October 29, 2025 • 52 mins
Send Me Questions on Attachment
What if your brain isn’t broken—it’s just stuck? We sit down with trauma therapist Maggie McCane, LCSW, to unravel how big T and little t trauma shape your body, beliefs, relationships, and even how you see God. From the first moment a young brain misreads a storm as “I don’t matter” to decades of confirmation bias and physical symptoms, we trace how pain embeds in the nervous system and what it takes to move it into the past.
Maggie explains why she left agency work to create a flexible practice that prioritizes extended EMDR intensives and individualized care. We dig into how EMDR “unsticks” memories, what resourcing looks like before deep work, and why motivation can’t outrun a dysregulated body. You’ll hear practical ways to notice early signs—sleep, gut issues, irritability, hypervigilance—and translate them into action steps that restore balance. Instead of silencing the body, we treat its signals as vital data.
Faith takes center stage without clichés. We talk Christian integration done well, the damage of spiritual platitudes, and how attachment to God often mirrors early caregiver attachment. Using correspondence and compensation theories, we map how negative God images form and how consistent, timely, and effective experiences in community and prayer can heal them. We keep it grounded: what healing actually looks like day to day, how to evaluate therapist fit, and why trust is the number one predictor of change.
If you’ve ever wondered why you feel triggered by everything, why “just think positive” falls flat, or where God was in your hardest moments, this conversation offers clarity and tools. Listen, share with someone who needs it, and if it landed, subscribe, leave a review, and tell us what belief you’re ready to rewrite.
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MY HOPE FOR YOU
I hope these episodes bring you closer to Christ and encourage you in your walk with Him. Meditating on Scripture, Being committed to prayer, and Seeking Christian community are all essential to helping us learn more of who He is and who He made us to be.
ABOUT ME 👇
I have been a Christ-follower for the last 20+ years of my life, and have seen the Lord's grace, strength, and faithfulness through it all. He led me to pursue a degree in higher education and has given me a gift for the field of counseling.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:05):
Alright everyone, welcome back to the God
Attachment Healing Podcast.
I am very excited today as we'retalking about one of my uh
favorite topics because I workwith a lot of students who um
have experienced trauma.
Um it's one of the areas that Iwas mostly interested in when I
started attachment uh theory.
And today I also have anothertrauma expert and who that works
(00:28):
with a lot of clients withtrauma.
This is Maggie McCain.
Maggie, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02 (00:34):
Thank you so much for having me, Sam.
I'm so happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (00:36):
I'm excited.
I'm excited.
It's not it's not often that Iget to have a conversation with
other trauma experts to discussour topic for today, which is
trauma, faith, and healing orrecovery.
And um yeah, so basically thator typically the way that I like
to kind of start off ourconversation is really just kind
of giving you the floor tointroduce yourself, a little bit
(00:58):
about your background, um, thework that you do.
I know you're out in, is itArizona?
SPEAKER_02 (01:03):
Yeah, Tucson, Arizona.
SPEAKER_01 (01:05):
Tucson, Arizona.
So you have some do some workthere.
But yeah, just uh introduceyourself to the audience and
then we'll go from there.
SPEAKER_02 (01:11):
Great.
Sounds really good.
So yeah, my name's MaggieMcCain.
I'm a licensed clinical socialworker, which just means that
I'm independently licensed topractice therapeutic care.
So there's lots of routes thatyou can go to become a
psychotherapist.
And I just took the route ofsocial work.
Um, I just wanted theflexibility to be able to work
in, you know, hospital settingsor private practice or
(01:33):
behavioral health, and you cando that with social work.
So I that appealed to me.
Um, and so I've been inbehavioral health agencies
throughout my entire career.
And, you know, I can definitelyget down into the nitty-gritty
of the populations I served.
Um, I think one of my passionsand where I started in therapy
work was actually um providingtherapeutic services.
(01:54):
We had a contract with thecourt.
So it was juveniles who hadcommitted sexual crimes and were
now needing therapy as part oftheir rehabilitation.
And my heart really went out tothat population because, as you
can imagine, most people didn'twant to work with that
population.
But when you really got theseyouth, right, they're minors in
front of you, they just created,they just had committed a really
(02:18):
horrible mistake and not toalleviate them of their
responsibility of the act,because of course they they made
a horrible choice, but they justreally felt like these things
had either been done to them orhad been modeled to them, or
they had just been truly likeconfused with boundaries.
And I think that really sprouteda huge love of serving those
(02:39):
that, you know, just came fromtraumatic backgrounds, right?
Like this idea that hurt peopletypically, not always, of
course, but go on to hurt peopleand heal people go on to heal
people.
And so that's I again, likethese youth in front of me who
had committed these horriblecrimes, once they knew better,
(03:02):
they were very committed todoing better, right?
Like they were like, now that Iknow what consent really means
or what boundaries really are, Ihave no intention of ever
breaking that again.
Um, so yeah, that's kind ofwhere my career started.
I went lots of differentdirections after that.
But after being in behavioralhealth for many years, I just
really saw the restrictions thatinsurance was putting on patient
(03:24):
care.
And I just thought we could doit better.
So that's why I started my ownprivate practice about a year
and a half ago.
And um, you know, I understandthe restrictions that come with
being a private pay clinic.
You know, not everyone can payout of pocket for an expense
like this.
And again, like veryunderstanding of that.
But I really believe thatthere's better, I don't want
(03:47):
maybe I shouldn't say better,maybe I should say um just
different type of healing thatcan come when you don't have an
insurance company telling youwhat you can and can't do and
mandating the treatment.
Um, but we really have thefreedom and flexibility to meet
a client exactly where they'reat and support them exactly
where they are.
And something that I'm superexcited about, and we can talk
more about this later if you'dlike.
(04:08):
Um, but I've even found thebenefit of extending sessions.
So, you know, we have thetraditional kind of model of
50-minute sessions weekly orbi-weekly.
And what we have found is thatclients really benefit from
getting more an extended periodof uninterrupted time.
So we can really delve furtherinto trauma and healing work
(04:30):
when we can go for four hours,you know.
And of course, we take breaksand we get snacks, but we're
really able to do some massivehealing in an extended period of
time.
And you can't do that if you'rein a behavioral health agency or
you're uh contracting withinsurance providers.
They don't pay for that sort ofthing.
So, again, just that's oneexample of the flexibility that
we have to really prioritizepatient care.
SPEAKER_01 (04:51):
Yeah.
No, that's a great point,Maggie.
I never thought about that, youknow, extending it for um for
each session.
And again, maybe there's a planor a type of treatment plan that
you have set up where it can bedone in that way.
Um, but yeah, the flexibility tobe able to meet the needs of
your clients who haveexperienced trauma because they
have different needs.
And as any client, right, theyjust have different needs.
(05:14):
So you're tailing your tailoringyour treatment for each of them.
But um, and you also do EMDR,correct?
SPEAKER_02 (05:22):
Yes, yeah.
So uh I got certified in EMDR,so eye movement,
desensitization, reprocessing.
Everyone always asks me whatthat means, but it's like it's
such a mouthful, we all just sayEMDR.
SPEAKER_00 (05:32):
Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (05:34):
Yeah, and so and doing the EMDR, um, that's
probably what I do the most isEMDR intensive therapy at this
point.
And so it is that extendedsessions of EMDR, we're really
going in to rewire thosenegative cognitions or the
traumatic memories and bringthem to a place of not feeling
stuck anymore, like reallyliving in the present and seeing
(05:56):
the truth for what it is andmoving forward in their healing.
So, yes, we do EMDR.
I have a couple therapists on myteam.
Um, so we also specialize inmen's healing, grief work,
somatic therapy, older adults,and we try to work a lot with
veterans and first responders.
SPEAKER_01 (06:12):
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And all of them are, I mean,would have very traumatic type
of backgrounds or at least sometrauma.
I think I was reading astatistic earlier today that
something about 70 to 75% ofpeople in the world have
experienced some form oftraumatic event.
And we'll get into that in alittle bit.
But um before jumping into ourtopic, the last question I had
(06:34):
is is are your services mostlyChristian?
Is it is it both?
How do you operate regardingthat?
Just for the audience to know.
SPEAKER_02 (06:43):
Yeah, absolutely.
So yeah, you know, personally, Iwas raised um in a Christian
household and have had, youknow, a great foundation in my
faith.
And I think that was anotherarea that always felt really
restrictive for me when I waspracticing in behavioral health,
is they didn't really want us tobring faith into the mix.
Um, and of course, like I'malways here to respect a client.
(07:05):
Like I have lots of clients thatI serve that are not Christian,
but a lot of Christians arelooking for a Christian
therapist, right?
They want to know that ifthey're gonna come and share the
deepest hurts and um mostvulnerable parts of themselves,
they want to be met with someonewho shares similar values and
beliefs.
And so in my private practice, Ihave advertised myself as a
(07:25):
Christian therapist, not abiblical therapist, right?
Like we're not going through theBible necessarily and applying
it for their healing, but justI, you know, I'm here to support
their values, you know, and Ican say things like, well, what
would God say up to, you know,what would God say about that?
Or um, let's talk about how Godcreated you.
You know what I mean?
We can just pull in those valuesvery seamlessly.
SPEAKER_01 (07:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a it's kind of theChristian integration.
And I remember there was a bigum uh divide for many years.
Actually, one of my favoriteauthors, his name Dr.
Larry Crab, he was one of thefirst pioneers to try to
integrate psych andChristianity, and he was getting
hit on both sides.
So the psychologists weresaying, Why are you bringing
spirituality, religion into thefield?
(08:08):
You know, that doesn't belonghere.
And Christians were kind ofsaying, Why are you bringing
psychology into the church?
So he really kind of fought forthat for many years, and I
really appreciate about thatabout him.
SPEAKER_02 (08:19):
Yeah, that's excellent.
SPEAKER_01 (08:20):
So for us to be able to have that opportunity that
now there's a lot more researchon being able to do Christian
integration, so it it's it's ablessing to see more and more
therapists and the risingnumbers and people actually
wanting to connect with thataspect of their lives.
So we have a huge opportunityhere for meeting the needs of
people in a very unique way.
SPEAKER_02 (08:38):
So I totally agree.
SPEAKER_01 (08:40):
That's so awesome.
Well, good.
SPEAKER_02 (08:42):
Well, and isn't there research again?
We probably might get into thislater, but I'm sure you wouldn't
might know better than me thatthere's research that if you're
seeing a Christian therapist whois actively praying for their
clients, clients get betterfaster.
SPEAKER_01 (08:55):
I haven't seen that.
I know the value alignmentbetween therapist and client is
a huge deal and it's a hugepredictor of um client success.
But I do see um prayer beingimplemented for um how the um
the counselor shows up insession, right?
It's just this practice of beingable to pray over their clients,
(09:16):
it just puts them in a differentmentality, especially when
you're carrying so much heavy,um, heavy stories from all the
various people that you'reworking with.
I mean, the work that we do doestake a toll.
So, where do we go to kind offill that back up?
You know, we have community,family, church, God's word.
So all of these different thingsthat we choose to fill ourselves
with because the work that we dois very draining at times.
(09:39):
And also a blessing when you seethem make make progress, right?
SPEAKER_02 (09:42):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah.
But it it does, it makes adifference with how um, yeah,
just like emotionally healthyyour therapist is, clients are
gonna feel that difference.
And so part of our health is ourspiritual health.
And if uh you know therapist waslacking in that or struggling
with that, right?
Like that's it's gonna flow,flow out of us.
SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
Yeah, and the client will feel it.
So to your point, if the clientis wanting to address that and
the counselor is not equipped ordoes not have a a uh belief
system of a religious type, um,they're gonna feel that
disconnect because that's reallywhat their hearts are yearning
for, right?
They want connection outside ofthe other, you know, the
biopsychosocial.
(10:26):
There is that spiritualcomponent that people are
searching for, you know, and asearch for wanting um a more
rooted faith.
So um, yeah, there's a lot ofgreat stuff out there, and I'm
really excited and and um happythat they're doing more research
in that space.
SPEAKER_02 (10:42):
Yes, me too.
SPEAKER_01 (10:43):
Well, good.
Well, Maggie, here's our here'sour first question as we start
off today, because the big wordis trauma, right?
We're talking about trauma,faith, recovery.
And um, I guess we could definefor the audience like what is
trauma?
Because a lot of people kind ofthrow that word out there.
It's almost losing its actualmeaning as we hear it in
(11:05):
conversations, uh, and everydayconversations, or even in the
media when we hear the wordtrauma.
So, what are we referring towhen we're talking about trauma?
How would you define it?
SPEAKER_02 (11:15):
Okay, I love this question so much.
And I've kind of been on a rollin talking about um this
difference between big T andlittle T trauma.
Are you familiar with thatterminology?
SPEAKER_04 (11:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (11:26):
Okay, great.
So, yeah, so just for theaudience, then, you know, a big
T trauma is what, you know,historically we would think of
as trauma, right?
Going to war, sexual, physicalabuse, a car accident, a plane
accident, things like that.
Like clearly major disruptiveaspects of your life that then
do alter our physiology, right?
And they do alter the way thatour brain functions, our body
(11:49):
then functions, and continue todemonstrate um negative symptoms
in our life and in ourrelationship thereafter.
A little T trauma, however, isanything that happens to you
that changes the way you viewyourself or the world around
you.
And so if we can accept thatdefinition, then the statistic
(12:10):
that you were sharing earlierthat 70 to 80% of us have
experienced trauma wouldobviously apply.
Like if not, probably even agreater percentage of us can
identify with having a trauma inour lives.
And this is where I get reallypassionate because our brain,
you know, you know the answer tothis, Sam.
At what age is our brain fullydeveloped?
SPEAKER_01 (12:30):
25?
SPEAKER_02 (12:31):
Yes, yeah.
Research would most research atthis point would say 25 years
old.
So while our brain isdeveloping, it is constantly
misinterpreting information,right?
It's just trying to learn,trying to put pieces together.
It's doing the very best that itcan, but it's just
underdeveloped, right?
So anything could happen to usat a young age, and this is
where a lot of trauma work endsup going to childhood.
(12:53):
And it's simply because ourbrain wasn't fully developed, so
we couldn't fully understand orgrasp what was going on.
So um Francine Shapira, who umfounded EMDR, writes in one of
her books that there's a storyof a young woman who um was
doing trauma work as an adult,and they were able to go back to
a childhood memory where she wasin her parents' home, you know,
(13:16):
as again, as a child in herparents' home, she was up in her
room and there was athunderstorm.
And she had very loving parentswho cared for her very much.
But she was up in her room andthere was a thunderstorm and she
was scared and she cried out toher parents, but they didn't
hear her.
So in that moment, herunderdeveloped brain
interpreted, I am not worthy tobe cared for.
(13:36):
That was how her braininterpreted that event.
It wasn't true.
That wasn't what was actuallygoing on in real life, but that
was how up, that was a brainsynapse that formed.
So that became a little teatrauma in her life that then
impacted the way she viewedherself and the world around
her, up until the point that shegot trauma therapy.
SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
Now, was it just one experience or are there other
experiences that kind ofcontinue to communicate that
same thing?
Because I know with big Ttrauma, usually there's these
major events, right?
As you kind of mentioned, kindof it be um uh big disaster, uh
sexual assault, whatever thecase is.
So these big events with littletea trauma, is it those
(14:15):
instances that does communicatesomething about them or their
value?
Is it those one instances, or dothey start to see it in every in
multiple interactions and thendevelop that into their
adulthood?
SPEAKER_02 (14:28):
Yeah, great question.
So it really does come down tothat one moment.
It's always the first trauma.
So when you're doing traumawork, we need to get back to
that original hurt or trauma.
But you're not wrong that afterthat, she did continue to look
for um what is it, theconfirmation bias of other
examples that this is true, thatI'm not worthy to be loved.
(14:50):
And then again, like of course,this impacts her in her
relationships, in herfriendships, in her job.
And the reason I think this isso powerful is because there are
so many of us, you know,functioning in the world that
probably are very highfunctioning, right?
That we probably do pretty well.
We probably have pretty goodrelationships, we probably have
pretty good jobs.
(15:10):
But we, most of us, I'm notgonna say all, a lot of us
struggle with some kind ofnegative belief that if we can
get to the root, you know, ifyou ask enough questions to a
person, they can get to a pointwhere they say something like,
yeah, honestly, like I don'treally feel worthy or I don't
really feel good enough.
That's one that good enough isone that comes up quite a bit.
I really actually at the end ofthe day believe I am a failure.
(15:33):
They could be doing great inlife.
They could have successfulrelationships and kids and a
house, but they have this corenegative belief that came from
somewhere in childhood.
And in EMDR, we can go back andwe can um heal that part of
their brain and show them thatthat wasn't true and that was
never true.
SPEAKER_01 (15:50):
No, that's great.
I mean, it's it's greatinformation for the audience to
have because they think you'reright.
You know, I can almost imagine acognitive dissonance type of
situation where um, you know,where someone does experience
something like that and maybethey're having those things show
up in their relationships, youknow.
I often say the best way to knowa lot about a person is how they
experience stress within arelationship because that shows
(16:13):
these beliefs that that come up.
And as people try to explorethat, they're like, but uh to
your point, like I didn't have abad childhood.
I had very loving parents, sowhy would I have trauma?
So it's almost this idea of Idon't even want to describe it
as trauma because it's nothingcompared to what so-and-so went
through.
So I don't even want to call itlittlety trauma.
(16:33):
It's just it's a belief that Ihave.
Do you find that it's helpful toexplore it in that way through
the language of trauma?
Or do you just kind of workthrough the symptoms and the
memories, uh, the core beliefsand so on to help them reach a
point of health?
SPEAKER_02 (16:51):
So good.
Love this question so much.
I actually like I totallyunderstand the sentiment of like
we're overusing the word trauma,it's losing its value.
I get how that is a conversationright now.
I'm honestly like on theopposite side of the camp of
like we should keep saying thatand talking about it.
And we all should be helpingeach other identify again these
(17:12):
little T traumas that havenegatively impacted us, but
haven't felt big enough to calla trauma.
Because when we don't feel likethey're big enough to call a
trauma, we don't work on them.
We say, I'm fine, I'm making ittoo big of a deal.
It was nothing, my life is good,my childhood was good, my
parents are awesome.
So I'm just gonna ignore it andact like it's not a problem.
(17:34):
But really, this is we know ourbrain is connected to our
bodies.
So this is more than just anegative belief.
Most of the time, evenhigh-functioning people that
come into my office have IBS,have chronic migraines, wake up
three times a night, right?
Like this, this is more thanjust a negative belief.
But it's wild that just anegative belief can have such a
(17:55):
profound impact in our lives.
So that's why I'm actually superpassionate about like, yeah,
let's let's talk about it.
Let's say we have trauma.
And then in the goal of beingbehind that being, so go work on
it, right?
So go heal so that you can behealthier for yourself and your
family and your friends.
SPEAKER_01 (18:11):
Okay.
No, that's that that's good.
I appreciate you sharing that.
I think I come from theperspective of complementarity.
And what I mean by that is theclient that comes in and they
don't want to call it trauma orthey don't have language for it,
or whatever the case is, forthat person, I do want them to
kind of start using that type oflanguage so that they can
(18:32):
understand that it is somethingthat did significantly happen in
their lives.
Then I have the other client,I'm sure you've had this as
well, where everything is traumain their life and it blo I don't
know if it blocks their abilityto process because if every
situation in a relationship istraumatic, then and that's the
worldview or the lens that theyuse, um, it can almost block or
(18:55):
impede their progress because itbecomes so overwhelming to
continually think about this umthe effects of the trauma.
At least so for them, I wantthem to kind of pull back a
little bit from using that andmaybe just talk about symptoms
or talk about um uh even doingsome EMDR processing, right?
So those are that's kind of thethe way that I try to approach
(19:18):
things.
But yeah, can you speak a littlebit to that?
Uh if there's a danger to maybeum are there clients who maybe
use the word too loosely or makeeverything in their life uh like
a trauma, like a little tootrauma.
Hmm.
SPEAKER_02 (19:35):
That's interesting.
Yeah, I think the the closestthat I can think, I I can't say,
at least in a long time, nothingis coming to mind of a person
who is calling everything atrauma.
It's actually funny.
I went and spoke at a highschool recently, and I kind of
just shared the same sentiment Ishared with you, and they all
completely disagreed with me.
They're like, no, for the samereason that you're saying is
like, no, now people areoverusing the word and
(19:56):
everything's a trauma and youcan't help them at all because
it and so that was a veryinteresting perspective.
So that's what comes to mindwhen you say that is like, yeah,
maybe from uh um from like ahigh, you know, I can imagine
like an immature or um, I don'tI don't mean to use language
like immature, but you know,just like an that per
underdeveloped thought processthat they might be using that
(20:17):
word um to exhaustion.
The only thing that comes tomind for me is a client that I'm
currently, or yeah, a clientthat I'm currently working with.
I don't know if we could saythat on that client, um, that it
does feel like every session isan eruption of emotion and we
have like a new crisis thatwe're dealing with.
(20:38):
She doesn't use the word traumanecessarily, but we do use the
word triggered, that she she didfeel triggered by an event with
her husband, an event with herboss, an event with her
neighbor, an event with her dog,right?
Like everything feels verytriggering for her.
And so I guess when that doescome up, I encourage her to take
(21:00):
um to like evaluate theseriousness of her symptoms of
like, this must be really hard,that you are being triggered
multiple times a day or everyday.
We need to get back to the rootof the original trauma.
That's the work that I do withclients to heal this nervous
system dysregulation thatcurrently we just like simply we
(21:22):
can't get your nervous systemregulated.
That's why it feels like we'relike popping off left and right.
We got to get back to yournervous system getting
regulated.
And how do we do that?
By going to that original traumaand teaching your brain that you
are safe now, right?
That those crises that used toexist that we needed to be um
alerted to multiple times a day,that's no longer your reality,
(21:43):
right?
Your husband's not trying tohurt you, your coworkers are
not, your dog is not, like youare safe now.
That that is ultimately what ourbrains and bodies always need to
know is that we're safe becauseit they just want to keep us
safe.
And sometimes they're kind ofmisfiring, right?
Because of trauma from the past.
SPEAKER_01 (22:00):
Yeah, yeah.
And and also you mentioned theimportance of acknowledging
what's happening in the body.
And I think that's thedisconnect for a lot of people
is that there is that belief,and they do you have those
physical um responses to certainsituations, right?
They're feeling triggered by acertain situation, a certain
word or a certain look thatsomeone else gave them, and so
(22:22):
on.
And I think a big part wherepeople, especially with
Christians, where we oftendiscount the influence of how
our body is trying tocommunicate something to us, and
we say, No, it's not a big deal,or I just need to speak truth to
it, which you do, but God alsomade our bodies, He created us
to be able to cope with thesedifferent things that happen in
(22:42):
life.
So I think one of thechallenging parts is getting
people to be in tune with theirbodies through um, you know,
through body scanning, or again,just kind of noticing how
they're reacting to differentsituations.
And I'm sure you probablyexperienced that as well as you
work with your clients.
SPEAKER_02 (22:57):
Oh, without a doubt.
It's so true.
And I think again, like it's alot to do with our culture and
the conversations we're having,which is why I'm so thankful for
conversations like this, Sam,because we do kind of blow some
of our body signal signalingoff, right?
(23:17):
Like, oh, I have like achronically upset stomach.
I'll just go to my doctor andyou know, get on ometrazole or
whatever it might be.
And like that's just what youdo.
And I love being able to kind ofturn that table for my clients
and be like, what is yourstomach communicating to you,
right?
Like maybe we're like in thatfight or flight too often.
We have way too much stress inour body.
(23:38):
And if we worked on that, wewouldn't have, you know what I
mean?
It's all communication.
So I love what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01 (23:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Um, you know, we we've brieflytouched on this, but what are
some ways in which trauma showsup in people's lives?
I know you talked a little bitabout the meaning that we
attribute to certain situations,or just kind of you know this
this idea of not being goodenough.
But are there other ways inwhich trauma shows up in the
(24:05):
lives of people, whether it bephysically or or or cognitively
that you can think of?
SPEAKER_02 (24:11):
Oh my goodness.
I mean, there's so many, right?
We could go so many differentdirections in the way that
trauma can show up.
Um I think by the time thatpeople are um motivated enough
to go to therapy, it's probablyhad to disrupt their life fairly
significantly, right?
Because again, like we'll justnormalize a lot of these things
of like, oh, I just have alittle bit of anxiety, or like,
(24:33):
oh, I just don't sleep well,right?
Like I have clients come to methat say I haven't slept well
for decades.
And I mean, how cool would thatbe if the moment we started not
sleeping well, we started tokind of listen to our body and
ask more questions.
But again, I think we justnormalize a lot of these
symptoms of like, um, you know,I just can't find a partner,
right?
So it could be disruptedrelationships, um, estrangement
(24:56):
of family members, um, disruptedwork environment, difficulties
with bosses, right?
So it can affect us in everyarea of our life, relationally,
physically, emotionally.
And then, of course, we havecognitively with like
depression, anxiety, suicidalthoughts.
Um, I would say anger is onethat comes up pretty often.
(25:17):
I love talking about angerbecause it really is um a
top-level emotion.
So I like teaching clients thatthere's so many emotions
underneath the anger.
Um, and so let's talk about likeidentifying maybe you're
embarrassed.
And so it's coming out as anger,right?
Maybe you're um feeling guiltyabout something.
Maybe you um maybe you areanxious or or maybe you're tired
(25:39):
and hungry, right?
I love going back to the in theBible where Jesus just said,
like, maybe you need to get somefood and take a nap, is like
it's so true for so many of us.
Um, so I mean, right, trauma canshow up in um so many different
ways.
SPEAKER_01 (25:54):
Yeah, yeah.
And I like that you mentionedthat as well, because typically
I think when we think abouttrauma, we're thinking about
those um those hypersensitiveresponses that we have, right?
Where there's there's thishyper-awareness of um how people
are looking at us and we readinto every little thing and it
communicates something about whowe are as people.
So there's always this constantimbalance of how we feel and
(26:16):
what we think.
You know, ties a lot intoattachment styles where we
become so anxious in our closerelationships that it's hard to
even function, even though tomaybe the outside world we seem
well put together, butinternally there's this kind of
war going on about meaning,significance, and how do others
perceive me?
(26:36):
Right.
Um, so yeah, no, really, reallygreat, great um information
there.
Um is there anything that whenyou think about trauma, what are
people getting right and whatare people getting wrong?
Now we briefly touched on, youknow, we want to identify
trauma, whether it's big T orlittle T.
Um and there's this one sideover here that also sees it as
(27:00):
well, we can't call everythingtrauma because then it loses its
meaning or its value.
And we already mentioned kind ofthe percentage of people that
have experienced trauma.
So, what is a a healthy balance?
Like, how would you wantclients, other people to kind of
look at trauma?
How should we see it?
SPEAKER_02 (27:18):
I think in a perfect world, we would be able to
identify, and I say we as likeindividuals, like each
individual person would be ableto identify when just something
feels off balance or askew,whether it's thinking patterns,
um, somatic or like physicalresponses, something in our
relationship.
And we were more skilled inidentifying that faster and then
(27:42):
having the tools and knowledgeto get it back on track.
I think that that would be kindof the perfect situation, right?
Because everyone is gonna needsomething different, right?
Like not everyone needs to go totherapy, um, not everyone needs
to take medication.
Um, a lot of us just need to bein more community.
A lot of us just need to enhanceour spiritual health, a lot of
(28:03):
us need to um engage in morephysical activity, right?
And oh my goodness, don't evenget me started on the effects of
alcohol.
That is just something that'sbeen so normalized, but the
research is wild with hownegatively it impacts our brain
and body, right?
So I think if if we were justmore adept at noticing something
is off, how do I help myself?
(28:26):
I think I think that would helpus get a lot of things right.
Because unfortunately, again, wejust normalize it, we put it
off, we don't know who to go tofor help.
Um, we don't even know what weneed.
I think that that is a hugebarrier that I see with clients
is that they come to me and theyknow they need help, but that's
all that they know, right?
And I wish that, you know, evenfrom a young, young age, we
(28:46):
could be teaching people oflike, again, like you have
somatic symptoms, right?
Like maybe you need to go to ayoga class or exercise or focus
on your health versus you havecognitive symptoms.
So let's try journaling, let'stry try uh talking with a
trusted friend.
Is that making sense?
SPEAKER_01 (29:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
We they have we have so manydifferent resources or different
avenues to kind of take this,and it's just what's lacking in
the person's life.
Like one of the things that'spretty solid in the research is
people cope better with heavytraumatic incidents if they have
a strong social support system.
And this kind of alludes back toyour point of um the the girl
(29:28):
who had very caring lovingparents.
Like, she's probably gonna copebetter or has cope better with
that than someone who didn'thave loving parents, right?
And we have someone who maybehas the um I remember looking at
someone who's experienced abuseuh would probably uh display
more traumatic symptoms thansomeone who has not.
(29:49):
But when you look at theresearch, actually neglect has
very similar impact to those whohave experienced uh abuse.
Because neglect is not beingable to meet the needs of
someone who Someone at a verycritical age, to your point,
just very young age, zero to twois usually the attachment stage,
zero to seven, zero to twelve.
You know, those are there's somevery key needs that are that are
(30:11):
necessary during that time.
So if a parent or both parentsare not meeting those needs,
that also communicates thatyou're not worthy, you're not
loved, no one cares about you.
So it's gonna have the sameimpact as someone who was abused
where that's saying, I don'tcare about you.
Actually, I value you so littlethat this continues to happen,
right?
So the messaging from twodifferent experiences is the
(30:36):
same and therefore has thatsimilar impact on their excuse
me, on their understanding ofthemselves.
So there's a lot regarding thethe field of of trauma.
Um you know, for those of us whoare are Christians, I think one
of the things that is isdifficult is when people do
experience trauma, a questionthat often comes up is well,
(30:59):
Maggie, like where was God inthat?
You know, where was God?
My parents said that they wereChristians, and look at what
happened.
They allowed this to happen, orthey were themselves were the
perpetrators, or they allowed afamily member, or just they
didn't care about me, whateverthe case is.
And it changes their perspectiveof God.
And how you know, how has thatbeen for for you in working with
(31:22):
clients where you know they getto that point so sad, right?
Because we want people to haveknow the true God, a loving God,
a caring God, and yet theirparents represent or at least
provide a representation of howGod sees them in our experience.
Um, but yeah, what what's thehardest part about that?
Like getting people to see Godin a more um clear way
(31:45):
throughout their experience?
SPEAKER_02 (31:48):
Yeah, oh my gosh, it's such a good question.
Um, well, and just you know,admittedly for the audience,
right?
I think a question we allstruggle with at times, right?
Like we, I'm sure each one of ushas our own trauma and has
wondered kind of where was Godin this or why did God allow
that to happen.
And then working with clientswho have gone through, you know,
sometimes horrific things andwondering that alongside them.
So I think it's such a validquestion.
(32:10):
So the way that I, you know,kind of support a client through
that, if if they are Christian,kind of just reminding them what
the Bible says, right?
That, you know, that we um ourthoughts are not our thoughts
and we are our our what is it?
Our thoughts are not God'sthoughts.
God's thoughts are not ourthoughts, right?
So we can't fully understandexactly like the creator of the
universe and how this all works.
(32:31):
We can't even like fathom,right?
But we do know that God loves usand that he's here for us and he
protects us and he hears us.
And so both can be true.
And I think that that is like apoint of spiritual maturity, is
just kind of like understandingthat we can't fully comprehend
or understand.
Um, so just holding space forthat kind of difficulty there.
I will say that I have quite afew clients who are not
(32:52):
Christians and who were raisedby Christians or in a Christian
household, or were just simplyhurt by Christians.
Um, so you know, abused in thename of faith or by people of
faith.
And so to have those peopleshare how much they hate God and
how much they hate faith, Imean, what can you do other than
(33:14):
like kind of validate that thatwould be their experience and
that I can understand why thatthey feel that way?
Um, of course, I'm not in aposition to push faith or try
to, you know, change their mindsabout that, but really just hold
space for their experience.
And then again, I think abeautiful thing about being a
Christian therapist is that Ican go home and pray for them.
Um, and you know, not everytherapist might go do that.
(33:35):
So I think that's a verychallenging topic.
SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
And, you know, we have theopportunity to be what um in the
attachment literature is calledkind of the corrective
attachment experience or thecorrective attachment figure,
where if we're speaking aboutGod in this way, where else are
they going to experience a aloving, caring person outside of
that or or anywhere in theirlife?
(33:59):
And when they come to our officeevery week and we see them,
that's opportunities for us toagain display that caring,
gentle, loving God that we'redescribing to them.
Now that hasn't been theirexperience, so they're looking
at and kind of cautious andmaybe um skeptical about okay,
do I both trust?
As you know, people who haveexperienced trauma have a
(34:21):
difficulty trusting otherpeople.
But for us, they you know, theyalmost give us that that freedom
to try to be that space for thembecause we're the counselor and
we're supposed to know whatwe're doing and all of these
things.
But really, what we're doing isjust sitting with them, giving
validity to their experience andtrying to reframe that through
our experience with them insession, which I think is such a
(34:44):
blessing.
I mean, that that uh one of thereasons why I enjoy doing trauma
work is because it is thatopportunity to represent maybe a
lie that they've been told toshow them something different in
session.
SPEAKER_02 (34:55):
Yes, yes.
Oh my gosh, it's so good.
SPEAKER_01 (34:58):
Yeah, and and you know, we talk about faith.
What role does faith have inhealing and recovery?
You know, there's these um maybegrowing up where these band-aids
were kind of given to us of,well, you know, just pray about
it, or hey, just do this, orhey, just do that, and
everything will be okay.
But we know that trauma workrequires a lot, a lot of work, a
lot of processing.
(35:19):
Um so in your experience, whatwhat what role does faith have
in the healing and recoveryprocess?
SPEAKER_02 (35:26):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So I use a tool um called arestoration team.
Are you familiar with that?
It's kind of like a resourcingtool before.
So, yeah, I always want to makesure my clients are really well
resourced before we get intodeep trauma work because of
course, if we get dysregulated,if we hit something really hard,
I want to make sure we both feelreally confident that they can
get back to, you know,regulated, like a good state
(35:47):
before they leave the office.
So, all that to say, so we buildthis team of people that we can
reference as supports in ourwork.
And um there's five categories.
And one of the categories isspiritual.
And so even clients who havetold me that they are not
religious or, you know, whateverthe case might be, I still ask
them about spiritual and I stillwant them to have some kind of
(36:08):
spiritual resource forthemselves.
And I just say something like,um, you know, what's what's
something that reminds you thatyou're connected to something
greater than yourself?
Right.
And people say like stars orwater or nature, it could be
anything.
But it, I say that to say thatwhether you're Christian or not,
we all need to be reminded thatwe're connected to something
(36:29):
greater than ourselves, right?
We all need to find hope.
We all need to be able to findhope in something bigger than
our circumstance.
And that's just basic healingwork, right?
So to answer your question, Ithink that spirituality, and for
us who you know are Christiansand find faith in that is
essential, honestly, to growthand healing.
SPEAKER_01 (36:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, I think one of thethings that maybe we want to
clarify also for for theChristian is what does healing
actually look like?
And um I think usually when wethink about healing, we think
that everything is either goneby the end of our time together,
or is it just that it's bettermanaged?
(37:11):
Or what does healing actuallylook like?
You know, there's people who goto counseling for years and you
know, they'll talk about, yeah,you know, I'm healing.
But for the Christian, I thinkthere's almost a sense of shame
if it's not gone, or if thesymptoms have not resided, or if
they still have every once in awhile an anxious thought about
something or a certain meaningabout themselves.
(37:33):
You know, what would healinglook like for not just
Christians, I guess for anyonereally?
What is healing from traumaactually look like on a
day-to-day basis?
What would be different from thetime that they started
counseling to the end of theirtime of counseling?
SPEAKER_02 (37:47):
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so trauma is traumabecause it it the memory got
stuck in our brain.
Our brain didn't know how toprocess adequately the memory of
what just happened, right?
So all day long we're makingmemories throughout our whole
lives and it just gets organizedbecause these weren't traumatic,
disruptive events.
When it's traumatic anddisruptive, our brain doesn't
(38:07):
know what to do with it.
And so that's why we experiencetriggers, whether they're um
mental triggers of likeflashbacks or anxious thinking
or depression, or those somaticor physical triggers of like
heart pounding, stomach hurting,you know, whatever the case
might be.
So from my perspective, healingis that we can't make the memory
go away, right?
We can't make the bad thing, wecan't pretend that it never
(38:29):
happened.
However, we can get it organizedin your brain so that your brain
sees it as yes, that happened,but it happened in the past and
I survived.
And today, this is how I feelabout myself.
And hopefully, right today, Ifeel that I am worthy and that I
am lovable and that I am goodenough.
Right.
So healing is living in thepresent and feeling confident
(38:53):
that you have the tools andskills to manage the
difficulties that life willinevitably continue to bring.
SPEAKER_01 (38:59):
Yes.
No, that's great.
That's a great definition forthat.
Um, that way it paints thepicture for the audience.
Okay, it's not that it's gonnago away because they think
that's the expectation that thatmemory is gone or that they
don't feel anything, but it'smuch better regulated.
And yeah, they're able to createa new meaning behind it, right?
Um uh gosh, I was gonna gosomewhere.
(39:20):
It just slipped my my mind rightnow.
Um, but yeah, along with thatpart of healing, I think it's
really, really important for usto kind of have a realistic
expectation of what that lookslike.
I remember my question now.
Yeah, do you see do you see adifference between the
generations regarding thehealing process?
Obviously, older generationskind of have a more uh skeptical
(39:44):
view of counseling.
Um, younger generations seem tobe more open to it.
So, what do you think is thebiggest barrier for them to get
to that healing?
So, along the way, they startcounseling and they're working
through, and there's somethinghappens.
What do you think are some ofthe barriers that people may
encounter in the process ofhealing from trauma?
SPEAKER_02 (40:05):
Yeah, I think one that keeps coming up recently
for me is a lack of trust in thetherapist.
So research will even say,right, how important.
I think even it is the mostimportant thing is that
therapeutic alliance.
Yeah, the number one predictorof success is your, is it the
trust or you just yourrelationship?
SPEAKER_01 (40:24):
Alliance.
SPEAKER_02 (40:24):
The relationship between that a lot of clients, a
lot of just folks in the world,don't understand how important
that is, right?
Like maybe they found somebodyonline or their friend
recommended someone and it'skind of like, okay, yeah, they
must be good enough or they mustbe, you know, a good therapist.
I'll work with them.
But when I talk to clients whohave experienced massive
barriers or who have not beenable to progress in their
(40:47):
healing, it's because theyultimately just did not trust
the therapist and they werefearful about saying certain
things.
They didn't feel totallycomfortable.
Um, again, not saying thetherapist is doing anything
wrong.
It's just not always the bestfit.
And so there's really nothingwrong with, you know, a client.
Well, and then I was going tosay, and then it's daunting for
a client to have to say, youknow, unfortunately this isn't
(41:07):
working out.
And now I have to like keepshopping or kind of like dating
new therapists until I find theright one.
But the process of shopping ordating requires people to share
quite a bit about themselves andopen up and be vulnerable.
I mean, that's scary, right?
Like that's no one really wantsto do that.
So I think a lot of people kindof give up or again start to
say, well, I pretty much am goodenough.
(41:29):
I can make it work.
Um, I'll figure it out on myown.
I'll read more books, I'lllisten to more podcasts, um,
which is we're all veryreasonable solutions.
But if you need that one-on-onework, we have to keep looking
for the therapist.
And so I was just honestlyencouraging a friend this
morning that most therapistswill do a 15 to 20 minute free
consultation.
(41:49):
So really take advantage of thatand ask the therapist some hard
questions, right?
Like, do you what is yourexperience in working with
clients like myself?
Um, what happens if I don'tthink it's going very well?
Can I tell you that?
Are you open to feedback?
Right.
Like just ask those really hardquestions to your therapist
during that free consultation.
That would be my advice.
SPEAKER_01 (42:09):
Yeah, no, I love that.
That's actually really greatbecause you could get a feel.
I mean, and like that, it's 15minutes, so it's not a short two
to five minutes, but 15 minutesis good enough time where you
get a feel uh for the counselor.
How are you meshing?
How's the conversation going andso on?
And yeah, I think you could hitthat trust factor at some point
within that conversation, eitherI feel like I can trust them or
(42:29):
I don't.
Or it can also speak to maybejust previous experiences.
So if they had one or twoprevious counselors that didn't
help or that they triggeredsomething else, so that it makes
sense to us, I guess, why theywould come in fearful.
So for us, it's just trying tobe that safe um presence for
them when we do have those umyou know consultations and so
(42:50):
on.
But I love that advice.
I think that's really, reallyhelpful.
Um, I mean, we've covered a lot.
Um, I feel obviously likethere's always much more that we
can talk about, right?
But um, yeah, based on ourconversation today, is there
anything that I missed?
Anything that you feel like, youknow what, Sam, before closing,
I think it would be reallyimportant for the audience to
know this.
SPEAKER_02 (43:12):
I mean, I'm always curious to learn more about
attachment and kind of discussthat a little bit further.
Is there anything specific inregards to attachment and trauma
that you think that we wouldwould be helpful to discuss or
you know, hearing my perspectiveversus yours on that one?
SPEAKER_01 (43:26):
Yeah, you know, there's um when I was when I
think about um trauma and thenGod attachment, there there's
two kind of phrases that comeout.
One is called it's called thecorrespondence theory, which
says that whatever relationshipyour parents had with you when
you were growing up is gonna bekind of the same relationship
you have with God when you getolder.
So if your parents were um uhcritical, mean, rude, um,
(43:52):
neglectful, it's really hard tothink of God in another way when
you start seeing that the peoplewho were supposed to care for
you the most, now you're sayingthat God is all of a sudden
gonna treat you differently,right?
It's hard for them toconceptualize that because they
never experienced that frompeople who are supposed to love
them.
So that they correspond.
So their early childhoodexperiences corresponds with
(44:13):
their relationship with God.
But the other side to that is iftheir parents were loving, kind,
gentle, and understanding, thenwhen they grow up, they kind of
have a better understanding,like they can see that about God
because their parents model thatfor them.
So when they read scripture andit says, you know, that God
loves you, that God cares foryou, that He's carrying will
carry all your burdens, thatmakes sense to them, right?
(44:34):
So for them, that transition totheir adult walk with God is
much better than those who haddifferent type of parents.
So that's the correspondencetheory.
Uh the compensation theory isreally interesting because
usually um it's people who didnot grow up in the church.
So if they didn't grow up in thechurch and they had, you know,
parents who were neglectful orabusive or whatever the case is,
(44:56):
when they get older and they getintroduced to Christ or they
start going to church and thenthey hear the gospel and then
they convert to Christianity,then they start to see God as
God is making up for everythingthat I lost when I was a young
child.
So basically God compliments orGod uh yeah, God compliments
(45:18):
whatever it is that they weremissing when they were young.
So they feel this deep love forGod and this deep appreciation
for him because they never knewwhat that was like growing up.
So that compensates for whatthey were lacking when they were
um when they were younger.
So a lot of that can tie into,you know, how does trauma
distort my view of God?
Well, one example is thecorrespondence theory.
(45:40):
If your parents were like that,automatically they believe that
God is like that.
But they need multipleexperiences, positive
experiences, consistentexperiences that can reshape
their view of God.
Okay.
So I often talk aboutconsistency, timeliness, and
effectiveness, which means thatthey need consistent patterns of
(46:01):
positive experiences with thepeople of God.
So with the church, with uhChristians in their experiences
reading or praying, um, readingor praying, uh, reading the
Bible or praying.
Um, effectiveness.
Okay, is it doing what it'ssupposed to do?
So when I pray, do I feel closerto God?
When I go out and and and uhmeet with people from church, do
(46:21):
I feel like I'm learning moreabout God because of our
conversations that we're having?
Right.
So that's the effectivenesspiece.
And then the timeliness reallyjust has to do with how promptly
are your needs being met.
So when you need something, if Iask for help from someone from
the church or for someone whowho claims to be a Christian and
they don't respond right awayand it's delayed or they never
(46:43):
get back to me, I start thatstarts to shape my view of God.
Like, well, God's theresometimes, but not all the time,
right?
Yeah.
So if they're timely in meetingthe needs when we really need
them, then all of those threethings can help shift our
perspective of God.
Interesting.
So it's it's really, and aswe're talking about, then it's
getting them in tune with theirbodies.
(47:05):
Like, how does your body feelwhen you're with with uh with
the church?
How does your body feel whenyou're having these thoughts
come up for you or when you'repraying and you're sharing with
God and being open with Him?
So there's a lot that that wecan do, but I mean that would
definitely be another greatconversation for us to have.
SPEAKER_02 (47:21):
That would be, I would be really interested in
that.
I think especially I've beenhaving a lot of clients who have
pre-verbal trauma.
So obviously, some attachmentwas severely disrupted.
And there's not a lot that youcan talk about with that because
the memory where we didn't evenhave words, our brain wasn't
formed enough to have words.
So that's been so fascinating tohave people just experience
(47:42):
those like body sensations morethan you know, memories or being
able to speak about, well, Inever felt good enough.
That those words didn't evenexist.
They just like know that theirbody was hurt or whatever the
case might be.
So, how does that impactattachment with people in the
future, but also with theirrelationship with God?
So I think there's probably alot there that we could talk
(48:03):
about.
SPEAKER_01 (48:03):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Um, I really like um exploring alot also the counselor client
relationship, the therapeuticalliance, because we really are.
I mean, and that is what thewhat the relationship is, right?
Um, I forgot who said it, andum, we kind of see it this way
where it's counselor, client,and Jesus, right?
In the room, in the office, justkind of guiding us through that
(48:25):
process.
Because sometimes, I mean, Ifeel lost.
I'm like, gosh, this is soheavy.
Where do I go with this?
Like, it's almost like at leastfor me, you want to help them
heal.
Okay, and it's almost like wewant to get there a little bit
faster before they're ready to.
Okay.
And that's the hard part becauseyou want to see them get better.
But knowing, yeah, but knowingthat it just takes some time,
(48:46):
we're still establishing trust,still need repeated, consistent,
positive experiences betweencounselor and client so that
they can start to open up just alittle bit more and a little bit
more.
And how we receive whatever itis that they're sharing
obviously provides more opennessfor that.
So I really do see that as Jesusgot kind of guiding that process
for us.
Um because yeah, sometimes it'slike, where do I go from here?
(49:09):
Like I know what to do, but toreally sit and be present with
the client, it's hard when maybethey want to, you know, also get
healed faster.
Um I'll share this with you.
Meggie, I had a a client um whowas in a field that is basically
a helping services field, sonursing.
(49:29):
And um, she came in, did theintake, a lot of trauma in the
background, and you know,specifically with like family
members.
Um, and she's like, you know,I'm so committed, I'm ready to
just get this work done.
And I think uh by the end of thesemester I should be good.
And I just kind of smiled and Ilooked at her, I'm like, uh, by
the end of the semester, youmean like in in 10 weeks?
And she's like, Yeah, yeah, Imean, I'm ready to do this.
(49:51):
Like, you don't know howcommitted I am.
I'm like, okay.
It's probably not gonna be 10weeks.
And you know, just kind ofsmiled and she's like, Well,
what do you mean?
Like, I'm ready, I can do this.
My, I think along the way, we'llfind that it's gonna require a
little bit more, as committed asyou are.
So let's first let's just trythe first couple of weeks, see
where you are, and then we'llcontinue to assess.
(50:11):
But she was one of my favoriteclients because she was so
committed to the process, somotivated, yeah.
Yeah, so motivated.
But she started to see that umthat no, there's a lot more to
dig.
So obviously it extended ourtime, but she wants she had
these other goals in life.
And again, she's one of thoseclients who, on the surface, I
mean, she was a hard worker, shewas doing well in school, all of
(50:34):
those things, but herrelationships was where the
trauma was coming up, and it wasas soon as she started to get
close to people, all thesethings started to brew up for
her.
And um, yeah, so we did a lot ofwork.
She did she did grow a lot inthat process, but I just always
remember just because of howmotivated she was and and how
quickly she wanted to geteverything done.
So definitely we appreciate thatmotivation.
(50:56):
But um, yeah, trauma work ishard work and long work.
SPEAKER_02 (51:00):
Yes, yes.
I I experienced something verysimilar with EMDR where people
come in in the first session,they're like, okay, so we're
doing EMDR today.
I'm like, oh goodness, no.
So now I've it incorporated intomy consultation calls of like,
hey, I just want to set clearexpectations that like we have
to get to know each other.
You need to trust me.
We need to make sure you havegreat resources that you're
practicing outside of session.
(51:20):
So I hear you with the motivatedclients, which again, like my
heart goes out to them.
Like, I'm the same way when I goto therapy.
I'm like, okay, we're jumpingin, right?
You know, like we want to feelbetter, and there's nothing
wrong with that.
SPEAKER_01 (51:31):
Yeah, yeah.
So so yeah, so we'll we'll uhwe'll keep in touch and see if
we can bring up anotherconversation.
But this was great.
Thank you so much, Maggie.
I mean, I really loved um howyou shared.
You have a great depth ofknowledge in the whole process
of counseling working withtrauma.
I'm sure you can share a lotmore.
Um, again, like I said, I couldprobably added two, three more
(51:52):
questions um that we could havegone over, but time is a thing,
you know?
SPEAKER_02 (51:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
No, I really appreciate yourtime.
I really appreciate theopportunity to be here, Sam.
SPEAKER_01 (52:01):
All right.
Well, thank you, Maggie.
We will meet up again.
Hopefully, we get another topicon trauma.
And uh, yeah, hopefully, guys,those of you who were listening,
hope this was a blessing.
And uh yeah, tune in to the nexttime.
SPEAKER_02 (52:13):
Sounds good.
Take care.
SPEAKER_01 (52:16):
Yep.
Alright everyone, welcome back to the God
Attachment Healing Podcast.
I am very excited today as we'retalking about one of my uh
favorite topics because I workwith a lot of students who um
have experienced trauma.
Um it's one of the areas that Iwas mostly interested in when I
started attachment uh theory.
And today I also have anothertrauma expert and who that works
(00:28):
with a lot of clients withtrauma.
This is Maggie McCain.
Maggie, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02 (00:34):
Thank you so much for having me, Sam.
I'm so happy to be here.
SPEAKER_01 (00:36):
I'm excited.
I'm excited.
It's not it's not often that Iget to have a conversation with
other trauma experts to discussour topic for today, which is
trauma, faith, and healing orrecovery.
And um yeah, so basically thator typically the way that I like
to kind of start off ourconversation is really just kind
of giving you the floor tointroduce yourself, a little bit
(00:58):
about your background, um, thework that you do.
I know you're out in, is itArizona?
SPEAKER_02 (01:03):
Yeah, Tucson, Arizona.
SPEAKER_01 (01:05):
Tucson, Arizona.
So you have some do some workthere.
But yeah, just uh introduceyourself to the audience and
then we'll go from there.
SPEAKER_02 (01:11):
Great.
Sounds really good.
So yeah, my name's MaggieMcCain.
I'm a licensed clinical socialworker, which just means that
I'm independently licensed topractice therapeutic care.
So there's lots of routes thatyou can go to become a
psychotherapist.
And I just took the route ofsocial work.
Um, I just wanted theflexibility to be able to work
in, you know, hospital settingsor private practice or
(01:33):
behavioral health, and you cando that with social work.
So I that appealed to me.
Um, and so I've been inbehavioral health agencies
throughout my entire career.
And, you know, I can definitelyget down into the nitty-gritty
of the populations I served.
Um, I think one of my passionsand where I started in therapy
work was actually um providingtherapeutic services.
(01:54):
We had a contract with thecourt.
So it was juveniles who hadcommitted sexual crimes and were
now needing therapy as part oftheir rehabilitation.
And my heart really went out tothat population because, as you
can imagine, most people didn'twant to work with that
population.
But when you really got theseyouth, right, they're minors in
front of you, they just created,they just had committed a really
(02:18):
horrible mistake and not toalleviate them of their
responsibility of the act,because of course they they made
a horrible choice, but they justreally felt like these things
had either been done to them orhad been modeled to them, or
they had just been truly likeconfused with boundaries.
And I think that really sprouteda huge love of serving those
(02:39):
that, you know, just came fromtraumatic backgrounds, right?
Like this idea that hurt peopletypically, not always, of
course, but go on to hurt peopleand heal people go on to heal
people.
And so that's I again, likethese youth in front of me who
had committed these horriblecrimes, once they knew better,
(03:02):
they were very committed todoing better, right?
Like they were like, now that Iknow what consent really means
or what boundaries really are, Ihave no intention of ever
breaking that again.
Um, so yeah, that's kind ofwhere my career started.
I went lots of differentdirections after that.
But after being in behavioralhealth for many years, I just
really saw the restrictions thatinsurance was putting on patient
(03:24):
care.
And I just thought we could doit better.
So that's why I started my ownprivate practice about a year
and a half ago.
And um, you know, I understandthe restrictions that come with
being a private pay clinic.
You know, not everyone can payout of pocket for an expense
like this.
And again, like veryunderstanding of that.
But I really believe thatthere's better, I don't want
(03:47):
maybe I shouldn't say better,maybe I should say um just
different type of healing thatcan come when you don't have an
insurance company telling youwhat you can and can't do and
mandating the treatment.
Um, but we really have thefreedom and flexibility to meet
a client exactly where they'reat and support them exactly
where they are.
And something that I'm superexcited about, and we can talk
more about this later if you'dlike.
(04:08):
Um, but I've even found thebenefit of extending sessions.
So, you know, we have thetraditional kind of model of
50-minute sessions weekly orbi-weekly.
And what we have found is thatclients really benefit from
getting more an extended periodof uninterrupted time.
So we can really delve furtherinto trauma and healing work
(04:30):
when we can go for four hours,you know.
And of course, we take breaksand we get snacks, but we're
really able to do some massivehealing in an extended period of
time.
And you can't do that if you'rein a behavioral health agency or
you're uh contracting withinsurance providers.
They don't pay for that sort ofthing.
So, again, just that's oneexample of the flexibility that
we have to really prioritizepatient care.
SPEAKER_01 (04:51):
Yeah.
No, that's a great point,Maggie.
I never thought about that, youknow, extending it for um for
each session.
And again, maybe there's a planor a type of treatment plan that
you have set up where it can bedone in that way.
Um, but yeah, the flexibility tobe able to meet the needs of
your clients who haveexperienced trauma because they
have different needs.
And as any client, right, theyjust have different needs.
(05:14):
So you're tailing your tailoringyour treatment for each of them.
But um, and you also do EMDR,correct?
SPEAKER_02 (05:22):
Yes, yeah.
So uh I got certified in EMDR,so eye movement,
desensitization, reprocessing.
Everyone always asks me whatthat means, but it's like it's
such a mouthful, we all just sayEMDR.
SPEAKER_00 (05:32):
Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (05:34):
Yeah, and so and doing the EMDR, um, that's
probably what I do the most isEMDR intensive therapy at this
point.
And so it is that extendedsessions of EMDR, we're really
going in to rewire thosenegative cognitions or the
traumatic memories and bringthem to a place of not feeling
stuck anymore, like reallyliving in the present and seeing
(05:56):
the truth for what it is andmoving forward in their healing.
So, yes, we do EMDR.
I have a couple therapists on myteam.
Um, so we also specialize inmen's healing, grief work,
somatic therapy, older adults,and we try to work a lot with
veterans and first responders.
SPEAKER_01 (06:12):
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
And all of them are, I mean,would have very traumatic type
of backgrounds or at least sometrauma.
I think I was reading astatistic earlier today that
something about 70 to 75% ofpeople in the world have
experienced some form oftraumatic event.
And we'll get into that in alittle bit.
But um before jumping into ourtopic, the last question I had
(06:34):
is is are your services mostlyChristian?
Is it is it both?
How do you operate regardingthat?
Just for the audience to know.
SPEAKER_02 (06:43):
Yeah, absolutely.
So yeah, you know, personally, Iwas raised um in a Christian
household and have had, youknow, a great foundation in my
faith.
And I think that was anotherarea that always felt really
restrictive for me when I waspracticing in behavioral health,
is they didn't really want us tobring faith into the mix.
Um, and of course, like I'malways here to respect a client.
(07:05):
Like I have lots of clients thatI serve that are not Christian,
but a lot of Christians arelooking for a Christian
therapist, right?
They want to know that ifthey're gonna come and share the
deepest hurts and um mostvulnerable parts of themselves,
they want to be met with someonewho shares similar values and
beliefs.
And so in my private practice, Ihave advertised myself as a
(07:25):
Christian therapist, not abiblical therapist, right?
Like we're not going through theBible necessarily and applying
it for their healing, but justI, you know, I'm here to support
their values, you know, and Ican say things like, well, what
would God say up to, you know,what would God say about that?
Or um, let's talk about how Godcreated you.
You know what I mean?
We can just pull in those valuesvery seamlessly.
SPEAKER_01 (07:46):
Yeah, absolutely.
It's a it's kind of theChristian integration.
And I remember there was a bigum uh divide for many years.
Actually, one of my favoriteauthors, his name Dr.
Larry Crab, he was one of thefirst pioneers to try to
integrate psych andChristianity, and he was getting
hit on both sides.
So the psychologists weresaying, Why are you bringing
spirituality, religion into thefield?
(08:08):
You know, that doesn't belonghere.
And Christians were kind ofsaying, Why are you bringing
psychology into the church?
So he really kind of fought forthat for many years, and I
really appreciate about thatabout him.
SPEAKER_02 (08:19):
Yeah, that's excellent.
SPEAKER_01 (08:20):
So for us to be able to have that opportunity that
now there's a lot more researchon being able to do Christian
integration, so it it's it's ablessing to see more and more
therapists and the risingnumbers and people actually
wanting to connect with thataspect of their lives.
So we have a huge opportunityhere for meeting the needs of
people in a very unique way.
SPEAKER_02 (08:38):
So I totally agree.
SPEAKER_01 (08:40):
That's so awesome.
Well, good.
SPEAKER_02 (08:42):
Well, and isn't there research again?
We probably might get into thislater, but I'm sure you wouldn't
might know better than me thatthere's research that if you're
seeing a Christian therapist whois actively praying for their
clients, clients get betterfaster.
SPEAKER_01 (08:55):
I haven't seen that.
I know the value alignmentbetween therapist and client is
a huge deal and it's a hugepredictor of um client success.
But I do see um prayer beingimplemented for um how the um
the counselor shows up insession, right?
It's just this practice of beingable to pray over their clients,
(09:16):
it just puts them in a differentmentality, especially when
you're carrying so much heavy,um, heavy stories from all the
various people that you'reworking with.
I mean, the work that we do doestake a toll.
So, where do we go to kind offill that back up?
You know, we have community,family, church, God's word.
So all of these different thingsthat we choose to fill ourselves
with because the work that we dois very draining at times.
(09:39):
And also a blessing when you seethem make make progress, right?
SPEAKER_02 (09:42):
Absolutely, yeah, yeah.
But it it does, it makes adifference with how um, yeah,
just like emotionally healthyyour therapist is, clients are
gonna feel that difference.
And so part of our health is ourspiritual health.
And if uh you know therapist waslacking in that or struggling
with that, right?
Like that's it's gonna flow,flow out of us.
SPEAKER_01 (10:05):
Yeah, and the client will feel it.
So to your point, if the clientis wanting to address that and
the counselor is not equipped ordoes not have a a uh belief
system of a religious type, um,they're gonna feel that
disconnect because that's reallywhat their hearts are yearning
for, right?
They want connection outside ofthe other, you know, the
biopsychosocial.
(10:26):
There is that spiritualcomponent that people are
searching for, you know, and asearch for wanting um a more
rooted faith.
So um, yeah, there's a lot ofgreat stuff out there, and I'm
really excited and and um happythat they're doing more research
in that space.
SPEAKER_02 (10:42):
Yes, me too.
SPEAKER_01 (10:43):
Well, good.
Well, Maggie, here's our here'sour first question as we start
off today, because the big wordis trauma, right?
We're talking about trauma,faith, recovery.
And um, I guess we could definefor the audience like what is
trauma?
Because a lot of people kind ofthrow that word out there.
It's almost losing its actualmeaning as we hear it in
(11:05):
conversations, uh, and everydayconversations, or even in the
media when we hear the wordtrauma.
So, what are we referring towhen we're talking about trauma?
How would you define it?
SPEAKER_02 (11:15):
Okay, I love this question so much.
And I've kind of been on a rollin talking about um this
difference between big T andlittle T trauma.
Are you familiar with thatterminology?
SPEAKER_04 (11:26):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (11:26):
Okay, great.
So, yeah, so just for theaudience, then, you know, a big
T trauma is what, you know,historically we would think of
as trauma, right?
Going to war, sexual, physicalabuse, a car accident, a plane
accident, things like that.
Like clearly major disruptiveaspects of your life that then
do alter our physiology, right?
And they do alter the way thatour brain functions, our body
(11:49):
then functions, and continue todemonstrate um negative symptoms
in our life and in ourrelationship thereafter.
A little T trauma, however, isanything that happens to you
that changes the way you viewyourself or the world around
you.
And so if we can accept thatdefinition, then the statistic
(12:10):
that you were sharing earlierthat 70 to 80% of us have
experienced trauma wouldobviously apply.
Like if not, probably even agreater percentage of us can
identify with having a trauma inour lives.
And this is where I get reallypassionate because our brain,
you know, you know the answer tothis, Sam.
At what age is our brain fullydeveloped?
SPEAKER_01 (12:30):
25?
SPEAKER_02 (12:31):
Yes, yeah.
Research would most research atthis point would say 25 years
old.
So while our brain isdeveloping, it is constantly
misinterpreting information,right?
It's just trying to learn,trying to put pieces together.
It's doing the very best that itcan, but it's just
underdeveloped, right?
So anything could happen to usat a young age, and this is
where a lot of trauma work endsup going to childhood.
(12:53):
And it's simply because ourbrain wasn't fully developed, so
we couldn't fully understand orgrasp what was going on.
So um Francine Shapira, who umfounded EMDR, writes in one of
her books that there's a storyof a young woman who um was
doing trauma work as an adult,and they were able to go back to
a childhood memory where she wasin her parents' home, you know,
(13:16):
as again, as a child in herparents' home, she was up in her
room and there was athunderstorm.
And she had very loving parentswho cared for her very much.
But she was up in her room andthere was a thunderstorm and she
was scared and she cried out toher parents, but they didn't
hear her.
So in that moment, herunderdeveloped brain
interpreted, I am not worthy tobe cared for.
(13:36):
That was how her braininterpreted that event.
It wasn't true.
That wasn't what was actuallygoing on in real life, but that
was how up, that was a brainsynapse that formed.
So that became a little teatrauma in her life that then
impacted the way she viewedherself and the world around
her, up until the point that shegot trauma therapy.
SPEAKER_01 (13:54):
Now, was it just one experience or are there other
experiences that kind ofcontinue to communicate that
same thing?
Because I know with big Ttrauma, usually there's these
major events, right?
As you kind of mentioned, kindof it be um uh big disaster, uh
sexual assault, whatever thecase is.
So these big events with littletea trauma, is it those
(14:15):
instances that does communicatesomething about them or their
value?
Is it those one instances, or dothey start to see it in every in
multiple interactions and thendevelop that into their
adulthood?
SPEAKER_02 (14:28):
Yeah, great question.
So it really does come down tothat one moment.
It's always the first trauma.
So when you're doing traumawork, we need to get back to
that original hurt or trauma.
But you're not wrong that afterthat, she did continue to look
for um what is it, theconfirmation bias of other
examples that this is true, thatI'm not worthy to be loved.
(14:50):
And then again, like of course,this impacts her in her
relationships, in herfriendships, in her job.
And the reason I think this isso powerful is because there are
so many of us, you know,functioning in the world that
probably are very highfunctioning, right?
That we probably do pretty well.
We probably have pretty goodrelationships, we probably have
pretty good jobs.
(15:10):
But we, most of us, I'm notgonna say all, a lot of us
struggle with some kind ofnegative belief that if we can
get to the root, you know, ifyou ask enough questions to a
person, they can get to a pointwhere they say something like,
yeah, honestly, like I don'treally feel worthy or I don't
really feel good enough.
That's one that good enough isone that comes up quite a bit.
I really actually at the end ofthe day believe I am a failure.
(15:33):
They could be doing great inlife.
They could have successfulrelationships and kids and a
house, but they have this corenegative belief that came from
somewhere in childhood.
And in EMDR, we can go back andwe can um heal that part of
their brain and show them thatthat wasn't true and that was
never true.
SPEAKER_01 (15:50):
No, that's great.
I mean, it's it's greatinformation for the audience to
have because they think you'reright.
You know, I can almost imagine acognitive dissonance type of
situation where um, you know,where someone does experience
something like that and maybethey're having those things show
up in their relationships, youknow.
I often say the best way to knowa lot about a person is how they
experience stress within arelationship because that shows
(16:13):
these beliefs that that come up.
And as people try to explorethat, they're like, but uh to
your point, like I didn't have abad childhood.
I had very loving parents, sowhy would I have trauma?
So it's almost this idea of Idon't even want to describe it
as trauma because it's nothingcompared to what so-and-so went
through.
So I don't even want to call itlittlety trauma.
(16:33):
It's just it's a belief that Ihave.
Do you find that it's helpful toexplore it in that way through
the language of trauma?
Or do you just kind of workthrough the symptoms and the
memories, uh, the core beliefsand so on to help them reach a
point of health?
SPEAKER_02 (16:51):
So good.
Love this question so much.
I actually like I totallyunderstand the sentiment of like
we're overusing the word trauma,it's losing its value.
I get how that is a conversationright now.
I'm honestly like on theopposite side of the camp of
like we should keep saying thatand talking about it.
And we all should be helpingeach other identify again these
(17:12):
little T traumas that havenegatively impacted us, but
haven't felt big enough to calla trauma.
Because when we don't feel likethey're big enough to call a
trauma, we don't work on them.
We say, I'm fine, I'm making ittoo big of a deal.
It was nothing, my life is good,my childhood was good, my
parents are awesome.
So I'm just gonna ignore it andact like it's not a problem.
(17:34):
But really, this is we know ourbrain is connected to our
bodies.
So this is more than just anegative belief.
Most of the time, evenhigh-functioning people that
come into my office have IBS,have chronic migraines, wake up
three times a night, right?
Like this, this is more thanjust a negative belief.
But it's wild that just anegative belief can have such a
(17:55):
profound impact in our lives.
So that's why I'm actually superpassionate about like, yeah,
let's let's talk about it.
Let's say we have trauma.
And then in the goal of beingbehind that being, so go work on
it, right?
So go heal so that you can behealthier for yourself and your
family and your friends.
SPEAKER_01 (18:11):
Okay.
No, that's that that's good.
I appreciate you sharing that.
I think I come from theperspective of complementarity.
And what I mean by that is theclient that comes in and they
don't want to call it trauma orthey don't have language for it,
or whatever the case is, forthat person, I do want them to
kind of start using that type oflanguage so that they can
(18:32):
understand that it is somethingthat did significantly happen in
their lives.
Then I have the other client,I'm sure you've had this as
well, where everything is traumain their life and it blo I don't
know if it blocks their abilityto process because if every
situation in a relationship istraumatic, then and that's the
worldview or the lens that theyuse, um, it can almost block or
(18:55):
impede their progress because itbecomes so overwhelming to
continually think about this umthe effects of the trauma.
At least so for them, I wantthem to kind of pull back a
little bit from using that andmaybe just talk about symptoms
or talk about um uh even doingsome EMDR processing, right?
So those are that's kind of thethe way that I try to approach
(19:18):
things.
But yeah, can you speak a littlebit to that?
Uh if there's a danger to maybeum are there clients who maybe
use the word too loosely or makeeverything in their life uh like
a trauma, like a little tootrauma.
Hmm.
SPEAKER_02 (19:35):
That's interesting.
Yeah, I think the the closestthat I can think, I I can't say,
at least in a long time, nothingis coming to mind of a person
who is calling everything atrauma.
It's actually funny.
I went and spoke at a highschool recently, and I kind of
just shared the same sentiment Ishared with you, and they all
completely disagreed with me.
They're like, no, for the samereason that you're saying is
like, no, now people areoverusing the word and
(19:56):
everything's a trauma and youcan't help them at all because
it and so that was a veryinteresting perspective.
So that's what comes to mindwhen you say that is like, yeah,
maybe from uh um from like ahigh, you know, I can imagine
like an immature or um, I don'tI don't mean to use language
like immature, but you know,just like an that per
underdeveloped thought processthat they might be using that
(20:17):
word um to exhaustion.
The only thing that comes tomind for me is a client that I'm
currently, or yeah, a clientthat I'm currently working with.
I don't know if we could saythat on that client, um, that it
does feel like every session isan eruption of emotion and we
have like a new crisis thatwe're dealing with.
(20:38):
She doesn't use the word traumanecessarily, but we do use the
word triggered, that she she didfeel triggered by an event with
her husband, an event with herboss, an event with her
neighbor, an event with her dog,right?
Like everything feels verytriggering for her.
And so I guess when that doescome up, I encourage her to take
(21:00):
um to like evaluate theseriousness of her symptoms of
like, this must be really hard,that you are being triggered
multiple times a day or everyday.
We need to get back to the rootof the original trauma.
That's the work that I do withclients to heal this nervous
system dysregulation thatcurrently we just like simply we
(21:22):
can't get your nervous systemregulated.
That's why it feels like we'relike popping off left and right.
We got to get back to yournervous system getting
regulated.
And how do we do that?
By going to that original traumaand teaching your brain that you
are safe now, right?
That those crises that used toexist that we needed to be um
alerted to multiple times a day,that's no longer your reality,
(21:43):
right?
Your husband's not trying tohurt you, your coworkers are
not, your dog is not, like youare safe now.
That that is ultimately what ourbrains and bodies always need to
know is that we're safe becauseit they just want to keep us
safe.
And sometimes they're kind ofmisfiring, right?
Because of trauma from the past.
SPEAKER_01 (22:00):
Yeah, yeah.
And and also you mentioned theimportance of acknowledging
what's happening in the body.
And I think that's thedisconnect for a lot of people
is that there is that belief,and they do you have those
physical um responses to certainsituations, right?
They're feeling triggered by acertain situation, a certain
word or a certain look thatsomeone else gave them, and so
(22:22):
on.
And I think a big part wherepeople, especially with
Christians, where we oftendiscount the influence of how
our body is trying tocommunicate something to us, and
we say, No, it's not a big deal,or I just need to speak truth to
it, which you do, but God alsomade our bodies, He created us
to be able to cope with thesedifferent things that happen in
(22:42):
life.
So I think one of thechallenging parts is getting
people to be in tune with theirbodies through um, you know,
through body scanning, or again,just kind of noticing how
they're reacting to differentsituations.
And I'm sure you probablyexperienced that as well as you
work with your clients.
SPEAKER_02 (22:57):
Oh, without a doubt.
It's so true.
And I think again, like it's alot to do with our culture and
the conversations we're having,which is why I'm so thankful for
conversations like this, Sam,because we do kind of blow some
of our body signal signalingoff, right?
(23:17):
Like, oh, I have like achronically upset stomach.
I'll just go to my doctor andyou know, get on ometrazole or
whatever it might be.
And like that's just what youdo.
And I love being able to kind ofturn that table for my clients
and be like, what is yourstomach communicating to you,
right?
Like maybe we're like in thatfight or flight too often.
We have way too much stress inour body.
(23:38):
And if we worked on that, wewouldn't have, you know what I
mean?
It's all communication.
So I love what you're saying.
SPEAKER_01 (23:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Um, you know, we we've brieflytouched on this, but what are
some ways in which trauma showsup in people's lives?
I know you talked a little bitabout the meaning that we
attribute to certain situations,or just kind of you know this
this idea of not being goodenough.
But are there other ways inwhich trauma shows up in the
(24:05):
lives of people, whether it bephysically or or or cognitively
that you can think of?
SPEAKER_02 (24:11):
Oh my goodness.
I mean, there's so many, right?
We could go so many differentdirections in the way that
trauma can show up.
Um I think by the time thatpeople are um motivated enough
to go to therapy, it's probablyhad to disrupt their life fairly
significantly, right?
Because again, like we'll justnormalize a lot of these things
of like, oh, I just have alittle bit of anxiety, or like,
(24:33):
oh, I just don't sleep well,right?
Like I have clients come to methat say I haven't slept well
for decades.
And I mean, how cool would thatbe if the moment we started not
sleeping well, we started tokind of listen to our body and
ask more questions.
But again, I think we justnormalize a lot of these
symptoms of like, um, you know,I just can't find a partner,
right?
So it could be disruptedrelationships, um, estrangement
(24:56):
of family members, um, disruptedwork environment, difficulties
with bosses, right?
So it can affect us in everyarea of our life, relationally,
physically, emotionally.
And then, of course, we havecognitively with like
depression, anxiety, suicidalthoughts.
Um, I would say anger is onethat comes up pretty often.
(25:17):
I love talking about angerbecause it really is um a
top-level emotion.
So I like teaching clients thatthere's so many emotions
underneath the anger.
Um, and so let's talk about likeidentifying maybe you're
embarrassed.
And so it's coming out as anger,right?
Maybe you're um feeling guiltyabout something.
Maybe you um maybe you areanxious or or maybe you're tired
(25:39):
and hungry, right?
I love going back to the in theBible where Jesus just said,
like, maybe you need to get somefood and take a nap, is like
it's so true for so many of us.
Um, so I mean, right, trauma canshow up in um so many different
ways.
SPEAKER_01 (25:54):
Yeah, yeah.
And I like that you mentionedthat as well, because typically
I think when we think abouttrauma, we're thinking about
those um those hypersensitiveresponses that we have, right?
Where there's there's thishyper-awareness of um how people
are looking at us and we readinto every little thing and it
communicates something about whowe are as people.
So there's always this constantimbalance of how we feel and
(26:16):
what we think.
You know, ties a lot intoattachment styles where we
become so anxious in our closerelationships that it's hard to
even function, even though tomaybe the outside world we seem
well put together, butinternally there's this kind of
war going on about meaning,significance, and how do others
perceive me?
(26:36):
Right.
Um, so yeah, no, really, reallygreat, great um information
there.
Um is there anything that whenyou think about trauma, what are
people getting right and whatare people getting wrong?
Now we briefly touched on, youknow, we want to identify
trauma, whether it's big T orlittle T.
Um and there's this one sideover here that also sees it as
(27:00):
well, we can't call everythingtrauma because then it loses its
meaning or its value.
And we already mentioned kind ofthe percentage of people that
have experienced trauma.
So, what is a a healthy balance?
Like, how would you wantclients, other people to kind of
look at trauma?
How should we see it?
SPEAKER_02 (27:18):
I think in a perfect world, we would be able to
identify, and I say we as likeindividuals, like each
individual person would be ableto identify when just something
feels off balance or askew,whether it's thinking patterns,
um, somatic or like physicalresponses, something in our
relationship.
And we were more skilled inidentifying that faster and then
(27:42):
having the tools and knowledgeto get it back on track.
I think that that would be kindof the perfect situation, right?
Because everyone is gonna needsomething different, right?
Like not everyone needs to go totherapy, um, not everyone needs
to take medication.
Um, a lot of us just need to bein more community.
A lot of us just need to enhanceour spiritual health, a lot of
(28:03):
us need to um engage in morephysical activity, right?
And oh my goodness, don't evenget me started on the effects of
alcohol.
That is just something that'sbeen so normalized, but the
research is wild with hownegatively it impacts our brain
and body, right?
So I think if if we were justmore adept at noticing something
is off, how do I help myself?
(28:26):
I think I think that would helpus get a lot of things right.
Because unfortunately, again, wejust normalize it, we put it
off, we don't know who to go tofor help.
Um, we don't even know what weneed.
I think that that is a hugebarrier that I see with clients
is that they come to me and theyknow they need help, but that's
all that they know, right?
And I wish that, you know, evenfrom a young, young age, we
(28:46):
could be teaching people oflike, again, like you have
somatic symptoms, right?
Like maybe you need to go to ayoga class or exercise or focus
on your health versus you havecognitive symptoms.
So let's try journaling, let'stry try uh talking with a
trusted friend.
Is that making sense?
SPEAKER_01 (29:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
We they have we have so manydifferent resources or different
avenues to kind of take this,and it's just what's lacking in
the person's life.
Like one of the things that'spretty solid in the research is
people cope better with heavytraumatic incidents if they have
a strong social support system.
And this kind of alludes back toyour point of um the the girl
(29:28):
who had very caring lovingparents.
Like, she's probably gonna copebetter or has cope better with
that than someone who didn'thave loving parents, right?
And we have someone who maybehas the um I remember looking at
someone who's experienced abuseuh would probably uh display
more traumatic symptoms thansomeone who has not.
(29:49):
But when you look at theresearch, actually neglect has
very similar impact to those whohave experienced uh abuse.
Because neglect is not beingable to meet the needs of
someone who Someone at a verycritical age, to your point,
just very young age, zero to twois usually the attachment stage,
zero to seven, zero to twelve.
You know, those are there's somevery key needs that are that are
(30:11):
necessary during that time.
So if a parent or both parentsare not meeting those needs,
that also communicates thatyou're not worthy, you're not
loved, no one cares about you.
So it's gonna have the sameimpact as someone who was abused
where that's saying, I don'tcare about you.
Actually, I value you so littlethat this continues to happen,
right?
So the messaging from twodifferent experiences is the
(30:36):
same and therefore has thatsimilar impact on their excuse
me, on their understanding ofthemselves.
So there's a lot regarding thethe field of of trauma.
Um you know, for those of us whoare are Christians, I think one
of the things that is isdifficult is when people do
experience trauma, a questionthat often comes up is well,
(30:59):
Maggie, like where was God inthat?
You know, where was God?
My parents said that they wereChristians, and look at what
happened.
They allowed this to happen, orthey were themselves were the
perpetrators, or they allowed afamily member, or just they
didn't care about me, whateverthe case is.
And it changes their perspectiveof God.
And how you know, how has thatbeen for for you in working with
(31:22):
clients where you know they getto that point so sad, right?
Because we want people to haveknow the true God, a loving God,
a caring God, and yet theirparents represent or at least
provide a representation of howGod sees them in our experience.
Um, but yeah, what what's thehardest part about that?
Like getting people to see Godin a more um clear way
(31:45):
throughout their experience?
SPEAKER_02 (31:48):
Yeah, oh my gosh, it's such a good question.
Um, well, and just you know,admittedly for the audience,
right?
I think a question we allstruggle with at times, right?
Like we, I'm sure each one of ushas our own trauma and has
wondered kind of where was Godin this or why did God allow
that to happen.
And then working with clientswho have gone through, you know,
sometimes horrific things andwondering that alongside them.
So I think it's such a validquestion.
(32:10):
So the way that I, you know,kind of support a client through
that, if if they are Christian,kind of just reminding them what
the Bible says, right?
That, you know, that we um ourthoughts are not our thoughts
and we are our our what is it?
Our thoughts are not God'sthoughts.
God's thoughts are not ourthoughts, right?
So we can't fully understandexactly like the creator of the
universe and how this all works.
(32:31):
We can't even like fathom,right?
But we do know that God loves usand that he's here for us and he
protects us and he hears us.
And so both can be true.
And I think that that is like apoint of spiritual maturity, is
just kind of like understandingthat we can't fully comprehend
or understand.
Um, so just holding space forthat kind of difficulty there.
I will say that I have quite afew clients who are not
(32:52):
Christians and who were raisedby Christians or in a Christian
household, or were just simplyhurt by Christians.
Um, so you know, abused in thename of faith or by people of
faith.
And so to have those peopleshare how much they hate God and
how much they hate faith, Imean, what can you do other than
(33:14):
like kind of validate that thatwould be their experience and
that I can understand why thatthey feel that way?
Um, of course, I'm not in aposition to push faith or try
to, you know, change their mindsabout that, but really just hold
space for their experience.
And then again, I think abeautiful thing about being a
Christian therapist is that Ican go home and pray for them.
Um, and you know, not everytherapist might go do that.
(33:35):
So I think that's a verychallenging topic.
SPEAKER_01 (33:38):
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
And, you know, we have theopportunity to be what um in the
attachment literature is calledkind of the corrective
attachment experience or thecorrective attachment figure,
where if we're speaking aboutGod in this way, where else are
they going to experience a aloving, caring person outside of
that or or anywhere in theirlife?
(33:59):
And when they come to our officeevery week and we see them,
that's opportunities for us toagain display that caring,
gentle, loving God that we'redescribing to them.
Now that hasn't been theirexperience, so they're looking
at and kind of cautious andmaybe um skeptical about okay,
do I both trust?
As you know, people who haveexperienced trauma have a
(34:21):
difficulty trusting otherpeople.
But for us, they you know, theyalmost give us that that freedom
to try to be that space for thembecause we're the counselor and
we're supposed to know whatwe're doing and all of these
things.
But really, what we're doing isjust sitting with them, giving
validity to their experience andtrying to reframe that through
our experience with them insession, which I think is such a
(34:44):
blessing.
I mean, that that uh one of thereasons why I enjoy doing trauma
work is because it is thatopportunity to represent maybe a
lie that they've been told toshow them something different in
session.
SPEAKER_02 (34:55):
Yes, yes.
Oh my gosh, it's so good.
SPEAKER_01 (34:58):
Yeah, and and you know, we talk about faith.
What role does faith have inhealing and recovery?
You know, there's these um maybegrowing up where these band-aids
were kind of given to us of,well, you know, just pray about
it, or hey, just do this, orhey, just do that, and
everything will be okay.
But we know that trauma workrequires a lot, a lot of work, a
lot of processing.
(35:19):
Um so in your experience, whatwhat what role does faith have
in the healing and recoveryprocess?
SPEAKER_02 (35:26):
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
So I use a tool um called arestoration team.
Are you familiar with that?
It's kind of like a resourcingtool before.
So, yeah, I always want to makesure my clients are really well
resourced before we get intodeep trauma work because of
course, if we get dysregulated,if we hit something really hard,
I want to make sure we both feelreally confident that they can
get back to, you know,regulated, like a good state
(35:47):
before they leave the office.
So, all that to say, so we buildthis team of people that we can
reference as supports in ourwork.
And um there's five categories.
And one of the categories isspiritual.
And so even clients who havetold me that they are not
religious or, you know, whateverthe case might be, I still ask
them about spiritual and I stillwant them to have some kind of
(36:08):
spiritual resource forthemselves.
And I just say something like,um, you know, what's what's
something that reminds you thatyou're connected to something
greater than yourself?
Right.
And people say like stars orwater or nature, it could be
anything.
But it, I say that to say thatwhether you're Christian or not,
we all need to be reminded thatwe're connected to something
(36:29):
greater than ourselves, right?
We all need to find hope.
We all need to be able to findhope in something bigger than
our circumstance.
And that's just basic healingwork, right?
So to answer your question, Ithink that spirituality, and for
us who you know are Christiansand find faith in that is
essential, honestly, to growthand healing.
SPEAKER_01 (36:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
And you know, I think one of thethings that maybe we want to
clarify also for for theChristian is what does healing
actually look like?
And um I think usually when wethink about healing, we think
that everything is either goneby the end of our time together,
or is it just that it's bettermanaged?
(37:11):
Or what does healing actuallylook like?
You know, there's people who goto counseling for years and you
know, they'll talk about, yeah,you know, I'm healing.
But for the Christian, I thinkthere's almost a sense of shame
if it's not gone, or if thesymptoms have not resided, or if
they still have every once in awhile an anxious thought about
something or a certain meaningabout themselves.
(37:33):
You know, what would healinglook like for not just
Christians, I guess for anyonereally?
What is healing from traumaactually look like on a
day-to-day basis?
What would be different from thetime that they started
counseling to the end of theirtime of counseling?
SPEAKER_02 (37:47):
Mm-hmm.
Okay, so trauma is traumabecause it it the memory got
stuck in our brain.
Our brain didn't know how toprocess adequately the memory of
what just happened, right?
So all day long we're makingmemories throughout our whole
lives and it just gets organizedbecause these weren't traumatic,
disruptive events.
When it's traumatic anddisruptive, our brain doesn't
(38:07):
know what to do with it.
And so that's why we experiencetriggers, whether they're um
mental triggers of likeflashbacks or anxious thinking
or depression, or those somaticor physical triggers of like
heart pounding, stomach hurting,you know, whatever the case
might be.
So from my perspective, healingis that we can't make the memory
go away, right?
We can't make the bad thing, wecan't pretend that it never
(38:29):
happened.
However, we can get it organizedin your brain so that your brain
sees it as yes, that happened,but it happened in the past and
I survived.
And today, this is how I feelabout myself.
And hopefully, right today, Ifeel that I am worthy and that I
am lovable and that I am goodenough.
Right.
So healing is living in thepresent and feeling confident
(38:53):
that you have the tools andskills to manage the
difficulties that life willinevitably continue to bring.
SPEAKER_01 (38:59):
Yes.
No, that's great.
That's a great definition forthat.
Um, that way it paints thepicture for the audience.
Okay, it's not that it's gonnago away because they think
that's the expectation that thatmemory is gone or that they
don't feel anything, but it'smuch better regulated.
And yeah, they're able to createa new meaning behind it, right?
Um uh gosh, I was gonna gosomewhere.
(39:20):
It just slipped my my mind rightnow.
Um, but yeah, along with thatpart of healing, I think it's
really, really important for usto kind of have a realistic
expectation of what that lookslike.
I remember my question now.
Yeah, do you see do you see adifference between the
generations regarding thehealing process?
Obviously, older generationskind of have a more uh skeptical
(39:44):
view of counseling.
Um, younger generations seem tobe more open to it.
So, what do you think is thebiggest barrier for them to get
to that healing?
So, along the way, they startcounseling and they're working
through, and there's somethinghappens.
What do you think are some ofthe barriers that people may
encounter in the process ofhealing from trauma?
SPEAKER_02 (40:05):
Yeah, I think one that keeps coming up recently
for me is a lack of trust in thetherapist.
So research will even say,right, how important.
I think even it is the mostimportant thing is that
therapeutic alliance.
Yeah, the number one predictorof success is your, is it the
trust or you just yourrelationship?
SPEAKER_01 (40:24):
Alliance.
SPEAKER_02 (40:24):
The relationship between that a lot of clients, a
lot of just folks in the world,don't understand how important
that is, right?
Like maybe they found somebodyonline or their friend
recommended someone and it'skind of like, okay, yeah, they
must be good enough or they mustbe, you know, a good therapist.
I'll work with them.
But when I talk to clients whohave experienced massive
barriers or who have not beenable to progress in their
(40:47):
healing, it's because theyultimately just did not trust
the therapist and they werefearful about saying certain
things.
They didn't feel totallycomfortable.
Um, again, not saying thetherapist is doing anything
wrong.
It's just not always the bestfit.
And so there's really nothingwrong with, you know, a client.
Well, and then I was going tosay, and then it's daunting for
a client to have to say, youknow, unfortunately this isn't
(41:07):
working out.
And now I have to like keepshopping or kind of like dating
new therapists until I find theright one.
But the process of shopping ordating requires people to share
quite a bit about themselves andopen up and be vulnerable.
I mean, that's scary, right?
Like that's no one really wantsto do that.
So I think a lot of people kindof give up or again start to
say, well, I pretty much am goodenough.
(41:29):
I can make it work.
Um, I'll figure it out on myown.
I'll read more books, I'lllisten to more podcasts, um,
which is we're all veryreasonable solutions.
But if you need that one-on-onework, we have to keep looking
for the therapist.
And so I was just honestlyencouraging a friend this
morning that most therapistswill do a 15 to 20 minute free
consultation.
(41:49):
So really take advantage of thatand ask the therapist some hard
questions, right?
Like, do you what is yourexperience in working with
clients like myself?
Um, what happens if I don'tthink it's going very well?
Can I tell you that?
Are you open to feedback?
Right.
Like just ask those really hardquestions to your therapist
during that free consultation.
That would be my advice.
SPEAKER_01 (42:09):
Yeah, no, I love that.
That's actually really greatbecause you could get a feel.
I mean, and like that, it's 15minutes, so it's not a short two
to five minutes, but 15 minutesis good enough time where you
get a feel uh for the counselor.
How are you meshing?
How's the conversation going andso on?
And yeah, I think you could hitthat trust factor at some point
within that conversation, eitherI feel like I can trust them or
(42:29):
I don't.
Or it can also speak to maybejust previous experiences.
So if they had one or twoprevious counselors that didn't
help or that they triggeredsomething else, so that it makes
sense to us, I guess, why theywould come in fearful.
So for us, it's just trying tobe that safe um presence for
them when we do have those umyou know consultations and so
(42:50):
on.
But I love that advice.
I think that's really, reallyhelpful.
Um, I mean, we've covered a lot.
Um, I feel obviously likethere's always much more that we
can talk about, right?
But um, yeah, based on ourconversation today, is there
anything that I missed?
Anything that you feel like, youknow what, Sam, before closing,
I think it would be reallyimportant for the audience to
know this.
SPEAKER_02 (43:12):
I mean, I'm always curious to learn more about
attachment and kind of discussthat a little bit further.
Is there anything specific inregards to attachment and trauma
that you think that we wouldwould be helpful to discuss or
you know, hearing my perspectiveversus yours on that one?
SPEAKER_01 (43:26):
Yeah, you know, there's um when I was when I
think about um trauma and thenGod attachment, there there's
two kind of phrases that comeout.
One is called it's called thecorrespondence theory, which
says that whatever relationshipyour parents had with you when
you were growing up is gonna bekind of the same relationship
you have with God when you getolder.
So if your parents were um uhcritical, mean, rude, um,
(43:52):
neglectful, it's really hard tothink of God in another way when
you start seeing that the peoplewho were supposed to care for
you the most, now you're sayingthat God is all of a sudden
gonna treat you differently,right?
It's hard for them toconceptualize that because they
never experienced that frompeople who are supposed to love
them.
So that they correspond.
So their early childhoodexperiences corresponds with
(44:13):
their relationship with God.
But the other side to that is iftheir parents were loving, kind,
gentle, and understanding, thenwhen they grow up, they kind of
have a better understanding,like they can see that about God
because their parents model thatfor them.
So when they read scripture andit says, you know, that God
loves you, that God cares foryou, that He's carrying will
carry all your burdens, thatmakes sense to them, right?
(44:34):
So for them, that transition totheir adult walk with God is
much better than those who haddifferent type of parents.
So that's the correspondencetheory.
Uh the compensation theory isreally interesting because
usually um it's people who didnot grow up in the church.
So if they didn't grow up in thechurch and they had, you know,
parents who were neglectful orabusive or whatever the case is,
(44:56):
when they get older and they getintroduced to Christ or they
start going to church and thenthey hear the gospel and then
they convert to Christianity,then they start to see God as
God is making up for everythingthat I lost when I was a young
child.
So basically God compliments orGod uh yeah, God compliments
(45:18):
whatever it is that they weremissing when they were young.
So they feel this deep love forGod and this deep appreciation
for him because they never knewwhat that was like growing up.
So that compensates for whatthey were lacking when they were
um when they were younger.
So a lot of that can tie into,you know, how does trauma
distort my view of God?
Well, one example is thecorrespondence theory.
(45:40):
If your parents were like that,automatically they believe that
God is like that.
But they need multipleexperiences, positive
experiences, consistentexperiences that can reshape
their view of God.
Okay.
So I often talk aboutconsistency, timeliness, and
effectiveness, which means thatthey need consistent patterns of
(46:01):
positive experiences with thepeople of God.
So with the church, with uhChristians in their experiences
reading or praying, um, readingor praying, uh, reading the
Bible or praying.
Um, effectiveness.
Okay, is it doing what it'ssupposed to do?
So when I pray, do I feel closerto God?
When I go out and and and uhmeet with people from church, do
(46:21):
I feel like I'm learning moreabout God because of our
conversations that we're having?
Right.
So that's the effectivenesspiece.
And then the timeliness reallyjust has to do with how promptly
are your needs being met.
So when you need something, if Iask for help from someone from
the church or for someone whowho claims to be a Christian and
they don't respond right awayand it's delayed or they never
(46:43):
get back to me, I start thatstarts to shape my view of God.
Like, well, God's theresometimes, but not all the time,
right?
Yeah.
So if they're timely in meetingthe needs when we really need
them, then all of those threethings can help shift our
perspective of God.
Interesting.
So it's it's really, and aswe're talking about, then it's
getting them in tune with theirbodies.
(47:05):
Like, how does your body feelwhen you're with with uh with
the church?
How does your body feel whenyou're having these thoughts
come up for you or when you'repraying and you're sharing with
God and being open with Him?
So there's a lot that that wecan do, but I mean that would
definitely be another greatconversation for us to have.
SPEAKER_02 (47:21):
That would be, I would be really interested in
that.
I think especially I've beenhaving a lot of clients who have
pre-verbal trauma.
So obviously, some attachmentwas severely disrupted.
And there's not a lot that youcan talk about with that because
the memory where we didn't evenhave words, our brain wasn't
formed enough to have words.
So that's been so fascinating tohave people just experience
(47:42):
those like body sensations morethan you know, memories or being
able to speak about, well, Inever felt good enough.
That those words didn't evenexist.
They just like know that theirbody was hurt or whatever the
case might be.
So, how does that impactattachment with people in the
future, but also with theirrelationship with God?
So I think there's probably alot there that we could talk
(48:03):
about.
SPEAKER_01 (48:03):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Um, I really like um exploring alot also the counselor client
relationship, the therapeuticalliance, because we really are.
I mean, and that is what thewhat the relationship is, right?
Um, I forgot who said it, andum, we kind of see it this way
where it's counselor, client,and Jesus, right?
In the room, in the office, justkind of guiding us through that
(48:25):
process.
Because sometimes, I mean, Ifeel lost.
I'm like, gosh, this is soheavy.
Where do I go with this?
Like, it's almost like at leastfor me, you want to help them
heal.
Okay, and it's almost like wewant to get there a little bit
faster before they're ready to.
Okay.
And that's the hard part becauseyou want to see them get better.
But knowing, yeah, but knowingthat it just takes some time,
(48:46):
we're still establishing trust,still need repeated, consistent,
positive experiences betweencounselor and client so that
they can start to open up just alittle bit more and a little bit
more.
And how we receive whatever itis that they're sharing
obviously provides more opennessfor that.
So I really do see that as Jesusgot kind of guiding that process
for us.
Um because yeah, sometimes it'slike, where do I go from here?
(49:09):
Like I know what to do, but toreally sit and be present with
the client, it's hard when maybethey want to, you know, also get
healed faster.
Um I'll share this with you.
Meggie, I had a a client um whowas in a field that is basically
a helping services field, sonursing.
(49:29):
And um, she came in, did theintake, a lot of trauma in the
background, and you know,specifically with like family
members.
Um, and she's like, you know,I'm so committed, I'm ready to
just get this work done.
And I think uh by the end of thesemester I should be good.
And I just kind of smiled and Ilooked at her, I'm like, uh, by
the end of the semester, youmean like in in 10 weeks?
And she's like, Yeah, yeah, Imean, I'm ready to do this.
(49:51):
Like, you don't know howcommitted I am.
I'm like, okay.
It's probably not gonna be 10weeks.
And you know, just kind ofsmiled and she's like, Well,
what do you mean?
Like, I'm ready, I can do this.
My, I think along the way, we'llfind that it's gonna require a
little bit more, as committed asyou are.
So let's first let's just trythe first couple of weeks, see
where you are, and then we'llcontinue to assess.
(50:11):
But she was one of my favoriteclients because she was so
committed to the process, somotivated, yeah.
Yeah, so motivated.
But she started to see that umthat no, there's a lot more to
dig.
So obviously it extended ourtime, but she wants she had
these other goals in life.
And again, she's one of thoseclients who, on the surface, I
mean, she was a hard worker, shewas doing well in school, all of
(50:34):
those things, but herrelationships was where the
trauma was coming up, and it wasas soon as she started to get
close to people, all thesethings started to brew up for
her.
And um, yeah, so we did a lot ofwork.
She did she did grow a lot inthat process, but I just always
remember just because of howmotivated she was and and how
quickly she wanted to geteverything done.
So definitely we appreciate thatmotivation.
(50:56):
But um, yeah, trauma work ishard work and long work.
SPEAKER_02 (51:00):
Yes, yes.
I I experienced something verysimilar with EMDR where people
come in in the first session,they're like, okay, so we're
doing EMDR today.
I'm like, oh goodness, no.
So now I've it incorporated intomy consultation calls of like,
hey, I just want to set clearexpectations that like we have
to get to know each other.
You need to trust me.
We need to make sure you havegreat resources that you're
practicing outside of session.
(51:20):
So I hear you with the motivatedclients, which again, like my
heart goes out to them.
Like, I'm the same way when I goto therapy.
I'm like, okay, we're jumpingin, right?
You know, like we want to feelbetter, and there's nothing
wrong with that.
SPEAKER_01 (51:31):
Yeah, yeah.
So so yeah, so we'll we'll uhwe'll keep in touch and see if
we can bring up anotherconversation.
But this was great.
Thank you so much, Maggie.
I mean, I really loved um howyou shared.
You have a great depth ofknowledge in the whole process
of counseling working withtrauma.
I'm sure you can share a lotmore.
Um, again, like I said, I couldprobably added two, three more
(51:52):
questions um that we could havegone over, but time is a thing,
you know?
SPEAKER_02 (51:56):
Yeah, absolutely.
No, I really appreciate yourtime.
I really appreciate theopportunity to be here, Sam.
SPEAKER_01 (52:01):
All right.
Well, thank you, Maggie.
We will meet up again.
Hopefully, we get another topicon trauma.
And uh, yeah, hopefully, guys,those of you who were listening,
hope this was a blessing.
And uh yeah, tune in to the nexttime.
SPEAKER_02 (52:13):
Sounds good.
Take care.
SPEAKER_01 (52:16):
Yep.
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