The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – TRAUMA IS YOUR SUPERPOWER by Dr. Louise Stanger

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

TRAUMA IS YOUR SUPERPOWER by Dr. Louise Stanger https://www.amazon.com/TRAUMA-YOUR-SUPERPOWER-Louise-Stanger-ebook/dp/B0H223SMXW What is the very thing that tried to break you is the source of your greatest power? Trauma Is Your Superpower is a powerful, illustrated guide to turning pain into purpose.Dr. Louise reframes trauma as a portal to transform. The birthplace of strength… revealing how life’s hardest moments can unlock heightened intuition, deeper empathy and unshakable self-worth. More than healing, this book invites you to rewrite your story…releasing the past version of yourself and stepping fully into who you are becoming. > About the author Dr. Louise Stanger LCSW, CDWF, CSAT-1, CIP is a preeminent clinician interventionist and thought leader in the behavioral health and addiction treatments industry. She has performed thousands of family interventions in the US and abroad, gives presentations around the country on various topics related to mental health and addiction, process disorders and chronic pain, and has received prestigious awards from her fellow industry colleagues for her dedication to intervention and recovery. In addition to her work with clients and families, she is former University faculty at San Diego State University and University of San Diego, where she brought in over 5 million in grants for substance abuse and alcohol training and education.

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Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it's not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today, amazing young lady joining us on the show. Dr. Louise Stanger joins us on the show. We're going to be talking about her books, and our first one we're going to lead off is called Trauma. Is Your Superpower? That's right.

I thought mine was flatulence. Anyway, I don't know. That's what why people tell me. Anyway, we're going to get into with her, find out more of her details and all that good stuff, and what you can do to know how to manage your trauma. She is a preeminent clinical interventionalist and thought leader in the behavior, health, and addiction treatments industry. She's performed thousands of family interventions in the U.S. and abroad. Gives presentations around the country on various topics related to mental health and addiction,

processes, disorders, and chronic pain, and has received prestigious awards for her fellow industry colleagues for her dedication to intervention and recovery. In addition to her work with clients and families, she's a former university faculty at San Diego State University and the University of San Diego, where she brought in over $5 million in grants for substance abuse and alcohol training and education. Boy, I'm glad they're working on teaching people how to drink vodka properly there. Is that what the alcohol training educated is? Welcome to the show. How are you, doctor? Oh, thank you, Chris. It's so exciting to be here. I did about 20 years of alcohol training. Good. Then you must have a lot of experience. Yeah, I'm really good at this part,

the part where you lift up the bottle to your mouth and you put the bigger end up in the air. So give us your dot coms. Where can people find you on the interwebs? You can find me at www. Debbie, All About Interventions.com. You can just Google my name, Dr. Louise Danger, and that's going to take to you. Or you can give me a call at 619-507-1699. And I always pick up my own phone. Oh, always picks up her own phone. That's pretty awesome.

So give us a 30,000 overview. What's aside this new book? Oh, my gosh. I love it. So this is the first adult comic caricature book. I have done. And I work with the fabulous person that I've worked with before. Her name is Cheryl Fox. She's actually a world class for, but she's also able to do character charitures. And when I, she's done a book for me before, but it's a little long story. Her son, Jamelia,

works, plays for the Harlem Globetrotters. And she did a character chore, a comic book for him called The Mean Little Black Boy. And I saw it. And I said, Cheryl, oh, can you do a comic book for me on trauma? And she said, sure, Dr. Louise, no problem. So we could pal our way around. We could do all kinds of fun things we never could do. And so she is like Rogers and Harrison. I did the words.

She did the music. And I thought trauma is a big word. And it's also one of the most overused words. in the world. And so I thought to get your attention, perhaps to get you to flip through and read some of the pages, I would do it as an adult caricature book, cartoon book, because you just might put it up. If this was in, I think, regular print as a regular book, you go, oh, no, not another book on trauma. He's just like, what is trauma? Trauma. Trauma is something that can happen subjectively. you don't think you're good enough, not smart enough, not bright enough, you're stupid.

Maybe people said that to you when you grew up or that's how you feel. And externally, things can happen to you, whether you're in an accident. Like for myself, I had six sudden deaths in my lifetime, lose a job, break up a marriage, have a fight, all different kinds of things. And it's what happens to you inside, how you integrate that and how you process. it, that trauma can become your superpower. Ah. So mastering some of the weird things that happen to you, the damage, all that stuff, can be something you can utilize to empower you by mastering.

