Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington - Let's Make Therapy Sexy

Episode Date: November 2, 2023

In this episode, Dr. Jody talks about the importance of therapy and why we need to end the stigma of reaching out for mental health support. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Let's start here, where I think the answer begins for everything and everybody, in the place of acknowledgement. Indigenous peoples in this country have taught me the most about what acknowledgement truly means. So everything that I've created for you happened here on Treaty 7 land,

which is now known as the center part of the province of Alberta. It is home to the Blackfoot Confederacy, made up of the Siksika, the Kainai, the Pikani, the Tatina First Nation, the Stony Nakota First Nation, and the Métis Nation Region 3. It is always my honor, my privilege mostly, to raise my babies on this land where so much sacrifice was made. And to build a community, invite a community in, talk about hard things as we together learn and unlearn about the most important things, that we were never meant to do any of this alone. welcome and welcome back my friends to the Everyone Comes From Somewhere podcast. Today is a solo episode, just you and me hanging out, talking about some things that I think the world needs to

spend a little more time thinking about, because I think we've never been this disconnected. So today I want to talk a little bit about being a psychologist and what I see in my work. I've thought a lot, so I've been doing this for almost 20 years. And what I think about, I think some of the most important lessons I've ever learned is sitting in a chair across from another human being who has been able to sink in to their story. It is an honor. It's a privilege. It is something that I dreamed about for a very long time, you know, being able to sort of be in that position to do those things. And I, you know, I still have a small private practice. I supervise clinicians and I get challenged every day by how just I think the honor it is to show up in that place of holding space for somebody else's story. And today I wanted to take a few minutes because I think that we are in the middle of a mental

health crisis that is going to require people in our respective villages and worlds to be able to play the role of holding space. And one of my big goals, I think, is to be able to sort of make therapy sexier, right? Because here's the thing. I think there's still, I mean, I don't think, I know, able to sort of make therapy sexier, right? Because here's the thing. I think there's still, I mean, I don't think I know, there's still a massive stigma around seeking mental health support. And I think part of the reason is, you know, when physical illness is present, it is something that is much more tangible than an emotional illness. But they're so similar in so many ways because the longer it takes for you to address a physical illness, the ability to heal effectively and correctly, if you will, becomes more problematic.

And the same is true in the place of an emotional illness. Now, many of us don't until we are more mature developmentally or even later in our lives when we become safe enough to do so, do we attend to some of the emotional things that might have fucked us up earlier in our lives. But there's a few things that I want to talk about today, maybe some things I've learned as a psychologist that, um, I just want to put out into the world. And I'm so excited to see the comments on this episode. And I hope that, um, I hope you'll share it with people who are considering therapy, want to, you know, think about the benefits of therapy because, um, I just, I really think it is what

we all need. And okay. So the truth is people ask me this all the time. Does everybody need therapy? The answer? Yes. Okay. Here's what a therapist, a competent, well-trained therapist who is a good fit for you, because that we're all not going to be for everybody. That's obviously painfully clear in my career. But if you find a fit, the idea is that somebody can take your experiences and allow you to shift an understanding of what it meant for you at the time that you encoded those memories. And sometimes it's giving it light and space and thinking about it in a different way that allows the pieces of your story to settle into a better fit. And, or maybe not even a better fit, a different fit, a place that allows you to make

more sense of things, allows your body to not be in such a heightened state when it comes in contact with that memory or anything that triggers that memory. It allows it to just be that, a memory, not a visceral experience that continues to live in your body. And I think that it is powerful and profound. And when you get somebody in your life and, um, you know, trained professionals aside, um, I think that many of us do this kind of work for each other. When you truly have a great friend or a journal or somebody that you pray to, or you spiritually connect to, um, I think that all of these things can serve a very similar purpose. The benefit for me, of course, when I'm thinking about a trained therapist is somebody who then is aware of what they're looking for and competent and cognitively, I think, astute enough to know when to push, when not to push, when to be able to look for

patterns and themes that your body has become so adept at protecting the soul over. And I often think about that, you know, sort of part of my job is never about me and the other person. It's me and the defenses that have inadvertently become very necessary in their lives that for one reason or another no longer serve them. And I love just uncovering that, highlighting that, wondering about that. And nobody knows you better than you. So here's a couple of things. Okay. So I think maybe I have eight. I just scratched out a list before we sat down and started to tape this episode today of a few things that really I think might be, I don't know, some insights into sort of what I've learned as a therapist in, um, my time of doing this work as a

