Transcript
Speaker: The voice of growth, mastering the mind and market, timeless wisdom, proven strategies, and the deep work that creates lasting success. Like and subscribe to stay aligned with what truly drives results.
Speaker: People don't tend to look inside because they just assume that you're doing well. Accept the things that have happened and commit to change, but also strive to have the best life you can.
Speaker: My son was calling and something told me to answer. And he said, Mom, I'm sober. i detoxed. I'm going to rehab. um Do you love me? Are you proud of me?
Speaker: He was in a situation where a young girl was going to be shot, and he decided to stand in front of the young girl and kind of diffuse the situation.
Speaker: Unfortunately, all the work that they did, I had to take him off life support. There are people who will keep showing up, but you have to let us in. You gotta do the work for you and your mental health.
Speaker: It is hard work. Loving yourself is the hardest thing you'll ever have to do. The reality is we're all going to die and we don't know how long we have. The strength that we gather and the change that we promote in this world really does make a difference.
Speaker: I hope that I make an impact on people Tell us about your background in the clinical space and what led you in that direction.
Speaker: So I am an LPC, which is a licensed professional counselor. um I'm also a supervisor for the state, so I supervise other clinicians working to get licensed. um And I came from a family of abuse and addiction, so I always knew I wanted to be a counselor, but life had different plans in the beginning, so it took me many, many years to go to college.
Speaker: When I went to college when I was 38, I just wanted to work straight through. I wanted to gain my bachelor's, my master's, ended up gaining two master's, um one in licensed professional counseling and then one in child and adolescent development.
Speaker: And now I am in college for my MBA. So um worked really hard to get there, but I wanted to make a difference for people because I knew I wasn't the only one. And when you live in a somewhat wealthy home, people don't tend to look inside because they just assume that you're doing well.
Speaker: And as I call myself the black sheep of the family, because I am not an addict, and I've never dealt with that, but my whole family did. Now that I'm older, I realize my mom has mental health issues. I didn't know that as a kid.
Speaker: um and But now I know that what I saw was mental health. So my education has helped me reflect on my childhood, the help she didn't get, and why those things were happening.
Speaker: Um, so i did all that and then I opened my private practice because I wanted to continue to help people. And then I also work as a director of clinical services for a treatment facility.
Speaker: My initial why was i wanted to help people who went through what I did. Um, but my why changed about three years ago. My son got sober and um I got a call on a Monday, which would have been April 3rd.
Speaker: And I worked in the jail at the time. Normally didn't answer my phone. Just wasn't something that I did. I didn't want inmates to hear my life. But my son was calling and something told me to answer.
Speaker: So I went into a private room and he was sobbing and he said, mom, I'm sober. i detoxed. I'm going to rehab. and Do you love me? Are you proud of me?
Speaker: Of course, the answer was yes. um He had been an addict for many years and I really wanted him to get sober, but I knew it had to be his choice. Right.
Speaker: Unfortunately, three days later, I got a call at 9 p.m. at night um and I had just had a young lady screaming on the phone that he had been shot. and I got as much information as I could. And then he was in Washington State, where we're originally from. So I found where he was. um And unfortunately, all the work that they did, he ended up, I had to take him off life support on April 6.
Speaker: He was in a situation where a young girl was going to be shot. And he decided to stand in front of the young girl and kind of diffuse the situation. He's a big guy. And I think he thought that he could help.
Speaker: And it ended up that the young man shot him instead. And it was a hollow point bullet. So unfortunately, it took his life. What I found very interesting for me is that my son owned a gun and he did not have it on him. But what he did have on him was an N.A. Bible. Okay.
Speaker: I knew that meant something to him because that's not normally his amount to carry something like that. So I really wanted to know why he had that, why it meant so much.
Speaker: So that's why I got into the recovery portion. had worked with inmates. I had worked with, you know, mental health, not so much the substance use side. Mm-hmm. um so this has really opened my eyes to recovery how hard it is what people struggle with the families that are involved just the whole dynamic um so it's really taught me a lot in a short amount of time yeah i feel like he was just here you know and then you blink and it's three years later
Speaker: um The blessing in all of it is I have his daughter. so I have a granddaughter who's going to be nine. And she's like a mini me. So it's you have to find the positives in it. You know, um there's a lot of discussions that I have with parents, especially moms.
Speaker: I have met so many people that have had a tragic loss like that. And they just are are so lost. They don't know how to function in life anymore.
Speaker: And so I try to give them hope because it is it is possible to live through this. and It's possible to be strong. It's possible to help others. It's possible to get up every day.
Speaker: But they don't see it a lot of times. And their their families are suffering. right There's things that are happening. So I find that being able to help them is a huge part of what my self-care is.
Speaker: Because seeing them see the world differently. it recently got to work with a mom. Her son was killed here. And it was fresh. Three weeks. And she said, I have to leave treatment. I can't be here.
Speaker: i said, can we talk? I think we need to talk. So I shared my story with her. and she said, this is the first time I've been able to breathe in weeks.
Speaker: And that for me was huge. Mm-hmm. She only spent a little over a week with us, but she was able to leave in a different space and go home with her family.
Speaker: I think that those things are like the biggest gift I can give someone else, but also they give back to me. Because you get to see that, that change, that ability to see past the pain and to grieve the loss in a way that's productive,
Speaker: I just often see people want to take their own lives. They struggle with their mental health. They become addicts to numb the pain. And I don't think as a society we do a good job at supporting people.
Speaker: No. And do you think that there's some people in and in the business world and other worlds that i'm part of that sort of say that we're in ah in a mental health epidemic, that social media is is causing part of that, the the way that the family structure's changed is part of that, the way that the government is involved is part like there's all these things that are coming together.
Speaker: to make people lonelier, more depressed, and and not able to discuss your feelings. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. It's so hard to watch people suffer.
Speaker: and and there's a large majority of our society that suffer, some in silence, some not in silence. um We tend to struggle and how to engage with them.
Speaker: We have this theory of we'll just lock them up and that will change it. They'll get sober and they won't have mental health, which is ah actually the opposite. um Politics is huge. I've had people come in to care because of what they see on TV.
Speaker: They just can't turn it off. I teach trauma-informed care. What is that? and Trauma-informed care is really about understanding the patient, understanding where they're coming from. Instead of what's wrong with you, what happened to you?
Speaker: And how can I be here to help? If we look at people from a trauma-informed lens, I'm really looking at you as this could be a long history, a short history, but I'm going to meet you with compassion and empathy, and we're going to work through it together.
Speaker: instead of you come into treatment and I just tell you what to do. i see. Because that happens a lot. yeah we We say, oh, we'll fix people. We don't fix people. People have to want to change for themselves.
Speaker: So I want to teach people that when we meet people with empathy and compassion, they realize that there are people here that truly want to help. And there's a lot of people in the world who truly want to Mm-hmm.
Speaker: But we sometimes get lost in it and don't quite know how to do it. So the more we meet people where they are and really find out what happened to them and bring that to light and show them there is a possible way to work through it and change, the more successful they will be. And that's the point.
Speaker: Yeah, so i I can see elements of that. ah Thankfully, i I never really struggled with, we'll say, extreme mental health issues. I've been depressed. I've been sad. i would say depressed. And I've had moments like that. But I came from ah from a culture where, first of all, my father died when I was one.
Speaker: So I'd never had a father, which kind of informed my my world. Because, i first of all, the little kids would would tease me. because you know kids are gonna be kids.
Speaker: And then all my aunts and uncles would would sort of like hover around me saying, oh, he looks just like his dad and this and that. And I had this weird relationship with that, the ghost of my father for a long time, because I didn't, first of all, I was like, I didn't know what to think of it. And then later on in life as a teenager, I pushed it away, like I'm my own person. And now I embrace it and I'm i'm happy for it.
Speaker: And the culture, of course, being Hispanic, big Mexican origin, is very much like just sweep it under the rug, don't talk about it, you know, shouldn't be up you know in the conversation.
Speaker: And I've had to work my butt off to try to get through that. And that's one of the reasons I do this podcast, because it is a in in my version of giving back in my path i found, which is stoicism, which is essentially a philosophy that, uh, the obstacle is the way, right? Things that are there.
Speaker: to hold you back are the path to get you to a better place. Kind of like if the world gives you lemons, you make lemonade and you make margaritas and you make yeah yeah all these things, right? So you get, that's the sort of framework, which is always hard to do.
Speaker: Do you see in your practice either in any, actually your entire experience, do you see, we'll call them more from the outside, level-headed, executive-level, professional-level people struggling and finally coming to terms with some some big issues.
