September 6, 2023 • 12 mins
What if your greatest adversities could be transformed into your greatest superpowers? Join us as we unpack this intriguing idea with our guest, TJ Woodward - a clinician, advocate, author, and founder of Conscious Recovery. We explore how our coping mechanisms, developed as responses to trauma, can turn into powerful strategies. TJ shares his touching personal experiences and insights, casting a new light on the concept of adversity and resilience.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Hatching Creativity.
This isn't just anotherbehavioral health podcast.
This is the place where thoughtleaders converge to talk about
real life challenges,breakthroughs and pivotal aha
moments.
Thanks for tuning into HatchingCreativity.
Today, I get to speak with TJWoodward.
He's a clinician advocate,author and the founder of
(00:23):
Conscious Recovery.
In today's episode, we speakabout recognizing the light and
the dark sides to the skillswe've developed by overcoming
traumatic events in our lives.
We also talk aboutunderstanding people's reactions
and being curious and presentrather than being judgmental.
If you like what you hear,please like, share, subscribe
(00:44):
and tell all your friends aboutHatching Creativity.
One of the things that I'vebeen talking about lately that
I'd love to get your feedback onis, through traumatic events in
our lives, we end up creatingthese coping mechanisms of
certain things that actuallybecome skill sets that we can
(01:07):
use, and I've been speakingabout how you can really turn
adversity into a superpower, andwhat I want to do is just I'm
going to give you my personalstory on this and then I'd love
to hear your feedback, tj, yeah,so, due to past experiences in
(01:28):
my life and dealing with peoplewho are unpredictable One second
there, one way, the next secondthere, somewhere else.
It created my superpower, whichis a hypersensitivity to other
people and their mood, theirbody language, the way they
speak, their tone of their voice, and I'm always analyzing these
(01:52):
kinds of things because I wantto make sure that I'm not going
to be surprised by somebody'schange in one way or another.
And what that's done is it'screated my superpower, which is
the ability to build arelationship with people and
being able to really connect bybeing able to feel that mood.
(02:12):
I'd love to hear your thoughtson this and how you maybe people
can use something from thispodcast to recognize their own
superpowers.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, first of all, I love that you're using the term
superpower, because when wecreated the conscious recovery
for teen workbook, Icollaborated with my friend and
colleague, dr Jessica birdOlmsted, and we actually called
what was once known as copingmechanism I in conscious
recovery.
I call them brilliantstrategies, but when it came to
(02:45):
the teen workbook, we actuallycalled them superpowers, and
what we wanted to acknowledge isthat they are superpowers and
there is a light and a shadow toall of it.
So, like you, I grew up withsomeone in my life and you
didn't exactly say this, butI'll say when you were talking,
what was coming through for meis I grew up with a mother who I
(03:06):
absolutely loved and loved andshe was very unpredictable.
It was back in the day whenpeople didn't get a lot of
mental health diagnoses and or alot of treatment for it, so she
vacillated between rage ordepression.
So, like you, I became highlyattuned.
As a matter of fact, in my 20s,when I was doing my who am I?
What is my personality?
(03:27):
I was taking every personalitytest that you could possibly
take and one personality test Itook said my number one trait is
highly attuned to themotivation of others.
And that absolutely camebecause, or came from me not
really always being able totrust what people were saying or
what they were doing.
(03:47):
I had to feel the energy of it.
I became highly attuned, orwhat we would call highly
intuitive, which has become oneof the greatest gifts of my life
.
Anytime we look at whether wecall it a superpower or, as I
like to call it, a brilliantstrategy many times we look at
in what ways is it not servingus?
I always want to start withwhere did we develop it?
(04:09):
In which way?
In what way is it brilliant?
How is it serving me?
And then, what is the shadowside, or what is the side where
it may be no longer serving me,always starting with the
positive and looking at, as yousaid, they developed as a skill
and we're actually quitebrilliant.
Humans are quite brilliant.
We develop a way to manage orcope, and I call them brilliant
(04:33):
strategies because usually, whenwe get down to the root of it,
people will say some version ofit was keeping me safe, and so
it becomes an automatic response.
When something in our worldhappens, we get what we used to
call triggered, we get activated.
We might unconsciously go intothat strategy, even though they
may no longer really be bringingus what we desire.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I love that.