clinician. So, um, number one, healing happens when you're ready for it. Now I, when I typed this out, I, I was like, in my mind, I was so clear, like readiness is a thing. And I want to completely take the onus off of you being responsible for that 99% of the time, because so many times people say like, okay, well, it's just that this person wasn't ready. This person wasn't ready to move. This person was resistant to therapy. I actually think that in the presence of a trained therapist, it is our ability to identify why the blocks are there, not whether they are because we all have them, that allows us to sort of make it safe enough to approach them, to put them down, to wonder why they got there in the first place, and to really ask the question about whether it's time for them to sort of step aside,

that it might be safe enough for our soul to show itself in the world again. In Feeling Seen, I talk a lot about the necessity of sort of getting back to the soul. I've assessed and treated, I mean, I say this all the time. I've assessed and treated thousands of people in this country. Thousands might be a bit of a stretch, but I'll go with like lots. Okay. And what I know to be true in this place is that I, to the core of many, many people, there is goodness there. In fact, rarely have I, I don't know that I've ever met somebody that at some point, um, there's a piece of them, their soul, um, the very, I think, tenderest part of them before anybody ever got to hurt them that is sacred and good and well-intentioned. Often what wrecks us all the time is our

relationships with other human beings. And if they haven't been trusting, if they've obliterated trust and brought excessive amounts of pain to your life, you start to then protect that soul. And you start to build defenses and resources around ever being vulnerable that you can justify hideous, heinous behavior because there's not a fucking chance that you're ever going to put yourself in a vulnerable position again. It doesn't mean it condones the behavior in which you act. It means that I understand how it got there. And that is truly the definition of empathy when you suspend judgment and step into somebody else's shoes. Okay. So to that end, I think secondly, as a psychologist, feeling seen is healing anything and everything. And it is hardest to see another the more prickly they become, the more difficult their behavior looks, the more angry we get at their choices, their short-sightedness in maybe doing things, saying things, acting in ways that

have blatantly hurt other people. And I think regardless of behavior, being able to be in a place of allowing another to feel seen is sometimes why I think therapy is so lovely because when people start to matter a lot to us, this is really ridiculous sometimes, but when people start to matter a lot to us, our ability to truly see them gets compromised because they mean so much to us. If they're not okay, we're not okay. The ways that they've heard us in our stories with them have made it more difficult for us to be able to sort of be vulnerable with them. And so sometimes it is that person with no agenda, hence a, you know, a therapist that can be able to set those things aside. And I will tell you as a therapist, this also the dynamics, I mean,

Freud talked about this for, you know, most of their career from a psychoanalysis perspective, you know, transference, counter transference, the ability to sort of, you know, develop a relationship within the therapeutic context is necessary. In fact, you know, so many people, the humanistic perspective would say, it's never about what you say. I mean, 80% of therapy is all about the relationships in which you build into the work that you do. Because I would agree without, not agree, I would say without a doubt that we fix too fast all the time. It is the impetus to a significant amount of therapy models, like brief interventions and goal-driven therapy. And, you know, when we think about trying to solve a problem, I get so fucking mad about this because

problems always exist in the context of a story, of a system. And, you know, for many years as a child psychologist, I would push back all the time when people would say, you know, I need to see you. I need you to see my kid. I need you to see my kid. Like, yeah, I get it. Like you're worried about your baby. Um, but I need to see you. And the pushback often would be, well, do you think I'm the problem? And I would many times in my head, you know, be like, well, but here's the issue. You're not the problem. You're the solution. And so if we don't understand you in the context of the story or how this baby is developing their point of reference, how they see themselves, then it's a waste of time because you matter more to this kid

than anybody. Your ability to help them walk home or navigate through hard things is more important than what I'm going to be able to do in a 60 minute session, even if I get the gold standard and see them once a week, you know? So I think that becomes sort of the, the issue. And I think in some of the biggest mistakes that I've ever made in my career to date would be not considering the larger, the larger system more effectively. Treating the person in front of me. And sometimes you can't pull in the whole system and sometimes there's resistance to that or people are dead and you don't have access to them anymore.

