maybe discuss that a little bit more. I love what you said about human potential about our ability to change and grow and heal and all that. And I think some people struggle to believe in that at all. And so I want to talk with you a little bit later about healing in itself, like what does that mean? And how do we go about it? And you know, what are some of the misconceptions, but before we get there, I'm curious about the therapy that you practice for those of us who haven't heard about it. Can you give us a general review of what's safe and sound protocol with the safe and sound protocol is and how it can help someone. You bet the first element there the first misnomer is that it's not actually a therapy, it is an intervention but it doesn't stand alone as a therapy. The safe and sound protocol is it's a series, it's five hours of music that has been filtered so that the frequencies and it have been changed. So it's major cover it's it's covers of music that anybody would would recognize from the sixties seventies eighties nineties. The kid version is Disney music but their covers and those covers have been altered or modified so that the frequencies are different. This it's born out of the poly vagal theory which um dr Stephen Porges is is the sort of leading, I'm not even entirely sure what he is. He might be a neurobiologist or a neuropsychologist. Something along those line. Anyway he's what they've discovered is that the middle ear muscles around your ear drum are like any other muscle in your body. It can become very good at doing something if you practice it a lot and it can be it can atrophy it cannot do something at all. Well if you don't use it and so people who have been in traumatic situations now that could be major trauma like war zone trauma. you know, brutal car accidents, the immediate loss of a loved one. It can also be sustained criticism, sustained fighting, sustained tension, sustained all these ways in which we can experience disruptions, significant disruptions inter personally with other people. Um So for people who grew up in a really contentious household or a lot of fighting or a lot of shaming those are in this way of understanding the human person, those are very traumatic experiences um and their chronic which is even worse. And so what happens is over time those muscles in the middle ear around the eardrum become very good at hearing low frequencies sounds of danger and and maybe even very high frequencies and that's another, another range in which danger sounds reside, that those muscles become less good at hearing the sounds of safety that are around them. So in the human, in the human voice or in the gentle breeze, just all kinds of ways that that there are actually sounds of safety. So this is what we consider a very bottom up approach to treating somebody. This is an understanding that we cannot really access through just talking. So, so traditional talk therapy methods kind of fall apart at this level because it takes a lot to really even know how your central nervous system is responding to sound. Like that's if you were to just ask any sort of person off the street, they would have very little unless they've really done a lot of bodily somatic work, they would have very little access to knowing how their system is responding to sound. So what they've done in this music is they've modified it and and create and arranged the frequencies such that it's actually training your middle ear to tighten back up so that it can hear these sounds of safety so that it knows that the human voice that it's hearing is actually a safe human voice. For example, example, I'd like to give is so we have a difference. This is very physiologically based. So that's back to this understanding that we there's the parasympathetic zone which hopefully we live in most of the time, that's the rest and digest. That's where social engagement can happen. You can be at ease with people around you having a good time hanging out with people. Then there's the sympathetic level and that's the fight or flight and that's when there's a threat or danger. But you can overcome it by either fleeing or fighting. And then the third level of activation if you will is the free zone and that's when the threat is so large that you can't overcome it. And you have to freeze. For example, if some if the fire alarm to go off in the house, that's automatically going to send somebody into this sympathetic fighter flight. Um either put out the fire or or get out of the house. Now let's say you you look around and you realize, oh, there's absolutely no fire. It's just that the bacon smoking a little more, you know, then it's okay. I'm going to go over and turn the bacon down, fan the smoke detector so that it stops beeping and then idea we should be able to move right back into the parasympathetic. There is no threat. We're totally safe, everything's fine. But what's the reality for most people is they've been triggered and they're not going to move back down into safety. They're going to be on edge even though, even though cognitively they know, okay, it was just the smoking bacon, everything's fine. There's no fire. Their system doesn't know how to re enter safety to reenter the parasympathetic. Um, it's for a lot of people, it was just never safe to do that. It was always safer to stay on alert in some way. Um, so this music is really designed to help people to help people system automatically learn how to shift back into safety when the signs of safety are present so that people don't have to walk around living in a state of tension fight or flight fear anxiety, depression if it moves up into that free zone. Amazing. Thank you for explaining that. I love the science behind it too. I think that's so important to talk about as well because a lot of people don't have that understanding. I can see this left and right, even in my own life coming from a broken family, but also in the lives of the young people that we serve, how we seem to be on that extra alert mode that kind of looking around, scanning around for some disaster, just always on guard. And one of the ways in which I've seen that be the most devastating the lives of these young people and even in my own life is how it affects your relationships, which you want to touch on in a, in a second. But first it seems like the main focus of all of this protocol is to make people feel safe. And maybe it's an obvious question. I know you touched on a little bit, but why do you think this is a struggle for for so many people, especially people who come from broken families? Well, safety. That's in some ways that's the initial task in, in our life as as young Children as infants is to is to feel safe. I guess task is probably not the right