That's right. Because with all those things, whether it's internal or external, you lost something. And you have to learn to grieve your losses. And if you're able to successfully grieve your losses, you can transform yourself. into something else and not go down pity path lane and martyrdom alley. Yeah, a lot of people do take their trauma and they either do the pity path lane for attention and stuff or they, or they, I don't know, they use it to lash out of their people because they're damaged.

That's right. Maybe. That's right. But you have to process. I'm not saying it's easy. But if you're able to, it really frees you to be the person you're meant to be. Oh, that's really important because we all want to be the people we are. Trauma is an interesting thing.

You have big T trauma and little T trauma. Do you believe in that sort of thing? Not really. I think, okay, I really don't. That's good. So Big Tree, it's like your body doesn't distinguish between if I had a mat and wine coming at me or you just said, oh, Dr. Lee's, I don't want you on this program. You're an idiot.

So I'm going to incorporate those the same way. And so this whole thing, a big tea little tree, how do you minimize somebody not feeling good about themselves? You can't say to your client, look, you really only had a little trauma after all. No one died or got murdered. And so therefore you can't feel as bad. That is absolutely crazy talk. I never have thought about that. We've had a lot of people that have come on and the psychologists like yourself.

and use those terms. And so I've just copied them. But I never really thought about it. I think maybe there was some initial times where you're in the back of my mind. I was like, how do we discern what these two are and the effect that they have? And you're right. The body knows the score. That's right.

It's how you incorporate that. Big things. Some people can just think about war. Many gentlemen have gone to war and they've seen terrible things. one could come back with a lot of PTSD post-traumatic stress. Another one would be fine. What the difference is, we're not too sure. I don't think the researchers know, but it's how you incorporate the event that's happened

or that you have experienced. And so it's the weight maybe and the role that we decide to tell ourselves about that trauma, maybe? Yeah. That makes the difference? It's the story. but I also think there's grief work. Because something could happen, and I don't want to underwrite that, something happens, and it's sad. You lost something.

Indigenous to lower traumas, something got lost. And how do you grieve that, and how do you come back? Like, for example, I had a daughter that lived in Pacific Palisades. Everybody's home in the Pacific's palisades burnt down. No question. How did all those people grieve and how have they moved on? And what do they find joy in today? Or are they still sort of stuck and this happened to me and now I don't know where to go?

But you're well versed. Like T.S. Eliot, J. Alfred Poofrock, he sat and watched the people come and go, talking about Michael O'Don, meaning he was just spinning. You stay spinning or what are you going? going to do. Yeah. Some people really don't understand that something's happened to them. Some people have blocked out trauma because it's a little too overwhelming at whatever mental

lives they are. Is that true then? Absolutely. Like, why do you want to know something terrible that happened? I can remember, I'll use myself because I can talk about myself. When I was, my father was ill, he had a mental health illness and he had been hospitalized. and he died by suicide. But nobody wanted to tell me,

except I was in the third grade class and little Ruthianne skipped in and skippled Ian, hi there, Louisiana, and I go, hi there, Ruthian, and she said, do you know how your daddy died? In my mind, he was Superman, right? Yeah. He was taken out by kryptonite.

Yeah. He was so special. No, she said he hung himself with a tie. And that was a harsh thing, harsh visual visualization. So I had to decide I needed help to process that, help to do it. But did I want to put that out of my mind? I'm sure as a seven or eight year old, yeah, I wanted the kryptonite story to be stronger. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a worthy effort too. And then you have to take that into account. And some folks, they hide it or their system hides it because it's sexual assault and stuff like that as a child. You don't know how to deal with it in any way, shape, or form at that age usually. And so a lot of people will bury it. And then later, I guess their system hands it to them and says, I hear you're probably mature enough to handle this, maybe. That's right, because you sound like you're very familiar with Gabber Math Head, the body knows the score.

You might eat, stuff your feelings, or you might restrict because of something. happening. But somehow they're eventually might show up, not necessarily the way you wanted to show up, but it gives you an opportunity. Yeah. And then you can identify it. I wish they teach more about trauma in school

so that people could maybe deal with their trauma earlier and recognize that they have trauma. I thought what we need to normalize is the fact, and I think it was Rabbi Lerner a long time ago wrote a book, when bad things happened to good people.

Yeah. Bad things happen. And because it always seems like trauma is it's outside there. Not me. Maybe you or my home burn down or something else. So we have to normalize that in our lifetime, we can have great things happen, but we also can have bad things that happen. And it's okay to get help. It's okay to talk about. It's okay to say, have someone experience. laying it or help you along the way. Yeah, it definitely does. It definitely does. I think more people, even going through college, there should be a college class for people learn to get their shit together as a human being. I am of the opinion that if you want to get married, you need to go to two years of college to figure out, number one, how to be a decent human being to other people, and then also to maybe work through your issues so you don't take them into the marriage and also how to raise children properly. That's right. Nobody ever goes to a parenting class beforehand. Yeah, isn't it funny. People are just like, yeah, I know, I've heard people say in a way, but almost exactly this.

