April 27, 2025 • 50 mins
Today, I’m sitting down with Dr. Richard Tedeschi, he's the bloke who literally coined the term post-traumatic growth, and ya'll know that's a massive part of what this show is all about!
We’re pulling apart what resilience really means (and what it definitely doesn’t), why the ‘just do more hard things’ mantra can actually miss the point, and how sometimes what looks like strength is just unprocessed survival mode.
We talk about why real growth usually kicks off when life punches you square in the face... and how it’s the people around you (not the size of the fight) that can change everything.
From navigating trauma, grief and burnout to finding purpose and connection this one’s a ripping listen for anyone who's ever been stuck, struggling, or simply ready to step-up from the battleground.
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RICHARD TEDESCHI
Website: bouldercrest.org
TIFFANEE COOK
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Website: tiffcook.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm tiff This is Roll with the punches and we're
turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go
to court, and don't. My friends at test Art Family
Lawyers know that they offer all forms of alternative dispute resolution.
Their team of Melbourne family lawyers have extensive experience in
(00:29):
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reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Richard Tedesky, welcome to
(00:54):
Roll with the Punches.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Thank you very much, Tiffany. Happy to be here talking with.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
You, Oh, very happy to be here with you. My
show is all about rolling with the punches, and you
are the epitome of that. You seem to have immersed
yourself and your life work into that area.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, good, good, I look forward to the conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I guess tell us tell myself and my audience a
little bit about you and what landed you in this
line of work.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, right now, I'm executive director of a nonprofit in
the US called the Bouldercrest Foundation, and that was founded
by a US Navy veteran who wanted to provide services
to wounded veterans, military service members and then ultimately first
(01:50):
responders as well, and he created this beautiful retreat center
on his property in Virginia outside of Washington, d C.
And I've been involved in the past eleven years in
developing programs there based on this concept of post traumatic
(02:11):
growth that I developed with my colleague Lawrence Calhoun when
as at the University of North Carolina Charlotte for many
years in the psychology department there. So we've taken this
concept that Lawrence and I researched a great deal and
we've been applying it at Bouldercrest to helping veterans and
first responders, primarily who have trauma histories, and we're focused
(02:34):
on how to approach those events in their lives from
a perspective where they can continue to find value and
meaning and purpose in what they're doing, even though they've
been through things that are very difficult, traumatic and put
(02:54):
them in some pretty dark places. So we want them
to see what's still possible for them and to encourage
them on a new life path in the aftermath of
all of that.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, and what piked your interest or what was your
path to getting into that work. Was it psychology? Did
you always have an interest in that?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Well? I guess the initial work on post traumatic growth
that I did with Lawrence Calhoun was back actually in
the nineteen eighties. We coined the term in nineteen ninety
five after about ten years of work looking at trauma
survivors and really looking at the concept of where wisdom
(03:39):
comes from life wisdom and how it develops, and looking
at the possibility that develops because people have to go
through a crucible of really challenging circumstances that focused them
on new ways of understanding how to live life. We
(04:01):
did a lot of research people who had suffered physical disabilities,
people who had been bereaved, and then all kinds of
different sorts of people in terms of confronting traumatic events,
natural disasters, illnesses, all kinds of things. And then ultimately
I ended up working with the military starting the early
(04:25):
two thousands, training military mental health professionals. And it's through
that work that I eventually met ken Falk and we
started working on these programs for Bouldercrest Foundation.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
What are you what's your definition of post traumatic growth?
Which seems like is it as simple as it seems
or what have you learned?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Well, in some ways it's it is as simple as
it seems. It's the positive changes that happened with people
in the aftermath of traumatic events as a process of
struggle with those events, and in that struggle, coming up
with new perspectives on who they are, the kind of
(05:16):
life they want to live, how they want to be
in this world. So positive changes that happen to people
as a result of the struggle with traumatic events.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It was really interesting to me. I found when I
reflect back, I think I developed a real appreciation for
the hard stuff and gratitude for what was on the
other side of it for me, And that was really
the precipice of starting this show, where I was like,
(05:50):
how come some people go through hard things and they
end up stronger and better for it, they end up growing,
And how come some people find themselves stuck? Like the
hard thing is the anchor? And what can we control
and what can we learn and how much control do
(06:11):
we have?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well, one of the things that is important in this
although it may not account for everything, but one thing
that's very important is who you're with in the aftermath
of those events, the kind of people that you're surrounded by.
And that's why we have focused in our work at
Bouldercrest on a program that uses peers to help people,
(06:43):
and so we don't do psychotherapy. We're not a psychology
program or psychiatry program. We have peers that is first
responders and military service members and veterans who provide the
programming because, first of all, it's important that people are
(07:04):
struggling with these things are connected with someone they can
trust who will understand them. So one of the advantageous
ways of approaching that problem of trust and connection is
to get people involved with those who are are most
(07:25):
likely to understand because they have some experience in that
world that a person is in. So we try to
emphasize the importance of expert companionship, having companions in the
aftermath of these difficult events who will be trusted and
(07:46):
who will be able to show empathy, and who will
listen well and listen in a particular way, not as
people who come at the problem through expertise of you know,
sort of academic nature, but the expertise of being a person,
(08:10):
being a connected person who would be a good listener
and who will want to learn from the person who's
struggling what it's like to be that person to go
through what they're going through, and by learning that person
being able to be a companion with them forward through
whatever they're going through. So to have someone in your
(08:33):
world like that can make a big difference in terms
of being one of those who find this post traumatic
growth experience. So that's a big factor. That's a big factor.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I remember I mentioned you just Paul, we went on that.
One of my favorite first guests was Captain Charlie Plumb,
and I remember hearing of his experience what he went
through being a prisoner of war for six years. They
horrific talt the conditions, and I remember just thinking, what
(09:06):
are we missing? Because what because something about what they
were doing has allowed them to grow from this experience
and come out of it supported and strong considering what
they've been through. When really you think about everything that
(09:27):
was thrown at them was to break human spirit and
they couldn't do it. They couldn't break their spirit with
all of that. So and I remember him talking about
the way that they connected and developed a way to communicate,
and the way that they celebrated things, and the way
they taught each other. So for me, it was something
(09:49):
about that human connection, that relationship that I think when
we're out in this busy, disconnected world, we miss a
lot of that, don't we.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
That's one of the things that's so dangerous about our
world is the way we can get disconnected and it
can reknock with us, especially when we hit real challenges
in life. And Charlie, of course I know Charlie and
(10:21):
and he's a remarkable man, and he has his way
of describing how those prisoners of war supported one another
for all those years in circumstances where it was really
difficult to communicate and to support. I mean, they found
them craziest ways of keeping together and letting each other
(10:45):
know that they weren't alone. So in our world now,
where we can feel very disconnected for all sorts of reasons,
it's important to define those ways and to make sure
that we find those companions for us through these difficult times.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Given how many years you've been diving into this research
and understanding it, and how much the world has changed,
like in twenty twenty five since the nineteen eighties. Do
you feel like it's hard to make progress at the
pace that the world is kind of pushing us in
the opposite direction?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, the world certainly is pushing us into a very
fast piece. I think. I think we all realize that
so many changes, so quickly, so many challenges, and you know,
the scary parts of the world are really at our
doorsteps or on our computers or our phones or wherever.
(11:56):
We're confronted with like the worst of the world all
the time, you know, immediately, so the world can start
to look like a very disorienting sort of place and
a scary place to engage. So so that's that's one
of the challenges for for all of us as we're
even if you're not paying too close attention, you're almost
(12:19):
it almost comes at you, you know. So we've got
all that to deal with. Never never mind what's very
personal and in our lives, you know, in our families
and our personal lives very close to us. So we've
got all of that to deal with. It's a lot
and and and in all of that there is still
(12:41):
possibilities though the other side of it is, you know,
there are possibilities for connection that we never had before.
Like look at us. You know, we're talking across continents,
across the international dateline, like we're in the same room
and and so we're connected where you know, in years past,
this and this wouldn't have been possible. So so there's
(13:01):
that part of it too, which means that people can
understand one another in very different places because we all
have human experiences that can bind us together.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, what I find is more important when it comes
to unders like when we've been through trauma and we're
looking for support or healing or making sense of it, Like,
is there a hierarchy between our mind, our mindset, our
logical understanding and narrative, and then the connection to the
(13:37):
body and what trauma lives in the body and how
we interpret that.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Well, you know, events that are at least potentially traumatic
have an effect on our whole system, how we think,
our emotional system, and our bodies, because our thinking and
emotion is based on what's going on in our bodies,
and our bodies respond to our emotions. It's it's it's
(14:06):
all a constant loop of interconnections. So we're completely and
holistically involved in the response to these kinds of things.