word there, but but where that's the equilibrium we're trying to achieve all the time as as babies is safety. And with a really well regulated set of parents or caregivers, that's usually pretty easy, they're safe. They're providing a safe environment. They react really positively to everything the child does. Even if it's cry even if it's a certain point, babies have teeth and you know, they figure out the teeth and they start to bite. And if you got parents that respond really well to all of that and continue to create safety. Well that gets into some of the other theorists work like Bowlby and and other psychologists who have, who have discovered this whole area of attachment theory and what is required for Children to be to be able to develop and strong safe attachment is crucial for people to develop, to be able to explore, to be able to learn to be able to understand. So safety underlies all of that. Safety is so basic. It's so important when Children are asking questions, they're almost always asking questions of safety instead of information, even though it sounds like they're asking for information, You know, so so adults can get kind of tripped up in our adult ways. We're sort of like, oh, providing a ton of information to Children where really the Children are are wondering and trying to find evidence that they're safe. Now. If you grow up in an environment where that's not the case, the parents aren't particularly well attuned, Maybe they haven't, I haven't worked through all of their own difficulties and triggers. And so if they're easily triggered by something the child does and then they react very badly. All of that is giving feedback to the child that you're not safe. You're not safe. This isn't entirely safe. This it's certainly not safe to have those feelings or it's certainly not safe to say that thing and I want to be clear here. There doesn't need to be physical abuse. It doesn't need to get to that level for a child to be aware that the environment is not safe. Ask any child any sensitive child walks into a school room full of kids that are ready to tease and pick on and it's certainly an experience of that school room is not safe even though physically they may be entirely safe, so to speak. So yeah, safety safety is required for all of this. Like all of these positive movements in somebody's life, potential growth in order to meet your potential to get curious to ask questions to learn to explore and to and to be at rest to, to stay kind of extended periods of rest and see how that, you know what that brings to a person's body. So it doesn't take much unfortunately to disrupt a person's experience of safety because especially emotional safety and I do think that that's because a lot of people are not very emotionally grounded and attuned to themselves. And so if you do or say something that disrupts their quote unquote inner peace, that could be an argument made that they don't really have inner peace if that's the case. But if you do as a child, if you do or say something that just triggers mom or dad triggers a caregiver triggers the teacher and then they just kind of flip or turn or you see a side of them that's scary. Yeah, You just learned very quickly that, that being on high alert is the safest way to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not safe even. Yeah, it makes so much sense. And I'm just thinking through some of the research on divorce and the people that we've worked with as well that this rings. Um, so true. And one of the fascinating things when you said that there doesn't need to be physical abuse, obviously there's situations, a lot of the researchers breakdown divorces into kind of two buckets where there's high conflict divorces and low conflict divorces, which I'm sure you're familiar with. And what one researcher paul Amato from Penn State, he's a sociologist there. He studied this extensively, What he found actually was fascinating that high conflict divorces where there's abuse, there's violence, there's a lot of overt drama and conflict. Um, he said those situations, um, you know, a child can actually benefit from a separation obviously because they need to get to safety. And the divorce in itself though it is still impactful and it can be traumatic. Um, it's not the most traumatic, the most traumatic situation when it comes to your parents marriage falling apart is the low conflict situation where there's more covert problems. There's not the violence abuse. Um, there's not a lot of screaming conflict fighting that way. There are problems, not to minimize those in any way, but to the child that looks like, well things seemed fine. And then dad was gone. And you know, our family has fallen apart and he he what he says is that they found that those low conflict situations are actually the most impactful, the most traumatic on the child. Because it seemed going back to your point, it seemed like everything was safe and then it wasn't. And then what we've observed working with young people from broken families is that you go through life almost thinking, well, family was supposed to be the most stable thing in my life and if that fell apart, well what won't fall apart and then we kind of get are on edge in that mode that you said, always thinking that there's a disaster around every corner. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I do think that it's the best way to put this Children are aware of discrepancies and dissidents, just like everybody else. They may not have the language for it. They may not be able to put words around it, but especially a family where um it's not talked about, it's kind of implied or understood or there's some kind of delusion going on that the family is doing just fine, that it's a great family, even even a positive family life and then all of a sudden, you know, one day that the child hears, Oh no, mom or dad are moving out. I mean, first of all, that's abandonment and that that will always I mean that's that's the scariest thing for a child in some ways is to be abandoned by a parent, even if it's even if the parent is nearby and sees them frequently, um just the act of moving out of the home is is there's no way getting around that, that's an abandonment and then the child is left with this understanding that yeah, there's there's this strong dissonance. We say things we we we pretend like things have been one way and and really the reality is things have been differently and to put it in context that the reaction of that is much like you're being gas lighted by somebody, like wait a minute, what you're saying is not real is not true. The things you've been telling me, you know, we're fine. Mom and dad are fine, we're fine, we just have these fights. You know, all