I think that's a great way tofor people to start that
introspective thinking as to andas with everything right,
there's two sides to every coin.
You've got the dark side, theshadow side, and you've got the
light side.
In my situation, I definitelyfeel that that shadow side is a
(05:19):
hypersensitivity to fear ofabandonment is where mine comes
in right.
So what ends up creating isanxiety.
It creates anxiety.
That hyper vigilance to moodand awareness and I think
understanding that andunderstanding that when you are
(05:40):
feeling super anxious aboutwhatever a situation is looking
back at your superpowers andgoing oh wait a second, this is
what this is, and when you nameit, it really makes a big
difference in your ability torecognize it and do something
about it.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
That's right, because we wanna start with first of
all, as you say, we first wannarecognize that it's there, Most
of us, or many of us.
Until we're conscious of that,it's automatic, right?
We're walking around and reallybeing run by the unconscious
programs of our life or theautomatic responses.
Forgive me if I'm repeatingmyself, but one of my favorite
quotes from Bessel Van der Kolkis trauma doesn't show up as a
(06:19):
memory, it shows up as areaction.
Right, so we end up reacting tothe world from something that's
not actually happening in themoment.
I mean, obviously there arethings in real time that we are
reacting to, but for most of us,or for many of us, we're
actually reacting from the past.
Something happens, it touches awound within us.
We go into an automaticresponse which could look like a
(06:43):
reaction and in some ways itkeeps us safe.
But we reach a point wherewe're saying, wow, I'm either
going into anxiety, a fight,flight or freeze.
I'm going into that automaticresponse and I keep doing this
and I'm getting the same resultsover and over and over again.
Because the ultimate questionis what do I truly desire?
What do I truly desire here?
(07:04):
And for most of us, we desireto connect and, in some ways,
those brilliant strategies orthe superpower that we've been
using isn't allowing us to havethe deeper connection that we
truly desire, because we'rereacting out of our past and,
until we heal that, we're reallynot in the present moment.
Experience it's something I'mhere physically, but my
(07:26):
reactivity is coming fromsomething that in some cases,
happened decades ago.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well, those are programs, right, those
subconscious programs thathappen, and it's really helpful
when you can recognize thosethings, and the way I've found
to recognize them has beenunderstanding when I'm feeling
emotional about something.
You talked about biases on ourlast podcast and it doesn't
necessarily have to be a bias,but definitely when you're
(07:53):
feeling emotional aboutsomething, you've touched a
wound somewhere.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
That's right.
Yeah, of course a miracle sayswhat I'm upset about is not what
I'm upset about, and I lovethat because then I can start to
inquire, like if I'm having abig reaction to something and it
doesn't necessarily seemproportional to what's happening
, then there's something for meto see there and I love that
you're saying the gateway or thedoorway to exploring that is
(08:18):
through the emotion.
Wow, I notice I'm having thisintense emotion.
Let me be curious about that.
And usually it comes down tosome core idea.
You know, we talked about biasthe last time and I think bias
at this point has almost anegative connotation.
The truth is, we're all biasedto everything all the time.
I like a sunny day, I don'tlike it when it rains.
(08:39):
I like California, I don't likeTexas.
You know we could just go onand on and on and all the ways
that we have a perception aboutthe world.
It's not necessarily aboutgetting rid of those, but it is
about becoming aware of them andrealizing that life is
happening and I'm the onecreating the meaning.
And as I start to explore that,I start to realize that I
(09:01):
actually can have a differentrelationship with the world when
I start to unpack or unlearn orbecome curious about all of the
core decisions that arecreating the way I view and
experience the world.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I agree, and I want to also pull back for a second
too, because you touched onsomething really interesting a
minute ago, which is about otherpeople's reactions.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
And I've seen many situations in my life, in
situations that I've been in,where somebody's reaction
doesn't match what I wouldexpect their reaction to be.
From that situation, and one ofthe things I've learned is to
step back and to look at thatand, instead of judging that
(09:44):
person on that reaction or goman, that person's a real
whatever about reacting that waywhere that person's
overreacting, because that's theworst thing you could say.
If somebody's overreacting,because what ends up happening
is oftentimes people are overwhat we think is an overreaction
(10:04):
to whatever that situation wasis a reaction to past trauma and
past situations.