So anybody who has been faced with trauma has probably
experienced the intense emotion of uh fear as a big
(14:30):
part of it. And you know, you fear, you'll you'll
feel fear in your body. You know, you're if you
feel out of control of your own body when you're
afraid sometimes and then you're you know, you have trouble
thinking straight, can't make you know, make decisions very easily,
and you know your your emotions are deeply affected and
(14:51):
very intense, and so all of you is just disoriented
by fear in these traumatic circumstances. That's that's the big
thing in postraumatic growth. We're also focused on the aftermath
of trauma because I mentioned in the definition it's the
positive changes that happen in the aftermath of trauma. So
(15:12):
you know, in the days, weeks, and even years after
these sorts of events have occurred, you know, we're going
through a or a process of just trying to figure
out the chaos, you know, what happened to us, where
does this leave us? And trying to reorganize ourselves in
(15:34):
the aftermath of that chaos so that we can we
can figure out how to live in a way that
makes sense when everything has been kind of up for
grabs because kind of trauma disorientces in terms of how
we understand ourselves in our world and our life path,
and we don't know what to make of it, and
we have to, you know, reconstruct all of that. It
(15:58):
affects our whole system, and it has ripple effects that
go on for long periods of time very often, and
it's a lot of work to try to reorient ourselves
in a way that is sensible.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
What's your take on resilience.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Well, resilience, of course means that we are not really
deeply affected by events because we can withstand them, or
we can bounce back from them really quickly. You know,
we'd all like to be resilient and not be much
affected by difficulties in life. So resilience is a really
(16:41):
good thing. But the fact of the matter is sometimes
we're not you know, sometimes we're not resilient, or we
encounter events that overwhelm our capabilities, and sometimes the concept
of resilience can kind of backfire. Like I remember, I
remember working with some people who were studying nurses in
(17:04):
the aftermath of the pandemic the COVID nineteen pandemic, and
the nurses were saying that they were really struggling in
these hospitals and trying to provide care and these terrible circumstances.
And the message they got from their administration, which was
well meaning, was you're resilient. You can deal with this
(17:29):
because you are strong and resilient. But they weren't feeling
that way. They weren't feeling strong and resilient, and the
message they were getting sounded to them like they weren't understood,
or that there was something wrong with them if they
weren't resilient. You know, it's like I do feeling resilient,
so what's wrong with me? You know? So sometimes that
(17:50):
resilience concept can backfire when we're not feeling it.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, do you think that sometimes resilience is is something
else stressed up, like suppression of emotions and not dealing
with not dealing with something that is happening, maybe even
dissociation that he's going to look like resilience, But at
(18:17):
some point it can be the straw that breaks the
camel's back. And so I find in today's world so
many things, you know, like so much talk around resilience
and do the hard thing, just do. The hard thing
is the messaging out there, like just if you want
to get resilient, do more hard things. And sometimes I think, well,
(18:38):
that's if we're not opening the door on what's really
happening underneath, or we don't know our bodies and realize
that actually we're suppressing everything. There's stuff going on that
we're out of touch with inside us. What are your
thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Well, that's kind of like the nurses I was mentioning,
And it's so hard sometimes to know what's going on
with another person just by looking at their outsides, you know,
and they can look real strong and resilient, but they're struggling,
you know. And frankly, this is not to be too stereotypical,
(19:12):
but men are more prone to this. They're scared to
death of emitting vulnerability, and so they put up a
good front, you know. They can't cry, they can't show weakness,
they can't ask for help, all that kind of stuff,
and it's really debilitating. And I'm sure that many people,
(19:32):
maybe people listening to this program, have known people who
who looked like they were doing really well, but then
in the end, something terrible happened with them. You know,
they seem to break apart some people. Some people kill themselves,
and people are shocked, like I can't believe it. You know,
(19:53):
he was always so happy, or he seemed to be
doing so well or whatnot. How could that have happened?
That doesn't make any sense, you know. So sometimes it's
it's really a terrible disaster like that. So a lot
of people do put up a good front, and sometimes
people put up a good front to themselves, like you're saying,
by not allowing themselves to explore their own feelings in
(20:16):
their own internal world to see what's going on with
them until it starts to really get the better of them.
And then and then you got the people who suppress
it with self medication, you know, alcohol and drugs and
all those sorts of or other kinds of activities that
try to you know, they try to avoid what they
(20:36):
can't face.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I always talk about my relationship
with boxing in that exact manner. Was this My understanding
of myself for my first thirty years was this independent, strong, brave, courageous,
bloody thing. And eventually I started to have to question
(20:59):
that and go, actually, these things that look like strength
and independence and courage. If I don't feel fear about
the things I'm doing that people think are courageous, then
that's not really courage. That's me painting a picture of courage.
What is it that actually scares me? And I had
to kind of go hunting for it? I had to.
(21:21):
I think that for me, the physical nature of boxing
brought me back in touch with my body and physical
sensations and it started to unravel a bit of self
deep self awareness. And that's where this, I guess this
sparked my interest and went, well, what is everyone's experience?
And when you know, I think about it all the time,
(21:43):
the conversations I have in this show, which are just
curious around learning from others and understanding and hopefully uncovering
resources that other people can connect with, but also being
very conscious and aware that everyone is in a different
and I have at different times I have been a
(22:03):
different person if someone had come to me Richard when
I was in my late twenties, before I had that
revelation and said, hey, you know how you think, Hey, TIV,
you know you think you're all brave and courageous and independent,
You're actually you know, you're actually the opposite of all that,
or to punished him in the face in the boxing ring.
Of course, you know, like I wasn't ready, and so
(22:25):
I'm I think about that in these conversations and at
all of the different stages of experience and awareness and
other people's actual physical circumstances and what I don't know
or haven't experienced, and what you might know or have
an experienced, and we try and communicate from these different places.
That was a long winded rant, wasn't it, thoughts Well, well.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
That's because it's your lived experience, right, yeah, resonated right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
What are you with your with Bouldercrest? What are the
things that aside from the relationships which you spoke about,
what are the other tools that help people?
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Well, we we talked different about some different elements in
our programs. So we have one program where people come
to one of our facilities for a week and it's
these are in rural places in the United States, beautiful
places where you can find serenity, and we're in rural
(23:30):
areas that are really beautiful, and we work with people
in small groups about eight or so. And then we
have other programs where we go out to organizations usually
military bases or police departments or fire departments, places like that, prisons,
(23:52):
you know, and work with staff in groups of maybe
twenty five. So no matter which kind of when we're using, though,
we're first trying to educate people on this idea of
how events can affect people physically and psychologically, how their
(24:14):
challenges and what happens to us, and that when we
react this way physically and psychologically to these challenging events,
even though we might feel like we're not ourselves or
we feel like we're breaking down or something crazy about
us or disordered or whatever, and we might be labeled
that by some well meaning doctors or whatever, that these
(24:35):
reactions we're having are just human reactions because we're human beings,
and human beings respond a certain way to get hit
with these kinds of events. So first's education about that
where people learn that there's nothing wrong with them, it's
what happened to them. And a lot of the people
(24:56):
have come to us and been told to do something
wrong with them. You know, they've had diagnosed sees and
all kinds of medications and things like that, so you know,
you're you're broken, you know, and and we tell them no,
you're not, You're just a human being that's gone through
some ship. So so so that's one thing. And then
we help them with emotional regulation, because, as you're saying,
(25:20):
you know, these these reactions are are really difficult to manage.
So we we help people regulate their emotions. We teach
them meditation, and we teach them how to breathe properly,
and you know, how to how to have some ways
of calming some of these reactions that they have, which
(25:43):
are autonomic nervous system reactions just natural when you're in
a state of fear in the aftermath of that. So
then we then we have we try to help people
talk or express in some way what they're going through
so they're not just keeping it all to themselves and
they're connecting with the people in their group, which is
(26:05):
a remarkable thing that happens. I just love it. That's
why I love, you know, group work. When you see
people who take the chance to tell other people about
their struggles and then other people start joining in and
everybody everybody say, oh, you mean we're all in the
same boat. Oh my goodness, I thought I was. I
(26:26):
thought I was the only one. You know, you know,
you too, Wow? Okay, maybe we're not all so bad
off that or we're all crazy, but we know we're not.