I'm really fucked up in the head and have a lot of damage. And I'm going to bring some kids in this world and pour it all over them. Yeah, I work with a lot of families like that. You have problems. I say they have problems in living. And that's to being polite. But is that the, unfortunately they're able to stay alive from Darwin and our babies and they think that's going to solve it. but that just exacerbates it. Oh, yeah. I've seen that so many times. People will be like,

our marriage is awful and things are going well with Bob. I think we just need another child and everything will be fine. That's right. Fine for the child support. Check. Please. Anyway, jokes aside. So you wrote this book to help people maybe identify their trauma,

but instead of feeling like a victim, where you're like, oh, you know. Learning how to be a victor, not hiding, and seeing what benefit, what did I learn from this? How can I share this with others? And how can I be of service to myself and others? So I tend to write books, which I want people to process and I want people to learn how to be the best version of themselves. Yeah.

Be the best version of yourself. And yet, when you get stuck in victimhood, it can become empowering, empowering. Am I saying that right? Powering? It can take away your power and make you feel, but you just feel stuck. And you're, I'm a victim. You wear it like a crown of thorns and I'm persecuted. I'm a victim.

I'll never be whole again and yada, yada, yada. And for some people, it's great for attention and validation. But treating your, one of my issues that I have is I have really bad ADHD. Like, squirrel. Really, it's really bad. And it, it, it used to tapered off of my old age to where it was comfortable. And then I started testosterone replacement therapy for low testosterone. And it came back like a force.

And it's bad. I'm one of those people that I can be like, hey, I should go get a cup of water. And then next thing, you know, I'm changing the one in the car, 15 transaction tasks later that I've not completed any of them. I just keep moving from one to the other. I have to really bring in a lot of control. I even have one of these things called a Padamo Pomerano timer. And it's got a little timer that it can try and keep me locked in to stuff. Other than that, I just need a leash.

So I try and utilize this as my superpower. For a lot of people, ADHD is what they call the CEO disease, if you're familiar. And a lot of successful CEOs have it. That's right. Being manic and entrepreneurs is the same thing anyway. That is true. You can name, like masks, gates, lots of people. Oh, yeah.

And so I just try and use this in my superpower, and it's a battle every day. It's almost a battle like people do with addiction. I'm just constantly throughout the day. I'm like, stop. You're diverting again. Go back to what you're supposed to be doing. What was I supposed to be doing? Oh, yeah.

And so I'm glad you, I'm glad you've framed this in such a way to help people understand that it can be a superpower, that you don't have to be a victim. You don't have to wear that badge of. that you're a damaged, failed human being forever, sometimes because of something that you didn't control that happened to you. That's true. Very true. Yeah.

And so why let them have all that power over you, set yourself free? I remember people on the show heard me talk about this before, because we got so many psychologists talking about trauma and stuff. And it was the show Leaving Neverland, where two young boys accused Michael Jackson in a very, in a very well accusation. I would say of molesting them. And at the end of the show, there was an Oprah show they had after,

and it was like an interview setting. And I remember there's a big guy who stood up. He used to be an NFL player, really big, wrong dude. And he started talking about how he had written this book and told the story decades after it happened to him of being molested by the local police officer, who normally, especially in those days, you look at the police officer as a vehicle of trust. and you call the cops if there's a problem. They'll come in and save you.

And so he didn't talk about it for most of his life. And he said, my problem was, is by not sharing it, trauma is like a poison. And it festers inside you until you can bleed it out or get it out of your system. It's kind of like a snake bite. Sometimes you've got to suck the poison out. And he's until I talk to people, I admitted that this happened to me. and I was open about it and I didn't hide it anymore. He goes, that's when I was set free.

And so he said, if you have trauma, that's really important to go ahead and speak it, say it, tell people that this happened to me and this is who I am and I'm not going to hide it. I'm not going to be ashamed of it anymore. So I like how you're treating this as a superpower. Thank you. I like it. I think it's a growth of my work. I try and take things and find. mind how can we become the best version of ourselves?

You asked about an earlier book, addiction in the family. Nobody ever, I have never met anybody in my life that when they were younger, ha ha ha, guess what? Guess what I'm going to be when I grow up? I'm going to be an addict alcoholic. Nobody sets out to do that. And no child born in this world said, ha ha, you know what, I want my parents to have a substance use disorder. doesn't happen, or a mental health disorder.