parents fight, you know, this is okay. Um you know, these low conflict fights don't or divorces maybe don't always include those elements, but but something like that where you're, you're sort of believing that okay, we're in the realm of normal here, we're in the realm of everything's pretty much okay. And then things turn on a dime. I mean that that that rattles somebody's sense of reality to their core really, that makes a lot of sense to me that those would be worse. That that the fallout from that would be worse than its highly contentious. We all see it, that it's really clear that nobody is doing well here. Yeah. And and there's no pretense about it. Yeah, I'm with you there and obviously both are tragic and we both would say that, but I can definitely observe the different effect that the, you know, the split up itself would have on the child. Thinking back to the point you made about Children always seeking safety. It makes so much sense. My wife and I, we have a daughter who's a little over one and she's not talking much yet. She'll say words and things, but it's really beautiful to kind of just observe the different things that she wants or the way in which she's communicating. And I can totally see that threat of safety just when mom leaves the room, she's like get so sad or when, you know, I need to go go out for a little bit. So I'm jumping in the car. She's you know, like, no, I don't want you to leave so I can see how she feels safe with both of us there. And I've noticed even we're not always able to be together as a family because if I'm working or you know different. My wife's doing chores or going shopping, whatever. We're not always able to be together as a family. But when, when all three of us are together, she just loves it. There just her face looks different, her eyes even look different, she's she feels like so safe and content. And the other day we were just, you know, we're playing around and we were all like laying in our bed and she just was laying in between us and she just looked so happy and she was just playing like normal. And so you know, that would be an amazing thing to to be able to experience throughout the breath of our life. But obviously there's tragic things that happen and so I want to talk about that a little bit. Being in that place of not feeling safe. How does that affect your day to day life and relationships? Going back to that point earlier, it's going to be unique to everybody in some ways we can say some general things, but in therapy, the work of therapy is really helping somebody unravel and unpacked and really understand the cost of it to their own lives, what what their specific costs are for not feeling safe. For feeling on edge. You're going to get a lot of different presentations of what that looks like for some people, there's going to be, there's going to be sort of an anxious need to constantly be validated or or or given some kind of sign that everything's okay. So this, you know, I'm not, I'm sure you've had people on your podcast before that have talked about attachment styles, but this is the anxious attachment person. Yeah. Who who just can't, even if if everything's good for a few seconds or for minutes, um, as soon as the other person walks away, as soon as the other person is having a thought that sort of carrying them off into the distance and their face changes, that really rattles people who have this anxious attachment, you know, what's going on inside of them? Have things changed now? You know, if if you grew up in an environment where things could turn on a dime, you're always waiting for things to turn on a dime, even if the person you're with is is steady and stable and and has has a lot of emotional regulation. Some people are just going to shut down and avoid and and be distant. Um not engaged at least not engage in any deeply meaningful way. Some people are just going to pretend that what they learned is that if you pretend well enough, it really makes everybody happy and and and that's the best way to happiness is when people around you are happy. So you just pretend everything's okay. Find things to talk about or say that that will please other people. Yeah, you've got people get strong dependency issues. You have people who have strong avoidant issues. There's a lot that goes into what creates different disorders, but almost certainly anxiety and depression are going to show up. Maybe some of the more significant disorders of borderline personality disorder is a common personality disorder, which is really center is that the one of the central problems for somebody with borderline personality disorder is the desire to be very close to somebody else, but the inability to trust there's a lot of anger there, there's a lot of fear of abandonment. So those are some different ways it can present, makes so much sense. And again, you're speaking our language, all of our audience members either come from broken family or they know someone who does and yeah, even thinking back through my own story and pretty vulnerable with our audience and an attempt to hopefully be someone of a guinea pig so they can learn. But I remember I was 10, 11 years old when my parents separated and I couldn't have put it in towards them, but I remember feeling abandoned and wanted and like I just wasn't good enough and in the months and years that followed, I dealt with all sorts of problems you named a lot of them, emotional problems, anxiety, depression, loneliness, a lot of anger dealt with relationship struggles, like, I remember as a kid after my parents separated and later got divorced, I remember thinking I'll never get married. Like if this is how it ends, why in the world would I want that so painful and then, you know, struggling to trust people to be vulnerable when it came time to, you know, start dating and entering the serious relationships, I just was so terrified and haven't heard a lot of people talk about that and the way you talk about is really beautiful and accurate about how yeah, we go and we have a lot of fear of love and relationships and vulnerability that can hold us back from really forming those healthy relationships. I know I had to fight through a lot of that. I found a lot of healing along the way and guidance from my mentors and therapists, but um but it's a lot, it's a lot to go through and um um I yeah, so everything you're saying, certainly tracking with you there and I you can see how going through that trauma and causes you not to feel safe and they're not feeling safe impacts your everyday life and your relationships so much. And I'm sure we could take the entire show to talk about that before we transition into healing any final thoughts on that. I like that you brought up