Because you you look like you're pretty good. I thought
I was. So if you're pretty good and you're like me,
maybe I'm pretty good. It's an amazing thing that when people
start doing this, and you know, one of the things
that's so cool about our programs we do. We in
(26:48):
some of our programs we write in songwriters from Nashville
country music songwriters, professional songwriters who wrote for the biggest
country music acts. They come in and they spend they
spend a day just talking to the people in our
group and about what they went through, and out of
that lyrics develop. They take the words of the people
(27:10):
in the group and they create lyrics and they create
a song out of it. And we've got all these songs,
unbelievably beautiful songs written by these groups of veterans or
first responders and a Nashville songwriter and it's amazing, like
they could be on, you know, they could be on,
(27:34):
they could be streamed, and their beautiful songs. So whatever
the way of expressing might be through song or writing
and write or talk, we have all kinds of ways
of doing this, and then out of that we help
people develop with their story is story of their lives,
how they got to where they are, So they see
(27:56):
the overall picture of you know, how they grew up,
how they hit some things in their lives that were difficult,
what's been happening to them, and the most important thing,
where they're going next? What next? And the aftermath of
all this? Where are they headed? Where could they go?
What's the next chapter in the story. And we encourage
(28:17):
the next chapters to be stories of service where they
focus not on themselves and their own struggles so much
as what values do I have? What have I learned?
What can I bring to other people? How can I
serve in a new way or a different way connected
(28:40):
with other people, and help them develop a plan of service,
and that may be within their families, it could be
in their neighborhood of communities, it could be whatever resonates
for them, whatever, and that way they start writing the
(29:01):
new chapter what their lives are going to be going
forward in a way that's really a value. So that's
that's kind of the that's kind of the overall I
don't know schematic of how we approach things at Bouldercrest,
and it's all based on this post traumatic growth concept
and all those steps that I just mentioned to you
(29:25):
have been developed out of the research that we did
for many years at UNC Charlotte, learning about what the
process looks like when people live in the aftermath of
traumatic events in a way which brings them into these
growth perspectives. And we learned about that process through our
(29:45):
research listening to people, and now we can take that
and offer it back to facilitate this process and people
that come to our programs.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I love that so much, and I love the emphasis
on that expression, finding a way to express If I,
if I had any choice of what I came back
as in my next life, it would be a singer songwriter.
Like I think it would be the greatest gift to
be able to express your deepest self and turn it
(30:16):
into music that other people can connect to. I can't
sing very well, Richard a lip sing happy birthday in
front of family. I'm that musically gifted, But I love it.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Think about it, tifany You know what happens in these
in these in these groups do we do that they
take things that are terrible that they've all experienced, and
they offer it up to this songwriters helping them with that.
And then the and see what happens is the songwriter
takes all these lyrics, all these words and everything, and
(30:50):
then the next day the songwriter comes in and says, Okay,
I'm going to play your song for you, and and
they play this song. You know, usually just have a
guitar lay a song, and what has been terrible is
this beautiful thing. It's been terrible is turned into this
(31:11):
beautiful thing that connects them all in the group, all
of them here, all of them have their piece of
that song because they've been heard, they've listened to, and
it's been transformed into this beautiful work of art. So
that and that's that's a great metaphor for their lives, right,
(31:31):
that that what is terrible can be transformed into something
valuable and useful, and that that can connect and resonate
with other people, a perfect metaphor for their path going forward.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
What keeps some people stuck? Why do some people, even
if just for a period of time, hold on to
that thing like an anchor, or become really identified. Yeah,
I think that can be said about just labels in general.
It's labeling something can be really positive by way of
(32:09):
giving us words and and an understanding of what's happening.
But it could equally become an anchor that we attached to.
So what have you learned about that?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Well, there's a lot of reasons that I don't think
I know all of them. But like I said, sometimes
you just don't have the right people around you, who
who you can feel you can trust and understand. So
that may be one thing. Some people are immersed in
some really negative habits which hold them back, some addictions
(32:45):
and some other kinds of habits that make it hard
for them to move forward to something positive. So there's
that some people haven't found their way yet through things
like guilt or blame. Guilt and blame are hard ones
(33:06):
for people to get through sometimes. And then the other
part of this, though, is when somebody is stuck, you know,
they may just be stuck for this time, because this
process of post traumatic growth happens over different periods of
time for different people. So you take a snapshot of
someone at one time and they look very stuck, you
(33:29):
might come back some time later and they're not stuck anymore.
So it's hard to tell who's going to remain stuck.
Some people are going to remain stuck for the rest
of their lives, or because of their stuckness, they prematurely
end their lives because they can't find the hope to
endure this stuck place anymore. You know, it's hard to say.
(33:54):
Sometimes the pain is too great. It could be physical
pain or psychological pain and just overwhelms some people and
they don't they don't have the practices or support to
endure it, you know. I mean, in your career in boxing,
(34:16):
I'm sure a big part of what you had to
figure out was how to endure pain and keep going. Yeah,
and so maybe sometimes it's too hard for some certain people.
So there's all kinds of ways that that can happen.
But I just want to emphasize that just because you're
stuck at one point doesn't mean you're going to be
(34:37):
stuck next month or next year, you know, could be different.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I always I find that the interesting part of healing
or growing or evolving or whatever it is that we're
doing is well. I think about and often talk about
to people, like when I first decided to do a
boxing fight, how do you become a good fight? Well,
the number one thing for you to get through that
(35:03):
fight is to learn to learn how to just get hit.
You've got to be able to take a punch in
the face and keep doing whatever terrible skill set you
have for as long as you can whilst getting punched.
But a couple of years down the track, when you've
increase your skill, that's no longer the aim of the game.
And that's what when I talk about resilience and I
(35:26):
go like, I think we're all stuck on the beginnings
of resilience where it's all about just wearing the hard
punch or you just got to get punched in the
face and keep going. It's like, well, no, because in
a couple of years time now resilience looks different. Now
resilience is learning how to not get hit, both with
skill but also with the intention that, hey, I don't
(35:47):
want to get hurt. I want to win the fight,
but I don't want to get hurt in the process.
Like when I started to develop self love, self care,
self worth, I had a hard to challenge to manage
in the boxing ring because all of a sudden, I
could feel the punches and I didn't want to wear
them at the cost of landing them. All of a sudden,
(36:10):
I was like, Oh, it's harder for me to get
in and get the punches because I don't want to
wear them, because now I appreciate the fact that I
don't want to get hurt, whereas but when I first started,
I couldn't feel them. Oh, I was disassociated to a
point and I would walk, I would wear anything, because
it was all about just going I show you how
tough I am and how much I can endure, because
(36:30):
in silence, I'd endure it a lot over you know, Like,
so there was this and that's just I guess self awareness,
self understanding, and everybody's journey isn't the same. But that's
why I find this topic so fascinating, because only I
could know that for me, and only I could know
when that change happens. So then when when you're running
(36:53):
your groups and I'm dealing with groups of people and
they're coming in with their version of the boxing ring
or their version of a story, it's knowing that it's
an ever evolving process. You're not talking to the same person,
Like you're not the same Richard right now than you
were forty minutes ago, because we've had a conversation and
we might have said things and developed new understandings.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Yeah, yeah, you know, this perspective shift is something that
you're talking about here that can be subtle, especially to
the outsider, and you don't realize it's happening in someone.
And so, for example, you're talking about how at one
point in your career, let's say, your resilience was defined
(37:42):
differently than it was at another point in your career, right,
And so that's similar to what happens with this growth
perspective where people will say, if you listen to them
talk about their stories, they say things like, I thought
I was living really well. I thought I had it
figured out. I thought I was doing the right thing.
(38:04):
But now I realized that now that really wasn't it.