And again, it could be a genetic predisposition. It could be trauma that have known it. But addiction is pretty one out of every three families in the United States has someone that has a substance use disorder. So how then do we begin to deal that? Trauma, I guess, as a child who was born into a substance abuse family, is called an ACA, adult child of an alcoholic. And there's all these different things.

But how do we begin to navigate and how do we begin to set healthy boundaries so we don't keep enabling? I hate that word, but facilitating the demise of that person. How do we not look another way? And how do we learn to have healthy boundaries? And the person in recovery can often give us such a wonderful gift themselves in recovery and teach us. how to be a better person. Let's get into this other book that you have, too, as well. Let's get a plug in for that.

It's called Addiction of the Family, Helping Families Navigate Challenges, emotions and Recovery. Tell us some of the, about what this book is in depth. It is in depth. And it's actually, what is it? That one's my fifth book. I have a book for after this. And the idea, again, is it starts out with what is addiction.

You know, what's define what we mean by substance use, mental health disorder. How is, how, if one out of every three families has someone in their family who's has some type of isn't, whatever it is, how then do we navigate? And how do we help that person that is suffering or experiencing a substance use disorder? How do we help them get the help they need? And how do we learn how to learn ourselves? How do we set healthy boundaries?

Right now, I work with a lot of families, but I think of a family right now who may have a 26-year-old. And they keep giving him money and money and bailing him out. And I mean, and looking the other way as if money or food, clothing, and shelter could allow him. But if they could set a healthy boundary and say, I love you and I care about the mantra for everybody who has someone who's suffering or experiencing a substance. use disorder should be. I love you and I care about you and I'm only going to support you in health and wellness and I'm going to find out how I can be healthy. Yeah. People have to, sometimes they just kind of learn the hard way. And sometimes it's only people, some people learn it. That's right. Yeah. Sometimes there's consequence after consequence. It's one thing you throw up, you pass out,

you end up in bed with someone you didn't know that you end up in bed with. You have a DUI, you wreck your car, you lose your job. And sometimes you have to have a lot of consequences before the red light goes on, or all those people around you have to stop protecting you from all that. Yeah. And I see so many of these parents, these helicopter parents and all different variations of stuff, they talk about these parents that won't let the kid fall on. You can't even skin his knee, man.

They're there. They're there. I don't know. Got them on a suspension thing. And I don't know. They just won't let them fall down and learn stuff. And sometimes that's the best way kids learn. I remember my parents told me, don't stick your hand on the stove.

It's hot. Don't stick your finger in the socket. Guess what I did to make sure that they weren't lying to me. You got it. And you know what the best lesson was? Just let me stick my hand on the thing and learn. Now, they were, they were good to try and warn me. And they did that.

If you don't tell your kids don't stick your hand on the oven, that's probably, it's probably on you. And you should probably warn him. But they warned me. I was one of those things where I just had to fuck around and find out how to go full fafo with that. And I have some addiction problems in my family with some of my family members. They keep calling me and trying to talk to me and I don't want to talk to them. There's a lot. You ever heard of that problem?

Yeah, there's a lot. In fact, I just was writing something right before on estrangement. There's a point where people don't want to talk to somebody and they choose not to. And it can be because I love you, I care, but I cannot be with you the way you currently are or whatever it is. And so they choose not to. And so there's a whole big growing bulk of literature. I just wrote a blog about it today on estrangement, on choosing not to speak, not to talk, and taking a look at that. Is that good? How does that convey to others?

We haven't talked for 20 years. We haven't talked for eight months. Is it harmful or helpful? Is it doing more good than bad? You always have to think about things as it's doing more harm than good. And it really is situational as to it's not my parents wouldn't let me get this, but something had to happen to cause this. Or a parent who's tried over and over and over again to help their child or their adult child. And it doesn't work.

Maybe they have to distance. They have to say, I love you and care about you, all this work in health and wellness. But for now, I cannot speak with you. because it's just harmful to me. It's just really you have to sort of unravel what the decision, why the decision was made. Yeah, yeah.