All those things happen. But I think oftentimes not taking into context the larger picture and sometimes the system isn't ready for it or open to it, which is, you know, also a barrier. But I think really putting it into context of a larger system is always important. And three, I think the body keeps the score. And I've said this so many times, I think in every book that I wrote. And I mean, it's the title of one of my favorite books, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, talking about trauma and how it shows up

in the body. But I mean, what the mind thinks the body feels, what the body experiences, it keeps a record of that. And oftentimes, there aren't even words to that record, but there are visceral responses that usually have so much more profoundly impactful data than what you can tell me about. One of the most important questions I think I've ever asked in therapy. And I, I didn't, I, I didn't learn this in grad school. I don't remember any of this or knowing much of this, um, before I started to think a lot more about trauma. Um, and certainly after I took, um, EMDR training, um, which is just really the ability to sort of reconnect the head and the body instead of thinking about cognitively specifically, behaviorally specifically, you know, what you're

supposed to do. But this is maybe, you know, the profound question for me is where do you feel it in your body? And when I think about the pushback to that question, and any of the people that I have had the honor to work with, particularly first responders, where do you feel it in your body? People who are accountants or very analytical, who don't maybe have a huge emotional language, which is generally speaking, anybody with a penis, is where do you feel it is off-putting? Because I can tell you what I think, I can tell you what I think I can tell you what happened I can tell you where I was who was standing where I can tell you all those kind of things what do you mean where do I feel it and it is in that very question that there's so much

data because when we can start to say things like um it's sitting in my chest, or I feel it on my shoulders, or in my head, or in my lower back, that often gives me a place to start in terms of the story that is located there. And, I mean, I am far from a woo woo incense burning fucking meditating human. OK, one time I tried to burn incense and then be spiritual and shit, and then like it burned out and I was like, what the fuck does that mean? Probably that I don't have enough fire or something. I don't know. But I do truly believe that one of the most important practices in wellness is rooted in stillness, is rooted in not trying to fix or come up with the next reason, but to slow the body down enough that you can listen to it.

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you? Or some version of that, right? Which is tell me about the times when you were a hero. I say this to first responders all the time and they fucking hate it. Tell me why you matter so much to the people in your world. Tell me why you're important. What do you bring to your team? What do you bring to your family? And it's interesting because so many people don't want to answer that question. So many people can't. So many people will start with nothing. You know, the answer is nothing. That's why I want to end my life or that's why I want to move away or that's why I want to get out of my marriage because I don't feel like I bring anything anymore. I don't think my kids even care about me. And there's so much evidence that counteracts that often that is sometimes the job of pulling that story back together

that allows us to sort of shift our perception on the world. Because if I think about people who are struggling the most in this world, um, I would say we get into, you know, clinical disorders like anxiety and depression, um, are very ego dystonic. We don't like them. We don't want to feel them. We don't want them to be a part of our bodies. We want to be better from those things. And when we slip more into an egocentronic way of operating, like a personality disorder, it becomes the way that we see the world, which, you know, increasingly that becomes more difficult to treat. And I think what is so critical though, in both of those, in all of those situations is reconnecting to the sense of self, who truly are you and who do you want to be and who have you been in the world around you? We have a much sharper ability to pay attention to all the things that aren't good. And it's a bit, you know, like protective, I guess. Like if you're

much more acutely aware of the dangers and the shit that you're not good at, you're probably good at like fucking noticing those things. And the body has this way of like dampening all the things that you're doing well or the things that are great about you in an effort to make sure you don't miss anything. But like, fuck you, body. What's the things that I'm really good at? I mean, there's such an interesting set around, you know, bragging. And I don't want to engage in that because like it's a pretty fucking far place to fall from this pedestal. Why would I ever put myself there? And so it's a really tricky place to get. But if in the confines of a therapeutic relationship, in the safety of that relationship, if we can say

sometimes, okay, without anybody looking or noticing, without anybody judging you in this situation, tell me why your family's lucky to have you. Why are your babies lucky that you're their mom? Or why are they lucky that you were their, their father, their parent, whatever that, you know, however that, that means to you. And, and I think, you know, um, your team, we've tried this a number of times with our team, Marty and I, um, you know, ask this question sort of of our team over the years, very in different ways. Why are we lucky to have you? And I hate the question, Marty, but it is so important. And when you have other people listening to you respond to that question,

you know, oftentimes they want to jump in and talk about it. And, um, but, but I think what's so critical is can we, can we reconnect in any way to that part of, you know, that, that sense of self-worth and is it in there? And that, that question is often quite telling. Um, number five, maybe I'm on now. Um, I want to just talk specifically about grief real quick. Grief is necessary. It's the fucking dumbest emotion on the planet, but it is, it is a part of the healing process. I have never seen anybody do the work heal well without holding a piece of grief. Either because of what happened, what didn't happen, what, what was lost in the experience, what wasn't seen, what got missed.