loneliness. I think that that's really key. I think these experiences leave people feeling incredibly alone and unable to trust the very thing that rescues you from loneliness. Unable to trust relationships, wow. Yeah, and this whole idea that connection and intimacy is really the antithesis or maybe the antidote to trauma is so important to focus on because if we're running from it, you know, we're never going to find the healing and the growth that we we all long for. Yeah, one final thought here along those lines there a child can endure and come out of almost any traumatic experience relatively unscathed emotionally. If they have a very highly resourced and attuned attachment figure, essentially parent or or father mother caregiver that is in the moment a child can sustain and a tremendous amount of trauma, whether you know, however, that comes about if they're doing it in the arms of somebody who is who is very healthy and attached and providing the antidote as it's happening, providing the connection, the security, the love. Yeah, and that's what we want to recreate in therapy in the therapy setting is that we want to help people finally be able to fully process out the trauma because they're in an environment where that's actually possible that the safety and the strength of the connection, the strength of the attachment is strong enough to endure the trauma, whatever the trauma maybe amazing, it makes so much sense. One of the trauma therapists that we refer people to, that we've had on the show, she says that what makes the trauma trauma is how it gets taken care of or lack thereof. And so it seems to go in line with everything that you just said, which I think is is really beautiful and shows the importance of having those relationships, we could talk forever, but I want to be respectful of your time transitioning into healing? I'm curious how do you define healing personally? My what what makes the most sense for me is to is to start with, how does healing just happen in nature when the human brain doesn't have to get involved and figure it out. How does it happen? And you know, there's tons of evidence for that everywhere. The body can heal itself of physical injuries, a lot of physical injuries without intervention. In fact, usually what we have to do is get out of the body's way. You know, if there's a significant cut, we just have to make sure that that cuts protected so that it can heal and we all know those, you know, I grew up with, my brother is just one of my brothers is just year younger and he and his best friend all throughout our adolescents, their legs were just constantly torn up because they would just re itch all these bug bites and all these scars and they just were forever reopening these wounds. And of course girl, I just found it so disgusting. I didn't want to be anywhere near them. Like if we had to sit next to each other in a car or something else, but that's that's a good example of we can prevent healing physically. We actually don't do much to make our bodies heal themselves that that's really all there. If the trauma is significant enough then we do need to intervene. You know, if the bone breaks to the degree that it needs to be reset then we certainly need to do that. So it's not, you know, we have er s for a reason we can't you know rely on on the body to be able to heal everything at least quickly enough. You know, we might lead out first. So that's so one of the things we want to do emotionally is understand, okay, what do we need? How do we need to protect the natural process that the body goes through? How do we clear away the things that would get involved? And one of the things that gets in gets in the way of of healing is our own defenses that early on we learned a system of defenses that are really crucial and helpful to survive different aspects of our childhood, whether it's at the home, whether it's at school or anywhere else, we want to be very mindful of the defense structures that were necessary as Children but are no longer necessary. In fact are impacting, impeding, hindering our own emotional healing. So that's one layer of it. The other layer is another layer is what does emotional healing look like? How how do when we remove all obstacles, are we prepared for what happens? And this is a difficult area because to heal emotionally you have to feel there's no way else through that. You have to do what you weren't able to do at the time. So as an example if a child is if there's a thunderstorm happening and the child in it's right overhead and the booms are allowed and the lightning is sharp and lighting up the sky. It's going to terrify a child. The healthiest way for a child to adapt to that is to feel all that fear as it's happening with. And in the presence of in the arms of the parent or the caregiver who can say, I know it's really scary, it's okay that it's scary. I'm right here and I'm going to do everything I can to protect you and the whole idea, don't be afraid, don't be afraid, don't cry, don't cry, don't be angry, don't be angry. All of that trains us. That the very thing that we need to heal us is wrong is bad. So we have to, so we really have to relearn that. And this is where it gets tricky talk therapy is it can, it can take, it takes a very skilled therapist I think and a very willing client, a client who's got a lot of motivation to really persist in retraining somebody's system to feel when they believe that such an odd of such a deep, you know, primary consciousness level. They believe that feeling is not good, it's not safe, they're not actually supposed to feel. So, so there's some reworking there and I'll bring in one more element to this question which I think is important in psychology, we are focused on healing, but we're also focused on development. And so one of the leading questions we have when going in working with a client is how has this person advanced through their own development? Have they advanced or is there places in ways in which their development has been stunted? Are they underdeveloped? So if you have a lot of significant amount of emotional abuse um that you've been, you know, at the mercy of growing up, most likely you're embedded in a community and around people that aren't emotionally developed themselves or else they certainly wouldn't be allowing that environment to be as it is. And so it's very hard to learn how to develop emotionally around other people who aren't emotionally developed. So part of healing in a way is is actually just growing and developing thriving. Like for example, I broke my collarbone a few years ago and uh for a few months I had to I was protecting it as it was as it was healing. And at some point the bone totally healed and and the muscles were