I've got a different way of seeing it now. So
even though I would have given myself four stars in
living you know, three years ago, now I would only
give myself like two stars for that living. You know,
(38:25):
you know, I've changed my whole measure of what good
living looks like now that I have this perspective. So
it's that shift in understanding what's valuable and what really
makes sense in terms of living well that we see
in this process which makes it very difficult sometimes when
(38:50):
we're doing research to figure out how to measure these things,
because you know, people will say they're doing really well,
and then later they'll say they're doing really well, and
if that's all you got, that's all you know. It
looks like they have a change, you know. But what's
happened is their new version of really well is different
(39:11):
from their old version does really well. So it's a
very tricky business, very tricky business.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
I remember across the years, like going to trying different
therapies and things. And I remember a period of time
when I was going to a therapist and I would
think every time I'd be like, I don't even know
what I'm going for, like everything's fine, I'll go anyway,
and then things come up. But I remember one point
where and this is like we evolve and we don't.
(39:41):
We never give up. We push the goalpost and don't
realize how much we're changing and evolving. And I remember
as discussing a circumstance and she said to me, oh,
that's that's very different to how you would have responded
or approached it or whatever. And it was only in
that moment when she sat and made me acknowledg and
I went, oh, oh, I've changed a lot, and we
(40:04):
forget that because we put ourselves stuck in this place.
And like, I find that so valuable when people talk
about therapy, like I'm such an advocate of you know,
I'll have it whether I'm doing well or not doing well,
like I've been doing well for a long time now,
Like I haven't what. I don't perceive myself as having
any real reason to need a therapist, but I continue
(40:28):
to have a relationship with my therapist because I love
the insights I get when I get to workshop the
life of Tiff and see what's coming up with someone.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. So I guess you're you're recognizing
that there's always more room for something, yeah, and you're
just allowing that process to keep occurring rather than shut
it down and say, Okay, I'm done, I'm good.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, And sometimes well not Sometimes. I think perspective is
a little bit easier when you're not in the middle
of some ship storm.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
It's like when life is just cruising along, you can
kind of sit back, look at it and go, Okay,
what cat do I do things? And you see things
differently because you're not in the middle of some chaotic,
oh help me period of doing. I'm not coping with
this thing.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah, I think, I think, you know. It's we also
find though that a little bit of discomfort is a
good thing, a good motivator for a change and change
in perspective. So you can get too comfortable and complacent. Also,
so something that's you know, just making you question a
(41:43):
bit is is not a bad thing, but too much
of it that when you're disoriented, you've got to get
oriented enough to be able to think straight.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yes, yeah, I love. The last couple of years I've
been on just some short overseas trips and the last one,
both of them were incredible just to get away and
get perspective. The last one was literally life changing for me.
I went to the Himalayas and we did a quite
a spiritual kind of retreat and like just those moments
(42:14):
where like we're sitting on the top of a mountain
in the Himalayas, on top of them, I'm like that
that is cloud underneath me. I'm looking down at the
clouds underneath me, and the whole your whole life is
just like oh, I'm everything and nothing like everything changed
for me in that moment, And I love that. I
love being able to have experiences like that that just
(42:36):
go in this world where I'm in this tiny little
suburb thinking a bit about these tiny little things.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Yes, yeah, yeah, when you get that shift and perspective, yeah,
that makes you start to think, Okay, from this perspective,
how does it all look? Hows this life on living look?
Then there's there's a lot really to consider. Yeah, it
opens up a whole book.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, what are yours? Do you have? How do you
keep you well in the middle of life, especially when
you work in an area where you're working you're kind
of immersed in the prose traumatic growth space and trauma space.
And how do you do you have non negotiables? What
is your wellness philosophy?
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Yeah? Well, you know, I'm not necessarily all that very
good at it. Thanks for honesty, not all that good,
but because because I work a lot. But I'll tell
you I love I love the work I do. So
for example, this foundation's Bouldercrest Foundation is just full of
(43:48):
the most remarkable people. You know, you're talking about Charlie Plumb.
You know Charlie Plumb is you know, part of us
and you know, when you're around people like that, it's like,
how fortunate can be to be to be able to
talk to people with these experiences and just everybody I
met through this, this work with Bouldercrest, now, these first
(44:11):
responders and military people, that's not that's not I didn't
grow up with. That wasn't part of that. But you know,
just amazing, some really amazing people who are just so
dedicated to service. Yeah, I just love to be around them.
They're full of such good humor. I mean, that's the
other thing, just so funny. I love humor. Humor really
(44:33):
keeps me going, you know. And and there are people
I can just relax with and we can and we
know all we're doing good work and we're pulling together.
And you know, our CEO, Josh Goldberg always emphasizes it's
not important who gets the credit. We're not about that.
It doesn't matter who gets the credit. It's our mission
and it doesn't matter who gets credit as long as
(44:55):
we're doing good work. So I love that. It makes everybody,
you know, connect and support. So it's fun to be
part of this group. And so that's one thing, just
the people and the humor and the mission is something.
You know. I feel so fortunate to be able to
(45:17):
take the stuff that I've been working on in my
life and see it utilized and changing people's lives. I mean,
this is just amazing. I'm so grateful to Ken Falk
who started this organization and brought me on board and
we worked together to do this, and I'm so grateful
(45:37):
that I got this opportunity. It's give my life such
more meaning than it would have had if I just
you know, the university was great, and I love teaching
and students and all that, but this is a whole
This is a whole different deal. I love my psychotherapy practice.
Being a therapist is great. I mean, I've just been
so lucky in doing work that's just so just love
it all these different things. So that's that's part of it.
(46:01):
I love being in beautiful places. You know. Where I
live is beautiful. You know, I've been walking around today
outside looking at all the flowers and everything and just
I just love it. I just love the place, you know.
I just love to look take it in.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
I love my family. You know, I've had a wonderful
weekend with family, and I love it when they love
me so there's all that. I don't know. It's most
it's mostly about the people. I guess when I start
talking about it, it's all about the people.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah, Well, as you were talking, I wrote down and
I reckon they are the three big rocks. And when
you when you set up something like you have and
those boxes are ticked, you can't lose. And that's hope, purpose,
and connection. When you've got a purpose bigger than you,
when you've got connection with good people, and hope is
a huge one and you're giving it to people.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's a good life. It's good life.
I appreciate it, and I and I and I've pay
attention to what I'm grateful for. That's the other thing,
you know, people, I've talked a lot in recent years
about gratitude, the gratitude attitude or whatever, stuff like that.
But the thing that it does when if you really
(47:15):
practice it, is it changes the way you think. It
changes your attention to the positive things in your life. Yeah,
it forces your attention in that direction. So that's why
thinking about what you're grateful for is so important, not
just because you can recognize you're grateful for those things,
(47:35):
but really changes your whole way of thinking about things
so that when things get really rough, you still can
recognize the positive aspects of your experience.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
I love it. You've been great. Tell us where we
can go to find you online, some of your books.
Where can we get some resources from you.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Our website is Bouldercrest dot org. Bouldercrest dot org, so
it's b O U L D E R c R
E S t all one word bouldercrest dot org. And
there's a ton of stuff there at that website. We've
got some we got some books that are good. We've
(48:20):
got one called Transformed by Trauma. Stories of Postraumatic Growth,
So we publish that that it's a bunch of interviews
with people who are good examples of post traumatic growth
and they tell their stories and we kind of comment
on how that describes the postmatic growth process and the
(48:41):
different kinds of outcomes you see where people develop better
relationships and see their new possibilities of their lives and
their strength and our appreciative of their lives and really
have a new spiritual sense of things. So those that's
a good book. And then we have a workbook called
the Postraumatic Growth Workbook, So people are interested in trying
to help themselves through this process. That's another kind of resource.
(49:05):
So we've we've got we got a lot of stuff there.
People can gain a lot of think on that website.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Awesome. I will have a link to that in the
show notes. Thank you so much for both the conversation
today and for doing the work you do well.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
I've enjoyed talking with you, Tiffany. You're a great interviewer
and it's been like sitting down in our living room
together and just chatting. So I've really enjoyed it. Thank
you so much. It's good to hear in the Australian
the Australian talk again. I've got some I've been to
Australia a few times and I've got a really good
friend there and she's great, and so I always like
(49:43):
I always like hearing I.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Have a very Australian accent, and I forget I forget
when I host these conversations. And I just last night
I went to a comedy gig with a chick who
was in Australia at the moment, and she did a
version of an Australian accent and it was she nailed
it so much. And it's not until and I was like, oh,
(50:05):
I said, that's so vogue, and I sound like like
I forget, we forget. So thanks for that to my attention. Yeah,
thank you so much. Thanks everyone for tuning into this.