And there's just such a necessary part. So the definition of grief, this is Alan Wolfelt's definition, is it is the universal response to loss. If you're old enough to love, you're old enough to grieve. It is that kick in the gut, bowl you over. It happens at the worst fucking times. Just when you think you're fine, you hear the song, you smell the ketchup chips or the campfire, and it fucking takes you to the knees. That's grief. Grief is often a very isolating experience. It's often very unique. And it is very different than mourning. Mourning is often done in relationship with other people and it is how you heal. There's often joy in mourning. In grief, there's often a lot of sorrow and heaviness and what we would call the more

difficult emotion, which is why so many of us try to avoid it, right? It's good. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

Are you good now? Let's just plant a tree and move on. Grief, feeling it, the disappointment, the loss, the pain seems to be necessary in healing. And not that you have to like take it on as a boulder to the gut that it's going to roll over you and just crush your soul. It can happen in micro doses. It can happen when you are brave enough to just feel a little piece of it and then you can put it down again. It doesn't have to be the thing that knocks you over, but it does have to be. Number six, maybe, and I would say this to anybody who's experienced trauma, which is to some degree all of us, if you are

alive, feeling safe and connected is your birthright. And I don't know that people, human beings, um, many people who I've had the privilege to work with over the years, believe that to be true or have ever known that to be true. And what keeps me up at night sometimes is thinking about how many human beings with the same heartbeat as you and me go to bed every night wondering if they matter. They are cold or hungry. Nobody has been able to hold the emotion that they had to hang on to during that day, whether it's because somebody told them they were worthless or they didn't have enough food to eat or, you know, whatever the deal is, Jesus, you know, a million reasons. But I think what I try to remember so many times in this position of privilege is that if you are alive, feeling safe and connected

is a birthright. And if there's anything I can do in my work, in this platform, in meeting with people, letting them, allowing them to feel that if even for a second can be all it takes to change and even save a life. And, you know, oftentimes I talk about, I think in Feeling Scene, I talked a lot about, you know, what is your why? Simon Sinek, you know, spoke about this. Susan David is another psychologist who talked a lot about walking your why. I mean, it really does come down to purpose and passion. And, you know, why are you on this planet? What is your legacy? All of those things are sort of interchangeable, I think in, in some of that conversation. But I think it's so much about, um, really what is your purpose? And I think it's like, it makes so much sense to me.

It gets me out of bed every single morning when I'm like, it doesn't actually take much to make a massive impact in this world. And I'm not talking about, you know, starting a nonprofit or, you know, raising millions of dollars for somebody or like doing something that like, you know, gets your name on a chart or a New York Times bestseller or TED Talk or any of those things that we sometimes measure our success by, it's like, did you know today by giving somebody a compliment or showing up at your work or loving on a kid who nobody else loves on? Those are the things that count. And those are the things that you will get to replay in the story of your life when you get to reflect in and on your time on this planet. So I think if you're alive, feeling safe and connected is a birthright. And if you are in a position of privilege, you have the ability to give that away every day. And that's what gets me up every morning. Um, number six, maybe, uh, negative core beliefs are within all of us. So this is the work that, um, you know, I've, when I really think about, um, you know, some of the conversation around, um, you know, EMDR trauma stuff, um, really taking a look at negative core beliefs. What do you believe about yourself to be true? Everybody,

every single human has a belief of some sort, some way more than others that to the core of them, they believe, you know, they're not worthy or they're, they're too much. They're not enough. Um, they're weak. And so much of this sometimes comes down to just sort of exploring what that's about. What do you believe to be true about you? And I think one of the funnest things I've learned as a psychologist is really that you can't judge or predict or tell somebody's negative core belief based on how they show up in the world. So sometimes the saddest, most, you know, dysthymic or flat people, you make assumptions about their core beliefs. Sometimes the more, you know, the most successful charismatic human beings, you make assessments about their core beliefs. But when you ask

somebody really about the story of them, you know, where did you come from? Right? Hence the name of this podcast. Yeah. Where did you come from? Tell me your story. It is so interesting to hear about what we all have as our core self beliefs. And taking a look at that, how you truly see yourself as showing up in the world is so profoundly telling and we all have it. So I mean, I guess that sort of circles back to this question, does everybody need therapy? Yeah. And not because you're messed up or fucked up or you've had lots of trauma or you haven't had lots of trauma. It's like we all sort of along the way have defaulted to not necessarily seeing ourselves in the best light. And you don't deserve that. Life is a bit too short for