So you may say I'd stop beingcrazy to somebody.
Yeah, now that person may havea trauma around somebody talking
to them like they were crazy atsome point in their lives and
(10:25):
that you may have just meant itlike, hey, you know, punch in
the arm, kind of fun, whatever,and that person is totally upset
by that conversation.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, and often they're not even aware of what's
happening, right.
And so if you look at our workin behavioral health, I see this
over and over and over again.
I see people reacting topatients or clients based on
their behavior, and then welabel the behavior instead of
becoming curious about thebehavior.
And I think that's thefundamental shift that you and I
are up to right now.
(10:55):
It is becoming aware of wow.
This you know, in my, in mycase, when I worked full time in
treatment, there wereopportunity after opportunity
where I could either judgesomeone's behavior or I could be
curious about it and I'm likewow, she is having a very, very
large reaction to the fact thatthe dinner isn't what she
expected it to be.
Right, there's something there.
There's some big reaction Ifsomeone says, oh, I thought it
(11:18):
was Mexican food night, whichthe program I worked at.
That was like the big thingThursdays, everyone's happy that
it's Mexican food night and ifthat ever got changed sometimes
people would have a massivereaction and it really isn't
about the dinner.
So if I can become curious andstart to ask questions and then
we can actually help someonebecome aware, not of their
(11:39):
behavior, but maybe what'sactually at the core of that,
through presence, throughcuriosity, through asking
questions, and maybe they'llhave a moment where they realize
, oh my gosh, it's actually notthe dinner that I'm upset about,
it's this other thing, and youtalked about it so perfectly
that the gateway or the doorwayis always through the emotion.
So if I'm working with someone,I would ask them what are you
(12:02):
feeling right now?
Can you become aware of whatyou're feeling in your body?
What emotion is present?
Let's not go into the story.
The story sometimes takes usout of the emotion, and the
emotion, then, is that gatewayinto the deeper understanding of
what's truly happening.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I agree and I love the introspection.
Thanks for tuning in toHatchin' Creativity.
We appreciate your support.
Please don't forget to like andsubscribe and tell all your
friends about the show andremember it's never just about
one thing.
Welcome to Hatching Creativity.
This isn't just anotherbehavioral health podcast.
This is the place where thoughtleaders converge to talk about
real life challenges,breakthroughs and pivotal aha
moments.
Thanks for tuning into HatchingCreativity.
Today, I get to speak with TJWoodward.
He's a clinician advocate,author and the founder of
(00:23):
Conscious Recovery.
In today's episode, we speakabout recognizing the light and
the dark sides to the skillswe've developed by overcoming
traumatic events in our lives.
We also talk aboutunderstanding people's reactions
and being curious and presentrather than being judgmental.
If you like what you hear,please like, share, subscribe
(00:44):
and tell all your friends aboutHatching Creativity.
One of the things that I'vebeen talking about lately that
I'd love to get your feedback onis, through traumatic events in
our lives, we end up creatingthese coping mechanisms of
certain things that actuallybecome skill sets that we can
(01:07):
use, and I've been speakingabout how you can really turn
adversity into a superpower, andwhat I want to do is just I'm
going to give you my personalstory on this and then I'd love
to hear your feedback, tj, yeah,so, due to past experiences in
(01:28):
my life and dealing with peoplewho are unpredictable One second
there, one way, the next secondthere, somewhere else.
It created my superpower, whichis a hypersensitivity to other
people and their mood, theirbody language, the way they
speak, their tone of their voice, and I'm always analyzing these
(01:52):
kinds of things because I wantto make sure that I'm not going
to be surprised by somebody'schange in one way or another.
And what that's done is it'screated my superpower, which is
the ability to build arelationship with people and
being able to really connect bybeing able to feel that mood.
(02:12):
I'd love to hear your thoughtson this and how you maybe people
can use something from thispodcast to recognize their own
superpowers.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Well, first of all, I love that you're using the term
superpower, because when wecreated the conscious recovery
for teen workbook, Icollaborated with my friend and
colleague, dr Jessica birdOlmsted, and we actually called
what was once known as copingmechanism I in conscious
recovery.
I call them brilliantstrategies, but when it came to
(02:45):
the teen workbook, we actuallycalled them superpowers, and
what we wanted to acknowledge isthat they are superpowers and
there is a light and a shadow toall of it.