Go and check out Bauldercrest. She said it's now and never.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
I got fighting in my blood
She said, it's now never I got fighting in my blood.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm tiff This is Roll with the punches and we're
turning life's hardest hits into wins. Nobody wants to go
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(00:29):
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reach out to Mark and the team at www dot
test Artfamilylawyers dot com dot au. Richard Tedesky, welcome to
(00:54):
Roll with the Punches.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Thank you very much, Tiffany. Happy to be here talking with.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
You, Oh, very happy to be here with you. My
show is all about rolling with the punches, and you
are the epitome of that. You seem to have immersed
yourself and your life work into that area.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
Well, good, good, I look forward to the conversation.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I guess tell us tell myself and my audience a
little bit about you and what landed you in this
line of work.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Well, right now, I'm executive director of a nonprofit in
the US called the Bouldercrest Foundation, and that was founded
by a US Navy veteran who wanted to provide services
to wounded veterans, military service members and then ultimately first
(01:50):
responders as well, and he created this beautiful retreat center
on his property in Virginia outside of Washington, d C.
And I've been involved in the past eleven years in
developing programs there based on this concept of post traumatic
(02:11):
growth that I developed with my colleague Lawrence Calhoun when
as at the University of North Carolina Charlotte for many
years in the psychology department there. So we've taken this
concept that Lawrence and I researched a great deal and
we've been applying it at Bouldercrest to helping veterans and
first responders, primarily who have trauma histories, and we're focused
(02:34):
on how to approach those events in their lives from
a perspective where they can continue to find value and
meaning and purpose in what they're doing, even though they've
been through things that are very difficult, traumatic and put
(02:54):
them in some pretty dark places. So we want them
to see what's still possible for them and to encourage
them on a new life path in the aftermath of
all of that.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, and what piked your interest or what was your
path to getting into that work. Was it psychology? Did
you always have an interest in that?
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Well? I guess the initial work on post traumatic growth
that I did with Lawrence Calhoun was back actually in
the nineteen eighties. We coined the term in nineteen ninety
five after about ten years of work looking at trauma
survivors and really looking at the concept of where wisdom
(03:39):
comes from life wisdom and how it develops, and looking
at the possibility that develops because people have to go
through a crucible of really challenging circumstances that focused them
on new ways of understanding how to live life. We
(04:01):
did a lot of research people who had suffered physical disabilities,
people who had been bereaved, and then all kinds of
different sorts of people in terms of confronting traumatic events,
natural disasters, illnesses, all kinds of things. And then ultimately
I ended up working with the military starting the early
(04:25):
two thousands, training military mental health professionals. And it's through
that work that I eventually met ken Falk and we
started working on these programs for Bouldercrest Foundation.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
What are you what's your definition of post traumatic growth?
Which seems like is it as simple as it seems
or what have you learned?
Speaker 3 (04:53):
Well, in some ways it's it is as simple as
it seems. It's the positive changes that happened with people
in the aftermath of traumatic events as a process of
struggle with those events, and in that struggle, coming up
with new perspectives on who they are, the kind of
(05:16):
life they want to live, how they want to be
in this world. So positive changes that happen to people
as a result of the struggle with traumatic events.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
It was really interesting to me. I found when I
reflect back, I think I developed a real appreciation for
the hard stuff and gratitude for what was on the
other side of it for me, And that was really
the precipice of starting this show, where I was like,
(05:50):
how come some people go through hard things and they
end up stronger and better for it, they end up growing,
And how come some people find themselves stuck? Like the
hard thing is the anchor? And what can we control
and what can we learn and how much control do
(06:11):
we have?
Speaker 3 (06:13):
Well, one of the things that is important in this
although it may not account for everything, but one thing
that's very important is who you're with in the aftermath
of those events, the kind of people that you're surrounded by.
And that's why we have focused in our work at
Bouldercrest on a program that uses peers to help people,
(06:43):
and so we don't do psychotherapy. We're not a psychology
program or psychiatry program. We have peers that is first
responders and military service members and veterans who provide the
programming because, first of all, it's important that people are
(07:04):
struggling with these things are connected with someone they can
trust who will understand them. So one of the advantageous
ways of approaching that problem of trust and connection is
to get people involved with those who are are most
(07:25):
likely to understand because they have some experience in that
world that a person is in. So we try to
emphasize the importance of expert companionship, having companions in the
aftermath of these difficult events who will be trusted and
(07:46):
who will be able to show empathy, and who will
listen well and listen in a particular way, not as
people who come at the problem through expertise of you know,
sort of academic nature, but the expertise of being a person,
(08:10):
being a connected person who would be a good listener
and who will want to learn from the person who's
struggling what it's like to be that person to go
through what they're going through, and by learning that person
being able to be a companion with them forward through
whatever they're going through. So to have someone in your
(08:33):
world like that can make a big difference in terms
of being one of those who find this post traumatic
growth experience. So that's a big factor. That's a big factor.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
I remember I mentioned you just Paul, we went on that.
One of my favorite first guests was Captain Charlie Plumb,
and I remember hearing of his experience what he went
through being a prisoner of war for six years. They
horrific talt the conditions, and I remember just thinking, what
(09:06):
are we missing? Because what because something about what they
were doing has allowed them to grow from this experience
and come out of it supported and strong considering what
they've been through. When really you think about everything that
(09:27):
was thrown at them was to break human spirit and
they couldn't do it. They couldn't break their spirit with
all of that. So and I remember him talking about
the way that they connected and developed a way to communicate,
and the way that they celebrated things, and the way
they taught each other. So for me, it was something
(09:49):
about that human connection, that relationship that I think when
we're out in this busy, disconnected world, we miss a
lot of that, don't we.
Speaker 3 (10:00):
That's one of the things that's so dangerous about our
world is the way we can get disconnected and it
can reknock with us, especially when we hit real challenges
in life. And Charlie, of course I know Charlie and
(10:21):
and he's a remarkable man, and he has his way
of describing how those prisoners of war supported one another
for all those years in circumstances where it was really
difficult to communicate and to support. I mean, they found
them craziest ways of keeping together and letting each other
(10:45):
know that they weren't alone. So in our world now,
where we can feel very disconnected for all sorts of reasons,
it's important to define those ways and to make sure
that we find those companions for us through these difficult times.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
Given how many years you've been diving into this research
and understanding it, and how much the world has changed,
like in twenty twenty five since the nineteen eighties. Do
you feel like it's hard to make progress at the
pace that the world is kind of pushing us in
the opposite direction?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
Yeah, the world certainly is pushing us into a very
fast piece. I think. I think we all realize that
so many changes, so quickly, so many challenges, and you know,
the scary parts of the world are really at our
doorsteps or on our computers or our phones or wherever.
(11:56):
We're confronted with like the worst of the world all
the time, you know, immediately, so the world can start
to look like a very disorienting sort of place and
a scary place to engage. So so that's that's one
of the challenges for for all of us as we're
even if you're not paying too close attention, you're almost
(12:19):
it almost comes at you, you know. So we've got
all that to deal with. Never never mind what's very
personal and in our lives, you know, in our families
and our personal lives very close to us. So we've
got all of that to deal with. It's a lot
and and and in all of that there is still
(12:41):
possibilities though the other side of it is, you know,
there are possibilities for connection that we never had before.
Like look at us. You know, we're talking across continents,
across the international dateline, like we're in the same room
and and so we're connected where you know, in years past,
this and this wouldn't have been possible. So so there's
(13:01):
that part of it too, which means that people can
understand one another in very different places because we all
have human experiences that can bind us together.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Yeah, what I find is more important when it comes
to unders like when we've been through trauma and we're
looking for support or healing or making sense of it, Like,
is there a hierarchy between our mind, our mindset, our
logical understanding and narrative, and then the connection to the
(13:37):
body and what trauma lives in the body and how
we interpret that.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Well, you know, events that are at least potentially traumatic
have an effect on our whole system, how we think,
our emotional system, and our bodies, because our thinking and
emotion is based on what's going on in our bodies,
and our bodies respond to our emotions. It's it's it's
(14:06):
all a constant loop of interconnections. So we're completely and
holistically involved in the response to these kinds of things.