staying in that place for too long or to not examining that every once in a while and understanding, you know, the ways in which you could be or should be better in that way. Or not should be better in that way, should be free of those stories that start to pile up over time. So I think that, you know, for me, those are a few things that over the years have become the things that, I don't know, show up in this place of therapy. And I think that some of the bravest people, I mean, I'll tell you a story about, you know, one, one time, I mean, of course, this is to protect the identity of many people I've seen over the years. This is usually a mashup of stories, but I'll tell you, I remember, um, a number of times where I would have people, some of my favorite people are those who took a risk and entered into the therapeutic relationship,

right? That they would come all dressed up in their finest clothes, big long collars, cowboy boots, come in through the door, be very ready for the therapy session and be nervous as fuck. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to think. I don't know, like, what do you need from me? Where are we going to start? I think one of the things we think a lot about in therapy is that you need to have all the answers, that you need to be prepared with all the stories, that something either really big has had to happen to you, or you need to be clear about the reasons why you're fucked up. None of those things are true, right? Like I, I would say one of the best questions that sort of happen in a, a first session sounds a little bit like, I'm so glad you're here today. Just about knocked my computer off. I'm so glad you're here today. Um, can I get your coffee

and tell me about you? Tell me about where you came from. And tell me about what's on your mind today. Tell me about the things that are heaviest on your heart. And you can start anywhere. There's no direct line to getting it right, right off the gate. I've never sat in a session where we're both like, okay, well, look, I don't know what else we're going to talk about here. Don't worry about it. We got you. Okay. And if it doesn't feel like it's a good fit, if it doesn't feel like they got you, then that's okay too. I, you know, I often think about this. I heard this early in my career. We spend more time looking for a car, buying a new car than we do looking for somebody who we can trust our story with. And it's okay if it doesn't,

I mean, I, it's a big shot. I often feel the pressure of this as a therapist. When somebody comes to me for the first time or they say, you know, I've been through a number of therapists and you know, they never get it right or, you know, whatever. Um, it's also okay for you to give yourself some grace of two or three times, trying to figure out somebody who can really help you make sense of your story. And I think, you know, here's the point is that all of us therapists have our own stories too. And sometimes, um, those of us, some of us have done our work, some of us have done a lot of work, some of us have done very little work and you'll know that too. You get to be the boss of that as well, right? So suffice that to say, this is a episode in which I want to tell you that if you have considered taking the risk in this world of

doing therapy, trying out the therapy on for size, it rarely is a thing you finish. It will be necessary every once in a while to check in, in my opinion, to, I mean, I think in the course of my life, how many therapists have I seen? Eight, nine, if I were to really count them. And every season there are common threads, of course, because my story, my origin story doesn't change, but I've learned new things about, you know, my parents, my relationship to my brother, and then my sister. And, you know, what it means when I was a, uh, a person who was dating or a person who was married, what did it mean, meant when I was a wife or a mother, um, as somebody who then gets ill and needs other people to care for them, um, who fucks up as a

parent, all of those seasons bring up different parts of our story. And so I kind of like, it makes me laugh sometimes when people are like, yeah, no, I, you know, I went to therapy years ago and like I did the work. Okay, cool. So being able to have somewhere to put it, I think throughout your life and having moments where you can sort of reflect on and expand on those things means you'll come and go, you're never going to get it right all the time, but being able to sort of on purpose take stock on some of those stories that you tell yourself about how the world works and how you show up in it, it's always good work to do because you matter so much to so many.

And you can't tell anybody how to do this work and be healthy and connected. You have to show them. So friends, I'm going to now make another appointment with my therapist, my psychologist this week. That's my new plan. And I'm just so glad you're here as always. I would love to know what you think about today's episode. I would love you to share it. And I will see you right back here again, I hope, really soon. I'm a registered clinical psychologist here in beautiful Alberta, Canada. The content created and produced in this show is not intended as specific, Canada. The content created and produced in this show is not intended as specific therapeutic advice. The intention of this podcast is to provide information, resources, some education, and hopefully a little hope.

The Everyone Comes From Somewhere podcast by me, Dr. Jodi Carrington. It's produced by Brian Seaver, Taylor McGilvery, and the amazing Jeremy Saunders at Snack Labs. Our executive producer is the one and only, my Marty Piller. Our marketing strategist is Caitlin Beneteau. And our PR big shooters are Des Veneau and Barry Cohen. Our agent, the 007 guy, is Jeff Lowness from the Talent Bureau. And my emotional support during the taping of these credits was and is and will always be my son, Asher Grant. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals.

No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.