Speaker: Definitely struggling, sometimes coming to terms. I think that um you know the more I learn about executives or leadership, we tend to just put it to the side because we have to be there for others. We're leading. you know We have people following us. We're supposed to have it together.
Speaker: so there are some that will come and finally say, I've had enough. I need some help. I need to change. And they are able to make big changes. I think still as a society, as much as we'd like to say we're great about mental health, we are not.
Speaker: And we still have opinions about it. And, you know, i see it a lot in law enforcement and military. They say, if you need help, just ask. We'll get you help.
Speaker: The truth is, there's repercussions for getting that help, whether they say it or not. So we're really putting people in these very demanding, hard, tough jobs.
Speaker: in a very awkward position to ask for help. Because if they truly do, they either lose their job or they're treated different. If they don't, they're criticized for their behavior.
Speaker: and And so I find it very interesting that we do that. We say all the right things, but we our actions do not represent our words. So I see a lot of that in my private practice because they want to know I'm not telling anyone.
Speaker: I'm not a part of their job. I see. You're separate. Yes, because I'm not through their employee assistance program. So their their position is not in jeopardy. um They don't feel like I'm going to go tell on them.
Speaker: So it's safe. But it shouldn't have to be that way. If you need help to process something, all the death you've seen, all all the horrible things that you've seen, and the harm that's done to others, and then your own personal stuff, you should be able to talk to someone and work through that without repercussion or the feeling of repercussion.
Speaker: Right. yeah and those those industries, in particular law enforcement, I mean, you're supposed to be the tough guy. or Yeah. Or even the military people, right? You're you're not supposed to yeah be a human being. Yeah. know I have friends and people in my life that I've known that have been...
Speaker: ah One guy was my EMT teacher a long time ago. he told me that he started taking pictures at 15 years old. He was interested in photography and somehow he got roped into taking pictures of like bodies that were that were smashed on the highway. And he said that this old timer pulled it pulled him aside because he was, I mean, stunned of what he was looking at.
Speaker: And he told him that those are just houses where people used to live. and And that stuck with Ernie, this gentleman, for yeah decades.
Speaker: And there's a certain separation there. Is that healthy to separate from reality? Or is that, what do you feel about that? So it's compartmentalizing, which a lot of us do, but it can be dangerous. If you compartmentalize too much and it goes too long, there's usually effects because our brain is only so good at that.
Speaker: And our our somatic, which is your mind-body connection, is huge. So we can often think we're great at compartmentalizing. I've heard people, I'm good. I'm so good at it. But then I watch them getting physically sick.
Speaker: That's because your brain is telling you you're not good at it. You think you are. But you're really not. And so your brain is telling your body, I'm not healthy. And so sometimes it comes out in physical ways. Maybe we're getting sick a lot. Maybe we have a lot of allergies. Maybe we can't get out of bed some days. You know, we tend to sleep a lot or not at all.
Speaker: These are things where our mind is telling our body, you're not healthy, but we don't we don't recognize it because we're doing so great at compartmentalizing, right?
Speaker: wait We've got this together. We don't have it together, um but we expect it. I used to be a CO in a maximum men's prison back in the 90s in Alaska.
Speaker: it was a hard job. um But I saw a lot of the officers I worked with really struggling. I knew it wasn't the job for me because I used to go down and read the files. this is I'm old. So this is back in the day when everything was on paper. So when I would work the night shift, I would go down and read about the patient or about the inmates.
Speaker: I wanted to know how they got there. yeah And there most of the CEOs weren't interested in that. It was about telling people what to do and that they better listen.
Speaker: And for me, I thought, I don't know that I could do that a long time. like That would really skew me in this world of seeing people that way. And it did. A lot of those men had a lot of issues. Now, when i reflect back with my education now... But there wasn't a lot of women in the field. I think there was four of us in the whole prison.
Speaker: That's not many. Most of them were men. And it was a male-dominated business then. So I feel like um that taught me a lot about what I wanted to do. But it also taught me how severe mental health is in those type of fields and how it goes untreated.
Speaker: Because as long as you come to work and you do your job and you're tough. Right. We don't care. Tell us about acceptance and commitment therapy. Because I understand that's something that you you practice. Yes. So I was very blessed. My clinical supervisor was a psychologist. And this was something that she was very passionate about. And I tell people, first, we have to accept what's happened or what we're going through and then commit to change.