totally find around it. But my shoulder was still sitting out of place because I had all the muscles that were supposed to hold it kind of back where atrophy had lost all of their development. So even though healing quote unquote had taken place, I was unable to access my potential in my shoulder until I redeveloped those muscles. So yeah, so, so he'll, the question about healing is really important, but the language of development is almost always alongside of it for us as therapists. That's amazing. I love every point that you had. And One of the things that always fascinated me when it comes to trauma is how we can really act out of that part of ourself that was enduring that trauma. So, for example, if you know, I was 10, 11 years old when my parents separated, if I'm triggered in the right way, and you know, let's say that trauma hasn't been processed, I've done a lot of work to do that, but Let's just say it hasn't been processed. I can act out of that 10, 11 year old kid and like you said, with the defensiveness and everything that we need to really go beyond, it can be, it can be a real struggle and we see that a lot of the young people that we work with, and so it makes so much sense that that's a piece of it. And then also really feeling your feelings. I love that you touched on that because yeah, I think that feelings can become suspect and it can be this and you articulate that better than I can, but um it can get to a point where we maybe prefer to feel numb. I know for a long time, you know, as a teenager, going through everything with my family. I remember just periods of feeling so numb and uh and I've seen that a lot of the young people that we've worked with. But then finally the last point you made about healing, not just being about taking care of the wound itself, but all the other effects and continue to grow and to develop to the point where you're not that 10, 11 year old kid anymore, you're now that fully formed adults who has emotional, who has that affect maturity. And so I love how there's different components to it. I'm sure we could spend all day going through through all of these. But uh yeah, I love how you broke that all done. Yeah, awesome. I think you're right on with that understanding and thank God for the going numb. That association is crucial to getting through. It won't get you everywhere you want to go in life, but for the period of time you're trying to survive it's it's an increase, it's animated. It's a miraculous invention by the human mind really help us get through. Yeah, it's a great defense mechanism. Yeah. I always, when I'm talking with young people, I always say that imagine if you felt everything that your body can feel at that moment, you would be completely overwhelmed. It would be horrible. And so I'm with you there. What misconceptions are there around healing and the healing and growth process. Yeah, that's, that's a big question, let's see. Yeah, let's think about the ones that are most helpful here, I think probably the one that's most painful for people is this sense that once you're out of the war zone, so to speak, you should be fine. It's no longer happening. You're no longer there. That was such a long time ago. That was, can you really remember that? I mean your parents were good people. I mean your parents really you know, all of this sense that okay, okay. Maybe you know when when you know the fighting got really loud, you know? Okay. Yeah sure that makes sense that you were you were really scared then but why are you scared in your life now? You're totally fine. You're out of that. So you know, why do you need to go to therapy? You know? Okay. Was it really that bad all of this like idea that if you're out it's the misconception that that the threat has to be physical and present in order for somebody to be experiencing the threat inside. And so I would say that the healing process is as long and as as is involved as you can tolerate that that you can really take these, these are not short endeavors you can get to, you can get to new ground pretty quickly, you can start to feel better pretty quickly and and that can, that can happen in all kinds of different ways. A very kind of therapy medicine. Um sometimes even sort of just you know relocating for a little while. The novelty of it all brings on some some sense of healing but without trying to make it sound like you've got to be in therapy for decades to fully heal. I do want to say that that that healing and development especially if you've lived in a pretty, If you had chronic experiences um that have that have loaded you up in terms of the pain you're experiencing now there's quite a lot to that healing process and some of it is done in therapy, some of it's done outside of therapy, a lot of it's done just in the moment to moment, day to day life, how you're treating yourself. If we think about the, the AA model, they say 90 meetings in 90 days kind of a thing. And that idea is that healing is intense, healing requires dogged effort and you can't just show up, you know, once a week at the beginning and get what you need. You might be able to go once a week. I mean I'm talking about the allen on for a meeting right now. You might be able to handle once a week in a year or two, but for the first three months, let this be your all consuming effort. You know, make it to a meeting every single day. Read your books in between the meeting. I think healing is a lot like that, like once you decide to heal, we see this, we see this in all those videos cute videos on Youtube of animal of of terrified little puppies slowly being coaxed back into ease by, by the person that finds them and you see you've got to be pretty, you've got to be persistent. You can't just sort of give the dog a five minute dose of, of a positive environment a day and expect that dog to make any kind of progress quickly if if you really give the puppy or dog, you know, whatever. Just a lot of unending, you know, kind of chronic sort of in a, in a positive way. These experiences of, I know you're frightened but I'm still here. I'm still not going to hurt you. I'm still offering you food, I'm still offering you touch. Yeah, you're gonna that that puppy or dog is gonna heal a lot faster. Yeah, so that's kind of a long rambling answer. But those are some thoughts there. Yeah, no, there's so many lessons in what you said and one of the things that I've learned in the business world and especially bleeding teams is that if you really want to accomplish something, you have to focus so hard on it and it has to become kind of your one thing, there's that book out there, you know, the one thing and the idea behind it is that there's all these things we focus on in life that don't, aren't really