I'm always like, you said you never talked to me again. You haven't talked to me for years. And I'm really been great with that. And now you want to bother me again? And you keep claiming that you're related to me. Can we stop all that? Yeah, that's something else. Like all of a sudden, just think of the young,

child who, as a youngster, was, there was a chasm in the family. And their mom or dad decided not to talk to their brothers or sisters. And all this life, this kid has grown up. He's turned out okay. And yet he knows he has his family over here. For some reason, there's certainly no good, very bad. But he wants to go and find that out himself. And that's a lot. okay. I'm going to call up and say, hi, my name is Jerry, Uncle, Uncle Jerry. I know we've never met, but I'd love to learn about you. And it depends on what kind of person that Uncle Jerry or Anne Sally is, how they'll respond to that. If they're so angry with the parent, they're not, they'll just lash. But if they think, oh, okay, there's been a lot of time and this is my nephew,

my niece, et cetera, there's a chance for that generation. Addiction is such a tough thing. We mentioned before the show we were talking about living in Vegas. Living in Vegas, you're very aware of addictive people if you're a non-addictive person and I like myself. That's right. They will try and glom onto you. They'll borrow money.

They'll steal money. They'll do all sorts of things. And I remember when I first moved to Vegas, this company had hired me to be a CEO and build a mortgage company for them. And I took my first check into them to get cashed, into the bank. And I didn't have a bank account set up. I just barely moved there. And they gave me my starting out check. And so I just, I just will, I'll just go down to cash it. And I had to decide which bank I wanted in Vegas, I guess. And so when I went down there, they're like, where did you get this check from? These people hired me to be the boss. And they're like, okay, we're going to have to call them.

And I'm like, really? It's embarrassing. A lot of bad checks. Yeah, what's going on there? And so they called them and they're like, yeah, it's a good check. Yeah, he works for us, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they did like all this other. They won my ID and I think a blood sample and even a stool sample.

And I was just like, I come from Utah. And this is back in the 90s when you used to be able to people who wrote checks. I don't think anyone does it anymore. Maybe for bills or something in the mail. And I remember them saying to me, I go, what is the big deal, man? I just moved here from Utah. We write checks at the gas station for a candy bar. We write checks all the time.

This is the 90s folks. And they said to me, they go, oh, you're new here. Okay. What you have to realize is addicts, let's steal a lot of checks here for gambling and drugs and everything else. And he goes, and they said to me, the problem with addicts for gambling is they don't die from their disease. Like if heroin users, cocaine users, alcohol. It'll eventually kill them, right? They'll eventually owe a dose or something badly.

But if you're a gambler, you're going to live your whole life and you just get better at figuring out how to steal, how to feed your addiction. And that's a really big deal dealing with families and addiction and stuff like that. Absolutely. I mean, GA or gambling addiction is hard because what will happen is eventually you do lose all your money. It just doesn't have. and then what do you have and then what do you do to mediate that risk? Yeah.

But it is definitely like sex addiction, gambling addiction, eating disorder, they're all called, those are called process addictions. Oh. They're processed disorders to be specific. Whereas alcohol, cocaine, heroin are substance use. They're ingesting something in. Although all of them affect your. your brain and your cognition and the way you interact in the world.

Yeah. I remember walking into casinos with my friends who had gambling problems, and you would walk in, and their eyes would light up and glaze over, and they would just become like an MPC bot to gamble. And then they always tell you the same thing. You probably heard this when you're living in Vegas. They're like, no, but I have a system, man. I'm different.

I have a system. Everybody is different. I'm always different, but I remember as a young kid, I was wide-eyed and I would go into the casinos. And the thing that struck with me so much were the older, no, I'm old, but at that time I was young, were the older men and women who had the cigarettes. I don't know how the butt worked, but my mother was able to do it, hanging out and going, And those days you had, Kaching, Kaching, Kaching.

And the symphony of the slot machine was mesmerizing, the light stand. It was hypnotic. Yeah. So I like that title, Symphony of the Slot Machines. If you lose in Vegas, you know what that means. Yeah, it was like a symphony. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

And it was repetitive. And the be, and the cherries, the cherries were really special. And just draw you in. Very seductive. Yeah, very seductive. And I would walk into the casino and I would look around at the opulence. And I'd be like, I'm pretty sure I knew who's winning most of the games here. And it's not going to be me.

So I'll just buy a Coke. But you didn't have to buy a Coke in my day. That's true. It gave you everything. You didn't have to buy anything. It was so inviting. I know. When the mob on Vegas, it was a great place.

That's right. We wanted to go to a show. You just got comp. It was a, it was very different than today. Oh, now you got to pay for parking, too. Have you heard about that? Yeah, no. That was unheard of.

Yeah, that was the biggest insult. If you're local, too, locals, we always got free stuff because we would drive our, if somebody visit us, we drive down the Blasio and you like, check out of this beautiful blasjia. And you spend money in the casino. So. And, but to pay for parking, especially if you were at local. Oh my God, I make this die.

That's unheard of, yeah. It's kind of why Vegas is really suffering right now. They just nickel and dime the hell out of everybody. They came with those hotel fees that are crazy where they got multiple hotel fees. And that's on top of the hooker you bring to your room. I don't know what that means. Anyway, that's probably a different addiction.