Speaker: So it's about what has happened. How do we analyze what's going on with us? I like it because um my businesses analyze you because I think a lot of times we want others to have accountability and we forget that we have no control over that.
Speaker: So we really have to analyze ourselves and how we process and how we work through things, which can be super hard because it is so much more freeing sometimes to say, well, that's their fault.
Speaker: I didn't do it. You know, they did this to me. But the part we forget is that if we don't accept that things have happened, commit to change, how do we work past it?
Speaker: Because we can't force that other person to have accountability or change. So it's about understanding we only have control of us, our being, and working through that and really exposing ourselves to being committed to change, which can be really hard, but it's very effective.
Speaker: um I find that people often struggle to accept And then commit to change. Because if I accept it happen, it makes it real.
Speaker: If I accept what I'm going through, it's very real. So how do I do that? Well, accepting it is actually very freeing. And then committing and changing.
Speaker: Your life can become something completely different than what you've dealt with. What you're saying there is like literally echoing with the stoic philosophy that's been around for 2000 plus years.
Speaker: i mentioned earlier, the the obstacle is the way, right? That is the we path to joy, enlightenment, peace, a lot of peace. And then another one is called amor fati, which is, is love your fate.
Speaker: And then there's kind of a third pillar, which is, memetamori, which means from remember you'll die. Which is more, it sounds really morbid, but it's actually very much a freeing and very like, it fills you with gratitude.
Speaker: To know like this morning, woke you know waking up and spending the first minute of my day thanking God, thanking the universe, thanking for my health, for my partner, for my my family.
Speaker: And that sets the stage for the rest of the day. yeah And when I have a bad day, it's typically because I don't spend that time in the morning to ah to do that. Yeah. I think that the reality is we're all going to die and we don't know how long we have. And it is about, you know, i hear people say all type of live life to the fullest, but truly living a good life where you are able to accept the things that have happened and commit to change, but also strive to have the best life you can.
Speaker: i know it sounds cliche, but it really is something that can change your life. I didn't want my son to die. That wasn't the plan. course. You know, he was supposed to live, outlive me, bury me, take care of my younger children. Like, that's the plan.
Speaker: So we don't plan for those things, but the end result is it's not our plan. yeah And accepting that can be really hard. But it has changed my life for the better.
Speaker: i know he's with me. I know he's proud of me. And when I have a rough day, i think, what would he say to me? Normally, he'd probably be very sarcastic and tell me to get my butt up and do something.
Speaker: But that's sometimes what we need. You know, it's not always about the people right in front of us. It is often about those who are no longer with us and how they give us strength, if we allow it.
Speaker: Yes, if we allow it. You've worked with a lot challenged populations like the prison prisoners you mentioned and all kinds of people. What has your practice and your experience taught you about the the human spirit, potential transformation, what have you learned by that whole experience?
Speaker: For me, working in the higher acuity, so working in the psychiatric hospitals, and then even at Pima County Jail, it was, you know, I was a therapist, I was in there working, or the clinical director in those places, and you see people in crisis. They're having the worst day of their life, maybe several.
Speaker: And i joke and say psychotic people are my people um because when you get someone who is struggling so much and you get them to stop, hear you, and then work with you, is amazing to watch people.
Speaker: I would have people in the jail especially, not on medications, using substances, um throwing feces, you know, walking around naked screaming, calling me all the names in the book.
Speaker: And I would still go by every day. I would still walk by and talk to them. And usually they'd yell at me or, you know, say some choice things. But I kept showing up because what I wanted them to know is there are people who will keep showing up.
Speaker: But you have to let us in. It's a two way street. I can't do all the work. I've watched people make a complete turnaround. And it is huge.
Speaker: I always say the tough ones are the best because that change that you see, it's like night and day. And i don't know if they'll remember me I don't know if um I was the biggest impact, but what I know is I'm going to do everything I can so that they're better, that they see that there are people who will stand up, who will hold their hand through it, and who will help them have a voice.
Speaker: And I think that not everybody wants to work with those populations. We want to work with the people who are unstable mentally or using substances that are the executive level. right But they need just as much help. It's just different. They may not have the acuity, like the verbal aggression or physical aggression, but they still have it all inside. It just comes sometimes in a prettier package. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: I think I run with a lot of ah of these executive populations, friends of mine that are at the top of their game and i I like to study human behavior. Actually, I was going to go into psychology.
Speaker: i took like a few classes back in my first year of college. and And so I have know im it was in sales you know for a long time and I was raised by women, which gave me a certain sense of ah perception that's different than I think a more traditional framework.
Speaker: And what I've seen is I've seen these these CEOs, they have a buried chip on their shoulder. they They take that chip on their shoulder and they they work 100 hour weeks or they they use substances as well, right? they're They're working all day long and at night they're partying and the next morning they they use substances to keep themselves moving.
Speaker: What would you say to a ah new clinician you're training or working with? about how to work with somebody like that. I mean, because these guys aren't gonna let you in immediately, right? They're gonna be pushing that.
Speaker: But if they have enough enough fortitude to come to you saying, hey, I need your help, how would you to teach these new clinicians how to how to break in or how to, i don't know, maybe that's not the right term. Yeah. how to How to get in. Yeah. How to get them. Yes. You know, because getting them is the hard part sometimes. um It is showing up.
Speaker: It's about being genuine. I am not a fan of, you know, we learn in education, especially when we're therapists. How are you feeling today? That's crap.
Speaker: People see through that. You need to be genuine. Sometimes it's about calling you out. You're here for treatment. What are we doing? I mean, this is a nicety. We're doing these niceties, but that's not why you're here. so let's do the work.
Speaker: When you go to work at your executive job, do you just hang out at your desk and sit? No, you do the work. You got to do the work for you and your mental health. It is hard work. It's probably some of the hardest work you'll ever do.
Speaker: You're going to go back to your job and be like, this is cake. Because what I just did was hard. Self-reflection is one of the hardest things we have to in working to change even harder because we can hide behind work. Look, I'm just as guilty of it at times because I have a hard job. I work a lot of hours. And when things maybe are tough, I'm like, oh, just do a little bit more work because then I don't have to deal with it.
Speaker: always have to deal with it at some point or another. and um I think that you have to be genuine. Genuine, creative. That's where I come from. There's a lot of modalities out there. There's ACT, there's CBT, DBT. We have all these modalities. And I always have people ask me that. And then I say, so we can do all that.
Speaker: But if we're not creative in our approach, and if we're not genuine, we won't get a lot of people. They will literally be like, well, that was a waste of time. Nothing really changed for me. I mean, you taught me a couple things, but I'm going to go back and do exactly what I've been doing.
Speaker: So if you're genuine and they get that you truly care and you're not there just for a paycheck, you're not there for the status, but that you understand and you are there to help them change, that's the best thing you can do.
Speaker: The other stuff, I mean, education, you need it. But if you're just going to work out of the book, I don't think you're going to be very successful in my opinion. Have ever watched The Sopranos?
Speaker: I have a long time ago. Yeah, you should rewatch a couple of the episodes when when Tony Soprano is is working with his therapist. Because, i mean, I just thought about that as you were talking, she was trying to to get him and he was showing up, but because of his personality, it was there were like butting heads and she was like, no, no, cut the crap.
Speaker: yeah And so in a matter of speaking, she was telling the mob boss kind of what to do and eventually he would listen. yeah So kind of interesting. Yeah, you have to sometimes, right? Like, as executives, CEOs, you know, people who've run their own companies, they're used to telling others what to do.
Speaker: They're used to running the show. They need people to comply. They need things to work. You know, they have to be innovative. There's all these things they have to do. Well, we're going to have to do the same thing to get them. And you have to do it in a way, though, that doesn't make them feel small, doesn't demean who they are. like we have to be very careful. We have to walk this fine line. But if you can get it it's amazing.
Speaker: Because I've had lawyers come in and be like, it's changed my life. And that's the point. Like, you need to change your life. We're just helpers. yeah And when people can do that, that's something they can keep up. They might need us more than once.
Speaker: I don't know. Treatment's not magic. Sometimes people come through a few times. That's okay. This is kind of a, maybe a silly question, but does treatment work?
Speaker: Yes, I believe it works if you put in the work. So that's the caveat to it, right? I can go to treatment, hang out for 30 days, stay in my room most of the time, not go to any groups, not engage with my therapist.
Speaker: It's not going to work. You'll be back or you'll continue to use or you'll continue to have mental health. That's a no-brainer for me. Now, I'm going to push you so that you do.
Speaker: And my team's going to push you so that you engage. But you have to want to do it. I can hold your hand, but in the end, you have to be open to it. If you're not, it's not going to work. It's just like therapy. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: I know there's people who are like, well, I'm going to therapy, but it doesn't work. And my question always is, are you putting in the work? Is it just the therapist talking at you? Or are you actually engaging in telling them the truth?
Speaker: Or is the truth too hard? How important is environment? I say this because i have a cousin that has been in and out of ah ah recovery and and treatment and blah, blah, blah. And he's, you know, every time I talk with him, he's like, no, this is the time. and And I believe him and I want to believe him and I want to support him. And then I hear six months later, he's you know, back home.
Speaker: doing the stuff again. And i I believe a lot of it's because he's going back to his his crew, his buddies. And even though he's telling him, no, no, no, no you get the peer, you get like some old school, fundamental, ah like grade school, like belonging kind of stuff, you know, working its way through.
Speaker: How important is environment? It's huge. You need to find new friends. And sometimes you have to find new family. like that I mean, that's the sad part about it is that our families can be very sick.
Speaker: And sometimes we have to put those boundaries in place that I can't be a part of that for my own health, for my own recovery. And I talk a lot about that and putting boundaries in place and how hard that can be.
Speaker: And people don't like to think about having to cut off your mom or cut off your dad or your sister or your brother because we live in a society that says love your family no matter what. But that's not always healthy.
Speaker: If my mom's an addict and I'm an addict and I go through recovery and she refuses to and I go to her home and hang out with her, I'm using it again. It's not beneficial for me.
Speaker: So until she decides to get her help, then I need to stay away from her. And it's not because I don't love her. It's because she's not healthy for me. But that's really hard.
Speaker: It's just like when I talk to kids about gangs. You know, we don't see them as much anymore, but they still exist. And they were very big in the 90s and early 2000s.
Speaker: So I would talk to these kids that were substance use teens, a lot of them homeless or in gangs. And I would say, I understand why you were looking for family. You were looking for someone who supposedly loved you.
Speaker: Well, our friends that use with us, they're like family because we do the same things. But what happens is, is at some point, what we're calling family is not there for us.
Speaker: It's a false family. But it's very hard to break through because people don't like to be alone. People don't want to be lonely, especially when they're struggling with mental health or recovery.
Speaker: um But what I love about where I work is we have alumni. So when you go through this with others, afterwards, you get to be a part of our social media site. You get to come to our alumni meetings. We had an alumni reunion this last weekend. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: hundreds of people coming that got to be a part of this. Some of them were like, had been there two decades ago. Some of them were newer. But that's where you can find new family or friends, people who are going through the same struggles. You can reach out to each other when you're hurting.
Speaker: You can reach out to us when you're not doing so well. And we can get you resources if it's not us. But again, hard to do, but necessary.
Speaker: And when I spoke at the reunion this weekend, that was a lot of what I was saying. My mom's not healthy, so I don't have a relationship with her because I need to have good mental health.
Speaker: And is that easy? No. It's not easy to say that to somebody who raised you and was a huge part of your life. But she's not healthy.
Speaker: And I refuse to be unhealthy with her. And I refuse to allow my younger children to be unhealthy with her because my oldest was. And I saw what it did to him. And so i empathize with people yeah on how hard it can be to walk away from what you felt like was that support.
Speaker: So i think you're your cousin's going through the same thing. Yeah. And he's got support from the family side to some degree, although his, yeah, there's some structures there that are maybe unhealthy.
Speaker: hu If you had a ah way to to give a message to the world, some silent whisper that that everybody would realize about what you can offer as far as like joy, contentment, yeah all these things, what would you say to the world?
Speaker: that would that that's uniquely you as a message to say me or to whoever else. Yeah. Our tragedies or our trauma doesn't have to define us. um It can actually make us a different human, a supportive human.
Speaker: Look, loving yourself is the hardest thing you'll ever have to do. And some of that about, some of loving ourself is about letting go of things, putting boundaries in place.
Speaker: And kind of reinventing o ourselves, which is part of that change, right? When something happens to us, taking it and saying, what positive could come out of this? No kid wants to be harmed.
Speaker: Nobody wants to lose a child. Like these aren't things. i I could have let it define me. i It literally could have been to my demise and nobody would have blamed me.
Speaker: There's not one person that would be like, well, I can't believe you let that bother you. yeah But out of everything we go through, we can and we do have the opportunity to change others as we change ourselves and help them see that change is possible. Not change them, see that change is possible.
Speaker: And if you give up on yourself, it's the worst thing you could do. There are days when i don't want to get out of bed. No, I don't want to do this.
Speaker: But I need to. I need to because there are so many people that need people. And I know I'm strong. Mm-hmm. And I know that I have to continuously dig for that strength.
Speaker: There's so many things that people say in the world, and there's so many cliches and you know slogans that we live by, but the truth is this life is hard. It's really hard.
Speaker: And the strength that we gather and the change that we promote in this world really does make a difference. I think sometimes people think it doesn't. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: But if everybody laid down and just said, not me, what would this world be like? I think that there has to be people who fight for others and who stand up. So look, i'm I'm not going to change the world, but I can help people along the way that make a difference.
Speaker: So whatever small impacts you have, I call it worth it. Have you ever thought about quitting? Yeah, I did when my son passed because I was working in the jail.
Speaker: I thought, how am I going to walk in there? How am I going to go in there and do this? Because I'm angry. Kids shot my kid.
Speaker: I'm angry. You know, I wanted somebody to pay in that moment, which nobody blamed me for. um And I cried. I remember walking in the jail and you have to go through all these doors, you know, to get in.
Speaker: And I remember being in a corridor and sometimes it took a few minutes for the door to open and just bawling, thinking, can't do this. they're goingnna They're going to see that I'm upset.
Speaker: What if one of them killed a kid? How am I gonna how am i going to deal with them? And i went in my office. I was surrounded by so many people with empathy and compassion for me.
Speaker: And I thought, all right, got to get yourself together. And what I found was, even though they didn't know my story, the empathy and compassion I received from the inmates that were in there,
Speaker: just noticing my demeanor was a little different and I had been gone. It's nice to see you. We've missed you. How are you doing? And I said, well, it's not, you know, I'm not the important thing here. And they said, we can tell you're different.
Speaker: That's amazing. It shows me that they have empathy and compassion and they're not a throwaway. They're not a, you know, lock them up and throw away the key. They have families too.
Speaker: And what I thought about was my son got in trouble. You know, he had been to jail. He was an addict. How would I want my son to be treated? Because I love my son very much.
Speaker: What I wouldn't want is people to give up on him. What I wouldn't want is people to treat him less than. So it was about gaining that strength from him. And what would quitting have shown me? What it what would a quitting have shown my kids? Yeah. so And my granddaughter.
Speaker: you know, in all of this, the young man that killed my son only got nine years. That was hard to swallow um I went to court for it. it was all over the news.
Speaker: My granddaughter went with me. She held a heart urn, which has some of his ashes in it that I bought for her. And she stood there with me as we spoke to the judge.
Speaker: And I turned around and she turned around with me to this young man. And I said, just don't let his death be in vain. Do something. There's therapy in prison. You can get a job.
Speaker: You can go to school. There's so many things you can do. Please don't waste it. Please. Yeah. You know, you're lucking out here. Nine years is not a long time.
Speaker: You're going to be less than 30 years old when you get out. Do something with your life. I could have gone another route. I could have been angry. Again, nobody would have blamed me.
Speaker: But that wouldn't have been good for me. And it wouldn't have been good for my granddaughter. And it wouldn't have shown people that being angry doesn't solve the issue. It is what it is. What was I going to do? Not the judge.
Speaker: I'm not changing it. um So I wanted him to know that I understood he didn't come from the best life. And um he has an opportunity.
Speaker: One that my son won't have. But I also wanted to teach my granddaughter that being angry, not caring for others was not going to serve us in this life.
Speaker: So, i don't know. Do you forgive him? I do. I do. um His father apologized to me as well. He was in tears. The prosecutor was in tears. I mean, so many people cared. She she really wanted more, which I get. i wanted more, too.
Speaker: um But I also knew that if I hung on to this, it was going to eat me up. Yeah, for sure. I do forgive him. He's a kid, lost his mom to a drive-by, you know.
Speaker: I can't imagine what he had gone through as a child. And I don't think as a society we did much for him. i' I'm not blaming us as a society, but I think we could do better. um And i think anger and the need to protect himself, among other things, came into play.
Speaker: And i don't think he was right. i hope he never does it again. But I had to forgive him. Yeah, I get it. It must be, it must have been ah quite an internal struggle. And like you said about those inmates that were asking how you were, they saw something different.
Speaker: I mean, they might have dealt with their own version of that. Mm-hmm. if they would have killed somebody or if they would have done this or that. Maybe in their own life they had people killed or... Yeah. Yeah, we tend to see this, and and I'm just as guilty as anybody else. I tend to separate myself from that sort of type of person or somebody, homeless some homeless guy or whatever. You know, i just do my thing and I i tend to separate myself.
Speaker: Except for when I think about it, that we're the same kind of person. We're the same people. I have a friend that I worked alongside, MBA, you know, working at U of a high-level job.
Speaker: And he went from that to the street in about 18 months. And the pathway was was meth. Within that ah that pathway, he lost his house, his wife, his job, his everything, and ended up in some you know hotel doing a deal or whatever, and he got thrown in jail, which I believe is is the best thing that could have happened to him.
Speaker: And so I'm in the process of trying to see if I can visit him. It's like this weird, you got send a letter and and it's going to take six months to see the guy. but and And people are like, why would he do that?
Speaker: And I'm like, hey, he doesn't probably have anybody visit him from from this world. yeah And, you know, life is a full contact sport. He might have made a lot of mistakes, but he's still a human being and I'm going to show him compassion.
Speaker: Yes. And everybody needs somebody. And well how impactful to be somebody who was a part of his life before yeah and not judge him now. Look, it can't happen to any of us.
Speaker: I come from a family of addicts. I could pick up something. And tomorrow, be doing something different with my life. Like, it's that simple. People think it's this very long process, but the truth is it's not.
Speaker: I mean, my younger brother, he he's my half-brother. He lost a friend in high school. Somebody gave him an oxy. He went from being an all-star athlete to being in jail, being in rehab, stealing money from my dad.
Speaker: Like one pill, that it took the pain away, and he wanted it to keep going, and he got addicted. It was that simple. You know, we tell people all the time, just stop.
Speaker: My uncle was an alcoholic, had good job, made good money, ended up losing his family. Doctor said, you drink again, you're gonna die. He didn't believe it.
Speaker: Tested that theory. Stuck my head through his doggy door. Saw his leg hanging over blood everywhere. He drank himself to death. Died in his bed. You know, we think that people don't know what they're talking about.
Speaker: We think that we always have, <unk> we're better than, or we it won't happen to us, or we would listen. But the truth is, that's not the way it works. If addiction was that simple, treatment centers wouldn't exist. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: If all it took was you not being an addict took him in and that that would cure him, we wouldn't exist. There would be no need for us. If mental health was curable just because someone, you know, was your friend or you had supportive family, we wouldn't exist.
Speaker: Therapists wouldn't need to happen. That's not the way it works. Our brains don't work that way. Healing is something that takes time. Healing does take professional help um it because we need somebody with an outside perspective.
Speaker: We need somebody that's not in it. because that emotion that comes with it is hard. How do we navigate that? Because we have those feelings that come with it.
Speaker: But when you have that third-party perspective, someone who hasn't been through it with you, who doesn't judge you, just simply is there to listen and help you see there's ways you can change, that's the impact.
Speaker: Because you can get angry at me. It's not personal. Right. But if I get angry at you and you're my family member, it's personal. If you get angry at your therapist. It's OK. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker: Last question, Amy. What do you want your legacy to be?
Speaker: Um. Geez. I mean, and in in the business world, I hope that I make an impact on people. I hope that the clinicians that come up after me continue to take a creative approach, meet people where they are, understand how important human life is, and they're genuine.
Speaker: You know, all all the people that I work with clinically and supervise, like, I hope they see that they can have a huge impact. As far as my family, I want my children to just be amazing humans and to see how hard their mom worked and that I didn't let life beat me.
Speaker: They both have mental health. They will have struggles. um I know that. But I also want them to see it's possible. So, I don't know.
Speaker: I don't think of myself as having a huge legacy. I just think of myself as just an average human. um But an average human who really cares. And that every day we walk this this life, every day we get better, counts.
Speaker: Yeah. I think that's great. Thanks so much for your time, Amy. Thank you. It's been a pleasure to meet you. I really appreciate it. Cheers. Thanks.