the most important thing that we should be focusing on. So I love what you said, if you're in a spot where you're broken, where you're struggling, it's going to be intense. And I think that's a good reminder because we might have this idea of feeling that it's gonna be, I don't know, maybe immediately helpful. And hopefully it is, like you said, hopefully you can have some quick wins and get some positive results right away, but it's a marathon. It's not a sprint. And so I think it's really helpful to remember that. And I remember talking with some of the um, young people in our online community about how, okay, like what's that one thing for you? What is that one thing that you need to put an incredible amount of effort behind In order to see the results that you want to see that are going to improve every other area of your life to instead of splitting your attention and this and that. And so I think there's a powerful lesson in there when it comes to healing. And like we need that focus intensity to really go all in to, you know, do what you said, where maybe starting out, you need to do those 90 meetings in 90 days as the 12 step, like a model shows. So a lot of great lessons in there. I think there's also this belief that healing isn't actually possible that you can only really manage symptoms. I'm curious. Um, your, your thoughts on that, I mean, managing symptoms certainly is a part of healing, I think, But, um, but I do think there's this mindset going back to what we're talking about at the beginning of the interview where, oh, I can't really change, I can't grow. I'm kind of this fixed the whole fixed mindset where I am, who I am and I can't become any better. What's your response to that? Yeah, I mean, my own experience and what I've seen in other people is that that it's total bs that healing isn't truly possible. Yeah, Symptom management is, there's a lot of people that believe that that that really symptom management is what this is all about. And sometimes people honestly just want that, you know, it's not everybody with, uh, with, with internal pain, interior pain really once is motivated to do all the work, I think, and that's usually because they haven't come to the full, they haven't faced the fullness of the losses of their life. And the cost that it's, it's that living that way is requiring of them. But for those that really want full healing, full growth to find their upper expansive limits to become everything. They can be kind of a thing to, to find a way to live each moment or most of their moments grounded and solid and walking about tall and confident and knowing themselves and being able to just genuinely interact with other people and receive from other people and that is possible for everyone. Um, there are, they're limiting factors. Certainly there's some, we know there's some neuroma typical disorder, some genetic problems, you know? Certainly that can that can limit somebody's growth in those ways, but on average for for the general population, those that don't have genetic difficulties that don't have narrowed topicality is healing is is incredibly possible. It's not, I have a good friend who is a psychologist who says it's messy and expensive, which I find very true. I don't I haven't yet found a herd of people who haven't had to go through just a lot of work to do it, a lot of searching to get there, because oftentimes, not only are you, you're oftentimes still climbing out of some kind of abyss, it's not like you're you've kind of wiped your hands clean of the difficult stuff and now you're just trying to find, you know, like the upper ends of healing, like you're, you're in a confusing, dark, complicated place and it takes a while to find your footing and to find the to even kind of understand what that what's going on in that place and then to be able to start to climb out of it, but I know nothing. I know I know no limits on healing. Aside from the field that I mentioned, being able to get to a safe place is really important. If somebody is still living in the war zone, then healing is going to be very, very challenging in those situations, and that might be the cases where I could say, okay, maybe your best bet is symptom management, symptom reduction until you can get out of the war zone, but getting out of the war zone has got to be a priority and and once you're out of it, yeah, there's no there's no limit to how much you can heal if you want to if you want to put the time and effort into that, wow, they're so beautiful and so hopeful, as opposed to the message of like, no, you're just stuck, good luck, you know, we're not going that way, We're just not made that way our system is made to heal, we know that physically, we know that emotionally, like yeah, that's it's just wrong, I think humbly, in my own opinion, it's wrong. No, I I would stake my life on that, that it's very seriously like that I wouldn't be where I am today, if that wasn't true, you know? And so I think there's so much hope in that even when you were talking, I was like almost jumping on the inside, I'm like, yes, like this isn't this what everyone wants is this really what we long for. And I think if there's one thing that holds people back from living that life that you described so beautifully is just the belief, again that it isn't even possible because you're not going to try something that you are confident will fail. And so if you don't even believe that healing is possible, that you can become a better, stronger person, that your life can become better. You're not even going to go down that path and you are going to stay stuck. And so one challenge for everyone listening right now is okay. What are your beliefs around this? Do you believe that you can, do you believe that you can grow or do you think that you're just stuck, that you can't change that you can't grow? Give this some thought. I would challenge you there too. Just listen to what Rebecca's saying that you can heal, you can grow. And there's I think one of the most inspiring things when it comes to changing that belief is seeing people who have done it and there's a lot of stories and that's why this podcast really exist because we, in addition to experts, we bring people on who share their stories how they've healed and grown. And so listen to those podcast episodes, but I think there's there's so many great lessons in that and man yeah, it's just like my heart is like burning, to be honest with you because I think we all, we all deserve that full life to live life fully alive, to thrive, to breach our potential to become the best version of ourselves. Like you said, going back to the therapy question sometimes people, I think another barrier to it is to healing in general is that sometimes people may feel embarrassed about reaching out for help to seeing a therapist. What would you say to someone like that, listening right now? Who is afraid? Who feels embarrassed about reaching out for help? Especially scheduling a counseling session. If possible, I would say really pay attention to to that embarrassed feeling and and really try to get close to it. Really try to understand it where that embarrassment is coming from. We can be shamed out of all sorts of things that are good for us. You know, just think of people who who get teased for for being affectionate, you know, like, um, you know, or yeah, there's there's all, you know, a child that wants to get their teachers approval. Then all of a sudden all the other kids are calling that kid like, you know, whatever teacher's pet a brown nose or whatever it might be. So we can get embarrassed and feel ashamed quite easily based depending on how that's been handled previous in our lives. So if you're, if you're embarrassed about seeing a therapist or seeking help, I would say, try and take a look at that. And if it's too, if it's too challenging to figure out yourself, which it may be that that's that would be really understandable. Try and find a really trusted friend or confidant or mentor somebody who you can say, I there's this conflict going on inside of me. On the one hand, I'm hearing some things that it sounds like there's real potential and possibility out there. I really want to lean into that. And yet on the other side of me, there's a real resistance. There's a real embarrassment about going and, and yeah, so I'm, I'm, I would say don't abandon the conflict, feel the conflict and try and get as close as you can to it and understand it. And, you know, therapists have to stay confidential. There's very few things therapists have to break confidentiality for. So you don't have to tell anybody. You can just call up a therapist and say, hey, listen, I I don't know about this therapy thing. I'd like to talk to you for 15, 20 minutes. Can I ask you some questions? Maybe even schedule an initial consultation and, and you know, you know, depending on your age, if, if you're too young, you might need a parent to sign some paperwork. But almost always you can call up and have a 20 minute conversation without having to have any paperwork signed or go to a mentor coach, a teacher or somebody that you really trust. And, and and just try and talk it out a little bit, really allow for the idea that there are that we call them prediction errors in the field that, that maybe this embarrassment is not on. Maybe it's, it's, it's a, it's a, you're not standing in reality and on solid ground in the embarrassment. Maybe that's coming from um some kind of belittling or shaming or or or some it's coming from people who, who you don't trust ultimately, um that those voices. That's good advice. And I love the baby steps idea too, because I think that's been so helpful for me as well and really engaging in that conflict that you feel inside of you. I think that makes so much sense. Even an external conflict. I found that as well that if you run from in maybe you need a little bit of a break. But if you run from it, it usually just gets worse. It doesn't solve itself. You have to really kind of push into the messiness, push into the tension the conflict. And that's the only way I can get resolved quickly. I know everyone's, I think ears went up when you said there's very few things that therapists can break confidentiality for. Um what are those things? Just because I think people are wondering, what are those few things. Sure, sure. We are mandated reporters. So we have to report any reasonable suspicion of child abuse or elderly neglect. We also have the duty to warn and protect and that was born out of. I'm not sure what decades sixties or seventies maybe a psychologist knew of their client's intent to hurt somebody else. And at the time under the way things were at the time didn't disclose it to anybody didn't release it. And that client went ahead and, and hurt the other person. So we now have the duty to warn and protect. Which means if we believe our clients are a threat of harm to themselves or somebody else, we have to, you know, take steps to protect people. Whether that's, if it's a child, then I speak with their parents. If it's an adult, you know, might have to be authority figures or, you know, like law lock or any kind of figures. And then finally, judges have the right to subpoena records. So if any client of any of mine or somebody else's ends up in the court of law, the judge may just demand to see the file and there's nothing we can do to prevent that. Um, I mean, there's an attempt, you can, you can try to quash it, but usually that doesn't work. So other than that the therapist can't break confidentiality. The setting is really designed very well to protect the confidence of the client. Okay. And just to give people confidence in this to those things aren't super common, right? Especially the legal like judicial and the judge is very uncommon. And often times, you know, if a client, if I'm working with a client, especially the first one, the mandated reporter around child abuse. Sometimes these things have already been reported the, the importance there is, and sometimes it's it's past the statute of limitations. So if or sometimes the perpetrator is now deceased. There's all kinds of ways in which that that's not quite, that's not so black and white there. It's not like we are always reporting every single time we hear of this, there's there's plenty of situations in which it's already been reported or like I said, the person is no longer alive or the statute of limited. Each state has different laws around that. Okay, that makes so much sense. Thanks for answering that because I think that could be a barrier for people and so thanks for making it simple. If someone wants to work with you, what are the steps that they should take? I have a website specifically designated for the safe and sound protocol. That's Denver safe and sound dot com. So and on there you can sign up for a quick and easy 15 minute consultation. You can also email me directly through that that website I have in addition to providing the safe and sound protocol. I also work with clients therapeutically for therapy as well as provide psychological assessments. Um you can reach me also for that through the Denver safe and sound website. Then my personal individual website for that is just my name Rebecca Showalter side dot com. So email is almost always the best way I, you know, phone calls work as well but I seem to not be able to keep my voicemail box from being perpetually full. I just gotta go through and like erase a ton of stuff there. But I think that's been a barrier sometimes that sometimes that voice mailbox gets full. Yeah, okay, that makes so much sense. Is there anything else that you offer for people like that maybe want to follow you in your work but aren't ready to maybe work with you? I know you mentioned the website, but is there anything else that they can do to follow you? Not at this point, I mean I'm on the cusp of having a instagram account up and going again, that would be my name, Rebecca shoulder side. People are happy to look for me. There's no content yet, but hopefully there will be uh in the coming, maybe this will, will give me this will give me a good kick start. I can put some content up before this gets out. Yeah, but as of as of right now, those are the only ways the safe and sound. I should say this, the safe and sound protocol is a very quick intervention and it doesn't require, it's best done in conjunction with therapy, but it doesn't require being done in therapy. So if somebody wanted to work with me for the safe and sound protocol, we're talking about five hours of music usually spread over 10 ish days and you you can do it remotely um I would just be in touch via text or email to kind of see monitor, see how things are going, but that's a fairly low level interaction with me. Um, and it tends to be pretty quick in terms of an intervention. So that's amazing. And I think there's a lot of people listening right now who who do need that if they're outside of colorado, are you licensed in other states or can they do that? Even if they're outside of Colorado? The safe and sound protocol, the safe and sound protocol can be done anywhere since it's not a technical psychologist client relationship. Yeah, I don't need to be licensed in this state for therapy. There are a number of states I'm licensed in and you can see that on my website, colorado obviously. And then I'm part of site packed, which just means I can work via zoom and about 20 to 25 different states and more states are jumping on that all the time. So, great, okay, I'm happy to hear about that. I need to look into that more because it's such a barrier for a lot of people getting help from a competent therapist. So thanks for mentioning that I want to give you the final word first. Thank you so much for your time and your expertise. It's really amazing to speak with you. Um, I've really enjoyed this conversation. I've learned a lot personally. And so thank you so much. I know our listeners have as well give you want to give you the final word what encouragement when you give to anyone listening right now who who feel stuck, who feels broken because of everything that's happened in their family, their parents divorce or a lot of dysfunction, just the breakdown of their family. What encouragement would you give them? Yeah, great question. And likewise, I've really enjoyed being here. I would say work hard uh persist at at finding what works for you. You're gonna, you if people have lots of advice and and sometimes the advice is gonna stick and sometimes it's not, we live in a world, especially if you have access to the internet where there's so much on Youtube. And honestly, I think there are tons of good, there's so much good content on Youtube and all all of these areas. I would say start digging and find people that whose whose voice whose language whose message content really hits home and then listen to those as much as is this good for you? You know, really pay attention to. Does this bring me to a calmer better place? Does it, does it help clarify some things? Do I feel more solid and upright when I'm listening to this and if not go ahead and pause it and move on. So even if the idea of of a more formal intervention or therapy is is not possible for whatever reason right now, or not even something you're interested in pursuing doggedly pursue your own healing. It will wait for you. You're you're your demons will wait for you until you face them and master them. They're not going to go anywhere on their own. So, each, each person's journey to that is incredibly unique and different and it's very important that it's, it's that you have ownership and agency in that. So so start where it feels right to start, start by, you know? Yeah, finding some good youtube channels or start by listening to the music where a lot of people find that's very helpful, like artists who have been through similar things and write about it in their music. Like get like explore is what I would say, get out there and see what's out there. See what free content you can find and then of course feel free to to reach out to me even if you're not at all sure what you want the next step to be, I'd be happy to to at least give you some ideas if you're interested in trying the safe and sound protocol. A few of the benefits that Dr Showalter has seen in her patients. One it helps to reduce social anxiety and allows people to laugh and have more fun. It helps them to think and even talk about past trauma without feeling as anxious or triggered one woman who went through the protocol, even overcame her fear of being hugged and started to show more affection to her friends. It helped another woman navigate the horrible news of her miscarriage in a calm way instead of shutting down or going numb as she had in the past and overall it just helps people to regulate their emotions, meaning either they don't get upset as easily or if they do, they're able to calm themselves more quickly, feel safer and less afraid. So if you want to try the safe and sound protocol, you can sign up or watch the video about the protocol at Dr Rebecca's website. Rebecca show walter P S D dot com or just click on the link in the show notes. Now, if you're not able to work with dr Rebecca, you're in luck restored. We're building a network of counselors and coaches that we vet trust and recommend by using our network. It's gonna save you a lot of time and effort in searching for a counselor or coach will also connect you with a trained professional who can give you the help and tools you need to heal so you can feel whole again and thrive in life. So if you want to make use of our network, just go to restored ministry dot com slash coaching. Just fill out the form. It's really quick, maybe 60 seconds and then we'll connect you with the counselor coach or even a spiritual director. Once we find one for you again, go to restored ministry dot com slash coaching or just click on the link in the show notes, Thank you so much for listening. If you know someone who's struggling from their parents, divorce or broken marriage, share this podcast with them. Always remember you're not alone, we're here to help you feel whole again and become the person that you were born to be.