You should talk to you about privately. That's a different one. We can talk about that another time. So you've written five books. Do you want to maybe tease out the other three so people can buy them from Amazon? I like another one. I'll tease up one other one. And it's called, this is this one.

It's called Reflections on Aging from the Sunset Marquis. So I found love one time I lived in West Hollywood. Only once. It's actually a hotel in West Hollywood, which is known. It's just known. It's got Nightingale Stoenies. It's known as a rocker studio, a rocker hotel. Just think about all the people that reported there.

But I used to live there and used to watch. walk up and go buy it and go to SoulCycle when I lived there. And so again, Cheryl Fox, who did the beautiful drawings for me, did all the photography for this book. And I'm thinking I wanted to have a book that could allow you to look at aging, not with disdain, but with thoughtfulness. and invite change at any time. So this book invites you just Nightingale Studios to let the music in. Let the music in. Okay?

And you never really think that you're never going to it. And for me, when I let the music in, I think of Tina Turner. Because I found love with Tina Turner when I was younger. But she also has a great deal of resilience, if you know her story. Oh, yeah, she was great. And everything. Amazing. And in this book, I talk a little bit about clients, but I invite people.

So how would you let the music in? Would you dance like that? Would you create your own soundtrack? Could you use music mindfully? And what are you going to do in the encore? And in this book, I allow for, I do it in this book, in the last one, but I invite people to write down. And then I invite people to be active. This is how you live a good life. Be active. What do you do to take care of yourself? Do you walk? Do you do soul cycle? Do you bike?

What kind of physical activity? Do you swim? I swim. But also I say it's never too late to start moving. So I invite you to move. And then I invite you to reflect. Because I think reflection is really important. We talked about earlier about what happened to you. You've got to reflect back on things that happened to you. And maybe you cause something, but a lot just happened to you, especially as a young child if all of a sudden deaths or a house or a whole area burning down or everything. And when you think of it that way, there's always a new opportunity to add note.

and then you have to be willing to talk about the tough stuff. So in this book, I talk about a trauma-informed approach to aging. In the other book, I talk about it being a superpower. But the idea is that you're able to, again, process what has happened to you and learn how to move forward with it and be self-compassionate to yourself. recognize the signs and symptoms of trauma in yourself, acknowledge the role that an event could have had in your life, seek appropriate support, practice self, compassion.

So by talking about the stuff that we not only process our own inventions, but we provide ability to have into self. And I give some advice on how you tackle tough things. And then I asked you, or I tell you, You got to put your big girl panties on. My big girl panties on. Yeah, you got to put your big girl panties on. You've got to go ahead and live life because I want you to remember that the best version of yourself is always yet to come.

So you're always doing. So I tell you that I imagine sipping a coffee in the morning and nodding a casual hello to whoopey Goldberg or Billy Bob Thornton. But that's a regular day that I experienced when I was at the Sunset Marquis. And it's just that. Where star power has no meaning. It's just completely ordinary. And I made some decisions in my lifetime that I've shown in this book. I left the comfortable life of university life and I just put up a shingle and said, I'm going to go out on my own. I don't know whether I'll make it or not. But I did learn that if you can celebrate small words, wins, you can significantly boast happiness and motivational.

So, for example, today, I don't know how we got connected, but what a great win for me to be able to be on your show. And it's a great wood for us to have you. I'm so honored. And it makes me feel active in a lot because I do have, I do have things where, God, I'm going to be 80. That's really awful. I hate that. I'm never going to be what's going to happen to me. How am I going to do it?

But I think about, and I try to play pickleball, I'm terrible pickleball. I'm always fine. But I'm still celebrating my willingness to try new things. And for me, I have to try new things. I have to learn how to meet people. I've always been work-centered. So I have never been like the ladies who lunch bunch. And so in this book, I,

invite people to remember aging isn't about fading away. It's about burning, brighter, shining, and new and unexpected ways. It's about writing new chapters in your life story and chapters filled with a whole lot of rock and roll spirits. You know, I think this book is the one that most accurately reflects my philosophy of life or one that I aspire to. I think addiction in the family, I grew up in an alcoholic family. I know it's like to be an adult child of an alcoholic. I've worked in the field helping navigate families, a creative family program.

So that does that. And then this one was just a leap of faith and said, trauma, let's get that out of the black and white newspaper. Let's turn it into what it can be. And that really matters. Just don't go down pity path lane and martyrdom alley for myself. I like that.