So anybody who has been faced with trauma has probably
experienced the intense emotion of uh fear as a big
(14:30):
part of it. And you know, you fear, you'll you'll
feel fear in your body. You know, you're if you
feel out of control of your own body when you're
afraid sometimes and then you're you know, you have trouble
thinking straight, can't make you know, make decisions very easily,
and you know your your emotions are deeply affected and
(14:51):
very intense, and so all of you is just disoriented
by fear in these traumatic circumstances. That's that's the big
thing in postraumatic growth. We're also focused on the aftermath
of trauma because I mentioned in the definition it's the
positive changes that happen in the aftermath of trauma. So
(15:12):
you know, in the days, weeks, and even years after
these sorts of events have occurred, you know, we're going
through a or a process of just trying to figure
out the chaos, you know, what happened to us, where
does this leave us? And trying to reorganize ourselves in
(15:34):
the aftermath of that chaos so that we can we
can figure out how to live in a way that
makes sense when everything has been kind of up for
grabs because kind of trauma disorientces in terms of how
we understand ourselves in our world and our life path,
and we don't know what to make of it, and
we have to, you know, reconstruct all of that. It
(15:58):
affects our whole system, and it has ripple effects that
go on for long periods of time very often, and
it's a lot of work to try to reorient ourselves
in a way that is sensible.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
What's your take on resilience.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
Well, resilience, of course means that we are not really
deeply affected by events because we can withstand them, or
we can bounce back from them really quickly. You know,
we'd all like to be resilient and not be much
affected by difficulties in life. So resilience is a really
(16:41):
good thing. But the fact of the matter is sometimes
we're not you know, sometimes we're not resilient, or we
encounter events that overwhelm our capabilities, and sometimes the concept
of resilience can kind of backfire. Like I remember, I
remember working with some people who were studying nurses in
(17:04):
the aftermath of the pandemic the COVID nineteen pandemic, and
the nurses were saying that they were really struggling in
these hospitals and trying to provide care and these terrible circumstances.
And the message they got from their administration, which was
well meaning, was you're resilient. You can deal with this
(17:29):
because you are strong and resilient. But they weren't feeling
that way. They weren't feeling strong and resilient, and the
message they were getting sounded to them like they weren't understood,
or that there was something wrong with them if they
weren't resilient. You know, it's like I do feeling resilient,
so what's wrong with me? You know? So sometimes that
(17:50):
resilience concept can backfire when we're not feeling it.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Yeah, do you think that sometimes resilience is is something
else stressed up, like suppression of emotions and not dealing
with not dealing with something that is happening, maybe even
dissociation that he's going to look like resilience, But at
(18:17):
some point it can be the straw that breaks the
camel's back. And so I find in today's world so
many things, you know, like so much talk around resilience
and do the hard thing, just do. The hard thing
is the messaging out there, like just if you want
to get resilient, do more hard things. And sometimes I think, well,
(18:38):
that's if we're not opening the door on what's really
happening underneath, or we don't know our bodies and realize
that actually we're suppressing everything. There's stuff going on that
we're out of touch with inside us. What are your
thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (18:51):
Well, that's kind of like the nurses I was mentioning,
And it's so hard sometimes to know what's going on
with another person just by looking at their outsides, you know,
and they can look real strong and resilient, but they're struggling,
you know. And frankly, this is not to be too stereotypical,
(19:12):
but men are more prone to this. They're scared to
death of emitting vulnerability, and so they put up a
good front, you know. They can't cry, they can't show weakness,
they can't ask for help, all that kind of stuff,
and it's really debilitating. And I'm sure that many people,
(19:32):
maybe people listening to this program, have known people who
who looked like they were doing really well, but then
in the end, something terrible happened with them. You know,
they seem to break apart some people. Some people kill themselves,
and people are shocked, like I can't believe it. You know,
(19:53):
he was always so happy, or he seemed to be
doing so well or whatnot. How could that have happened?
That doesn't make any sense, you know. So sometimes it's
it's really a terrible disaster like that. So a lot
of people do put up a good front, and sometimes
people put up a good front to themselves, like you're saying,
by not allowing themselves to explore their own feelings in
(20:16):
their own internal world to see what's going on with
them until it starts to really get the better of them.
And then and then you got the people who suppress
it with self medication, you know, alcohol and drugs and
all those sorts of or other kinds of activities that
try to you know, they try to avoid what they
(20:36):
can't face.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Yeah, yeah, I mean I always talk about my relationship
with boxing in that exact manner. Was this My understanding
of myself for my first thirty years was this independent, strong, brave, courageous,
bloody thing. And eventually I started to have to question
(20:59):
that and go, actually, these things that look like strength
and independence and courage. If I don't feel fear about
the things I'm doing that people think are courageous, then
that's not really courage. That's me painting a picture of courage.
What is it that actually scares me? And I had
to kind of go hunting for it? I had to.
(21:21):
I think that for me, the physical nature of boxing
brought me back in touch with my body and physical
sensations and it started to unravel a bit of self
deep self awareness. And that's where this, I guess this
sparked my interest and went, well, what is everyone's experience?
And when you know, I think about it all the time,
(21:43):
the conversations I have in this show, which are just
curious around learning from others and understanding and hopefully uncovering
resources that other people can connect with, but also being
very conscious and aware that everyone is in a different
and I have at different times I have been a
(22:03):
different person if someone had come to me Richard when
I was in my late twenties, before I had that
revelation and said, hey, you know how you think, Hey, TIV,
you know you think you're all brave and courageous and independent,
You're actually you know, you're actually the opposite of all that,
or to punished him in the face in the boxing ring.
Of course, you know, like I wasn't ready, and so
(22:25):
I'm I think about that in these conversations and at
all of the different stages of experience and awareness and
other people's actual physical circumstances and what I don't know
or haven't experienced, and what you might know or have
an experienced, and we try and communicate from these different places.
That was a long winded rant, wasn't it, thoughts Well, well.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
That's because it's your lived experience, right, yeah, resonated right, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
What are you with your with Bouldercrest? What are the
things that aside from the relationships which you spoke about,
what are the other tools that help people?
Speaker 3 (23:08):
Well, we we talked different about some different elements in
our programs. So we have one program where people come
to one of our facilities for a week and it's
these are in rural places in the United States, beautiful
places where you can find serenity, and we're in rural
(23:30):
areas that are really beautiful, and we work with people
in small groups about eight or so. And then we
have other programs where we go out to organizations usually
military bases or police departments or fire departments, places like that, prisons,
(23:52):
you know, and work with staff in groups of maybe
twenty five. So no matter which kind of when we're using, though,
we're first trying to educate people on this idea of
how events can affect people physically and psychologically, how their
(24:14):
challenges and what happens to us, and that when we
react this way physically and psychologically to these challenging events,
even though we might feel like we're not ourselves or
we feel like we're breaking down or something crazy about
us or disordered or whatever, and we might be labeled
that by some well meaning doctors or whatever, that these
(24:35):
reactions we're having are just human reactions because we're human beings,
and human beings respond a certain way to get hit
with these kinds of events. So first's education about that
where people learn that there's nothing wrong with them, it's
what happened to them. And a lot of the people
(24:56):
have come to us and been told to do something
wrong with them. You know, they've had diagnosed sees and
all kinds of medications and things like that, so you know,
you're you're broken, you know, and and we tell them no,
you're not, You're just a human being that's gone through
some ship. So so so that's one thing. And then
we help them with emotional regulation, because, as you're saying,
(25:20):
you know, these these reactions are are really difficult to manage.
So we we help people regulate their emotions. We teach
them meditation, and we teach them how to breathe properly,
and you know, how to how to have some ways
of calming some of these reactions that they have, which
(25:43):
are autonomic nervous system reactions just natural when you're in
a state of fear in the aftermath of that. So
then we then we have we try to help people
talk or express in some way what they're going through
so they're not just keeping it all to themselves and
they're connecting with the people in their group, which is
(26:05):
a remarkable thing that happens. I just love it. That's
why I love, you know, group work. When you see
people who take the chance to tell other people about
their struggles and then other people start joining in and
everybody everybody say, oh, you mean we're all in the
same boat. Oh my goodness, I thought I was. I
(26:26):
thought I was the only one. You know, you know,
you too, Wow? Okay, maybe we're not all so bad
off that or we're all crazy, but we know we're not.
Because you you look like you're pretty good. I thought
I was. So if you're pretty good and you're like me,
maybe I'm pretty good. It's an amazing thing that when people
start doing this, and you know, one of the things
that's so cool about our programs we do. We in
(26:48):
some of our programs we write in songwriters from Nashville
country music songwriters, professional songwriters who wrote for the biggest
country music acts. They come in and they spend they
spend a day just talking to the people in our
group and about what they went through, and out of
that lyrics develop. They take the words of the people
(27:10):
in the group and they create lyrics and they create
a song out of it. And we've got all these songs,
unbelievably beautiful songs written by these groups of veterans or
first responders and a Nashville songwriter and it's amazing, like
they could be on, you know, they could be on,
(27:34):
they could be streamed, and their beautiful songs. So whatever
the way of expressing might be through song or writing
and write or talk, we have all kinds of ways
of doing this, and then out of that we help
people develop with their story is story of their lives,
how they got to where they are, So they see
(27:56):
the overall picture of you know, how they grew up,
how they hit some things in their lives that were difficult,
what's been happening to them, and the most important thing,
where they're going next? What next? And the aftermath of
all this? Where are they headed? Where could they go?
What's the next chapter in the story. And we encourage
(28:17):
the next chapters to be stories of service where they
focus not on themselves and their own struggles so much
as what values do I have? What have I learned?
What can I bring to other people? How can I
serve in a new way or a different way connected
(28:40):
with other people, and help them develop a plan of service,
and that may be within their families, it could be
in their neighborhood of communities, it could be whatever resonates
for them, whatever, and that way they start writing the
(29:01):
new chapter what their lives are going to be going
forward in a way that's really a value. So that's
that's kind of the that's kind of the overall I
don't know schematic of how we approach things at Bouldercrest,
and it's all based on this post traumatic growth concept
and all those steps that I just mentioned to you
(29:25):
have been developed out of the research that we did
for many years at UNC Charlotte, learning about what the
process looks like when people live in the aftermath of
traumatic events in a way which brings them into these
growth perspectives. And we learned about that process through our
(29:45):
research listening to people, and now we can take that
and offer it back to facilitate this process and people
that come to our programs.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
I love that so much, and I love the emphasis
on that expression, finding a way to express If I,
if I had any choice of what I came back
as in my next life, it would be a singer songwriter.
Like I think it would be the greatest gift to
be able to express your deepest self and turn it
(30:16):
into music that other people can connect to. I can't
sing very well, Richard a lip sing happy birthday in
front of family. I'm that musically gifted, But I love it.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
Think about it, tifany You know what happens in these
in these in these groups do we do that they
take things that are terrible that they've all experienced, and
they offer it up to this songwriters helping them with that.
And then the and see what happens is the songwriter
takes all these lyrics, all these words and everything, and
(30:50):
then the next day the songwriter comes in and says, Okay,
I'm going to play your song for you, and and
they play this song. You know, usually just have a
guitar lay a song, and what has been terrible is
this beautiful thing. It's been terrible is turned into this
(31:11):
beautiful thing that connects them all in the group, all
of them here, all of them have their piece of
that song because they've been heard, they've listened to, and
it's been transformed into this beautiful work of art. So
that and that's that's a great metaphor for their lives, right,
(31:31):
that that what is terrible can be transformed into something
valuable and useful, and that that can connect and resonate
with other people, a perfect metaphor for their path going forward.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
What keeps some people stuck? Why do some people, even
if just for a period of time, hold on to
that thing like an anchor, or become really identified. Yeah,
I think that can be said about just labels in general.
It's labeling something can be really positive by way of
(32:09):
giving us words and and an understanding of what's happening.
But it could equally become an anchor that we attached to.
So what have you learned about that?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Well, there's a lot of reasons that I don't think
I know all of them. But like I said, sometimes
you just don't have the right people around you, who
who you can feel you can trust and understand. So
that may be one thing. Some people are immersed in
some really negative habits which hold them back, some addictions
(32:45):
and some other kinds of habits that make it hard
for them to move forward to something positive. So there's
that some people haven't found their way yet through things
like guilt or blame. Guilt and blame are hard ones
(33:06):
for people to get through sometimes. And then the other
part of this, though, is when somebody is stuck, you know,
they may just be stuck for this time, because this
process of post traumatic growth happens over different periods of
time for different people. So you take a snapshot of
someone at one time and they look very stuck, you
(33:29):
might come back some time later and they're not stuck anymore.
So it's hard to tell who's going to remain stuck.
Some people are going to remain stuck for the rest
of their lives, or because of their stuckness, they prematurely
end their lives because they can't find the hope to
endure this stuck place anymore. You know, it's hard to say.
(33:54):
Sometimes the pain is too great. It could be physical
pain or psychological pain and just overwhelms some people and
they don't they don't have the practices or support to
endure it, you know. I mean, in your career in boxing,
(34:16):
I'm sure a big part of what you had to
figure out was how to endure pain and keep going. Yeah,
and so maybe sometimes it's too hard for some certain people.
So there's all kinds of ways that that can happen.
But I just want to emphasize that just because you're
stuck at one point doesn't mean you're going to be
(34:37):
stuck next month or next year, you know, could be different.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
I always I find that the interesting part of healing
or growing or evolving or whatever it is that we're
doing is well. I think about and often talk about
to people, like when I first decided to do a
boxing fight, how do you become a good fight? Well,
the number one thing for you to get through that
(35:03):
fight is to learn to learn how to just get hit.
You've got to be able to take a punch in
the face and keep doing whatever terrible skill set you
have for as long as you can whilst getting punched.
But a couple of years down the track, when you've
increase your skill, that's no longer the aim of the game.
And that's what when I talk about resilience and I
(35:26):
go like, I think we're all stuck on the beginnings
of resilience where it's all about just wearing the hard
punch or you just got to get punched in the
face and keep going. It's like, well, no, because in
a couple of years time now resilience looks different. Now
resilience is learning how to not get hit, both with
skill but also with the intention that, hey, I don't
(35:47):
want to get hurt. I want to win the fight,
but I don't want to get hurt in the process.
Like when I started to develop self love, self care,
self worth, I had a hard to challenge to manage
in the boxing ring because all of a sudden, I
could feel the punches and I didn't want to wear
them at the cost of landing them. All of a sudden,
(36:10):
I was like, Oh, it's harder for me to get
in and get the punches because I don't want to
wear them, because now I appreciate the fact that I
don't want to get hurt, whereas but when I first started,
I couldn't feel them. Oh, I was disassociated to a
point and I would walk, I would wear anything, because
it was all about just going I show you how
tough I am and how much I can endure, because
(36:30):
in silence, I'd endure it a lot over you know, Like,
so there was this and that's just I guess self awareness,
self understanding, and everybody's journey isn't the same. But that's
why I find this topic so fascinating, because only I
could know that for me, and only I could know
when that change happens. So then when when you're running
(36:53):
your groups and I'm dealing with groups of people and
they're coming in with their version of the boxing ring
or their version of a story, it's knowing that it's
an ever evolving process. You're not talking to the same person,
Like you're not the same Richard right now than you
were forty minutes ago, because we've had a conversation and
we might have said things and developed new understandings.
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Yeah, yeah, you know, this perspective shift is something that
you're talking about here that can be subtle, especially to
the outsider, and you don't realize it's happening in someone.
And so, for example, you're talking about how at one
point in your career, let's say, your resilience was defined
(37:42):
differently than it was at another point in your career, right,
And so that's similar to what happens with this growth
perspective where people will say, if you listen to them
talk about their stories, they say things like, I thought
I was living really well. I thought I had it
figured out. I thought I was doing the right thing.
(38:04):
But now I realized that now that really wasn't it.
I've got a different way of seeing it now. So
even though I would have given myself four stars in
living you know, three years ago, now I would only
give myself like two stars for that living. You know,
(38:25):
you know, I've changed my whole measure of what good
living looks like now that I have this perspective. So
it's that shift in understanding what's valuable and what really
makes sense in terms of living well that we see
in this process which makes it very difficult sometimes when
(38:50):
we're doing research to figure out how to measure these things,
because you know, people will say they're doing really well,
and then later they'll say they're doing really well, and
if that's all you got, that's all you know. It
looks like they have a change, you know. But what's
happened is their new version of really well is different
(39:11):
from their old version does really well. So it's a
very tricky business, very tricky business.