So, like you, I grew up withsomeone in my life and you
didn't exactly say this, butI'll say when you were talking,
what was coming through for meis I grew up with a mother who I
(03:06):
absolutely loved and loved andshe was very unpredictable.
It was back in the day whenpeople didn't get a lot of
mental health diagnoses and or alot of treatment for it, so she
vacillated between rage ordepression.
So, like you, I became highlyattuned.
As a matter of fact, in my 20s,when I was doing my who am I?
What is my personality?
(03:27):
I was taking every personalitytest that you could possibly
take and one personality test Itook said my number one trait is
highly attuned to themotivation of others.
And that absolutely camebecause, or came from me not
really always being able totrust what people were saying or
what they were doing.
(03:47):
I had to feel the energy of it.
I became highly attuned, orwhat we would call highly
intuitive, which has become oneof the greatest gifts of my life
.
Anytime we look at whether wecall it a superpower or, as I
like to call it, a brilliantstrategy many times we look at
in what ways is it not servingus?
I always want to start withwhere did we develop it?
(04:09):
In which way?
In what way is it brilliant?
How is it serving me?
And then, what is the shadowside, or what is the side where
it may be no longer serving me,always starting with the
positive and looking at, as yousaid, they developed as a skill
and we're actually quitebrilliant.
Humans are quite brilliant.
We develop a way to manage orcope, and I call them brilliant
(04:33):
strategies because usually, whenwe get down to the root of it,
people will say some version ofit was keeping me safe, and so
it becomes an automatic response.
When something in our worldhappens, we get what we used to
call triggered, we get activated.
We might unconsciously go intothat strategy, even though they
may no longer really be bringingus what we desire.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
I love that.
I think that's a great way tofor people to start that
introspective thinking as to andas with everything right,
there's two sides to every coin.
You've got the dark side, theshadow side, and you've got the
light side.
In my situation, I definitelyfeel that that shadow side is a
(05:19):
hypersensitivity to fear ofabandonment is where mine comes
in right.
So what ends up creating isanxiety.
It creates anxiety.
That hyper vigilance to moodand awareness and I think
understanding that andunderstanding that when you are
(05:40):
feeling super anxious aboutwhatever a situation is looking
back at your superpowers andgoing oh wait a second, this is
what this is, and when you nameit, it really makes a big
difference in your ability torecognize it and do something
about it.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
That's right, because we wanna start with first of
all, as you say, we first wannarecognize that it's there, Most
of us, or many of us.
Until we're conscious of that,it's automatic, right?
We're walking around and reallybeing run by the unconscious
programs of our life or theautomatic responses.
Forgive me if I'm repeatingmyself, but one of my favorite
quotes from Bessel Van der Kolkis trauma doesn't show up as a
(06:19):
memory, it shows up as areaction.
Right, so we end up reacting tothe world from something that's
not actually happening in themoment.
I mean, obviously there arethings in real time that we are
reacting to, but for most of us,or for many of us, we're
actually reacting from the past.
Something happens, it touches awound within us.
We go into an automaticresponse which could look like a
(06:43):
reaction and in some ways itkeeps us safe.
But we reach a point wherewe're saying, wow, I'm either
going into anxiety, a fight,flight or freeze.
I'm going into that automaticresponse and I keep doing this
and I'm getting the same resultsover and over and over again.
Because the ultimate questionis what do I truly desire?
What do I truly desire here?
(07:04):
And for most of us, we desireto connect and, in some ways,
those brilliant strategies orthe superpower that we've been
using isn't allowing us to havethe deeper connection that we
truly desire, because we'rereacting out of our past and,
until we heal that, we're reallynot in the present moment.
Experience it's something I'mhere physically, but my
(07:26):
reactivity is coming fromsomething that in some cases,
happened decades ago.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
Well, those are programs, right, those
subconscious programs thathappen, and it's really helpful
when you can recognize thosethings, and the way I've found
to recognize them has beenunderstanding when I'm feeling
emotional about something.
You talked about biases on ourlast podcast and it doesn't
necessarily have to be a bias,but definitely when you're
(07:53):
feeling emotional aboutsomething, you've touched a
wound somewhere.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
That's right.