If you do have trouble meeting new people, what you do is you go downtown, you get really drunk, and you throw rocks of people. And you're going to meet a whole bunch of really new people, especially when you're in the clink and they're giving in live bath there. Absolutely. And all that stuff. You're going to meet a lot of cool people, especially in prison. You just got to look at the bright side. Or you have to find it and you have to discover. But you have to be willing also to acknowledge what you've done wrong.

I mean, you have to make amends. In 12 stuff, you're always making amend to people you have harmed or people you've done wrong. And you could do that almost all day long any day. Yeah. Plus, the judge will make sure you do it for your community. Yes, you're right. The judge will. And sometimes that judge is not a foe.

It's just a gift. It's just not the kind of Christmas gift or Hanukkah gift or Kwan's a gift you want. But that's the gift that no one else could give you. I write a lot of jokes and I joke around and I also ban around serious stuff. But I remember when I turned 50. And I wrote some sort of boo-hoo on 50. It was more like tongue-in-cheek, funny stuff. Oh, God.

What's it going on? And everything hurts. I can't feel my legs. Yada-a-da-ya. That sort of thing. And I remember I was just having some fun complaining, but someone wrote to me something very serious and solemn. And it just was like a freaking arrow just went right in me. And they said, Chris, you should really think about some of the stuff you're talking about here because in reality, there's a lot of people who wanted to be your age of 50 and they're not here.

And they didn't make it. So maybe you should just shut up and put up and be glad for what you have. And even though I was joking around, it really hit me. Like, yeah, I'm actually privileged to be in the 50. It's a privilege. Most people, the way the universe works and the numbers of sperm that chase an egg are in the, what, billions or millions or whatever, the odds of any of us being born in this beautiful lottery of the universe is nil. When you really think about it, what if mom and dad had decided, I don't know, go sleep that night?

And yeah, the fact that I hit 50, there were so many people that things happened to them over their lifetime. They didn't get maybe a good deal on health or whatever. And maybe we should look at how it's a great time. And for me, the great thing is, is being a man, we tend to peak in our lives and we finally get really good at everything we do. We develop careers and do everything. And we really start hitting our stride in our 50 and 60s, especially with earning money. and what we built over a lifetime. And so I'm very appreciative of where I am and I'm having a lot of fun.

I think all stupid stuff I was up to most of my life when I was younger and silly and young. And I like it. I like it now. And it's not always my favorite thing to wake up and try and get the 50-year-old jalopy to move down the road. And I've got a main line about five pounds of Coke and and caffeine. I mean, the pop coat or the other Coke? I don't know. Pop Coke.

Yeah, whatever. You decide. But you know. what you're supposed to do when you wake up before you go to bed. Drink lots of water? Say three things that you're grateful for. And then share them with someone else. And then before you go to bed, we write down three things that you're grateful for. I am guilty of not doing that all the time. But it does change the neurochemistry of your brain. Does it really? I'm going to start writing to people.

My enemies usually before I go to bed and say, I'm really grateful that you're a stupid idiot. And because you're so dumb, you make me look really smart. Or I'm glad you gave me the opportunity to sign. I'm glad that you gave me the opportunity to sign because you're a loser. I'm going to start writing these texts out. I'll get Opus. Let me know what you write for your grateful of. Yeah, sure, yeah.

I love haunting my enemies with success. You always post them on social media and they're like, he's still alive. It's like the scene from God for the, he's still alive. That's bad luck for you and me. But no, I've had people write me on social, write about me on social media and searchable. That's how we find it. And they're like, yeah, I really hate Chris Voss.

Why do you hate Chris Vos? Oh, he's so noisy. He's always promoting and talking and stuff. And most of my messages are positive, so I guess you want to hate that, whatever. But a lot of them are competitors in my industry. So that's kind of why they hate to me. And they would write stuff like, yeah, well, I don't,

I don't like what he does. And you're like, but don't you still follow him? This is actually a conversation somebody had. We found it. It's safe somewhere. But you still follow him? And you're like, yeah. I'm like, why do you still follow him?

You hate him so much. I just want to see when he hits the wall. And it's been, it's been 26 years. And you're still going strong. And I'm still here and they're out of business. Yeah. That's, yeah. So basically one reason.

When you have a saying, when you have one point pointing out, you should have two points pointing backwards. So basically, just enjoy living longer and just laugh because all your enemies are going to be dead. It's pretty macab. I probably need to seek some help, Donnie from a therapist. Oh, my gosh. I'm always here to help you. That's why we do this show is so I can get psychologists on here and get a free, get a free hour. Yeah.