Speaker 2 (39:19):
I remember across the years, like going to trying different
therapies and things. And I remember a period of time
when I was going to a therapist and I would
think every time I'd be like, I don't even know
what I'm going for, like everything's fine, I'll go anyway,
and then things come up. But I remember one point
where and this is like we evolve and we don't.
(39:41):
We never give up. We push the goalpost and don't
realize how much we're changing and evolving. And I remember
as discussing a circumstance and she said to me, oh,
that's that's very different to how you would have responded
or approached it or whatever. And it was only in
that moment when she sat and made me acknowledg and
I went, oh, oh, I've changed a lot, and we
(40:04):
forget that because we put ourselves stuck in this place.
And like, I find that so valuable when people talk
about therapy, like I'm such an advocate of you know,
I'll have it whether I'm doing well or not doing well,
like I've been doing well for a long time now,
Like I haven't what. I don't perceive myself as having
any real reason to need a therapist, but I continue
(40:28):
to have a relationship with my therapist because I love
the insights I get when I get to workshop the
life of Tiff and see what's coming up with someone.
Speaker 3 (40:39):
Yeah, yeah, that's right. So I guess you're you're recognizing
that there's always more room for something, yeah, and you're
just allowing that process to keep occurring rather than shut
it down and say, Okay, I'm done, I'm good.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, And sometimes well not Sometimes. I think perspective is
a little bit easier when you're not in the middle
of some ship storm.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
It's like when life is just cruising along, you can
kind of sit back, look at it and go, Okay,
what cat do I do things? And you see things
differently because you're not in the middle of some chaotic,
oh help me period of doing. I'm not coping with
this thing.
Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah, I think, I think, you know. It's we also
find though that a little bit of discomfort is a
good thing, a good motivator for a change and change
in perspective. So you can get too comfortable and complacent. Also,
so something that's you know, just making you question a
(41:43):
bit is is not a bad thing, but too much
of it that when you're disoriented, you've got to get
oriented enough to be able to think straight.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yes, yeah, I love. The last couple of years I've
been on just some short overseas trips and the last one,
both of them were incredible just to get away and
get perspective. The last one was literally life changing for me.
I went to the Himalayas and we did a quite
a spiritual kind of retreat and like just those moments
(42:14):
where like we're sitting on the top of a mountain
in the Himalayas, on top of them, I'm like that
that is cloud underneath me. I'm looking down at the
clouds underneath me, and the whole your whole life is
just like oh, I'm everything and nothing like everything changed
for me in that moment, And I love that. I
love being able to have experiences like that that just
(42:36):
go in this world where I'm in this tiny little
suburb thinking a bit about these tiny little things.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
Yes, yeah, yeah, when you get that shift and perspective, yeah,
that makes you start to think, Okay, from this perspective,
how does it all look? Hows this life on living look?
Then there's there's a lot really to consider. Yeah, it
opens up a whole book.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, what are yours? Do you have? How do you
keep you well in the middle of life, especially when
you work in an area where you're working you're kind
of immersed in the prose traumatic growth space and trauma space.
And how do you do you have non negotiables? What
is your wellness philosophy?
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Yeah? Well, you know, I'm not necessarily all that very
good at it. Thanks for honesty, not all that good,
but because because I work a lot. But I'll tell
you I love I love the work I do. So
for example, this foundation's Bouldercrest Foundation is just full of
(43:48):
the most remarkable people. You know, you're talking about Charlie Plumb.
You know Charlie Plumb is you know, part of us
and you know, when you're around people like that, it's like,
how fortunate can be to be to be able to
talk to people with these experiences and just everybody I
met through this, this work with Bouldercrest, now, these first
(44:11):
responders and military people, that's not that's not I didn't
grow up with. That wasn't part of that. But you know,
just amazing, some really amazing people who are just so
dedicated to service. Yeah, I just love to be around them.
They're full of such good humor. I mean, that's the
other thing, just so funny. I love humor. Humor really
(44:33):
keeps me going, you know. And and there are people
I can just relax with and we can and we
know all we're doing good work and we're pulling together.
And you know, our CEO, Josh Goldberg always emphasizes it's
not important who gets the credit. We're not about that.
It doesn't matter who gets the credit. It's our mission
and it doesn't matter who gets credit as long as
(44:55):
we're doing good work. So I love that. It makes everybody,
you know, connect and support. So it's fun to be
part of this group. And so that's one thing, just
the people and the humor and the mission is something.
You know. I feel so fortunate to be able to
(45:17):
take the stuff that I've been working on in my
life and see it utilized and changing people's lives. I mean,
this is just amazing. I'm so grateful to Ken Falk
who started this organization and brought me on board and
we worked together to do this, and I'm so grateful
(45:37):
that I got this opportunity. It's give my life such
more meaning than it would have had if I just
you know, the university was great, and I love teaching
and students and all that, but this is a whole
This is a whole different deal. I love my psychotherapy practice.
Being a therapist is great. I mean, I've just been
so lucky in doing work that's just so just love
it all these different things. So that's that's part of it.
(46:01):
I love being in beautiful places. You know. Where I
live is beautiful. You know, I've been walking around today
outside looking at all the flowers and everything and just
I just love it. I just love the place, you know.
I just love to look take it in.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (46:17):
I love my family. You know, I've had a wonderful
weekend with family, and I love it when they love
me so there's all that. I don't know. It's most
it's mostly about the people. I guess when I start
talking about it, it's all about the people.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah, Well, as you were talking, I wrote down and
I reckon they are the three big rocks. And when
you when you set up something like you have and
those boxes are ticked, you can't lose. And that's hope, purpose,
and connection. When you've got a purpose bigger than you,
when you've got connection with good people, and hope is
a huge one and you're giving it to people.
Speaker 3 (46:53):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's a good life. It's good life.
I appreciate it, and I and I and I've pay
attention to what I'm grateful for. That's the other thing,
you know, people, I've talked a lot in recent years
about gratitude, the gratitude attitude or whatever, stuff like that.
But the thing that it does when if you really
(47:15):
practice it, is it changes the way you think. It
changes your attention to the positive things in your life. Yeah,
it forces your attention in that direction. So that's why
thinking about what you're grateful for is so important, not
just because you can recognize you're grateful for those things,
(47:35):
but really changes your whole way of thinking about things
so that when things get really rough, you still can
recognize the positive aspects of your experience.
Speaker 2 (47:48):
I love it. You've been great. Tell us where we
can go to find you online, some of your books.
Where can we get some resources from you.
Speaker 3 (48:00):
Our website is Bouldercrest dot org. Bouldercrest dot org, so
it's b O U L D E R c R
E S t all one word bouldercrest dot org. And
there's a ton of stuff there at that website. We've
got some we got some books that are good. We've
(48:20):
got one called Transformed by Trauma. Stories of Postraumatic Growth,
So we publish that that it's a bunch of interviews
with people who are good examples of post traumatic growth
and they tell their stories and we kind of comment
on how that describes the postmatic growth process and the
(48:41):
different kinds of outcomes you see where people develop better
relationships and see their new possibilities of their lives and
their strength and our appreciative of their lives and really
have a new spiritual sense of things. So those that's
a good book. And then we have a workbook called
the Postraumatic Growth Workbook, So people are interested in trying
to help themselves through this process. That's another kind of resource.
(49:05):
So we've we've got we got a lot of stuff there.
People can gain a lot of think on that website.
Speaker 2 (49:11):
Awesome. I will have a link to that in the
show notes. Thank you so much for both the conversation
today and for doing the work you do well.
Speaker 3 (49:20):
I've enjoyed talking with you, Tiffany. You're a great interviewer
and it's been like sitting down in our living room
together and just chatting. So I've really enjoyed it. Thank
you so much. It's good to hear in the Australian
the Australian talk again. I've got some I've been to
Australia a few times and I've got a really good
friend there and she's great, and so I always like
(49:43):
I always like hearing I.
Speaker 2 (49:44):
Have a very Australian accent, and I forget I forget
when I host these conversations. And I just last night
I went to a comedy gig with a chick who
was in Australia at the moment, and she did a
version of an Australian accent and it was she nailed
it so much. And it's not until and I was like, oh,
(50:05):
I said, that's so vogue, and I sound like like
I forget, we forget. So thanks for that to my attention. Yeah,
thank you so much. Thanks everyone for tuning into this.
Go and check out Bauldercrest. She said it's now and never.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
I got fighting in my blood
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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!