Yeah, of course a miracle sayswhat I'm upset about is not what
I'm upset about, and I lovethat because then I can start to
inquire, like if I'm having abig reaction to something and it
doesn't necessarily seemproportional to what's happening
, then there's something for meto see there and I love that
you're saying the gateway or thedoorway to exploring that is
(08:18):
through the emotion.
Wow, I notice I'm having thisintense emotion.
Let me be curious about that.
And usually it comes down tosome core idea.
You know, we talked about biasthe last time and I think bias
at this point has almost anegative connotation.
The truth is, we're all biasedto everything all the time.
I like a sunny day, I don'tlike it when it rains.
(08:39):
I like California, I don't likeTexas.
You know we could just go onand on and on and all the ways
that we have a perception aboutthe world.
It's not necessarily aboutgetting rid of those, but it is
about becoming aware of them andrealizing that life is
happening and I'm the onecreating the meaning.
And as I start to explore that,I start to realize that I
(09:01):
actually can have a differentrelationship with the world when
I start to unpack or unlearn orbecome curious about all of the
core decisions that arecreating the way I view and
experience the world.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
I agree, and I want to also pull back for a second
too, because you touched onsomething really interesting a
minute ago, which is about otherpeople's reactions.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
And I've seen many situations in my life, in
situations that I've been in,where somebody's reaction
doesn't match what I wouldexpect their reaction to be.
From that situation, and one ofthe things I've learned is to
step back and to look at thatand, instead of judging that
(09:44):
person on that reaction or goman, that person's a real
whatever about reacting that waywhere that person's
overreacting, because that's theworst thing you could say.
If somebody's overreacting,because what ends up happening
is oftentimes people are overwhat we think is an overreaction
(10:04):
to whatever that situation wasis a reaction to past trauma and
past situations.
So you may say I'd stop beingcrazy to somebody.
Yeah, now that person may havea trauma around somebody talking
to them like they were crazy atsome point in their lives and
(10:25):
that you may have just meant itlike, hey, you know, punch in
the arm, kind of fun, whatever,and that person is totally upset
by that conversation.
Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, and often they're not even aware of what's
happening, right.
And so if you look at our workin behavioral health, I see this
over and over and over again.
I see people reacting topatients or clients based on
their behavior, and then welabel the behavior instead of
becoming curious about thebehavior.
And I think that's thefundamental shift that you and I
are up to right now.
(10:55):
It is becoming aware of wow.
This you know, in my, in mycase, when I worked full time in
treatment, there wereopportunity after opportunity
where I could either judgesomeone's behavior or I could be
curious about it and I'm likewow, she is having a very, very
large reaction to the fact thatthe dinner isn't what she
expected it to be.
Right, there's something there.
There's some big reaction Ifsomeone says, oh, I thought it
(11:18):
was Mexican food night, whichthe program I worked at.
That was like the big thingThursdays, everyone's happy that
it's Mexican food night and ifthat ever got changed sometimes
people would have a massivereaction and it really isn't
about the dinner.
So if I can become curious andstart to ask questions and then
we can actually help someonebecome aware, not of their
(11:39):
behavior, but maybe what'sactually at the core of that,
through presence, throughcuriosity, through asking
questions, and maybe they'llhave a moment where they realize
, oh my gosh, it's actually notthe dinner that I'm upset about,
it's this other thing, and youtalked about it so perfectly
that the gateway or the doorwayis always through the emotion.
So if I'm working with someone,I would ask them what are you
(12:02):
feeling right now?
Can you become aware of whatyou're feeling in your body?
What emotion is present?
Let's not go into the story.
The story sometimes takes usout of the emotion, and the
emotion, then, is that gatewayinto the deeper understanding of
what's truly happening.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
I agree and I love the introspection.
Thanks for tuning in toHatchin' Creativity.
We appreciate your support.
Please don't forget to like andsubscribe and tell all your
friends about the show andremember it's never just about
one thing.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Cold Case Files: Miami
Joyce Sapp, 76; Bryan Herrera, 16; and Laurance Webb, 32—three Miami residents whose lives were stolen in brutal, unsolved homicides.  Cold Case Files: Miami follows award‑winning radio host and City of Miami Police reserve officer  Enrique Santos as he partners with the department’s Cold Case Homicide Unit, determined family members, and the advocates who spend their lives fighting for justice for the victims who can no longer fight for themselves.