I have to clear, I'm a social worker by trade. Oh, okay. I thought this school's social worker. Psychologists are really nice, but honestly, I'm a social worker. They're better. It's good stuff to talk about these things. As we go out, anything more you want to pitch out on the show before we go, any services on your website offering.

So I do. Yeah, you can just pick up the phone and call me. I do a lot of coaching. I work only in 10-hour increments because I'm not interested. But I do give whoever calls 20 minutes complimentary. And I'm happy to refer elsewhere. I do pretty complicated mental health substance abuse interventions. And when I do that, I'm not a superwoman all by myself.

I work with other people because I want to make sure if it's a 25-year-old girl or 25-year-old boy, I work with someone younger that they can join up with so we can invite them to go to where they need to go. I'm not related to any particular behavioral health care center and do a lot of research, but I know what good treatment is. What does your typical client look like? A typical client may be a family member who's worried about another family. family member. It could be parents that are worried about their 20 year old or 26 year old. It could be a wife worried about their husband, a husband worried about their wife. And also, there's a whole

bunch of people all of a sudden right now, hey, grandma, grandpa, what the hell are they doing? I'm worried about them. They're drinking too much. I just had one, I just wrote an article and grandpa speak, is he smoking too much pot? It's like not knowing how to regulate. And when you do that, you have to always do a biopsychosocial, and you have to know medically what's going on with somebody. Oh, yeah. Because there's things that can be wrong medically,

and they're acting bizarre, but it's not that. So I love, love to work still. They haven't. But I also know that I work with great people. And if I'm not the right person, happy to refer. Yeah, a lot of people have family problems. One of my family problems that I'm trying to resolve is somehow it's illegal in the court for me to choke out my brother. And can you fix that at all with the court?

I can't be that. It seems like that should be something that should not be illegal. Anyway, and you haven't met my brother. No, but I'd love to. You probably. So also, there's a line right now of people who want to choke them out. I know. I know.

When I work with family, I interview everybody individually because everybody has a story about that other person. And you want to get a kaleidoscope, a picture of everybody. True. You'll find that everybody hates Raymond. Anyway, it's him. There's always that one child in every family. Yes, that is.

It is. It's always him or her. Yeah, him or her. So I'll work on changing the loss. Thank you very much for coming to show. We really appreciate it. Give people, Doctor, your final picture. out for people to book up your books, reach out to you for your services. Oh, thank you so much,

Chris. It's an honor to be here. I hope you invite me back. If you're, if you like to read and you want to have a, and you're worried about trauma, pick up trauma as your superpower. It's available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble. In my other book, Addiction in the Family, I don't have it in front of me. It's a great read if you're worried about someone having a substance use or mental health problem in your family. And if you want to figure out how to live a good life, reflections on aging from the sunset marquee is something you have to give. Or you give it as a gift. These make great gifts, too. Yeah. If you're worried, or if you just want to talk, again, my phone number is 619, 507-1699, and I pick up my own phone. My website is all about

interventions.com. It's a little bot appears and you can write to me. And yes, I will write you back. You know what I've been a better cover for your reflection? That's a good cover on the reflections of aging. I've been to better cover, a mirror. That's right. That would be like, what? Where the line come from in the gray hair? That actually is a great idea, Chris. That is on the back or it opens to the middle. Yeah, just put it in, I think in the middle. You want to know where all your problems are right here in the mirror. In the middle of the book, it would be great to have a mirror right there. Where is the source of all your problems right there?

Yeah. Thank you very much, Doc. We really appreciate having you. It was fun and honor to have you. Thank you. And you take care. Thank you. And for a good time, keep calling me.

Trauma is your superpower out now. You can pick it up wherever fine books are sold and all of Dr. Luis's books. Check those out. And I can always tell somebody, the one thing people always ask me is, what would you tell yourself when you're 16? And people are always surprised that I say, go see a therapist. You want to fix your problems early, folks. You know, sadly, we wait too many times, though we're like 50.

And then we kind of have this pattern where we can look back on our life and go, someone was dragging this whole time causing a lot of destruction. Wait, was that me? Was that me? Am I the problem? Yeah, you were. And so, yeah, try and get a fixed early on. If you feel you maybe have trauma, talk to a therapist.

and please, full of a guy, get professional therapy. Don't do crystals and sound bass and all that stuff. Talk to a real licensed therapist. Anyway, that's my pitch. Thanks for tuning. Go to goodreads.com, forchance.cris.com, fortresschast crossvast. YouTube.com, for chest, cross. And all those crazy places in the internet.

And stay away from TikTok quacks that pretend to be psychologists. Thanks for tuning in. Be good each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time. You've been listening to the most. amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning. Consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter,

younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed.